Nira-Narsingpur Narasimha, Lakmii-n.rsi.mha-sahasra-naaman

[ashok.aklujkar]

Dear George, 

You wrote:
> This is a rather strange argument -- that because a word occurs in one
> language family before it is written down in another language family,
> it could not be borrowed.

What was the context of my reference to the attestation in the Nigha.n.tu?
Did I not speak of reducing the resistance? Why take the reference as if it
was made when 'borrowing : non-borrowing' was the issue in the immediate
context? And, again, why ignore the structural similarity of niira pointed
out with the Indo-Aryan words niipa and nii.da? Are views not to be formed
by taking all relevant arguments, those which are for and those which are
against, into consideration?

> *niir, was in proto-Dravidian, probably about 3000
> BC.  Note that this is, for all intents and purposes, a documented
> occurrence of the word -- actually, more so than the Nighantu, which
> may have been changed in the manuscript tradition.

Could you spell out or summarize the arguments that *definitely or very
plausibly* establish that proto-Dravidian existed in 3000 BC? How does one's
taking this position establish that occurrence of niir, *the specific word
under discussion,* is *documented* to 3000 BC? If the Nigha.n.tu could
change in the manuscript tradition, why could the sources that are used to
postulate the existence of proto-Dravidian in 3000 BC not have changed in
their manuscript traditions?

If the Vedic or Indo-Aryan could borrow, could the proto-Dravidian not do
the same thing? If it could not, what made it impervious to borrowing?

> to make niira (and mukha) IE takes a lot of faith.<

Could little faith or lot of faith not be a matter of how much time one
spends in believing a particular view and/or of whether one takes the
totality of evidence or arguments into consideration?

ashok