ulUkhala (was pie/sanskrit)

[Hans Henrich Hock]

Dear Colleague,

Burrow's argument is precisely what Thieme argued against (reference:
Thieme, Paul. 1955. Review of Burrow 1955. Language 31.428-48); and
note that he operates with the assumption that both ulu and khala
have "popular l" and thus stand for uru and khara respectively.

So you have two "authorities" disagreeing with each other, which
raises the question 'Why should we believe Burrow (and people like
him) and not Thieme (and people like him)--or vice versa?'  Simply
selecting what fits our own pet theory is not a particularly strong
and convincing argument.  The alternative, I would believe, is to
ignore ambiguous/controversial etymologies such as that of uluukhala
and instead focus on etymologies that are
unambiguous/uncontroversial.  Emeneau tried to do just that
(Dravidian and Indo-Aryan: the Indian linguistic area, reprinted in
Language and linguistic area: essays, selected and introduced by A.
S. Dil. Stanford: University Press.).  But his proposals for more
secure etymologies (budbuda-, mayuura- especially) are problematic,
too; see most recently my paper: Pre-Rgvedic convergence between
Indo-Aryan (Sanskrit) and Dravidian?  A survey of the issues and
controversies.  Ideology and status of Sanskrit:  Contributions to
the history of the Sanskrit language, ed. by J. E. M. Houben, 17-58.
Leiden: Brill.  1996.

So if you ask me, I don't believe that there is any clear evidence
for early Dravidian lexical influence on Vedic Sanskrit.  At the same
time, this does not necessarily "prove" that there was no early
contact or interaction between Dravidian and Indo-Aryan--it merely
suggests that the evidence supposed to establish that
contact/interaction is not sufficiently strong to be cogent.

I hope this answers what I assume was the hidden question in your message.

Best wishes,

Hans Henrich Hock

(... adhyeyaM vyaakaraNam)

>'>'
>'>'As I recall, Thieme considers khala/khara- to be inherited (regional
>'>'Indo-European, but not limited to Indo-Aryan).
>
>    Professor Hock, let me quote from T. Burrow, "The Sanskrit Language"
>    Faber and Faber, New and Revised Edition, 1973:
>    Page 383 in Chapter VIII "Loanwords in Sanskrit":
>    khala- 'threshing-floor': Ta. Ma. laLam 'threshing floor, open space',
>    Ka. kaLa, kaNa 'threshing floor', Te. kalanu, Pa. kali, Kui klai 'id'.
>
>    (I've used L to denote retoflex 'l' and N to denote retroflex 'n')
>
>    C.R. Selvakumar
>'>'
>'>'Hans Henrich Hock