Rajaram unrepentent!

[Michael Witzel]

Swaminathan Madhuresan writes:
>>  At the same time, why is he [Rajaram] denying with authority about the
>>Dravidian
>> language family altogether? N. S. Rajaram writes, "empirical data
>>provides no
>>  support for the existence of Dravidian languages independent of Sanskrit."
>>  ......     With this mindset, will he allow for Dravidian to exist in
>>the Indus age?

...the linguistic authority of a former engineer and computer specialist...

Hindutva proponents generally cannot stomach that a country as large as
India (not to speak of the whole subcontinent) should have languages that
do not belong to the "Sanskrit group".

Instead, (non-linguist) writers from S. Kalyanaraman (web site) to Subhash
Kak (in print, at Poona, BORI) speak of an original Prakrit (all the while
misusing the technical term, used for certain Middle Indo-Aryan languages,
spoken AFTER Vedic Sanskrit);  their kind of Pkt. would include pre-Pali,
pre-Hindi as well as pre-(ancient)-Tamil...

They also misappropriate the studies, made over the past fifty years or so,
of a 'lingustic area'  such as the Sprachbund of the Balkans, where
languages have increasingly influenced each other and have evolved certain
common grammatical categories (e.g., the postposited article in Bulgarian
and Rumanian). Archaic India would have had such an ancient "sprachbund",
speaking various sorts of "Prakrits". (Sometimes, Sanskrit is viewed as
having been 'artificially' created, by Panini!]  --  Even nowadays,
however, Greek, Bulgarian, Rumanian, Albanian, (etc.)  -- each of them from
a different Indo-European sub-family: Greek, Slavic, Romanic, etc. --
*still* differ from each other in basic vocabulary and grammar and are NOT
mutually understandable.

Just as e.g., Marathi, Tamil, and Santali.

To compare the similar situation, in size and antiquity, of Europe: nobody
there is bothered that Finnish, Esthonian, Hungarian (etc.)  do not belong
to the Indo-European but to the Uralic language family. And, that Basque
descends from an old European language  that is much older than both. And,
that we also have Turkish languages (in Turkey, European Russia), and even
the (Buddhist) Mongolian Kalmyks (west of the Volga, near former
Stalingrad)...
(Not to speak of  a number of smaller Uralic languages in N. Scandinavia
and N. Russia, and all the various Caucasian etc. languages in southernmost
Russia, and beyond).

Nobody thinks a Basque or Finn to be less "European" than a Portuguese or a
Swede.
Nor -- obviously-- do the various Balkan peoples think they form an ethnic
unit.
If linguistic diversity and several language families can be tolerated in a
large sub-continent of Asia such as Europe (and in nation states with
several official languages such as Finland (2-3), Belgium (3), Switzerland
(4) etc.,) why not in India? (The constiutution mandates it anyhow!)

The "primordial Prakrit" slogan and the denial of a Dravidian language
family (stretching  from from Brahui in Baluchistan and Kurukh, Gondi in
teh Vindhyas to Tamil) is just another political ruse, intended at "nation
building" and  promoting "national unity." It has nothing to do with
linguistic reality.

I suggest to submit Indian language materials to any *disinterested*
linguist of *any* national background, such as to specialists of
sub-Saharan African, Amerindian, Australian or Papua languages, and see
what they come up with: it will be the same language families that all
other linguists, Indo-European or Drav., will enumerate to you:

We have at least 7 major language families in South Asia: Indo-European,
Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic (Munda, Khasi in Meghalaya), Tibeto-Burmese
(Himalayan belt, Arunachal, Nagaland, Manipur etc.), Thai-Kadai-etc.
(Khamti in Assam = Ahom), Burushaski (in Hunza,  etc.), Andamanese (part of
Indo-Pacific?), and many small remnant groups, unrelated to any larger
families, such as Kusunda (C. Nepal), the substrates of Nahali (on the
Tapti-- the "oldest" Indians), Tharu, Vedda, etc.
-- plus, the unknown language(s) of the Indus civilization.

For details about the ancient period, see: EJVS, Sept. 1999:
http://www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs/

under: http://www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs/ejvs0501/ejvs0501a.txt  etc.

----------








========================================================
Michael Witzel
Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University
2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA

ph. 1- 617-496 2990 (also messages)
home page:  http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm

Elect. Journ. of Vedic Studies:  http://www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs