New Issue: El. Journ. of Vedic Studies

[Michael Witzel]

I am please to announce a new issue of the

                        Vol.  5 (1999), issue 1 (September)

email: ejvs-list at shore.net
www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs

It contains one long paper:     (web version to be out very soon, please
check!)
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Michael Witzel

                                Substrate Languages in Old Indo-Aryan

                                (Rgvedic, Middle and Late Vedic)

$ 0. Definitions
$ 1. Greater Panjab
$ 1.1. Rgveda substrate words
$ 1.2. Para-Munda loan words in the Rgveda
$ 1.3. Para-Munda and the Indus language of the Panjab
$ 1.4. Munda and Para-Munda names
$ 1.5. Other Panjab substrates
$ 1.6. Dravidian in the Middle and Late Rgveda
$ 1.7. Greater Sindh
$ 1.8. The languages of Sindh
$ 1.9. The Southern Indus language: Meluhhan
$ 1.10. Further dialect differences
$ 1.11. Dravidian immigration

$ 2. Eastern Panjab and Upper Gangetic Plains
$ 2.1. The Kuru realm
$ 2.2. The substrates of Kuru-Pancala Vedic
$ 2.3. The Para-Munda substrate
$ 2.4. Substrates of the Lower Gangetic Plains and "Language X"
$ 2.5. Tibeto-Burmese
$ 2.6. Other Himalayan Languages

$ 3. Central and South India
$ 4. The Northwest
$ 5. Indo-Iranian substrates from Central Asia and Iran
$ 6. Conclusions.

        The  paper investigates the various layers of South Asian languages
that have been superimposed upon each other during the past few millennia.
As will be seen, the usual "Aryan"-Dravidian divide is much too simple a
concept to fit reality.
        Just as today, prehistoric South Asia was home to a number of
language families, only some of which have survived as today's families,
i.e. Indo-European (Sanskrit, Hindi etc.), Dravidian (Tamil, etc.), Munda
(Santali, Mundari etc.), Tibeto-Burmese (Newari, Naga, Manipuri, etc.); in
addition there are the remnant, isolated languages such as Burushaski in N.
Pakistan, Kusunda in Central Nepal, Nahali in Central India, Vedda in Sri
Lanka, and Andamanese. Further, it will become obvious that today's
languages, for example Hindi, contain ancient layers that go back beyond
all Aryan, Munda or Dravidian and that are close to the language of the
first immigrating groups of Homo Sapiens sapiens, that entered South Asia
from Africa, via Western Asia, some 30,000 years ago.
        Providing this kind of impartial historical relief to the ongoing
discussion hopefully will steer it into calmer waters.

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Michael Witzel                          Elect. Journ. of Vedic Studies
Harvard University                  www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs
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my direct line (also for messages) :  617- 496 2990
home page:     www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm