Sanskrit and PIE

[Arlo Griffiths]

For the Rig-Vedic statistics, cf. the (conservative) count in F.B.J. Kuiper,
"Aryans in the Rigveda" (Amsterdam-Atlanta, 1991), p. 95f.: "One will
therefore be on the safe side when stating that at least 5 per cent of the
Rigvedic lexemes (stricto sensu) is of foreign origin."

In Indo-Iranian Journal 38 (1995), p. 261, Kuiper was able to present a more
exact figure: "We owe it to the computer that it is now known. A Dr.
Alexander Lubotsky kindly informs me, the sum total [of Rigvedic lexemes -
AG] is 100063. The percentage of the foreign  works [sic, read: words]
listed there [in Kuiper 1991] is not, accordingly, ``at least five per
cent'' ..., but 3.8 per cent. If only `words sensu stricto' were counted (As
in Aryans, p. 95), the percentage might be well over 4 per cent."

As far as I know, no figures are known for post-RV texts, but they will
doubtless be considerably higher than the figure for the RV.


-- Arlo Griffiths

CNWS / Instituut Kern
Universiteit Leiden
Postbus 9515
2300 RA  Leiden
the Netherlands

tel.: +31-71-5272979


----------
>From: Arun Gupta <suvidya at WORLDNET.ATT.NET>
>To: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK
>Subject: Sanskrit and PIE
>Date: maa, 4 sep 2000 5:12 PM
>

> A footnote in J.P. Mallory (In search of the Indo-Europeans) says that Anna
> Davies carried out a cursory examination of the Greek vocabulary, which
> revealed that less than 40 per cent of it could be ascribed a transparent
> Indo-European etymology, 8 per cent had established non-Greek origins and
> about 52 per cent had no clear etymology.
>
> This is a footnote to the statement that "Yet the linguistic evidence taken
> as a whole does indicate that the Greeks did borrow a considerable number of
> elements from a non-Greek language."
>
> The question is -- what is the equivalent statistic for Vedic Sanskrit ?
>
> Thank you,
> -arun gupta