For two and a half millennia, scholars have argued that Pāṇini’s grammar, the first true computational system for language, contains a flaw. His treatise gives a compact system for generating correct Sanskrit forms. But in cases where two rules seem to apply at the same time, most readers assumed the system breaks. Textbooks describe this as a “conflict problem.” Generations of commentators tried to patch it with exceptions, hierarchies, or interpretive workarounds.

The new book, Pāṇini’s Perfect Rule (December 2025), argues that the flaw was never there. The author, Rishi Rajpopat, claims the system already contains a rule for solving the conflict. According to him, Pāṇini didn’t leave a hole; modern readers simply looked in the wrong place. If his reading is right, the entire architecture of the grammar becomes visible as a single machine; elegant, compact, and self-consistent.

There are two parts to this story.

First, the technical claim: Rajpopat proposes a modern, cleaner interpretation of how rules are applied. He says the conflict is resolved by the grammar itself, not by external patches. If correct, this restores the system’s internal logic and closes a long-running debate.

Second, the personal angle: he solved the puzzle as a PhD student at Cambridge, coming from economics and mathematics, not from traditional Sanskrit scholarship. His approach, reading the text with fresh eyes, without inherited habits, led him to the solution.

The book also describes the reaction inside the field. Some accept the new reading as an overdue correction; others resist it on methodological grounds. There is, by all accounts, real disagreement.

The publicist asked whether BP would be interested in interviewing him. Given that we’ve covered Indian linguistics before, and given that this discovery sits at the intersection of language, logic, and early computational thought, it merits exploration. I’m scheduling a conversation with him. Questions for him welcome in the comments.

I did this partly to spend time on my morning commute to work but also because I wanted to research the old Sanskrit canon more. In the age of LLMs where the right kind of data is the real currency, I think textual analysis and research will be revolutionised with these tools. So, in that spirit, and armed with my script I curated a text with RV citations filtered on vṛtra​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ references and fed it to Claude 3.7, and after some prompting here is a great result. Be informed and enjoy!

The story of Vrtra, as depicted in the Rigveda is a central myth in Vedic tradition, revolving around the heroic deeds of Indra, the thunder-wielding god, and his battle against Vrtra, a formidable dragon or demon. The narrative is rich with symbolic elements, portraying a cosmic struggle that results in the release of waters, the establishment of order, and the triumph of divine power. Below is a summary of the story based on the referenced verses:

The Nature of Vrtra

Vrtra is depicted as a powerful, malevolent entity, often referred to as a serpent (ahi), dragon, or demon. He is described as shoulderless (vyamsa), footless, and handless (e.g., RV 1.32.7), emphasizing his unnatural and monstrous form. Vrtra is associated with obstructing the flow of waters, imprisoning rivers, and causing darkness or chaos. His name, meaning “obstructor” or “encloser,” reflects his role as a force that hinders natural order and human prosperity.

The Conflict with Indra

The central event is Indra’s battle with Vrtra, where Indra emerges as the Vrtra-slayer (vṛtrahan). Armed with his thunderbolt (vajra), crafted by the divine artisan Tvashtar (e.g., RV 1.61.6, 10.124.6), Indra confronts Vrtra with immense strength and courage, often fueled by the intoxicating Soma drink. The battle is depicted as a cosmic struggle, with Indra attacking Vrtra’s vital parts, jaws, or back (e.g., RV 1.32.7, 1.52.6), ultimately shattering his defenses.

• Key Battles: Indra strikes Vrtra with his vajra, breaking his body into pieces (e.g., RV 1.32.5, 1.61.10) and releasing the waters that Vrtra had held captive. The fight spans multiple dimensions—earth, sky, and the firmament—symbolizing a restoration of cosmic balance (e.g., RV 1.80.4, 1.56.5).
• Allies and Support: Indra is aided by other gods, such as the Maruts (e.g., RV 10.113.3), Agni (e.g., RV 1.59.6), and Vishnu (e.g., 10.113.2), as well as his own divine companions. His strength is enhanced by Soma, which invigorates him for the fight (e.g., RV 1.52.2, 10.116.1).

The Release of Waters

A pivotal outcome of Indra’s victory is the liberation of the waters, which Vrtra had blocked or imprisoned. Verses describe how Indra smashes Vrtra’s dams or caves, allowing rivers to flow freely (e.g., RV 1.32.11, 1.52.8). This act is celebrated as a boon to humanity, enabling agriculture and life, and is often likened to freeing cows or opening a new path (e.g., RV 1.61.12, 10.89.7). The release of waters also brings light, with the sun rising in the sky as a sign of victory (e.g., RV 1.51.4).

Symbolic and Cosmic Implications

The defeat of Vrtra is more than a physical battle; it represents the triumph of order (ṛta) over chaos. Vrtra is portrayed as a godless entity (adeva) using magic or deceit (māyā) (e.g., 10.111.6), while Indra’s victory establishes his dominion over the heavens and earth (e.g., 10.153.3). The splitting of mountains and the shaking of the earth (e.g., 1.32.8, 10.147.1) underscore the scale of this cosmic event, with the liberated waters nourishing the world.

Aftermath and Celebration

After slaying Vrtra, Indra is hailed as a hero and lord, earning titles like “Maghavan” (bountiful) and “Sakra” (mighty) (e.g., 10.104.10). The gods and humans praise him with hymns, and his exploits are recounted in rituals, emphasizing his role as a protector and provider (e.g., 10.89.18, 10.133.1). Vrtra’s mother, Danu, and his allies, including the Dasas (a hostile group), are also defeated or humbled (e.g., 1.32.9, 1.59.6), reinforcing Indra’s supremacy.

Recurring Themes

• Soma’s Role: Indra’s consumption of Soma is a recurring motif, boosting his strength and courage (e.g., 1.52.15, 10.116.1).
• Dual Nature of Victory: The battle yields both material gains (wealth, cattle) and spiritual renewal (light, order) (e.g., 1.80.3, 10.69.6).
• Repetition: The story is retold across multiple hymns, with slight variations, highlighting its significance in Vedic culture (e.g., duplicate entries like 1.32.5, 10.111.6).

Epilogue

The story of Vrtra in the Rigveda is a mythic narrative of Indra’s heroic triumph over a chaotic, water-hoarding dragon, symbolizing the restoration of cosmic and natural order. Through his thunderbolt and divine alliances, Indra liberates the waters, defeats Vrtra’s dark forces, and earns eternal praise, cementing his status as a central deity in Vedic religion. This tale blends martial valor with cosmological renewal, reflecting the Vedic worldview where divine action sustains the world.

A very nice collection of short Sanskrit poems (and a few short prose pieces) about love, longing, separation, etc. The originals are all in in the footnotes, so those who know sanskrit can comment on the translation. Translations are generally very contemporary (even cell phones make an appearance), but the originals are available if you want to see how they have captured (or failed to capture) the essence of the original. Since I do not know sanskrit, I cannot comment on that, but the collection is a lot of fun and worth a read. As india rises, so will the market for such works (which is a good thing).
Check it out.

available on Kindle. 

Original in devnagri is here

Random samples:

On the 9th Episode Part 2 of my weekly podcast The Indic Paradigm on The Indic Explorer YouTube channel, I chat with Nityanand Misra on Issues & Challenges with Sanskrit Learning in India.

The Indic Explorer YouTube channel focusses on the interplay of Indic culture with modernity explored through different facets in the socio-cultural sphere.

Do subscribe to the channel at https://www.youtube.com/theindicexplorer

and follow me here

Twitter- https://twitter.com/theindicexplor1

Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/theindicexplorer/

Substack-https://digitaldharma.substack.com/

Omer Ghazi an expert drummer and exponent of multiple percussion instruments across the world, talks about his exploration of the Advaita Philosophy of Adi Shankaracharya.

He also talks about how he overcame mainstream cultural conditioning, to eventually discover his Indic cultural roots. He had a lot to say about Science and its compatibility with Indic Philosophy.

The highlight of the discussion was in the beginning, where we open the show with Omer playing the drums on the Nirvana Shatakam Shloka written by Adi Shankara. He talks extensively during the show about rendering Ancient Sanskrit Shlokas to a modern beat and the challenges in executing them without affecting their original intention and flow.

The Indic Explorer channel is a platform to explore different facets of Indic Culture and its relationship with modernity. On our show ‘The Indic Underground’ we speak to newer & younger people from different spheres of cultural life that represent less known aspects of Indic culture. If you are tired of the same folks & are looking for fresh voices, then this is the place for it.

Our endeavor is to reach out to culturally conscious younger people who are deeply tied to the values of Indian culture while still embracing modernity. We will soon be bringing interesting discussions on different topics ranging from culture, civilizational issues, history, geopolitics, philosophy, music, literature dance, art and architecture.

Do subscribe to the channel at https://www.youtube.com/theindicexplorer

and follow me here

Twitter- https://twitter.com/theindicexplor1

Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/theindicexplorer/

Substack-https://digitaldharma.substack.com/

Udaya Shreyas of The Sanskrit Channel talks about his journey into the beautiful world of the Sanskrit language, his transition from being an atheist into spirituality.

We also talk about

1 Difference between Vedic Sanskrit, Panninian Sanskrit and conversational Sanskrit

2 Learning language through speech or grammar? Initiatives taken by Samskruta Bharati

3 How Sanskrit can be revived on a mass scale via both govt and private initiatives

4 Qualities of Sanskrit as a scientifically suitable language for computer programming

5 The poetic qualities of Sanskrit, the different poetic meters, same words having different meanings

6 Future outlook of Sanskrit

7 Future goals for The Sanskrit Channel

The Indic Explorer channel is a platform to explore different facets of Indic Culture and its relationship with modernity. On our show ‘The Indic Underground’ we speak to newer & younger people from different spheres of cultural life that represent less known aspects of Indic culture. If you are tired of the same folks & are looking for fresh voices, then this is the place for it.

Our endeavor is to reach out to culturally conscious younger people who are deeply tied to the values of Indian culture while still embracing modernity. We will soon be bringing interesting discussions on different topics ranging from culture, civilizational issues, history, geopolitics, philosophy, music, literature dance, art and architecture.

Do subscribe to the channel at https://www.youtube.com/theindicexplorer

and follow me here

Twitter- https://twitter.com/theindicexplor1

Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/theindicexplorer/

Substack-https://digitaldharma.substack.com/

We often hear and read such blithe dismissals,

Long before the IE proto-language was an issue, Friedrich Schlegel recognized the antiquity of Sanskrit and its parallels to related languages like Greek and Avestan. In his work Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (published in 1808) he praised the Old Indic language for its pureness and clarity and he implied that India alone must have been the origin of the later IE “colonies”. Today India can be ruled out as a homeland candidate with the utmost probability.

I am often bemused and at times annoyed by such absolutist statements. What exactly is that incontrovertible evidence that makes it most impossible for India (and the Indian subcontinent) to be even considered a potential PIE homeland ? Most often, these scholars never bother to explain how they are so sure. I doubt that they would be able to defend their statement if pressed further.

But rather than expect them to change and become more objective, it is better that we look for ourselves to see if their statements have any merit at all. And that is what I intend to do so in this piece.

We shall tackle this subject in two sections:-

1) Analyse the linguistic data from the subcontinent, Indo-European and non-Indo-European, and find out if there is sufficient evidence there to prove that Indo-Aryan languages are not native to the subcontinent.

2) Look at the nature of the linguistic evidence obtained from  the Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian languages in the subcontinent vis-a-vis the rest of the Indo-European languages and find out if that evidence argues against or for an Indian origin of the Indo-European languages.

Linguistics and the Aryan Migration Theory

It is very common to hear the argument that the linguistic evidence supports and even prove the ex-Indian origin of the Indo-Aryan languages. But what is that evidence and how does it prove an ex-India origin of these languages that are spoken by about 80 % of the more than 1.5 billion inhabitants of the subcontinent ?

The evidence, purportedly, comes from the supposed influence of the non-Indo-European languages, primarily from the Dravidian and the Austro-asiatic but also supposedly from some now extinct languages, on the Indo-Aryan languages of the subcontinent, an influence that is lacking in the other non-Indian Indo-European languages. This influence is said to be in the form of lexical (loanwords), phonological (retroflexion etc.), morphological and syntactic features that are inherent or widely shared between the Indo-Aryan and non-Aryan languages of the subcontinent but are mostly or wholly lacking in the other Indo-European languages.

Before we analyse the data to see the merits of this argument, let us note a simple and fundamental fact. Whatever maybe the origins of the Indo-European languages, they have been separated from each other for atleast 3000-4000 years. Thus, for example, the Indo-Iranian languages of the subcontinent have been separated from their linguistic cousins in Europe for atleast 3,000 years.

During this long period, they have evolved under very different conditions in lands separated by thousands of miles. Civilizations have marched on from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age and then to the historic era of large empires and so on and so forth to finally reach the modern period. The Indo-Aryan languages in particular, have thrived and expanded, during this period, in an environment where it has had an opportunity to interact with several other language families, such as the Dravidian, Austro-asiatic and Sino-Tibetan.

It is reasonable to assume that the spread of Indo-Aryan languages in 2,000 BC, in the subcontinent, if it was already present then, must have been much more geographically restricted than in the later periods. The same case may be assumed for the Dravidian and Austro-asiatic languages, both of which are argued to have exercised their influence over the Indo-Aryan languages. So the opportunity for interaction between the Indo-Aryan languages and the other language families of the subcontinent in 2,000 BC would have been fairly limited even if all of these languages were present during that period within the subcontinent itself.

Such being the case, if we assume that the Indo-European languages originated within India, we would still have to argue that most of the non-Indo-Aryan languages within Indo-European would have already moved out by 2500-2000 BC .i.e. before they could have had any significant opportunity to interact with the other language families like those of the Dravidian and Austro-asiatic. Adding onto that, the external influences of other languages that these outward migrating IE groups would have received in their new environments would have also significantly shaped them.

In such a complex scenario, how can one be so confident, merely based on linguistic influences visible in modern Indo-Aryan languages which are lacking in other IE languages, that indeed these distinct influences rule out India as a potential Proto-Indo-European homeland ?

South Asia as a Linguistic Area

What is a linguistic area, also referred to as a sprachbund ? According to M B Emeneau, a pioneer in identifying the subcontinent as a linguistic area, it is

an area which includes languages belonging to more than one family but showing traits in common which are found not to belong to the other members of (at least) one of the families

As per Haspelmath,

A linguistic area can be recognized when a number of geographically contiguous languages share structural features which cannot be due to retention from a common proto-language and which give these languages a profile that makes them stand out among the surrounding languages.

We may surmise therefore that a linguistic area has mutiple languages, from the same or different language families, which have some common features that are absent from languages that are spoken outside of that linguistic area, whatever may be their roots.

South Asia or the Indian subcontinent is considered by the linguists as a classic case of a sprachbund or a linguistic area. This linguistic area is considered to have come about chiefly through the contact and interaction between the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages (Zoller), whose speakers make up about 78 % and 20 % of the South Asian population respectively.

As per Emeneau (1956),

…the languages of the two families, Indo-Aryan and Dravidian, seem in many respects more akin to one another than Indo-Aryan does to other Indo-European languages

The implication appears to be that the linguistic features of Indo-Aryan languages of the Indian subcontinent, that are also found in other South Asian languages like Dravidian, but are lacking in the other Indo-European languages, must have been acquired by the Indo-Aryan languages through their contact with the native Dravidian or Munda speakers as the migrating Indo-Aryans entered and expanded across the subcontinent.

Also as per Emeneau (1980),

For a feature to be area-defining it has to be ‘‘pan-Indic and not extra-Indic’’ (quoting from K. Ebert)

By this and the earlier definition, the common features of South Asian languages, that define it as a linguistic area, must be absent in languages outside South Asia. However, in practical terms, most of the features of the South Asian linguistic area are hardly confined to the South Asian region.

Emeneau (1978), reviewing Masica’s landmark study of South Asian linguistic area (1976), observes,

M finds (178-80) that a series of isoglosses of varying shapes indeed sets off South Asia from Southeast Asia on the one side and the Middle East on the other. Around this core there is a complex series of transitional zones marked by lack of various sub-traits. A rather unexpected finding is that the South Asian core is echoed, as to practically all the features examined, in Central and Northern Asia (the ‘Northern Eurasiatic linguistic area’), especially in Altaic.

K. Ebert explains the implication of Masica’s study that,

Whereas earlier publications on the sprachbund were confined to demonstrating shared features of South Asian languages (if not just IA and DRAV), Masica’s concern was to find out to what extent these features are purely South Asian. The results are rather devastating for the sprachbund hypothesis if based on the conditions formulated by Emeneau: of the five traits investigated, only one, namely dative subjects, turned out to be specific for South Asia. The other four morphological causatives, OV word order, converbs, and compound verbs – are equally characteristic of most languages of Central and Northeast Asia, as already mentioned. Researchers have since also spoken of an Indo-Turanian area.

Ebert herself points out 7 features of the South Asian linguistic area, only two of which, retroflex consonants and dative subjects, are apparently confined only to the subcontinent.

It might be noted however that the use of dative subjects are unlikely to have come into the Indo-Aryan languages from other non-Indo-European languages since, as shown by Baradol et al, it is feature also present in other Indo-European languages, outside of India, such as Old Norse Icelandic, Latin, ancient Greek, old Russian and old Lithuanian. Since it is also found in the Indo-Aryan languages, this appears to be a feature of common Indo-European inheritance that likely spread from Indo-Aryan into the other language families of South Asia than vice-versa.

That leaves us with only the retroflex consonants, as the only linguistic feature of distinction among South Asian languages and we shall deal with it in more detail in the next section since it is the most commonly cited feature as proof of Dravidian substratum influence in Indo-Aryan. Suffice it to say here that there is atleast one theory (Eric Hamp), that proposes the origins of retroflex in Sanskrit as a result of Indo-European inheritance.

It is possible that the Indian subcontinent is indeed a linguistic area whose distinctive features need to be better defined geographically then they have been so far. Yet, even then, these features need not be evidence of Dravidian or Munda influence on Indo-Aryan. Languages evolve and change over a period of time and these changes are not necessarily a result of external language influence and are often also due to its own natural evolution.

Europe has in recent decades, also been defined as a linguistic area, and the common linguistic features are subsumed under an umbrella term Standard Average European or SAE. Haspelmath has, for example, identified more than a dozen features of SAE. Yet he, like others, believes that none of the SAE features are a result of substratum influence of pre-IE languages of Europe. Rather, SAE is believed to have taken shape as a result of major migrations of several groups such Franks, Goths, Huns, Alans and Slavs within Europe following the fall of the Roman empire.

A similar possibility for the emergence of the South Asian linguistic area, as a result of a major historical development, must be considered. It need not have anything to do with such a remote event as the period of the proposed Indo-Aryan migration.

Linguistic Influence on Old Indo-Aryan

Old Indo-Aryan (OIA) refers mostly to Vedic, Epic and Classical Sanskrit but it also includes the hypothetical sister dialects of Vedic Sanskrit that were ancestral to Middle Indo-Aryan or Prakrit languages.

Lexical borrowing

According to Melanie Malzahn,

In general, loans do not play a very significant role in any layer of the IA language group, but it must be said that the percentage of loan words increases from OIA to NIA. Generally speaking, one has to distinguish between (more or less) obvious loans from foreign languages of non-IE origin, and evident loans from different layers of IA itself. With regard to the first kind, even such a prominent advocate of a robust presence of loans from non-IE local substrates in the Rigveda as Kuiper estimated that such loans amounted to 4% of the RV lexicon only (1995: 261). Therefore, one can argue that (Rig)Vedic Sanskrit was a highly conservative language, which is certainly not confined to the lexicon. The same can be said of Sanskrit of later periods.

She also points out that the strategy used to identify a non-IE loanword is not above criticism and that even Kuiper’s  loanword estimation of a paltry 4 % in Rigveda could be a stretch,

This strategy applied in order to account for words that seem to lack good IE etymologies and which often also look somewhat suspicious with respect to phonology and/or morphology, has not met with general approval, however, and has failed to convince especially Das (1995: 208) who claimed that there is “not a single case in which a communis opinio has been found confirming the foreign origin of a Rigvedic (and probably Vedic in general) word”. Since the possible non-IA donor language (group)s are not attested as early as Vedic Sanskrit is (or may not be otherwise attested at all), scholars defending the loan-word theory have to rely on internal reconstruction, and therefore are forced to move on less firm grounds indeed. For such reasons, also Mayrhofer in EWAia only cautiously accepts non-IE etymologies, and he explicitly states (1985: 123) that as far as Vedic words (in contrast to post-Vedic ones) are concerned, any interpretation in terms of OIA phonological and morphological rules is “principally” to be preferred over explanations as loans from non-IA or even from MIA (for such loans see 3.3 below). Other scholars take a mediative position; e.g., Oberlies (1994) admits that about 250 out of Kuiper’s 383 appellative examples may reasonably be interpreted as loans from non-IA languages, and that the same may hold for about 100 personal names…

As per Witzel,

Even if we retain, as Th. Oberlies wants to do, “only” 344-358 ‘secure’ non-IE words, and even if we subtract all local non-IA names of persons and places from Kuiper’s list, we still retain some 211-250 ‘foreign’ words, — still a surprising percentage of c. 2% ‘foreign words’ in this strictly hieratic text, composed in the very traditional IA, IIr, IE poetic style that deals with equally traditional matters of ritual and myth. It is important to notice, at the outset, that the range of these ‘foreign’ words (Kuiper 1955) is limited to local flora and fauna, agriculture and artisanship, to terms of toilette, clothing and household; however, dancing and music are particularly prominent, and there are some items of religion and beliefs (Kuiper 1955, 1991). Importantly, these loan words only reflect village life, and not the intricate civilization of the Indus cities, which fits very well with their post-Harappan time frame.

The estimated 2% loanwords in Rigveda are quite speculative and their source is ofcourse unknown. However even if we accept these as legitimate loanwords, they do not relate to the urban lifestyle of the Indus civilization. But why would that be ? Why would the supposed nomads of the steppe, that Indo-Aryans apparently were, not borrow linguistic terms of urban lifestyle from the descendents of the mighty Indus-Saraswati civilization ?

And besides, the 2 % of estimated loanwords is indeed quite paltry if we consider the corresponding case of loanwords in Hittite and early Greek texts.

Zeilfelder notes about the Hittite lexicon,

Tischler(1979: 267) estimated the proportion of inherited to foreign vocabulary to be about 5 : 3 or 2 : 1 in Hittite, and it is not clear that now, 30 years later, an estimation would be principally different.

Interestingly enough,

…foreign influence on the lexicon was different in these genres, being definitely more obvious in religious texts than, for example, in juridical ones.

Taking a cue from this Hittite situation, we should expect that the migrating Indo-Aryans should have been significantly influenced in religion from the descendents of the Indus-Saraswati or Harappan civilization. And scholars like Asko Parpola are indeed arguing for it. But why is that so poorly reflected in the Vedic lexicon ?

Similarly in the case of Mycenaean Greek, as per Reyes Cebrion

The list show a total of 179 substantives. Of these substantives 83 have a continuation in alphabetical Greek and 96 are attested only in Linear B. Bartonek has established the lexical stock of Mycenean Greek up to 1992 in ca. 1800 morphologic classifiable words. About 1000 expressions of these are proper names. Only remaining ca. 800 are expressions of common, nononomastical character. Of these 800 units, 655 are substantives. In this way we obtain a 27.34% of borrowed substantives in Linear B texts.

So while Mycenaean Greek has 27 % and Hittite has around 35 % of its lexicon composed of loanwords, Rigveda has 2 % only, none of which can indisputably be proven as a loanword.

Cebrion also notes that,

The high number of loanwords in the field of administration reveals that the Myceneans had to learn their political and social structures from a highly developed culture. There is also a high number of words of uncertain origin in the groups of household items, textile materials, and other materials. This also suggests a manufacturing and trading society in a refined culture.

One really wonders why the Indo-Aryans did not learn such things from the sophisticated Harappans if indeed they were the nomadic immigrants as assumed.

We have seen Malzahn briefly qouting from Das. Rahul Peter Das, is an accomplished scholar in his own right and a AMT proponent as well, who while critiquing Kuiper’s methods of arriving at the list of Rigvedic loanwords makes some very insightful observations and we would benefit from reading more of it. As per Das,

The attempts of many early scholars to find Indo-European etymologies for each and every Vedic word, especially in the Rgveda, have indeed often led to awkward concoctions and contortions when confronted with problematic words. That does not however automatically mean that such problematic words are foreign — they might be, but they need not be, for not being able to find a clear Indo-European etymology does not automatically imply that an Indo-European origin is impossible. In actual fact, there is to my knowledge not a single case in which a communis opinio has been found confirming the foreign origin of a Rgvedic (and probably Vedic in general) word, which may be due to the fact that many of the arguments for (or against) such foreign origin are often not the results of impartial and thorough research, but rather (often wistful) statements of faith. Thus the possibility of foreign words (especially of the categories mentioned) existing still seems to be just this: a possibility.

It is true that the work gives us several criteria (mostly phonetic, particularly with regard to the retroflexes, the remarks on which latter are however a bit puzzling s) for determining foreign words, but it seems that these criteria are mostly derived precisely from words already deemed to be foreign, i.e. we seem to have a circulus vitiosus here. 9 No other independent criteria are given or looked for. As to why the words deemed to be foreign, from which the criteria for determining foreign words are derived, are taken to be foreign in the first place, one gains the impression that the chief reason is that an Indo-European etymology does not seem to readily present itself ~~ (indeed, on p. 89 we actually find a case where this is clearly stated), though even in cases in which it does the words still might be, according to Kuiper, foreign (cf. the quotation in note 9). Such a mode of argumentation is of course not without its consequences. Thus e.g. Werba 1992 has recently opined that several of the same words which to Kuiper are undisputably foreign are in actual case the result of speech-forms which followed sound patterns approximating to those known to us from Middle Indo-Aryan;

As I said, Das believes Indo-Aryans to be immigrants to South Asia, but even from such a standpoint he is able to argue impartially about the pitfalls of Kuiper’s methodology,

No one is however going to deny that the Vedic Aryans met non-Aryans. But who were these? Though Kuiper himself draws attention to “other languages, which have disappeared in the three thousand years that separate us from that time” (p. 5), in actual fact his study largely operates with Dravidian and Austro-Asiatic. This is in spite of the fact that even today we have not a single bit of uncontroversial evidence on the actual spread of Dravidian and Austro-Asiatic speakers in pre-historic times, so that any statement on interaction with Dravidian and Austro-Asiatic in Rgvedic times is, in the light of our present knowledge, nothing but speculation, which may be justified, but equally well may not…One of the chief causes of methodical unsoundness in this connection is the tendency of many scholars to pay little attention to the internal development of the language group with which comparison is being carried out, resulting in material for comparison being drawn from all sorts of individual languages of the group without regard to factors of time and distance…in general, apart from the disregard of such factors of time and distance, there more often than not also-seems to be a disregard of semantic problems. At least on the side of Indo-Aryan we at times find attempts in some of these works to conduct comprehensive philological studies for determining the meaning of a word, though more often than not this aspect is neglected; in the case of Dravidian and Austro-Asiatic, the mentioned aspect is almost never paid attention to, what is written in dictionaries being as a rule accepted without questioning, without attempts at conducting comprehensive semantic studies not only in the individual languages concerned, but also in the context of the language group as a whole…we can in a great many cases, especially when no older data on the language used for comparison is available, not be sure that what we regard as typical for a certain non-Indo-Aryan language is not in actual fact something that developed due to the influence of Indo-Aryan; in this context attention may be drawn to Andronov 1979. In other words, we may actually be comparing Indo-Aryan data with Indo-Aryan (and not non- Indo-Aryan) data without being aware of this; 57 eagerness to find non-Indo-Aryan material in Indo-Aryan often serves to cloud our vision with regard to this possibility.

As Das makes it plainly evident, the whole methodology of finding loanwords in Sanskrit is faulty and suspect. We may also note that there are still, using this debatable methodology, only about 30 to 40 estimated Dravidian loanwords in Vedic Sanskrit (Mallory & Adams, Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture), and as per Witzel, none of the Dravidian loans date from the Old Rigvedic period. To understand how insignificant this is, we may recall Kuiper’s list of purported loanwords that amount of 4 % of Rigvedic vocabulary includes as many as 383 items, much of which he believes is of Munda origin.

The idea of a pre-Aryan Dravidian North India does not appear to have much going for it. The suggestion that the Brahui language is a relic of a pre-Indo-Aryan period when Dravidian was spoken widely in North and NW India is also now largely discredited. According to Elfenbein,

The Brahuis are more likely to be relatively recent immigrants to their present homeland in Pakistan from the western Deccan. In perhaps the 7th century loose congeries of nomadic groups began to split off from their nearest neighbors, the northwest Kuṛukh and Malto Dravidians, and to migrate northwestward.

Both Kuiper and Witzel reject Dravidian as the language of the Harappan civilization. While Kuiper calls the unknown substrate language proto-Munda Witzel prefers to call it Para-Munda or the Kubha-Vipas substrate. Claus Peter Zoller also seems to argue on similar lines.

Thus, the presence of Dravidian speakers in large parts of North India in an early period, is now no longer supported by most linguists. All these scholars are of-course thoroughly off the mark when they propose a Munda or Austro-asiatic related pre-Aryan language in North India.

Munda languages, the westernmost extension of Austro-asiatic languages whose speakers extend in patches as far west as Central India, do not show any influence even on modern Indo-Aryan languages west of the Bihar-Chhattisgarh areas (Peterson, Ivani et al.).

Gregory D S Anderson, an authority on Munda languages observes,

It is surprising that nothing in the way of quotations from a Munda language turned up in (the hundreds and hundreds of) Sanskrit or middle-Indic texts. There is also a surprising lack of borrowing of names of plant/animal/bird, etc. into Sanskrit (Zide and Zide 1976). Much of what has been proposed for Munda words in older Indic (e.g. Kuiper 1948) has been rejected by careful analysis.

Moreover, genetic evidence is quite clear that the Austro-asiatic genetic lineage intruded into South Asia from SE Asia around 2000-1500 BCE mostly through mixing of paternal lineage of SE Asian origin with female lineages of South Asian origin. This paternal lineage, moreover, does not extend into the non-Austro-asiatic peoples of India even in Central and Eastern India, what to speak of NW India.

Tätte et al. 2019 estimated that the Austroasiatic language speaking people admixed with Indian population about 2000-3800 year ago which may suggest arrival of south-east Asian genetic component in the area. Munda-speaking people have high amount of East Asian paternal lineages O1b1 (~75%) and D1a1 (~6%), which is absent from other Indian groups. They found that the modern Munda-speaking people have about 29% East/Southeast Asian , 15.5% West Asian and 55.5% South Asian ancestry on average. The authors concluded that there was a mostly male-dominated migration into India from Southeast Asia. (wikipedia).

In the face of such facts, it is quite quixotic to suggest that the languages of the Harappans in NW of the Indian subcontinent could have had anything to do with the languages of the Austro-asiatic speakers.

In the face of strong evidence that negates the earlier presence of Dravidian or Austro-asiatic speakers in North and NW India, the Indologists are often forced to come up with the idea of extinct languages lending words into Indo-Aryan.

So apparently, the entire region, stretching from Afghanistan to the Uttar Pradesh in India, had languages which became totally extinct under the influence of the nomads from the steppe. Does this really sound like a good argument ?

Nevertheless, even this does not help the Indologist very much. For example, Witzel notes,

In South Asia, relatively few pre-Indo-Aryan place names survive in the North; however, many more in central and southern India

Ofcourse, Witzel does not name which are those non-Indo-Aryan place names.

A better case for the early linguistic and ethnic history of South Asia can be made by investigating the names of rivers. In Europe, river names were found to reflect the languages spoken before the influx of Indo-European speaking populations.They are thus older than c. 4500-2500 B.C….However, in northern India rivers in general have early Sanskrit names from the Vedic period, and names derived from the daughter languages of Sanskrit later on. This trend is already quite clear in the Rigvedic hymn (10.75 – Stein 1917) in praise of rivers which mentions, among others, the Kubhå (Kabul), Sindhu (Indus), Raså, Krumu (Kurram), Mehatnu, Gomatī (Gomal), Vipåś (Beas), Asiknī (Chenab), Śutudrī (Satlej), Sarasvatī (Ghaggar Hakra), Drishadvatī, Yamunå and Gangå. In later Vedic texts we find Sanskrit names also in the more eastern regions of northern India: Sarayu, Gomatī, Sadånīrå etc….what does the evidence of hydronomy tell us? Clearly there has been an almost complete Indo-Aryanisation in northern India…This leads to the conclusion that the Indo-Aryan influence, whether due to actual settlement, acculturation or, if one prefers, the substitution of Indo-Aryan names for local ones, was powerful enough from early on to replace local names, in spite of the well-known conservatism of river names. This is especially surprising in the area once occupied by the Indus Civilisation where one would have expected the survival of older names, as has been the case in Europe and the Near East…The failure to preserve old hydronomes even in the Indus Valley (with a few exceptions, noted above) indicates the extent of the social and political collapse experienced by the local population.

The social and political collapse Witzel wants to imagine is ofcourse something that is not visible, either in archaeology or from ancient DNA. Archaeology indicates significant levels of continuity between the lifestyles of the Harappans and the modern day Indians of that region as well as in the larger Hindu population. While, as per Narasimhan et al, ancient DNA shows that the so-called steppe ancestry visible in Swat in 1000 BC, appears to have been mediated through steppe females early on and that the largest source of ancestry in modern South Asians comes from the Harappans. Since Rigveda, even by Witzel’s reckoning could date to as early as 1700 BC, it would suggest that the composition of Rigveda must have been done by people of largely Harappan ancestry.

This is what Narasimhan et al. state,

If the spread of people from the Steppe in this period was a conduit for the spread of South Asian Indo-European languages, then it is striking that there are so few material culture similarities between the Central Steppe and South Asia in the Middle to Late Bronze Age (i.e., after the middle of the second millennium BCE). Indeed, the material culture differences are so substantial that some archaeologists report no evidence of a connection. However, lack of material culture connections does not provide evidence against spread of genes, as has been demonstrated in the case of the Beaker Complex, which originated largely in western Europe but in Central Europe…in Europe we have an unambiguous example of people with ancestry from the Steppe making profound demographic impacts on the regions into which they spread while adopting important aspects of local material culture. Our findings document a similar phenomenon in South Asia, with the locally acculturated population harboring up to ~20% Western_Steppe_ EMBA–derived ancestry according to our modeling…

So as per this much touted genetic study, the people from the steppe admixed with the local population and got acculturated with no material culture connections to the steppe and only spread about 20 % of their ancestry into the local population. Witzel needs to explain how by a process of acculturation of steppe migrants into the local population with zero material cultural impact and only a minor genetic imprint, could there have been a complete Indo-Aryanisation of Northern India that we do not even have any evidence left of the local Indus language ?

Infact, the earliest samples from the Indian subcontinent in the Narasimhan et al study, that show steppe ancestry date to around 1000 BC which is later to the date of composition of Rigveda, even as per the Western Indologists.

To top it off, the steppe ancestry of these ancient samples from Swat (known as Suvastu during the Vedic period), comes via steppe females as admitted by Narasimhan et al.,

In the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age individuals of the Swat Valley, we detect a significantly lower proportion of Steppe admixture on the Y chromosome (only 5% of the 44 Y chromosomes of the R1a-Z93 subtype that occurs at 100% frequency in the Central_Steppe_MLBA males) compared with ~20% on the autosomes (Z = −3.9 for a deficiency from males under the simplifying assumption that all the Y chromosomes are unrelated to each other since admixture and thus are statistically independent), documenting how Steppe ancestry was incorporated into these groups largely through females (Fig. 4).

Even if it is true, as Narasimhan et al. try to argue, that later on we see steppe ancestry more correlated with steppe male lineage, around the time Witzel and his colleagues propose the Indo-Aryan migration, we can only correlate the steppe ancestry with steppe female lineage.

The picture emerges of steppe females getting locally acculturated into the existing population of NW India and thereby spreading the steppe ancestry. This would also explain why there is no material cultural resemblance between the steppe and the Indian subcontinent. This picture is so strikingly at odds with what Witzel tries to portray. How can by this process, do you expect complete Indo-Aryanisation of North India ?

Clearly, even the linguistic evidence is not stacking up for the Aryan migration proponents.

Retroflexion and Gerunds

It has been forcefully argued for decades, often by well-established linguists that the retroflexion in Indo-Aryan languages is due to Dravidian substratum influence. This is often taken as fact without considering that there is an enormous diversity of opinion among linguists on this subject.

To begin with, have a look at the map of retroflexion shown above. It is from the study of Arsenault 2017. Let me quote what the author himself reveals about the findings of his large areal study of retroflexion in South Asian languages,

The study affirms that retroflex segments of one kind or another occur in the vast majority of South Asian languages, including some from each of the main families represented in the region, and that the distribution of languages with retroflexion corresponds very closely to the area of South Asia. However, it also highlights the fact that retroflexion extends well beyond the limits of South Asia into what is commonly considered East Asia (i. e., China), a detail that is not given much attention elsewhere.

Looking at the map and taking into consideration how Dravidian languages are only limited to peninsular India, can one make a legitimate argument, that it is through Dravidian contact that retreoflexion came to spread across the vast expanse that we see on the map ? Any reasonable person would say that it is highly unlikely. More so since we know from an earlier segment that Dravidian was unlikely to have been spoken in North India during the Harappan period.

Infact, retroflexion in the Dravidian languages varies considerably from the retroflexion observed in the Indo-Aryan languages. Hans Heinrich Hock, one of the primary opponents of the Dravidian substratum influence on Indo-Aryan, explains it thus,

A traditional counterargument against the Dravidian-subversion account of Sanskrit retroflexion is that the early (Vedic) Sanskrit phonological system and the Dravidian one, as usually reconstructed, differ considerably (Bloch 1925; Hock 1975, 1984); see (9a,b). Sanskrit only has one alveolar (r), Dravidian has a whole series. In Sanskrit, a dental l contrasts with an alveolar r, and there are no retroflex liquids; Dravidian has contrasting pairs of alveolar and retroflex liquids. Sanskrit has a retroflex sibilant (ṣ), Dravidian does not have sibilants. On the other hand, Dravidian has an idiosyncratic retroflex rhotic ( r̤), which is absent in Sanskrit. Sanskrit has initial retroflex segments, Dravidian does not. Dravidian has final retroflex sonorants, Sanskrit does not. What is especially noteworthy is that the idiosyncratic features and restrictions of early Sanskrit and Dravidian tend to be eliminated in Modern Indo-Aryan and Dravidian, except in the extreme south and northwest, which preserve idiosyncratic r̤ and ṣ respectively; see Map 1, from Ramanujan and Masica (1969). So, it is only through later, presumably convergent developments that the Dravidian and Indo-Aryan systems become more similar, especially in the large central area of South Asia, where contact has been most extensive.

Therefore, as per Hock, and a few other linguists, the retroflex evident in early Vedic Sanskrit is, a product of the Indo-Aryan language evolution and not a result of external language influence, and most unlikely from Dravidian.

Hock gives the historical scholarly perspective on this first,

The most common linguistic counterargument to the hypothesis of Dravidian origin of Sanskrit retroflexion is that the latter can be accounted for as the result of internal developments and that these developments have parallels in other languages, such as Norwegian and Swedish. The argument goes back as far as Bühler (1864) and has been proposed, sometimes in modified form, by Konow (1906), Bloch (1925, 1929), and Hock (1975, 1984). The most detailed outline of the developments is Hock (1984, 1996).

—

Several changes are involved. PIE front-velar *ḱ changed to Indo-Iranian (pre-)palatal *ć (12a) – except before obstruent, where it merged with *š, the outcome of PIE *s by RUKI (12b). Debuccalization of PIIr *ć introduced a new sibilant ś (12c) contrasting with š and its voiced allophone ž (12c). The next, important step is that polarization (a.k.a “dispersal”) led to the change of old š/ž to retroflex ṣ/ẓ, resulting in a more robust phonetic distinction of the two contrasting sibilants (12d). A dental stop following the retroflex gets assimilated to retroflex, a process with parallels in Norwegian and Swedish dialects (12e). Finally, voiced ẓ is lost before consonant, with compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel (12f), and as a consequence retroflexion becomes contrastive.

Incidentally, Norwegian and Swedish are also Indo-European languages of the Germanic branch.

As per Hock, Dravidian influence could not have anything to do with the development of retroflex consonants in Sanskirt, since it fails to explain the pre-Sanskrit development of š/ž to retroflex ṣ/ẓ – the trigger for the entire development – since as we have seen, early Dravidian has no incontrovertible evidence for retroflex sibilants.

As per Hock,

…the developments in (12c,d) Indo-Aryan resulted in a triple sibilant contrast between original, unchanged dental s and innovated retroflex ṣ and palatal ś. Moreover, as we have seen, the retroflex sibilant and its voiced variant ẓ(h) played a major role in the internal developments leading to Indo-Aryan stop retroflexion but is not explainable as resulting from Dravidian subversion…The extreme northwestern area, an interaction zone between South and Central Asia, is characterized not just by the presence of retroflex sibilants but more important yet, a widepread triple sibilant contrast s : ṣ : ś – the same contrast that is found in the earliest stage of Indo-Aryan, the Rig Veda…Interestingly, these contrasts are not limited to the modern period. During the Middle Indo-Aryan and Middle Iranian periods, Gāndhārī Prakrit has the same triple sibilant contrast, and so do East Iranian Saka and the non-Indo-Iranian Tocharian…Most important, Avestan whose exact position within Old Iranian is controversial but which seems to have been spoken in a more easterly region of Iranian, closer to South Asia, has an even richer sibilant system with four distinctions…It appears, then, that the northwest was “sibilant-happy” at a very early period and that retroflex ṣ figured prominently in this “sibilant happiness”…the evidence presented here makes possible the hypothesis that Sanskrit acquired its retroflex sibilant in the northwest and not through contact with Dravidian.

Hock gives a very elegant, evidence based hypothesis of how and where Rigveda would have acquired its retroflexion. It also has the advantage of the fact that the earliest region where Vedic & Classical Sanskrit were spoken was quite close to NW India, Hock’s proposed region.. As can be seen from the above map, this NW area is quite distant from the core Dravidian retroflex area right at the southern tip of India. It is difficult to see, based on lack of geographic proximity as well as the divergent early retroflexion processes in Vedic and Dravidian, how Dravidian could have influenced retroflexion that far North.

This Northwestern area of the Indian subcontinent is incidentally packed with a diversity of Indo-Iranian languages, many of which have preserved a lot of archaic features of Indo-Iranian and Indo-European languages.

It might thus be reasonably proposed that retroflexion in Sanskrit is likely a result of internal development from its Indo-European and Indo-Iranian heritage. It is not to be ignored that indeed besides Indo-Aryan, retroflexion is also found sporadically in atleast 3 different branches of Indo-European languages such as Romance, Germanic and Slavic.

As per Celata,

Retroflex consonants are observed in a relatively wide area of the Romance domain. As far as Italo-Romance is concerned, they occur in many Southern dialects spoken in Calabria, Puglia, Abruzzo and Campania, as well as in Sicilian, Sardinian, Corsican and some varieties of Northern Tuscan. Retroflex realizations are also found in Western Asturian and were probably present in Old Gascon. 

In Germanic languages, the case of Norwegian and Swedish is well known. While in Slavic, atleast Polish and Russian have retroflex consonants. Many of these Indo-European languages may have acquired retroflexion relatively recently while in Sanskrit it is of great antiquity.

All the same, these other IE languages did not need to be in contact with Dravidian or even be in South Asia to develop retroflex so why put a necessary condition of Dravidian or non-Indo-European language influence on Sanskrit for its retroflexion ? Since so many different branches of Indo-European languages situated in distant and distinct lands developed retroflexion, could it not be due to some inherent pecularities of the Indo-European languages themselves ? Infact, atleast one scholar, Eric Hamp, has argued that the retroflexion in Sanskrit is due to its Proto-Indo-European inheritance. Thus, it looks highly unlikely that early Sanskrit retroflexion is due to Dravidian substratum influence.

We may also briefly look at the case of gerunds, a morphological feature (unlike retroflexion which is phonological) that is also claimed by some linguists (as mentioned by wikipedia), as an evidence of non-IE influence on Indo-Aryan.

Wikipedia quotes Krishnamurti, “Besides, the Ṛg Veda has used the gerund, not found in Avestan, with the same grammatical function as in Dravidian, as a nonfinite verb for ‘incomplete’ action. Ṛg Vedic language also attests the use of iti as a quotative clause complementizer.”

But it is careful enough to mention that such features are also found in the indigenous Burushaski language of the Pamirs and cannot be attributed only to Dravidian influence on the early Rigveda. A quotative uiti is also seen in Avestan. 

As per Hartmut Scharfe,

When we compare the use of gerunds in the Veda with Dravidian usage, we find that the formation of Vedic gerunds is of IE origin, the “bare” use and the use of short compounds is likewise inherited. New is the use of an object and other (adverbial) complements that may precede or follow. The Dravidian languages are not a likely source for this innovation, because in them object and complements regularly precede. In the latest part of the Rveda there are no following complements (though there are still following objects), and there we find chains of gerunds. In Vedic prose the construction with following objects became almost extinct, and in classical Sanskrit it is employed as a stylistic device, exploiting its status as an exception.

I conclude that the gerund is of Indo-European, not Dravidian, origin, but that its use in the sentence gradually confirmed to a Dravidian pattern.

Gerunds are ofcourse, found in other Indo-European languages such as English and Latin among others. Thus, it might be that just as in the case of retroflexion, there may have been a case of covergent evolution of gerunds in Indo-Aryan and Dravidian in Central India in a later period.

Thus, we can see that there is very little evidence to suggest any substratum influence in Old Indo-Aryan languages, either in way of loanwords or river and place names or retroflexion or even in the use of gerunds, and  that of  Sanskrit being foreign to the geography of North India. There is much evidence to prove that neither Dravidian nor Munda were native to North and NW India during any early historical or prehistorical period, before the supposed coming of the Aryans. The theory of complete disappearance of the Harappan language and even that of the Gangetic plains, under the subjugation of the invasive culture and people who supposedly brought the Indo-Aryan languages is also neither supported by archaeology or genetics. Moreover, the proposition of an extinct language as the substrate is not verifiable and is therefore not a good argument.

According to Robin Bradley Karr, who proposes the origin of Indo-European languages in the larger region of Harappan, Eastern Iran and BMAC interaction,

One should also remember that various nomadic Altaic groups (such as the Turks and Mongols) have invaded and conquered some of these regions during historical times (and with much superior technology than would have been available in 1500 BC), and yet Altaic languages have only replaced pre-existing Indo-European dialects in a few highly isolated parts of the Indian subcontinent. Indeed, Indo-European (and, more specifically, Indo-Iranian) dialects still predominate throughout the Eastern-Iran-Bactria-Indus-Valley region, despite these regions having been conquered several times by Altaic or other external forces. Hence, I submit that a minimal criterion for the plausibility of any theory that posits a non-Proto-Indo European language family for the Indus Valley Civilization is that some significant pockets of this language family should still remain in the northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent.

As per Karr,

…whatever invasions or migrations might have taken place in northwestern India in the second millennium BC, the major river systems of the Indus Valley should have already produced a sufficiently monumental and highly coordinated language family in the region that this language family could not have plausibly been completely replaced. Instead, significant pockets of this language family should still exist in the northwestern portions of the Indian subcontinent. The Indo-Aryan invasion or migration theorist needs to reject both of these propositions and is therefore assuming, in effect, that a relatively small group of Indo-Aryan invaders or migrants were able to completely eradicate the pre-existing language (or languages) of the Indus Valley Civilization in a very short time beginning in or around 1500 BC…there is not one case anywhere in this extraordinarily lengthy record in which a foreign group has been able to completely eradicate a major language family in its original region of riverine expansion through linguistic conversion once that major language family has reached equilibrium in accordance with the riverine agricultural model of linguistic expansion.

Summarizing, it is clear that the argument for a non-Indo-European, non-Indo-Aryan speaking population in North India during the Bronze Age is not supported by evidence gathered from Old Indo-Aryan. In the next segment, we shall also look at the arguments proposed with regard to the modern Indo-Aryan languages which supposedly prove their foreign origin.

Linguistic Influence on modern Indo-Aryan

Simplified Map of IA Languages (Courtesy - Ivani et al. 2020 - Indo-Aryan - A House Divided ?)

Lexical Borrowing in modern IA

Colin Masica has done an important study on the linguistic origins of agricultural terminology in the modern Hindi language which dominates the North Indian landscape. To my knowledge this is the only major study on loanwords in any modern Indo-Aryan language.

As per Masica’s research, only 20 % of agricultural terminology in Hindi is of Indo-European origin whereas the rest 80 % is of non-Indo-European origin. This might seem at first, if looked at simplistically, as quite damning for those suggesting an Indian origin for Indo-Aryan languages. However things are hardly so straightforward.

As we observed earlier on, the separation of Indo-Aryan from the other Indo-European languages is atleast 4,000 years old. During all of those 4 millenia, the Indo-Aryan languages have developed, expanded and evolved in the Indian subcontinent while the other IE languages have evolved outside it. It is quite obvious that at the end of 4,000 years of separate existence and evolution, we cannot expect the modern Hindi language to retain all the IE agricultural terminology. Keeping this important caveat  in mind, we may now note a few key findings from Masica’s study which was based upon a list of about 273 Hindi words.

1. After the separation with rest of the IE, it is without doubt a fact that Indian agriculture has not remained static and undergone a lot of developments and changes. Contacts with the Munda speakers in Eastern India and Dravidian speakers in peninsular India was also one of these developments. Further more, a significantly larger variety of cereals, pulses, fruits, spices, farming techniques etc. would have come into use since then. One only needs to be reminded of the last 500 years when colonial powers introduced an unprecedented variety of food items from the New World such as potatoes, sweet potato, tomatoes, chilli, sago, etc. One cannot expect to find cognate terms in other IE languages for these new items that would have subsequently entered Indian agriculture and food.
2. As much as 21 % of the agri terminology in Hindi, is of Persian origin. This is obviously due to the long period of Persian imposition by the medieval period Muslim rulers in North India. Due to Persian influence, many native words have often been replaced by equivalent Persian words, especially in Hindi. For example, onions are called pyaaz in Hindi, a Persian borrowing, even though the onion itself was not brought to India by the Muslims. This massive Persian influence again underscores the major change of vocabulary that Hindi has undergone in the medieval period.
3. Dravidian makes up about only 9.5 % while Munda makes up about 5.7 % of the Hindi terms of agriculture. A lot of this is also disputed, as Masica is honest enough to point out. Moreover, a lot of this borrowing includes words for foods or items which have a more southern and eastern origin. Masica also admits that it is difficult to distinguish between a genuine Munda loanword versus a loanword from the larger Austro-asiatic family from SE Asia, a region that has had thousands of years of cultural relations with India.
4. Masica argues that as much as 30-35 % of the agricultural terms have no known origin. Out of this, about 90 % of the terms are either present in Sanskrit or could be plausibly reconstructed to the Old Indo-Aryan language. But because one cannot, apparently, find cognates of these terms in other IE languages, their status as IE words are disputed. Masica has argued that these could be loanwords from a now extinct pre-Aryan language of the Gangetic plains which he christened Language X. Yet, as Masica himself admits, some of these unexplained words could be foreign loanwords from a later period. We know, for example, that African millets, were already being taken up for farming in India during the latter period of Harappan civilization. Adding to it, as I have explained in the earlier section, proposal of a pre-Aryan language gone completely extinct after Indo-Aryan expansion is not borne out by the historical evidence.

The key takeaway, from Masica’s study is that, the Dravidian and Munda influence even on the Hindi agricultural vocabulary is rather limited i.e. 10 % and 5 % only, and that too is not without dispute. Some of these terms are borrowed because the items with which they are associated were also brought in from more southern and eastern regions. Furthermore, in the modern areal expanse of the Hindi language, the Munda and Dravidian languages make up a significant interaction zone with Hindi on its eastern edge. This interaction would have certainly contributed to the Hindi vocabulary.

Therefore, the evidence presented by Masica does not lend weight to the argument of foreign origin of Indo-Aryan languages.

Structural Influence on modern IA

The evidence for non-lexical and structural influence on modern IA languages from either Dravidian or Munda languages at the substratum level is also quite lacking.

In a recent study, John Peterson sets out to prove,that the Munda languages, which today are largely restricted to these accretion zones, were once spoken over a much wider area at least in the eastern half of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. We also assume that the majority of speakers of these languages were assimilated into the culture of the Indo-Aryan-speaking newcomers and eventually switched wholesale to these languages, with a resulting Munda substrate in this region. Others were pushed back into these accretion zones (or were possibly already there)…

Peterson’s logic for this assumption is as follows,

…the Indo-Gangetic Plain of northern South Asia is a spread zone, i.e., an area of rapid language spread, with little genealogical diversity, shallow language families and the use of a limited number of lingue franche, among others. The last spread throughout this region – and the only one we have direct knowledge of – was the historically attested spread of Indo-Aryan from the northwest of the subcontinent eastwards into this region. Map 2 shows the position of the Indo-Gangetic Plain in relation to the neighboring geological areas. It is bounded in the north and northwest by the Himalayan range and Hindu Kush, respectively, in the south by the Vindhya and Satpura ranges of central India, and in the southeast by the Chotanagpur Plateau…

Towards the southern and southeastern peripheries of this spread zone we find several hill tracts such as the Chotanagpur Plateau in the southeast, the Vindhya and Satpura ranges in central India to the south, and the Eastern Ghats running parallel to the east coast. These are “residual zones” in Nichols’ (1992) terms, referred to as “accretion zones” in Nichols (1997), as they possess a relatively high genealogical density compared to the rest of the sub Himalayan subcontinent, with considerable structural diversity, deep language families, and presumably only relatively recent lingue franche, with local bilingualism and/or multilingualism apparently having long been the norm (cf. Nichols 1992: 21). It is in these regions that we find the isolate Nihali (central India), the languages of the Munda family (central India, Eastern Ghats and Chotanagpur Plateau), and Dravidian languages such as Kurukh and Malto (near the Chotanagpur Plateau), Gondi (central India) and other smaller Dravidian languages (Eastern Ghats and central hill tracts).

What Peterson fails to note is thatit is not Indo-Aryan, but Persian and English, which were the last two languages to have swept across much of North India as administrative languages. Yet, Persian has already vanished from the region. And English has hardly taken a hold anywhere in this region.

Indo-Aryan languages in the so-called Indo-Gangetic spread zone, have a history of more than 3,500 years, even as per the western Indologists, which indicates a longstanding linguistic stability in the region unlike what one would expect in a spread zone. Peterson also neglects the fact that much of Central & Western India is hardly a spread zone, in the manner of the Indo-Gangetic plains, yet these regions also overwhelmingly speak Indo-Aryan languages.

Be that as it may, the eventual findings of Peterson’s study are quite interesting and we shall discuss it next.

In Peterson’s study, the Western Indo-Aryan languages consist of Hindi, Brajbhasa, Marathi and Konkani while the Eastern Indo-Aryan is made up of Maithili, Bhojpuri, Bengali, Sadri & Oriya. Central IA consits of Nepali & Darai. One can see the above map of the distribution of these Eastern IA languages and compare it with the map of North India where IA languages predominate. It can be seen that the Eastern IA is geographically very restricted, comprising  of languages spoken in Bihar, Jharkhand, parts of Bengal & Orissa while the Western IA are much more spread out.

As per Peterson,

…eastern Indo-Aryan and Darai (but much less so Nepali) is structurally much closer to the Munda group of languages than it is to western Indo–Aryan. This strongly suggests that eastern Indo-Aryan has been influenced structurally
by (pre-Munda) Austro-Asiatic languages at some point in its history…the eastern Indo-Aryan languages cluster more closely with Munda than with the western Indo-Aryan languages in structural terms.

…the North Dravidian languages Kurukh and Malto on the center right, which have likely been located in eastern-central India for ca. 1,000 years, are structurally very close to the languages of the “eastern groups” (Munda and eastern Indo-Aryan), considerably more so than any other Dravidian language.

According to Peterson’s finding, the western IA languages differ considerably from the Eastern IA as well as the Munda and the Central Dravidian languages.

With respect to this exposed position of western Indo-Aryan the most likely conclusion is that these languages have not been subject to large-scale, intense contact with other language families of the subcontinent for an exceptionally long time. Two main possibilities present themselves here:
– First, that western Indo-Aryan never was in a situation of intense language  contact with another family in South Asia, which can be due to any number of causes, e.g. military conquests in which other ethnic groups were either annihilated or driven out of northwestern South Asia. If so, western Indo-Aryan has then retained its distinctive Indo-Iranian traits and/or has undergone
developments since then which are unique in South Asia to this group.
– The second possibility is that this group did have intense contact at a very early time with another language family, but with a family which is most likely no longer extant. However, after this very early period this part of the subcontinent was presumably predominantly Indo-Aryan speaking and contact with speakers of languages belonging to other families would have been limited, so that this group does not cluster with any other group.

So as per Peterson, the western Indo-Aryan languages, which in his study comprised of as widely separated languages as Marathi & Konkani on one hand and Hindi & Brajbhasha on the other, do not show signs of intense contact with any known language groups.

Figure 5 surprisingly does not suggest a long-term, intense contact situation between (western) Indo-Aryan and Dravidian involving large scale language shift to Indo-Aryan by ethnic groups who formerly spoke Dravidian languages.

Peterson summarises his findings thus,

…there is a very clear structural division between the western and non-western Indo-Aryan languages of South Asia, which we refer to here as the “Indo-Aryan east–west divide”. Furthermore, western Indo-Aryan languages form a quite distinct group, showing no especially close structural affinities with either Dravidian or Munda, whereas the eastern Indo-Aryan languages cluster rather closely with the Munda languages. Although the eastern Indo-Aryan languages today have far more speakers than do the Munda languages, the fact that eastern Indo-Aryan differs so strongly structurally from western Indo-Aryan suggests that it was eastern Indo-Aryan which converged towards (pre-Munda) Austro-Asiatic and not vice versa… the features of the eastern branch of Indo-Aryan which differ most strikingly from those of the western group are found both in Munda languages but also in the Austro-Asiatic languages further afield.

In a larger study (Ivani et al.), under Peterson’s leadership, analysed 217 traits as compared to just 27 traits in the above study and found that Peterson’s findings of an east-west divide still stands.

We may also make our own observations :-

1.The Eastern IA languages in close proximity and contact, and influence of Munda languages as claimed by Peterson and his team, are geographically very restricted and limited mostly to Bihar and Jharkhand. The rest of the vast Indian subcontinent where the rest of the IA languages are spread out does not show these Munda features. Taking these findings along with the genetic data that shows the Munda speakers to have been migrants from SE Asia, it becomes clear that the vast majority of Indo-Aryan territory in South Asia, is devoid of any historical or modern Munda presence and influence.

2. The Western IA languages, even those as South as the Marathi and Konkani languages, hardly show any structural influence from neighbouring Dravidian languages. This, combined with the lack of any definite influence of Dravidian on Old Indo-Aryan, also suggests that, there is no evidence of Dravidian substratum in any of the vast Indo-Aryan territories of the Indian subcontinent.

We may however, emphasize on the 2nd argument through another study by Sonal Kulkarni-Joshi of Deccan College, Pune.

It has been argued by the likes of Southworth, that there is Dravidian structural element and loanwords in Marathi and that this is due to absorption of the Dravidian substratum by the incoming Indo-Aryans in Central India.

Now, the earliest evidence of Marathi language is as early as the 10th century CE and Marathi is considered a descendent of Middle Indo-Aryan Maharashtri Prakrit.

Kulkarni-Joshi analyses the early texts in Maharashtri Prakrit as well as early texts and inscriptions in Old, Medieval and modern Marathi and her findings totally invalidate the theory of Southworth.

There is no evidence of Dravidian structural element or loanwords in Maharashtri Prakrit and very little structural influence in Old Marathi though the loanwords increase dramatically. The Dravidian loanwords and grammatical structural elements increase as we progress from medieval to modern period.

This linguistic makeover can be understood in the context of the political vagaries of the period. During the last 1,500 years, the 1st 600 years of the history of the region now known as Maharashtra, was under the rule of Chalukyas and Rashtrakutas, who were great patrons of the Dravidian Kannada language. It is around this time that Old Marathi is first attested. Later on, Kannada was again patronised under the rule of the Yadavas.

Kulkarni-Joshi thus comes up with an alternative explanation of the data at hand,

Borrowing situations typically involve speakers of the less prestigious language accepting/adapting vocabulary from the more prestigious language. Substratum effect, on the other hand, involves speakers of the less prestigious language shifting to the more prestigious language, carrying over in the process linguistic features of their original language. Old Marathi comes across as evincing Kannada/Dravidian influence in its lexicon and very little structural influence. Our present understanding of the Old Marathi case cannot be described as being the result of substratum effect. Our examination prompts us to look for an alternative model to account for the presence of the Dravidian element in Old Marathi; for instance, one where dynastic rule of Kannada-speaking royals and royal patronage for Kannada in the Deccan region (cf. Section 1) may have played a role. Recall that this contact situation was closer to the time of emergence of Marathi language. The Old Marathi data indicates that Kannada, the language of the rulers of the region between 543 A.D. and 1189 A.D., perhaps had higher prestige locally than Marathi, the language of the commoners.

In other words, the influence of Dravidian on Indo-Aryan Marathi is a recent phenomenon that likely began through centuries of conquest of Central India by Kannada speaking Chalukyas and Rashtrakutas. It was thus Dravidian overlords ruling over and influencing the vocabulary of the commoner Marathi speakers. There is no evidence of Dravidian substratum in Old Marathi, let alone in its ancestor, Maharashtri Prakrit.

Thus, even in Central India, where Marathi is spoken today, it appears that it was Indo-Aryan speakers who spread there first and their early language, Maharashtri Prakrit betrays no evidence that it was imposed over a Dravidian substratum. Rather, the evidence shows that it was only in the early medieval period that the Marathi language came under Dravidian influence, mostly through adoption of Dravidian vocabulary, under the rule of the Kannada overlords from the south. Kulkarni-Joshi’s findings wonderfully complements Peterson’s findings about Marathi that was stated earlier on.

Peterson suggests that either the western Indo-Aryan languages, i.e. the bulk of Indo-Aryan languages had no intense contact with a non-IA language or that they had an intense contact but the language has gone extinct very early leaving the field open for Indo-Aryan languages. We can safely dismiss the extinct language argument as it is patently absurd to suggest that the languages spanning the entire geographical mass of Indo-Gangetic plains, much of which was part of the massive Harappan civilization, went totally extinct.

Peterson also suggests that perhaps the migrating Indo-Aryans were thoroughly annihilated or driven away from NW India to explain the lack of any Dravidian or Munda influence. Here again, the genetic evidence clearly shows this to not be the case since the majority ancestry of North and Northwestern people in the Indian subcontinent is from the Harappans.

A summation of all the evidence discussed so far, shows that there is little in the name of linguistic evidence to prove that the Indo-Aryans languages are not native to South Asia and that they spread into the subcontinent by displacing or subjugating pre-existing non-IA people. Infact, the data at hand, makes the opposite conclusion more likely.

Linguistics and the Out of India Theory

While we may have shown that the linguistic evidence does not have much of an evidence to suggest the existence of pre-IE languages in the subcontinent that was subsequently replaced by Indo-Aryan in much of its present territory, it would still be argued that this in itself still does not prove the origin of the Proto-Indo-European language family within South Asia.

It would be asked – how can you prove that all IE languages, and not just Indo-Aryan, originated in the Indian subcontinent ? How can you posit the Indian subcontinent as a PIE homeland, when it mostly has speakers of only one branch of IE family, the Indo-Aryan ?

These are valid questions and we shall address them. However, we should note that linguistic evidence, by itself cannot prove even the steppe or Anatolia as the PIE homeland. Nevertheless, what we can do, through linguistic evidence, is to show why the Indian subcontinent is a very viable candidate for the PIE homeland.

We have already seen that nothing in lexicon, phonology, morphology or syntax of the Indo-Aryan languages, goes to prove that they are not native to the subcontinent. Now we will show from the extant features of Indo-Aryan language family and its kindred members in the surroundings, why South Asia cannot be denied from being a strong candidate for PIE origins.

The Diversity of Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian

According to the standard view, the Indo-European language family is divided into the following subbranches:-

Anatolian

Tocharian

Greek

Armenian

Albanian

Italic

Celtic

Germanic

Baltic

Slavic

Indo-Aryan

Iranian

Of these, the Anatolian and Tocharian branches have long gone extinct. Some other extinct branches such as Illyrian and Phyrgian are also speculated but their status as independent branches is not sufficiently proven.

One could argue that majority of these branches are in Europe and far away from India which has only branch of Indo-European, the Indo-Aryan. It is also a fact, that Indo-Aryan and Iranian are said to have had a common proto-Indo-Iranian ancestor to the exclusion of other IE branches. Why should one then believe that all other IE branches migrated outward from India rather than one branch, the Indo-Aryan, migrating into India, which appears to be a more parsimonious explanation ?

To this we may answer that none of the potential PIE homelands, neither Steppe nor Anatolian, has or had an attestation of multiple IE branches. It may also be noted that the Indian subcontinent is home to all the three sub-branches of Indo-Iranian, the Indo-Aryan, the Iranian and the Nuristani.

The classification of IE languages into multiple different branches is open to criticism. The enterprise has mostly been an occupation of European and American scholarship and it is without doubt a shadow of doubt a fact that these scholars have paid a much greater attention to study the IE languages of Europe than those of Iran and India. Thus the complexities, intricacies and differences between the languages of the Indo-Iranian branch are not adequately researched and they are clubbed together as part of a single branch based on some common features which may well have arisen due to geographic proximity between them rather than as a common inheritance from a proto- period.

The case for Europe appears to be reverse of this where the continent’s IE branches have been grouped into multiple branches.

Now here is the important part,

There are about 445 living Indo-European languages, according to the estimate by Ethnologue, with over two-thirds (313) of them belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch. (wikipedia)

Ethnologue is the standard reference source on the world’s languages for decades now. And it states that about 70 % of all Indo-European languages spoken today belong to the single branch of Indo-Iranian. Is this not an extraordinary insight ? Does it not raise doubts on the classification of IE branches ?

Just for reference, Indo-Aryan alone has 219 languages, Iranian has 85, Nuristani 7. Among the other branches, Germanic has 47 languages, Italic 44, Slavic 21, Baltic 5, Albanian 4, Armenian 2, Celtic 6 and Greek 6.

How did a single branch of Indo-European languages come to acquire more than twice the no of languages compared to combined strength of the all the other branches ? So far, the linguists have not really bothered to explain this.

Out of these, the Indian subcontinent and its surrounding region has about 235-240 spoken Indo-Iranian languages i.e. more than half of all IE languages spoken today. Even in terms of populations, the Indo-Iranian speakers make up half of all the Indo-European speakers across the globe.

This massive diversity of Indo-Iranian languages in general and its greatest diversity and complexity within and close to the Indian subcontinent, is the first argument in favour of taking South Asia as a probable candidate for PIE origins.

The Antiquity of Indo-Aryan Languages

Let me quote the relevant section from wikipedia as it is not very controversial and gives a succint summary.

• Albanian, attested from the 13th century AD;^[16] Proto-Albanian evolved from an ancient Paleo-Balkan language, traditionally thought to be Illyrian, or otherwise a totally unattested Balkan Indo-European language that was closely related to Illyrian and Messapic.^[17][18][19]
• Anatolian, extinct by Late Antiquity, spoken in Anatolia, attested in isolated terms in Luwian/Hittite mentioned in Semitic Old Assyrian texts from the 20th and 19th centuries BC, Hittite texts from about 1650 BC.^[20][21]
• Armenian, attested from the early 5th century AD.
• Balto-Slavic, believed by most Indo-Europeanists^[22] to form a phylogenetic unit, while a minority ascribes similarities to prolonged language-contact.
  • Slavic (from Proto-Slavic), attested from the 9th century AD (possibly earlier), earliest texts in Old Church Slavonic. Slavic languages include Bulgarian, Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Silesian, Kashubian, Macedonian, Serbo Croatian (Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Serbian), Sorbian, Slovenian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn.
  • Baltic, attested from the 14th century AD; although attested relatively recently, they retain many archaic features attributed to Proto–Indo-European (PIE). Living examples are Lithuanian and Latvian.
• Celtic (from Proto-Celtic), attested since the 6th century BC; Lepontic inscriptions date as early as the 6th century BC; Celtiberian from the 2nd century BC; Primitive Irish Ogham inscriptions from the 4th or 5th century AD, earliest inscriptions in Old Welsh from the 7th century AD. Modern Celtic languages include Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Scottish Gaelic, Irish and Manx.
• Germanic (from Proto-Germanic), earliest attestations in runic inscriptions from around the 2nd century AD, earliest coherent texts in Gothic, 4th century AD. Old English manuscript tradition from about the 8th century AD. Includes English, Frisian, German, Dutch, Scots, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Afrikaans, Yiddish, Low German, Icelandic and Faroese.
• Hellenic and Greek (from Proto-Greek, see also History of Greek); fragmentary records in Mycenaean Greek from between 1450 and 1350 BC have been found.^[23] Homeric texts date to the 8th century BC.
• Indo-Iranian, attested circa 1400 BC, descended from Proto-Indo-Iranian (dated to the late 3rd millennium BC).
  • Indo-Aryan (including Dardic), attested from around 1400 BC in Hittite texts from Anatolia, showing traces of Indo-Aryan words.^[24][25] Epigraphically from the 3rd century BC in the form of Prakrit (Edicts of Ashoka). The Rigveda is assumed to preserve intact records via oral tradition dating from about the mid-second millennium BC in the form of Vedic Sanskrit. Includes a wide range of modern languages from Northern India, Southern Pakistan and Bangladesh including Hindustani, Bengali, Odia, Assamese, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Gujarati, Marathi, Si dhi and Nepali as well as Sinhala of Sri Lanka and Dhivehi of the Maldives and Minicoy.
  • Iranian or Iranic, attested from roughly 1000 BC in the form of Avestan. Epigraphically from 520 BC in the form of Old Persian (Behistun inscription). Includes Persian, Ossetian, Pashto and Kurdish.
  • Nuristani (includes Kamkata-vari, Vasi-vari, Askunu, Waigali, Tregami, and Zemiaki).
• Italic (from Proto-Italic), attested from the 7th century BC. Includes the ancient Osco-Umbrian languages, Faliscan, as well as Latin and its descendants, the Romance languages, such as Italian, Venetian, Galician, Sardinian, Neapolitan, Sicilian, Spanish, Asturleonese, French, Romansh, Occitan, Portuguese, Romanian, and Catalan.
• Tocharian, with proposed links to the Afanasevo culture of Southern Siberia.^[26] Extant in two dialects (Turfanian and Kuchean, or Tocharian A and B), attested from roughly the 6th to the 9th century AD. Marginalized by the Old Turkic Uyghur Khaganate and probably extinct by the 10th century.

It becomes clear from this that Indo-Aryan and Iranian are two of the only four Indo-Europeans, others being Anatolian and Greek, whose languages are attested since the 2nd millennium BCE. Out of these, Anatolian is long extinct while Greek has only 6 dialects to its name today while the Indo-Iranians make up 70 % of all IE languages.

It is also worthwhile to note, that it is Indo-Aryan alone that is attested in two widely separated regions, namely Syria and and North India, in the 2nd millennium BCE.

It maybe worthwhile here to make it clear that the dating of the Rigveda and the Avesta are by no means accurate and they just reflect the western conservative perspective on it. It is very much likely that Rigveda was composed as early as in the 3rd millennium BCE for the following reasons :-

1. No mention of Iron – Iron is not known in Rigveda but in the Gangetic plains, Iron had become quite common in use by 18th-17th centuries. As per Tiwari, …knowledge of iron smelting and manufacturing of iron artefacts was well known in the Eastern Vindhyas and iron had been in use in the Central Ganga Plain, at least from the early second millennium BC. The quantity and types of iron artefacts, and the level of technical advancement indicate that the introduction of iron working took place even earlier. The beginning of the use of iron has been traditionally associated with the eastward migration of the later Vedic people, who are also considered as an agency which revolutionised material culture particularly in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar (Sharma 1983: 117-131). The new finds and their dates suggest that a fresh review is needed. Ofcourse these eastern migrants were the post-Rigvedic people. This argues for the entire text of Rigveda being composed before the 18th century BCE and possibly even earlier.
2. Stephen Hillyer Lewitt has compared the change and progress of the Vedic religion, starting with the earliest portions of Rigveda, with the change and evolution of Mesopotamian religion. Based on his study, he has argued that the bulk of the Rigvedic religion has parallels in the Mesopotamian religion of the 3rd millennium BCE with the earliest parts going even into the 4th mil. BCE. Therefore, Lewitt has argued that the bulk of the Rigveda was composed in the 3rd millennium BCE.
3. Rigveda mentions the Saraswati as a fully flowing river and we know from later texts like the Mahabharata, that it was no longer reaching up to the ocean and was drying up in the Thar-Cholistan desert. Most of the Harappan sites were situated on the banks of the Saraswati river. Scientific studies in recent years (1,2,3) have shown that the flow of Saraswati weakened around 2000 BC or thereabouts. It would be pertinent to quote Giosan et al, who put it quite eloquently,

…our research points to a perennial monsoonal-fed Sarasvati river system with benign floods along its course, which could well be considered important for early agricultural civilizations such as the Harappan. A novel analysis of the Rig Veda (rather than later secondary sources) by Aklujkar paints exactly such a picture of a benevolent river with multiple courses affecting a wide area, which would certainly explain the amazing density of settlements across the S–Y interfluve rather than only along definite river courses. This description conforms well to the model that is slowly emerging for the Sarasvati: a perennial monsoonal river with many feeding streams in its headwaters with mild and nourishing floods when compared to the Indus or its large Himalayan tributaries. This is a testament to the acuity of the Rig Veda composers who transmitted to us across millennia such an incredibly accurate description of a grand river!

Thus, the mention of Saraswati river which dried up after 2000 BC, makes its highly unlikely that Rigveda was composed much later than the 3rd millennium BCE, since later texts mention the drying up of the river that is not noticed in Rigveda.

source - Chaudhri et al 2021.

4. Shrikant Talageri has shown through his analysis that the Indo-Aryan names, deities and terminology mentioned in the Hittite texts about Mitanni correspond to the latest books of Rigveda as well as to the post-Rigvedic texts and therefore postdates the early books of Rigveda. Incidentally, the use of Indo-Aryan in Syria in the 14th century BC Hittite texts is in a manner that has led scholars to think that the original Indo-Aryan language of the Mitanni must have been long dead by then in the region. Thus the migration of the Mitanni Indo-Aryans into Syria may have taken place centuries before the 14th century BCE texts. They may have been present in Syria as early as the 18th century BCE. Since the common culture they share with Rigveda corresponds with Late Rigvedic and post-Rigvedic period, we are again faced with the likelihood of the entire Rigvedic Corpus antedating 18th century BCE.

Having thus laid out the various reasons, it is increasingly clear that Rigveda is most likely a text of the 3rd millennium BCE and not the 2nd. Considering how large the text is by itself, longer than Iliad and Odyssey combined, it is also by far the largest text in any IE language dating to the 3rd and 2nd millennium BCE . Compare this great antiquity with the earliest evidence of IE languages in mainland Europe or on the steppe which does not go beyond the 8th-7th century BCE. The present IE languages spoken on the steppe, those of the Slavic, cannot even go earlier than the 7th century CE, which incidentally was the time when the common ancestral Slavic language was still spoken.

Thus, the deep antiquity of the Vedic language in the Indian subcontinent, reaching as far back as the 3rd millennium BCE and hardly rivalled by any other IE language group except perhaps Anatolian, is another reason to take the Indian subcontinent as a seriously viable candidate for the PIE homeland.

The conservative nature of Old Indo-Aryan

The earliest extant Indo-Aryan literature of Indo-Aryan languages is in Sanskrit and it is an extremely archaic and conservative Indo-European language, both phonologically and morphologically.

As per Mallory & Adams (1997),

From a phonological point of view the Indo-Iranian languages, at least in their earliest forms, are relatively conservative. Indic, alone of the various IE stocks, preserves the three-way distinction in manner of the PIE stops in the way they are traditionally reconstructed: voiceless (i.e., *k), voiced (*g), and voiced aspirate (*gh)…

…The Indo-Iranian languages are also conservative representatives, at least in their earliest attestations, of the PIE morphological system. Old Indic and Avestan both preserve all eight of the PIE nominal and adjectival cases (vocative, nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, ablative, and instrumental) as well as the three numbers (singular, dual, and plural) and three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter) reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European. The verb is equally elaborate, having three persons (first, second, and third), three numbers (singular, dual, plural), three aspects or ways which the speaker can “view” an action (“present”, aorist, and perfect), three tenses (present, past, future) and four moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive, and optative).

It is believed that laryngeals were a very archaic feature of the Proto-Indo-European language that has only been preserved in Anatolian but lost in all other IE languages. The traces of it, however, appear to have been preserved in Indo-Iranian,

As in all branches save Anatolian and Albanian, the PIE laryngeals have been lost as separate phonemes in Indo-Iranian. However, that loss would appear to have been very late and both Old lndic and Avestan preserve a trace of their presence in uncontracted vowels…

Infact, Sanskrit or Old Indo-Aryan is not only a very archaic IE language, preserving more PIE phonological and morphological features than any other IE language, but it is also equally archaic and conservative in preservation of the PIE lexicon.

As per Mallory & Adams (1997),

The corpus of the Old Indic lexicon is enormous and provides one of the main sources of comparanda for reconstructing the IE lexicon.

As per Malzahn,

The main bulk of the Sanskrit lexicon is inherited from PIE; therefore Sanskrit, as a very early attested Großkorpussprache, is one of the basic sources for the reconstruction of the PIE lexicon. A rough scan of LIV reveals that about 60% of the PIE verbal roots listed there are said to have avatars in IA. 

According to the above table taken from a recent article by Mallory (PIE, PU & Nostratic…), the maximum no of PIE cognates are found in Indic or Sanskrit. It is worth quoting what Mallory says about the list,

…it is clear that geography is not a significant factor in the retention of Proto-Indo-European vocabulary. If one arranges the languages on a rough west to east axis (Fig. 3.1) it is clear that there is no marked gradient from an area of high retention to an area of low retention. This would not be a significant observation were it not for a school of thought that presumes an Indo-European dispersal from India (where we have the highest retention of Indo-European vocabulary; e.g., Mallory 2002a, 375–378).

But not only does OIA or Sanskrit retain the highest percentage of IE vocabulary, it is also the greatest preserver of IE phonological and morphological system. To this we may add the extremely negligible and yet questionable no. of non-IE loanwords in Sanskrit. Thus, the extremely archaic and conservative nature of OIA, is another potent argument in favour of taking the Indian subcontinent as a credible place for PIE origins.

Early diversity of Indo-Iranian in South Asia

So far we have seen that the Indo-Iranian language diversity in the Indian subcontinent by far outstrips the linguistic diversity of IE languages anywhere else. Moreover, it also has, arguably, the greatest antiquity among all IE groups. And its oldest attested language, Sanskrit, also happens to be the most archaic and conservative of IE languages on balance, preserving the maximum features of the PIE. These, combined with the fact that there is little to no evidence of substratum from a non-IE language in North India, already makes a very compelling argument, linguistically for consideration of India as the PIE homeland.

But we can add some more. On the face of it, one can be forgiven to assume that all Indo-Aryan languages descend from Vedic Sanskrit. Yet this is simply untrue. And this has been known to the Indologists for more than a century now.

Walter Petersen observes in 1912 that,

Prakrit can not be a direct lineal descendant of the Vedic of the hymns or of a contemporary dialect which was close to the Vedic in its character.

Likewise, Truman Michelson writes in 1913,

In the discussion as to whether Prakrit is derived from Vedic or Sanskrit, it should have been mentioned that it has been demonstrated that not a single dialect of the Asokan inscriptions can be derived from either the literary Vedic or Sanskrit.

This position has not changed in recent years. According to German linguist Thomas Oberlies,

The problem of the linguistic affinity of Pali and the other Middle Indo-Aryan (= MIA) languages is well-known and is undisputed: These languages are by no means straightforward continuants of the Old Indo-Aryan (= OIA) of the Vedic corpus, as in all of them words and forms turn up which cannot be the (regular) outcome of any attested OIA ones)…There are a number of words where Pali/Prakrit does not continue what we expect as the regular outcome of OIA. applying the MIA. sound laws. These words point either to the pre-Vedic language or (more probably) to (a) Vedic dialect(s) different from the dominant one…Some of these forms and words – such as idha , ° gharati/jharai – are phonetically older than even Vedic, while some must be the continuations of certain dialectical variations within Old Indo-Aryan. 

Oberlies elsewhere explains this more succintly about the MIA or Middle Indo-Aryan,

…a number of morphophonological and lexical features of betray the fact that they are not direct continuations of Rigvedic Sanskrit, the main base of Classical Sanskrit; rather they descend from dialects which, despite many similarities, were different to Rigvedic and in some regards even more archaic.

In other words, the Middle Indo-Aryan languages are not descended from Vedic Sanskrit but from its sister dialects. So even the archaic Vedic Sanskrit in which the Rigveda was composed around the 3rd – 2nd millennium BCE, is not the sole ancestor of Indo-Aryan languages but rather the evidence seems to indicate dialect variation among the Indo-Aryan languages already in the 3rd-2nd millennium BCE within the Indian subcontinent.

Let us bear in mind that such a complexity of dialects within any designated branch of Indo-European as early as the 2nd millennium BCE is only elsewhere attested within the Anatolian branch.

As per the Indological research, most of which on the subject has been done by Witzel, there were atleast 4 different Vedic dialects, situated in the 4 different regions of Gandhara (North Pakistan), Kuru (Eastern Punjab/Haryana), Panchala (western UP) & Kosala (Eastern UP). It is not clear whether these Vedic dialects are the direct ancestors of the later attested Middle Indic languages also known as Prakrits.

The Prakrits, that we know of, are the Gandhari & Niya Prakrit, the Sauraseni Prakrit, the Magadhi & Ardhamagadhi Prakrit and Maharashtri Prakrit. Besides these, we also have Pali, the language of Buddhist canon. There was also a Prakrit referrred to Paisachi, by ancient Grammarians, about which however we have little direct evidence. All these Prakrit or Middle Indo-Aryan languages descend from sister dialects of Vedic Sanskrit and not directly from it. From these and other lost Prakrit languages, the large variety of modern Indo-Aryan languages are said to be descended.

It thus, should be clear that right from 3rd-2nd millennium BCE, the South Asian region has had an unparalleled diversity of Indo-Aryan and Indo-European languages.

This early diversity of Indo-Aryan languages has puzzled the Indologists for a long time and they have struggled to explain how such an early diversity came about. The most widespread proposal is that there were atleast two migrations of Indo-Aryan people into the subcontinent with the Rigvedic Indo-Aryans being the latter ones to migrate. According to Claus Peter Zoller, “…there is no doubt that at the time of the immigration of Old Indo-Aryan into South Asia a whole bunch of Indo-Aryan dialects/variants existed.”

A division of the Indo-Aryan languages into two – an Outer Indo-Aryan and an Inner Indo-Aryan, was proposed by Hoernle as early as the 19th century BCE and built upon and refined by Grierson in the early 20th century CE. More recently, linguists such as Southworth and Zoller have also supported this division. As per this division, Vedic Sanskrit and its descendents in the central regions of North India are the Inner IA and the speakers of the Outer IA, which srround the Inner IA, migrated into the subcontinent first followed later by speakers of Inner IA.

Madhav Deshpande gives us a good overview on the subject,

Hoernle (1880: xxx-xxxii) postulated the existence of two early Aryan groups in North India, the Mägadhan and the Saurasení, representing waves of Indo-European language speakers, of which the Mägadhans were the older. This idea was supported by Grierson (Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1: 353-359) and given an ethnological footing by Risley (1915: 55). Oldenberg also supported and elaborated this idea and pointed out that “probably the first immigrants, and therefore, the farthest forward to the east… are those tribes … the Añga and the Magadha, the Videha, the Kosala, and Kâsï.”1 He (1890: 9) also claims that it was the second wave that produced the Vedas. This theme has been linguistically upheld by Meillet who shows that the Vedic dialect, like the Iranian, is an r-only dialect in which the Indo-European *l merged into r, but the dialect of the redactors of the Vedas was an r-and-l dialect, where the original Indo-European *r and *l were retained; the redactors of the Vedic texts have put this l back into some of the Vedic words, where the original Vedic dialect had an r (Meillet 1912-13; Bloch 1970: 2). In later Prakrits we clearly see the eastern Prakrit, Mägadhï, developing into a pure l-only dialect; whereas the western and particularly the northwestern dialects, almost devoid of l, represent the early r-only dialect…

Deshpande quotes Burrow’s attempt at explaining this phenomenon,

the r-dialect prominent in the early Rgveda shares a common change (of s -> s) with Iranian. It is unlikely to have undergone this change independently and consequently we must assume that it took place when a group of Indo-Aryan migrants was still in contact with Iranians. On the other hand, those Indo-Aryans who preserved the difference between r and l had already departed to India, and so they were unaffected by it. The speakers of the r-dialect were the latest comers on the Indian scene and there ensued a mixture of the two dialects.

The change of Indo-European l to r is taken to be one of the fundamental characteristics that is used to define a proto-Indo-Iranian language. The Mittani Indo-Aryan language was also an r only dialect. In other words, when the Iranians, Rigvedic and Mittani Indo-Aryans were having this shared innovation, the eastern Indo-Aryans had separated from them and did not share their common innovation. Now where exactly could this have taken place ?

Also, if in interior India, there were Indo-Aryan dialects that did not undergo this supposed common Indo-Iranian innovation that is used to define a proto-Indo-Iranian heritage, how are we so certain that these interior dialects were of the Indo-Iranian stock ?

Claus Peter Zoller, on the other hand, argues that the Vedic or Inner Indo-Aryans, must have lost contact with Iranian earlier than the non-Vedic Outer Indo-Aryans due to some shared features between Iranian and Outer Indo-Aryan.

The two way migration of Indo-Aryan languages does not solve the problem for the migration proponents. Let us note that the Indian subcontinent has Iranian languages too in its northwestern regions which would occasion a 3rd migration of IE besides the two already posited for Indo-Aryan.

Moreover, the Nuristiani group of languages, which is also spoken in the far northwest of the subcontinent, is now believed to the 3rd branch of Indo-Iranian. This is not all. Another major shared Indo-Iranian innovation is the ruki rule which also operates in all satem languages such as Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Baltic, Slavic and Armenian. However, Irene Hegedus has shown that in Nuristani languages, the ruki sound law operates very rarely. Accordingly she proposes that the Nuristani languages must have been the 1st group to separate from the Indo-Iranian superstock. Does this mean that we propose another Indo-Iranian migration into the subcontinent to account for the presence of Nuristani besides the two Indo-Aryan and one Iranian migrations ?

As if this bewildering complexity of Indo-Iranian in South Asia was not enough, in recent years, a new Indo-Aryan language, the Bangani has also come into limelight and it has muddied the waters even more.

Claus-Peter Zoller (1988) argued that, unlike the rest of Indo-Iranian, Baṅgaṇi was a centum language. He pointed out that its old lexicon contained many forms like kɔpɔ ‘hoof’ (compare Skt. śapha ‘id.’) and dɔkɔ ‘ten’ (compare Skt. daśa ‘id.’)… Abbi (1997) confirmed the existence of Zoller’s forms and found other peculiarities, including forms which had not undergone the RUKI rule, such as muskɔ ‘bicep’ from *mūs ‘mouse’, a semantic development paralleled by Latin mūsculus ‘little mouse’, the source of French muscle. This suggests that an Indo-European but non-Indic speech community switched to an Indic language preserving a core set of lexical items.

So now, we also have a Kentum Indo-European language deep within the moutains of India. It is plausible that the Kentum languages could have been even greater in number in the past but have undergone a shift under pressure from the satem Indo-Aryan languages.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Indo-European_isoglosses.png

Ofcourse, the existence of a Kentum branch of Indo-European, in close proximity to the Indian subcontinent, was already evident with the attestation of Tocharian languages in antiquity, who moreover show greater affinity to European IE languages such as Celtic and Germanic than to Indo-Iranian.

It can thus be said, that neither Tocharian, neither the Iranian, nor the Nuristani and the Bangani and also not the Middle Indo-Aryan or the Outer Indo-Aryan languages are descended from Rigvedic Sanskrit. Yet Rigvedic Sanskrit is arguably the oldest attested IE language, attested as early as the 3rd-2nd millennium BCE. That the large percentage of IE languages exist and existed (in case of Tocharian), in and around the Indian subcontinent that do not descend from such an old IE language such as Vedic, shows how old and complex the presence of Indo-European languages in the subcontinent is.

This is, thus, another strong pointer in favour of considering the Indian subcontinent as a likely PIE homeland.

The external language contacts

It is now quite frequently asserted that the Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Uralic languages developed together in close proximity to each other and that therefore the homeland of the Indo-European languages must have been adjacent to the homeland of the Uralic speakers. Since, it is argued, that the Uralic languages could not have originated much further south than the forest steppe and steppe regions of Europe and Siberia, the IE homeland must also therefore be somewhere close to that and this is the principal linguistic argument for the steppe theory of Indo-European origins.

However, the argument that there are strong parallels between the Proto-IE and proto-Uralic languages is quite controversial and not universally accepted and many scholars are skeptical of it (Halopainen, Marcantonio, Nichols). It is an enterprise, mostly taken up by Indo-European scholars to try and make sense of the Indo-European linguistic data. There is very little input from Uralic scholars and little data from actual Uralic languages (Halopainen).

What is more likely and is undisputed is that some Indo-European languages (Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian) , in the course of time, came into close linguistic contact with some of the Uralic languages (Finnic, Mordvin, Mari, Permian etc) (Marcantonio). However these contacts can be easily explained by 1. the Iron Age expansion of Iranic speaking Scythians over a large part of the steppe and 2. the later expansion of Uralic speakers into Europe where there were IE speakers already present and where they have had centuries of interaction.

On the other hand, besides Uralic, there is also evidence of Indo-European language contact with the ancient languages of the Near East. According to Gamkrelidze and Ivanov,

The Proto-Indo-European linguistic area must be placed in the Balkan-Turkmenia region proposed above, in some part of it where interaction and contacts between Proto-Indo-European and the Semitic and Kartvelian (South Caucasian) languages could have taken place, since these languages show layers of inter-borrowings and a number of structural traits pointing to interaction over a long period…Proto-Indo-European, Kartvelian, and Semitic show a distinctive isomorphic structure in their consonantism, which displays three series of stops, defined as glottalized (or pharyngealized, for some of Semitic), voiced, and voiceless (see 1.2.5 above).!3 Kartvelian and Indo-European have identical systems of sonants, with syllabic and non-syllabic variants depending on position in the word. Also identical are the structural canon for root and affixal morphemes and the rules for combining them which involved ablaut alternations of vowels (see 1.4.3 for details). Such similarity, complete down to isomorphism of structures and root canons, would be the result of long interaction of these languages in a linguistic area, and their allogenetic association with one another (see Cereteli 1968).

Gamkrelidze and Ivanov argued for an Armenian homeland for PIE, but Johanna Nichols, who largely agrees with most of the data and interpretation of G & I, chooses to put the homeloand further east. As per Nichols,

Ancient loanwords point to a locus along the desert trajectory, not particularly close to Mesopotamia and probably far out in the eastern hinterlands. The structure of the family tree, the accumulation of genetic diversity at the western periphery of the range, the location of Tocharian and its implications for early dialect geography, the early attestation of Anatolian in Asia Minor, and the geography of the centum-satem split all point in the same direction: a locus in western central Asia. Evidence presented in Volume II supports the same conclusion: the long-standing westward trajectories of languages point to an eastward locus, and the spread of IE along all three trajectories points to a locus well to the east of the Caspian Sea. The satem shift also spread from a locus to the south-east of the Caspian, with satem languages showing up as later entrants along all three trajectory terminals. (The satem shift is a post-PIE but very early IE development.) The locus of the IE spread was therefore somewhere in the vicinity of ancient Bactria-Sogdiana. This locus resembles those of the three known post-IE spreads: those of Indo-Iranian (from a locus close to that of PIE), Turkic (from a locus near north-western Mongolia), and Mongolian (from north-eastern Mongolia) as shown in Figure 8.8. 

This locus of Bactriana-Margiana is geographically adjacent to the Northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. There is nothing to suggest that the homeland could not have been further southeast within NW of the subcontinent. Language contacts of IE languages with the Bronze age languages of the Near East can also be easily explained through a homeland in NW India, since the Harappan civilization, from that very region,had extensive trade and cultural links with the Bronze Age Near East.

Gamkrelidze and Ivanov propose several lexical borrowings between the Near Eastern and IE  languages which include words for bull, cow, goat, sheep, monkey/ape, grains, plants, honey, axe, ships, star, number seven, copper, gold, wine, leopard, lion, elephant etc.

The only place the monkeys, leopards, lions and elephants are and were found together in one region was the Indian subcontinent. There are good reasons to believe that the Near Eastern words for monkeys and elephants came from the Indian subcontinent. The word for bulls and cows could also have been IE borrowings into the Near Eastern languages when there was a large scale introduction of Indian cattle into the region during the Bronze Age.

Most interestingly, one of the IE word for copper derives from the IE word for red.

*h1roudho´s, is widely enough attested (e.g. ON rauði ‘red iron ore’, OCS ruda ‘ore; metal’, NPers ro¯d ‘copper’, Skt loha´ – ‘copper’) but it is such a banal derivative of *h1reudh- ‘red’, i.e. the ‘red metal’ or ‘copper’, that it probably represents independent developments in different Indo-European groups.

This word was borrowed into the Sumerian language where it is recorded as urudu. Quite curiously enough, copper was exported into Mesopotamia from the Harappan civilization.

The Sumerian text ‘Enki and the World Order’ speaks of bronze as an alloy of copper with tin, imported from the eastern country Meluhha, probably India (see Falkenstein 1964:76): Sum. urudu-zu nanga-zabar(-r[a) he-em] ‘may your (i.e. Meluhha’s) copper be (i.e. contain)
tin-bronze’. Evidently in Sumerian times bronze containing tin was imported into Mesopotamia from Meluhha. In Sumerian such bronze is sometimes simply called ‘Meluhha copper’ (urudu-me-luh-ha, Sjoberg 1963:257). An origin for Sumerian bronze in the ancient cities of the Indus Valley was proposed long ago.

Therefore, there is every likelihood that the IE word for copper borrowed into Sumerian came from India.

We can thus see that the evidence of external language contacts of IE languages also fits in very nicely with the Indian homeland proposal for PIE.

The break-up and dispersal of IE languages

According to the most standard model of Indo-European break-up and dispersal, the Anatolian branch is considered to be the 1st one to break away from the rest of IE. The next to break-up, as per the most widespread and popular understanding, were the Tocharian branch.

courtesy - Bouckaert et al.

courtesy - Andrew Garrett

These early divergent Tocharians were historically present right next door to the Indian subcontinent, in the Tarim Basin, a region thoroughly permeated with Indian influences during that era.

Next, as per Anthony & Ringe, are the ancestral groups of Celtic,Italic, and perhaps pre-Germanics, to have left the PIE homeland, leaving the Indo-Iranians and Balto-Slavs. The Indo-Iranians are then thought to have left leaving the Balto-Slavs. It is not clear how and when the ancestors of Greek, Armenian and Albanian separated and left the homeland. The following chart is an attempt to explain the whole dynamic.

So we have here the Balto-Slavic sharing isoglosses with the Indo-Iranians on one hand and at the same time, we have the ancestors of Greeks, Armenians and Albanians also sharing isoglosses with the Indo-Iranians. A major shared innovation between all these languages barring Greek is the satem shift. Another shared isogloss, this time between Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavs is the ruki rule. Here we may note that the Bangani language does not share the satem shift and and has also preserved forms where the ruki rule does not apply while in Nuristani, the satem shift is incomplete and the ruki rule mostly does not apply. In effect, this suggests that the languages of the subcontinent, unified under the umbrella term of Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian, must have already fragmented when these shared innovations were taking place.

As per a recent reconstruction of IE phylogeny (Kassian et al.),

Our main finding is the multifurcation of the Inner IE clade into four branches ca. 3357–2162 BC: (1) Greek-Armenian, (2) Albanian, (3) Italic-Germanic-Celtic, (4) Balto-Slavic–Indo-Iranian.

By Inner IE, they mean those IE languages that were left after the separation of Anatolian and then Tocharian. We already know that the Greek-Armenian, Albanian and Balto-Slavic-Indo-Iranian branches share several isoglosses to the exclusion of Italic-Germanic-Celtic. So if this multifurcation is correct, it would mean that the Italic-Germanic-Celtic was the next branch to leave the PIE homeland.

Now,

1.since the date of this multifurcation overlaps with the date of composition of the Rigveda, which was wholly composed in the Indian subcontinent,

2. and since the Indo-Iranian is also the earliest attested, most complex, most diverse and largest of all the Inner IE languages that were left in the PIE homeland,

3. and since, the branch that separated just before the break-up of the Inner IE, Tocharian, existed right next to the subcontinent,

we can certainly propose that the Nuclear IE (Inner IE + Tocharian) and Inner IE, broke up in the Indian subcontinent. It is also much more reasonable to suggest that it is Anatolian that separated and moved out of the homeland rather than Nuclear IE, which gave rise to all of the other IE groups, moving out. This argument is also strengthened by the fact that Old Indo-Aryan is of comparable or greater antiquity and shows non-existent non-IE influence while Anatolian is thoroughly permeated with non-IE influence. This then makes another strong plausible case for the Indian subcontinent as the PIE homeland.

Conclusion

Having laid out all the arguments, let us end by a brief summary of it all.

There is little to no evidence, from linguistics, to show that the Indo-Aryan languages are intrusive to the Indian subcontinent and that they replaced a pre-existent non-Indo-European language, neither in the Saraswati-Sindhu region nor further inland for much of the Gangetic plains and nor even in the Central Indian region as far south as where Marathi is spoken.

The Indologists have failed to prove that the linguistic features peculiar to the Indian branch of Indo-European languages are as a result of Dravidian or Munda linguistic influence. They have also failed to show that there are a large no. of loanwords  in ancient and modern Indo-Aryan languages from Dravidian and Munda languages. The alleged loanwords are tiny in number and speculative at best. This situation is totally contrary to what one would expect if Indo-Aryan languages were intrusive to the subcontinent. We can contrast it with the very prominent linguistic influence of non-IE languages on the Hittite and Mycenaean Greek languages.

We also observed that the Indo-Iranian are the largest group within the Indo-European language family making up 50 % of all its speakers and 70 % of all its languages worldwide. Majority of Indo-Iranian languages are spoken within the Indian subcontinent which make up more than half of all IE languages. The subcontinent is also the only place where all the 3 branches of the largest superstock of Indo-European languages – Indo-Iranian – the Indo-Aryan, Iranian and Nuristani are present.

It is also in the subcontinent that we find the voluminous literature of Rigveda, composed in the IE language of Vedic Sanskrit as early as the 3rd millennium BCE. Vedic Sanskrit also happens to be the most faithful preserver of the overall PIE phonological and morphological system. Yet, inspite of being such an archaic and extremely early attested IE language, Vedic Sanskrit is not the direct ancestor of either the Nuristani, or the Iranian, or of Bangani or of the majority of the Indo-Aryan languages. This argues for a very old and complex history of Indo-European languages in South Asia, atleast dating to deep within the the 3rd millennium BCE.

The deep antiquity of IE languages in the Indian subcontinent is also supported by the presence of Tocharian next door, an IE language believed to have separated from the rest of Indo-European languages later only to Anatolian. The evidence of interaction of Indo-European with non-IE languages of the Near East, as far back as the Bronze age, also supports the Indian homeland argument.

Lastly, the phylogenetic break-up and dispersal of IE languages can also be very well explained through the Indian homeland proposal. Thus, a strong case can be made purely on linguistic grounds to suggest an Indian homeland for the origin of Indo-European languages and it is utterly a foolish and biased perspective alone to claim with certainty that the IE languages could not have originated here.

Proto-Indo-Europeans were farmers and not pastoralists

It is interesting to note that while a couple of decades ago and perhaps more, agriculture was not considered a part of Proto-Indo-European culture, it is now no longer the case. It was mistakenly believed that the Indo-Iranians must not have practiced agriculture because apparently the Indo-Iranians did not share an agricultural vocabulary with the rest of the Indo-Europeans (i.e. the European IE). However, more recent research has clearly shown this to be an error and it is now well accepted that the Indo-Iranians shared quite a significant amount of agricultural vocabulary with the other Indo-Europeans, sufficient enough to posit agriculture at the Proto-Indo-European stage.

The overall pattern of agricultural terms has been a persistent topic in IE studies, much of which has been stimulated by the observation that while stockbreeding terms appear to be widespread across the entire range of IE stocks, agricultural terms tend to be confined more closely among the European stocks and are, from a traditional point of view at least, scarce in the Indo-Iranian languages…

However,

…there is no case whatsoever for assuming that the ancestors of all the Indo-European stocks did not know cereal agriculture. While there may have been speculation in the past as to whether some terms might have applied originally to the gathering and processing of wild plants, terms for the plow, cultivated field, and techniques appropriate to the processing of domesticated cereals whose home range lay outside of most of Europe, suggest that all the earliest Indo-Europeans knew agriculture before their dispersals. (Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Mallory & Adams, 1997).

The term that is cited as the major culprit for this error denotes a cultivated field in European languages while in Sanskrit it simply means a plain.

The second term (*haegˆros) has caused much discussion as the European cognates indicate a cultivated field (e.g. Lat ager, OE æcer [> NE acre], Grk agro´s, Arm art, all ‘field’) while the Skt a´jra- means simply ‘plain’ with no indication of agriculture. This divergence of meaning led to the proposal that the Indo-Iranians separated from the Europeans before they had gained agriculture so that we might posit a pastoral Indo-Iranian world and an agricultural European. Such a distinction is not borne out by the abundant evidence that Indo-Iranians also shared in an agricultural vocabulary… (The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World. Mallory & Adams, 2006).

…the Proto-Indo-Europeans possessed an economy based on domesticated livestock and domestic cereals. Earlier models such as those developed in detail by Wilhelm Brandenstein (1936) that suggested a marked dichotomy between arable Europeans and pastoral Indo-Iranians (or Tokharians) cannot really be sustained (Mallory 1997b) and despite a considerable number of differences there is still a substantial amount of shared agricultural vocabulary between European and Asian languages (Table 1 and 2). While the lists of cognates can certainly be criticized in certain specifics and they may well be an over-optimistic summary, I fear that there would still be a sufficient assemblage of words to indicate that both Europeans and Asiatic Indo-Europeans shared inherited words for both livestock and arable agriculture… (Twenty-first century clouds over Indo-European Homelands. Mallory 2012).

A brief overview of the shared agricultural vocabulary which indicates the state of agriculture among the proto-Indo-Europeans is as under –

Terms associated in general with agriculture can be found in both the European and Asian languages. Without specifying the precise nature of the cereal, we have at least six words for grains…The word *ga/ondh- “wheat?”, although cited in some handbooks because of its attestation in Hittite, Indo-Iranian, and Tocharian, is most likely an Asiatic loanword (Witzel 2006:97–99). There is also a word for “weed” or “rye” (*h2éreh2-) and an esculent root (*ālu-). There are also several words for the anatomy of a cereal or products of its processing, e.g., awn (*h2ekstí-) and chaff (*pelo/eh2-). The activities associated with plowing (*h2erh3ye/o-, *ghel-), harrowing (*h3ekéteh2-), and the hoe (*mat-) are preserved as well as all the major processes from sowing (*seh1-) to threshing (*wers-) and grinding (*melh2-, *peis-, *h2el-) as well as the word for sickle (*s r˳ po/eh2-).

While the exploitation of plants in the Asian IE languages seems secure, the specific nature of those plants is not. One of the most widespread words for a cereal is *yéwos and although it does designate “wheat” in Greek, it means “barley” in Armenian and Indic and either “barley” or simply “grain” in Anatolian and Iranian. Another word, *dr˳hxweh2- means “wheat” in Germanic but “rye” in Celtic, just “grain” in Tocharian, and it is a “grass” in Indic. “Barley” is the better bet for *yéwos and it is the only meaning we have for *h2élbhit, which is found in Greek, Armenian, and Iranian… (Indo-European Dispersals and the Eurasian Steppe, J P Mallory 2014).

The data shows that the early Indo-Europeans, even before the separation and dispersal of the Anatolian branch were familiar with the cultivation of wheat and barley and a few other cereals.

The reconstructed vocabulary for domesticated plants forms a restricted part of the botanical vocabulary as a whole although it is clear from the approximately twenty lexical items that the Proto-Indo-European community was familiar with cereal agriculture, particularly with wheat and barley, and there are at least half a dozen strongly reconstructed terms associated with planting, harvesting, and processing cereal grains. While this has little geographical importance it does indicate that Proto-Indo-Europeans must have had at least a Neolithic subsistence base, i.e. date no earlier than c. 8000 bc, and that there is no question of their adhering to some form of (largely mythic) pure pastoral economy. (Mallory & Adams, 2006).

 

No evidence of farming on the Steppe

The foregoing discussion makes it clear that there should be evidence of barley and wheat cultivation in any proposed Proto-Indo-European homeland as well as plentiful evidence of agricultural practices. However, this requirement puts a formidable obstacle for the proposal of the Steppe as the PIE homeland.

Mallory (2014) points out what ails the steppe…

We have so far seen that there is no certain evidence for the consumption of domesticated cereals in the steppe populations of the Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age and where there is some evidence for utilizing plants in the diet, e.g., among Yamnaya burials of the Caspian steppe (Shishlina 2008:232–33), all plant/pollen pollen remains identified belonged to wild plants such as chenopodium, artemisia, and ephedra.

So there is no evidence of agriculture among the Yamnaya folks who apparently brought the IE languages to the early European farmers.

But the problem is even more acute when it comes to the origin and migration of Asiatic branches (Indo-Iranian & Tocharian) of the Indo-European family from their proposed steppe homeland. Mallory (2012) citing none other than Anthony himself notes,

As Anthony remarks in this symposium, there is really no serious evidence for arable agriculture (domestic cereals) east of the Dnieper until after c 2000 BCE (see also Ryabogina & Ivanov 2011; Mallory, in press:a). This means that there is also no evidence for domestic cereals in the Asiatic steppe until the Late Bronze Age (Andronovo etc). From the perspective of the Pontic-Caspian model, the ancestors of the Indo-Iranians and Tokharians should not cross the Ural before c 2000 BCE at the very earliest.

The Sintashta culture is presumed to be the staging ground from where the Indo-Iranians marched southwards into the Iranian plateau and the Indian subcontinent. Yet the data from Sintashta settlements is equally damning,

Previous archaeological and archaeozoological investigations have revealed that the Sintashta economy was mainly based on livestock herding of cattle, small cattle and horses. There is additional evidence for fishing as well as some copper metallurgy, while the role of agriculture is still being discussed. Archaeobotanical studies therefore focused on the question whether the Bronze Age settlers cultivated, processed or stored crop plants. All cultural layers and important settlement features were systematically sampled, wet-sieved and subjected to plant macro-remain analysis. Anthracological (charcoal) samples were taken from burnt structures and charcoal concentrations. As no evidence for either cultivated plants or agricultural practices was found in the settlement, it can be concluded that farming was not practised at Kamennyi Ambar, and that the Sintashta economy was exclusively based on animal husbandry and fishing in that steppe region…

…From all the evidence, agriculture was not a part of the Sintashta economy, since neither cereals nor plants that could be related to any other cultivation practice were found. This supports recent research opinions stating that agriculture was not practiced in the Trans-Urals and adjacent regions until the Late Bronze or early Iron Ages (Epimakhov 2010; Anthony et al. 2005; Anthony and Brown 2007; Ryabogina and Ivanov 2011). (source : Archaeobotanical analysis of plant use at Kamennyi Ambar…, Ruhl et al. 2014).

Let me quote from another more recent study (Hanks et al. 2018),

The isotopic results from KA-5, and recent botanical and archaeological studies from the Kamennyi Ambar settlement, have not produced any evidence for the production or use of domesticated cereals. While this does not definitively answer the question as to whether Sintashta populations engaged in agriculture and/or utilized agricultural products, it does call into serious question the ubiquity of such practices across the region and correlates well with recent archaeological, bioarchaeological, and isotopic studies of human and animal remains from the Southwestern Urals region and Samara Basin. (Bronze Age diet and economy : New stable isotope data from the Central Eurasian steppes (2100-1700 BC))

In other words, neither during the Yamnaya phase nor doing the supposed Indo-Iranian Sintashta phase, there is any evidence of farming on the steppe, all the way from Dnieper to the Altai and whatever evidence there is only indicates the use of wild plants. This is strikingly at odds with the extensive agricultural vocabulary of the Indo-Europeans and the Indo-Iranians. What this effectively means for the proponents of the steppe theory is apparently the Indo-Iranians somehow miraculously preserved agricultural vocabulary from the PIE period, including the PIE cognates of wheat and barley, despite there being no evidence of agriculture in their homeland on the steppe. Moreover they managed to impose this vocabulary on the advanced Bronze age civilizations of Central and South Asia that had been practicing agriculture including the cultivation of barley and wheat for several millenia.

This is a most absurd proposition and it massively invalidates the steppe as the point of origin of the Indo-Europeans and the Indo-Iranians. The lack of agriculture on the steppe may ultimately lead to the abandonment of the Pontic-Caspian steppe as the PIE or early IE homeland.

Indo-Iranians and Agriculture

We may note that rather remarkably, for a group that was traditionally condemned to have been pastoralists in comparison to their ‘agricultural’ European cousins within IE, not only have the Indo-Iranians substantially preserved IE terms of agriculture, they have also managed to preserve the PIE terms for wheat and barley which are absent among the European branches.

Wheat

-> For wheat, we have in Sanskrit ‘godhuma’ and in Avestan ‘gantuma‘, Persian ‘gandum‘ which are cognate terms with Tocharian B ‘kanti‘ (bread) and Hittite ‘kant’, Luwian ‘kanta‘ both meaning wheat. This word being present in two of the earliest separated groups such as the Hittites and Tocharian, indicates its great antiquity dating to the PIE period while its presence in Indo-Iranian and Tocharian also ensures that it is unlikely to be a loanword in Hittite from a Near Eastern substrate. The cognates of this word are, however, not present in any of the European IE languages.

The argument, made by Mallory & Adams (2006) and Mallory (2014), that it must be a loanword from a non-IE Asiatic language source rings quite hollow. The Anatolians (Hittites, Luwians & Palaics) and Tocharians (A & B) separated quite early from the Indo-Iranians and there is zero evidence that the Anatolians ever had any later geographical proximity with the Indo-Iranians of Central and South Asia. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that Indo-Iranians and Tocharians in South and Central Asia would somehow use the same loanword for wheat which the Hittites and Luwians used in Anatolia several thousand miles to their west. Which culture and language in Asia could it possibly be that could loan this word for wheat to such widely separate groups ?

If this indeed was a loanword, the Hittites and Luwians were likely to have received it from the Hurrians and Hattic speakers of pre-Hittite Anatolia who were already cultivating wheat. Likewise the Indo-Iranians would naturally have borrowed it, if it was a loanword, from either the BMAC or the Harappan languages. Why would they borrow it from an altogether different source which moreover loaned the word to all the 3 geographically separate groups Therefore, there are solid grounds to believe that this cognate word for wheat in Indo-Iranian, Anatolian and Tocharian dates from the PIE period.

-> Mallory & Adams (2006) point to Hittite ‘sep(p)it’ as another likely PIE term for wheat but which is absent in other IE languages. However, a quick search on the online Sanskrit English dictionary, reveals that there is indeed a word ‘supistam‘ in Sanskrit which means wheat flour, which is most likely cognate with the Hittite term. It is quite likely therefore that Sanskrit has also managed to preserve this very archaic PIE term along with Hittite.

-> Gamkrelidze and Ivanov (1995) point to another possible word for wheat shared between Greek, Sanskrit and Balto-Slavic – Greek ‘puros’, Sanskrit ‘pura‘, Lithuanian ‘purai‘. However, its absence in Hittite, Tocharian and the other European branches makes it unlikely to be as old as the PIE period but it is still significant in the sense that the Indo-Iranians and some of the European branches seem to share a late IE word for wheat.

Barley

Coming to Barley, we have another cognate which is shared between the Hittites and the Indo-Iranians – Hittite ‘ewan‘ – barley, Persian ‘jav‘, Sanskrit ‘yava‘, Greek ‘zeiai‘ (wheat) and Lithuanian ‘jawai‘ (grain). It is derived from PIE verbal root *yeu ‘ripen, mature’. This word is again absent from most of the European IE languages.

There is another cognate which has in Sanskrit ‘sasyam’ (grain,fruit), Avestan ‘hahya’ (providing grain), Hittite ‘sesa(na)’ (fruit), northern Welsh (Celtic) ‘haidd‘ (barley) and Ligurian (Italic) ‘asia‘ (rye). This is another likely PIE word as can be seen from its distribution. Here again, besides the cognate term, the Indo-Iranians have also managed to preserve the same meaning of the cognate as in Hittite while others have transferred the meaning to something else.

Millets

In contrast to the words for barley and wheat, there is a word for millet which is shared between Germanic, Italic and Indic.  Northern High German ‘hirse‘ (millet), Latin ‘ceres’ (bread, grain), Kalash ‘karasha‘ (millet) and perhaps Sanskrit ‘kharA’/’kharAgari’ (type of millet plant). It may be noted that recent evidence indicates that the arrival followed by extensive cultivation of millets in Europe began only in the 2nd millennium BCE, likely from Central Asia. This may explain why the term for millet managed to survive in European languages unlike the cognates for wheat and barley which were already cultivated in Europe for long by the pre-IE people of that continent.

‘Millet’ as either an original meaning or a specific designation of a more generic word for ‘grain’ is interesting since it is not normally assigned to the early Neolithic package that entered Europe from the Near East but may have rather originated in central or east Asia (it is also found in the Harppan culture of India) and entered Europe across the steppelands. (Mallory & Adams, 2006).

Still another term is Sanskrit ‘dhAnya‘ (grain, cereal), Lithuanian ‘duona‘ (bread), Persian ‘dana‘ and Tocharian B ‘tano‘ (grain). This may or may not be PIE.

So quite extraordinarily, the Indo-Iranians have managed to preserve several original PIE terms for barley, wheat and other grains many of which are otherwise preserved only in Hittite, the earliest separated IE language. On the contrary, it is the European IE languages who have not managed to preserve the PIE cognate terms for most of the cereals, likely due to the influence of the pre-IE agriculturalists of Europe, the exception being millets which were only introduced in Europe in the 16th century BCE as per the latest evidence. This is an extremely important point of reference in locating the Indo-Iranian homeland.

Agriculture among the Harappans

In contrast to the steppe, agriculture among the Harappans was quite complex and advanced and they cultivated a wide variety of crops including wheat, barley and millets.

The Harappans grew lentils and other pulses (peas, chickpeas, green gram, black gram). Their main staples were wheat and barley, which were presumably made into bread and perhaps also cooked with water as a gruel or porridge. In some places, particularly Gujarat, they also cultivated some native millets; possibly broomcorn millet, which may have been introduced from southern Central Asia; and by 2000 BC, if not before, African millets. They fed local wild rice to their animals and probably began to cultivate it, though rice does not become an important crop until Post-Harappan times. The Harappans must have eaten a range of fruit, vegetables and spices : these included a variety of brassica, brown mustard greens, coriander, dates, jujube, walnuts, grapes, figs; many others, such as mango, okra, caper, sugarcane, garlic, turmeric, ginger, cumin and cinnamon, were locally available and probably grown or gathered by the Harappans, but the evidence is lacking. Sesame was grown for oil, and linseed oil may also have been used. (Harappa.com)

 

Conclusion

How did a group such as the Indo-Iranians, who supposedly originated on the steppe where there is no evidence of cultivation of either of the major crops or even of rudimentary agriculture, manage to achieve the feat of preserving the Proto-Indo-European terms of agriculture including that for wheat and baley, after having overrun the supposed non-IE speaking advanced urban agriculturalists of BMAC and Harappan civilizations ? How does any of this even make sense ?

The data would only make sense if either the Indo-Iranians had moved the least farther away from their PIE agricultural homeland or if in the case of their migration, they had moved into a region that did not quite have an agriculture as advanced as their PIE homeland.

Since, the agriculture practiced by the Harappans was quite advanced with multi-cropping as well as cultivation in both summer and winter, it is unlikely that there was any civilization around, much less on the steppe, that could have managed to completely or even partially impose its agricultural vocabulary on them. It is therefore more appropriate to suggest that the Indo-Iranians were those Indo-Europeans who moved the least distance away from the agricultural PIE homeland, in contrast to their European cousins. This implies that the PIE homeland must have been in a place close to the present inhabitation of the Indo-Iranians.

A similar argument in case of the Anatolian branches cannot be sustained since we have unequivocal evidence of substantial substratal influence on the Anatolian languages of IE from non-IE Hattic and Hurrian languages while no such pre-IE language has ever been detected in the traditional Indo-Iranian homelands of NW India, Eastern Iran and South Central Asia.

(In view of Ugra’s very useful comment, I had to look deeper and found that the post itself needed revision. So here it is.)

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?????????, ?? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ??? ??????? ???? ?? ????????? ??? ???? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???? ??? ?????? ??????????? ?? ??? ???? ?????????? ??? ????-???????? ?????? ?? ??? ??? ?????????? ??? ???? ????. ???? ????????? ?? ???? ?? ???? ??????? ?? ???? ??? ??????? ???? ???????? ?? ????????? ??? ?????? ??????? ???? ?? ??? ???? ??? ?? ??? ????-???????? ???? ???? ????? ???????????? ??? ?????????? ???? ??????? ???? ??? ????.

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…?? ????? ???? ??? ???? ??????? ???? ???????? ???????? ?? ???? ?????, ?? ???? ????? ???????? ??????? ????? ?? ?????????? ???????? ?? ????? ?? ?????? ??? ???? ????????. ?????? ??? ?????? ?????? ?? ???? ????: ???? ??? ???? ?????? ???????? ??? ????????? ??? ???? ????????? ????! ????? ??????? ??? ???????? ?? ???????????, ?????? ???? ?? ? ?????? ??? ???????? ????? ???? ?? ????? ?? ????????? ??? ???? ?? “??????” (?? ?? ????? ?? ???????? ???????). ?? ???? ????? ???? ????? ??????????? ???? ????????? ?????? ?? ??????? ???? ??????? ????????? ???? ????.

???????????, ??? ??????? ????? ??????? ?? ????????? ???? ?? ?? ?????? ?????? ???????? ??????????? ?? ??? ????????????? ?? ?????? ????????? ??????? ??? ?????????, ??? ???? ???? ???? ??? ??????? ???????. ?? ???? ??????, ? ?????? ????????? ?? ????? ?????? ? ?????? ?? ??? ??????? ?????? ??? ?? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ?? ?? ? ?????? ???????.

?????? ?? ?? ???? ???? ?????? ??????? ??? ???? ???????? ?? ???? ????? ??????? ????? ????? ??? ??????? ???? ?? ? ???? ???? ???? ?????????, ? ????? ?? ???????? ?????? ??? ???? ?? ????? ????? ???? ???? ? ??????? ???????? ????? ??? ??????? ?????. ??? ????? ??? ??????? ????? ??????????? ????? ??????? ?? ??? ????????? ?????? ?????? ??? ???? ????????????? ?? ??? ????, ???? ???????????, ?????, ??????, ???????? ??? ?????? ??? ??????.  ??? ?????? ??????? ?? ?? ??????? ??????? ??? ???? ?? ???????? ???? ??????? ????? ????? ???? ???? ????? ???????, ????? ??? ?????? ??????? ??? ????? ??????? ?? ???? ?????????.

?? ??? ???? ??? ???? ??????? ???? ????????? ?????? ???????????? ???? ?? ?? ?????? ????????? ??????? ?? ?????? ??? ????????? ??????????? ?? ??? ???? ???????????? ??? ?????? ?? ??????? ???? ??? ???????????? ?? ??? ??????, ????????? ??? ?????? ????? ?? ??? ??? ?????????? ???, ?? ? ?????? ???? ???? ?????? ??? ????????? ?? ??????? ????-???????? ??????. ?? ?? ???? ? ?????? ????????????, ???? ??????? ??? ??????? ?? ???????? ??????, ???? ?? ??? ?????? ???? ??????, ??? ???????, ??? ????????, ?????? ???. ???????????? ?????? ?? ??? ??????.

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?? ???? ???? ???? ??? ????-????????? ???? ?? ??? ?????? ?? ????? ???????? ??? ??? ? ???? ??? ?? ???????? ??????? ???? ? ?????-????-???????? ???? ??? ??? ???????? ???? ??????? ???????? ?????. ???? ????? ???? ???? ??? ?????-????-???????? ???????? ??? ?????? ???????? ???? ??? ??????? ??? ??? ????????? ??? ? ???-????-???????? ?????. ???? ????? ????? ??? ???????? ?? ??????? ?? ?????-????-???????? ????????. ??? ???? ?????? ??? ???????????? ????? ????????? ???????? ???? ??? ??????? ??????? ?? ??????? ??? ??? ????????? ?????? ?? ??? ???????? ???????????? ??? ?? ?? ????????? ???? ?????? ???? ??? ???? ??? ?????? ????? ???? ???? ????????? ???? ??? ???????? ???????? ???? ??? ???? ????? ??? ???? ??????? ?????????.

?? ??? ???? ??? ???? ??? ??????? ???? ??? ????????? ?????? ???????????? ?????? ???????? ??? ?????? ?? ????????? ???? ?? ??? ????????? ??? ?????? ??????? ?? ??? ???? ???????????? ??? ??? ???? ??????? ?????????????, ??????? ?? ????? ???? ????-????????? ???? ?? ??? ???????, ???????? ??? ??? ??????????.

?????????, ????? ?? ?????? ???????? ???? ?? ?? ???? ??? ????????? ?????? ???????????? ???? ??? ??????? ??? ??? ???? ?? ?? ?????? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ??? ???? ????. ??? ?????? ???? ?? ??????? ?? ???? ?????? ?? ???? ??? ??? ???? ???? ??????? ???? ??? ?????????. ?? ?????? ????????, ? ???????? ??????? ??????? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ???????????? ?? ?????????, ??????? ???????? ?? ???? ? ?????? ????????????.

????? ???? ???? ??? ?????? ?? ??????? ?? ????-???????? ??????, ??? ???? ??? ??????? ?? ?? ??? ????-???????? ???????? ??? ??? ???? ???? ??? ????????? ?? ??? ????????? ?????? ???????????? ?

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Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, two major linguists hailing from the former Soviet Union, came out with a major book in the 1980s in Russian, where they proposed the Armenian homeland theory for the origins of Indo-Europeans. They made several arguments to support their theory. Many of these arguments incidentally better support an Indian homeland for Proto-Indo-European. One such argument was their proposal that the Proto-Indo-Europeans were aware of the monkey before they dispersed i.e. they knew of the monkey in their homeland.

To put it in their own words –

?????? ??????????? ??????? ????? ??? ‘??????, ???’ ?? ??? ??????? ????-???????? ???????? ???? ?? ???????? ?? ????? ? ????-??????? ????????? ?? ??? ?????-????-???????? ???? ?????. ??? ???????? ???? ???? ??? ?????? ????, ??? ???? ??????? ?- ??? ??? ??????? ??. ???. ????- ‘??????’ … ??. ????? – ????? ‘????-?????? ??????’… ?????. ???, ?? ??? (????. ???), ??? ???? (???. ????), ?????? ???????… ?????. ????? (??????), ????? ‘??????, ???’… ????. ????? (?5?? ???????), ??. ?????, ?????. ??????, ?????. ???, ?????-??. ?????. ??????? ?????.

So we have the cognate word for monkey in Sanskrit, Greek, Germanic, Celtic and Slavic languages of Indo-European.

Gamkrelidze & Ivanov, though arguing that the word for monkey was already known to the Indo-Europeans in their homeland, insist that this word has come into Indo-European languages through their contact with Southwest Asian or Near Eastern languages. They cite Akkadian ukupu, Hebrew kop, Aramaic kopa and Egyptian gjf – monkey, ape as the early examples.

Yet the problem with this theory, as we shall come to it again, is that monkeys are not native to any place in the Near East. The standard theory so far has been that it is through contact with the Egyptians that the Near Eastern civilizations of Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Levant and the Aegean came to know of the monkeys. Therefore, it is from the Egyptian word that the word for monkey in Indo-European and other Near Eastern languages should derive. Yet as can be seen, the Egyptian word is ouite different and looks unlikely to have been the source word for the other languages. Moreover, it now appears that even in Egypt, the monkey may have gone long extinct and was likely imported via the Horn of Africa, southeast of Egypt.

This leaves us with only the Harappan or Sarasvati Sindhu Civilization which is the only Bronze Age civilization whose geography indeed overlapped with the natural habitat of monkeys. So provisionally, it maybe argued that the word for monkey could have come into the Indo-European and the Near Eastern languages from the Harappan language or languages, whatever they may have been.

Digging into the linguistic aspect of this, we find that as per the Practical Sanskrit English Dictionary, the word kapi, usually referring to ‘monkey’ can also mean an ‘elephant’, the ‘sun’, ‘impure benzoin’, ‘incense’, a ‘species of the karanja tree’ etc. kapiloham means ‘brass’, kapishak means ‘cabbage’, kapila/kapisa means ‘tawny, brownish or reddish’ colour, kapana is a ‘worm’ or ‘caterpilar’, kapota is a ‘pigeon’ and so on. As per the Sanskrit Etymological Dictionary, the word kapi is said to derive from the root word *kamp which means ‘to tremble’ or ‘shake’. A derivative word kampra means ‘trembling’ or ‘shaken’ but also ‘movable’, ‘agile’ & ‘ouick’. A likely derivative of *kamp is kap which means ‘to move’. Therefore kapi, in the context of a monkey, may plausibly mean ‘one who moves ouickly’, an apt description.

Looking for the Proto-Indo-European root, we come across a root *kap or *kehp, meaning to ‘seize or grasp or hold’. Possible derivatives of this root include Greek kapane – ‘wagon’, kope – ‘grip,handle’, kapos – ‘garden,orchard’, latin captus – ‘captured, seized, taken’.

It is also said to be the root for the English words ‘hawk’ and ‘captive’ among many others. While the Proto-Indo-European root and its meaning fail to adeouately explain all the myriad different ways in which the derived words are used in various IE languages, for our purpose it is ouite adeouate. kapi may thus be derived from PIE root *kap – ‘to seize, hold’ to mean as one who grasps or can grasp. Monkeys, ouite uniouely among animals, have the ability to grasp things or objects with their forelimbs and this would not have gone unnoticed to the ancient people. This may also explain the name of kapi for elephant since it can also grasp with its trunk, as also the hawk in English since the hawk has a habit to grasp its prey in its sharp talons.

It may therefore be argued that the Proto-Indo-European word for monkey, as argued by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, is not a loan word but derives from a sound PIE root. We already noted earlier that the word for monkey in the Near East may have been a loanword from the Sarasvati Sindhu Civilization and now we can see that this word is of likely Indo-European origin.

Does this mean, that Indo-European languages were spoken in the Sarasvati Sindhu Civilization ?

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Turning to the archaeological evidence, monkeys were depicted on frescoes and seals and objects, accessories were often fashioned in the shape of monkeys. The inspiration for this in Near Eastern art is usually considered to have come from ancient Egypt.

But, it has now become increasingly clear, as this recent study shows, that monkeys or baboons were not native to Egypt either and the ancient Egyptians themselves imported their monkeys from much further south and east, mostly from the fabled land of punt, which is the eastern African coast, and from where incidentally, objects of Harappan origin also reached Egypt.

Viktor Sarianidi, was an archaeologist credited with the discovery of the Bronze Age civilization of BMAC, also known today as the Oxus civilization. He was an ardent supporter of Gamkrelidze and Ivanov’s theory and argued for an archaeological evidence of Syro-Anatolian influence on the Oxus civilization. He believed the Oxus civilization to be Indo-Iranian speaking and therefore interpreted the perceived Syro-Anatolian influence on Oxus in terms of Indo-Iranian migrations from that region, which during that period had various Indo-European groups such as the Mitanni, Hittites and Mycenaeans dominating the landscape.

He also interpreted the depiction of monkeys on Oxus seals as yet another evidence of Near Eastern Indo-Europeans.As per Sarianidi,

?????????? ?? ??????? ??? ????? ?? ????? ???? ???????, ????? ???? ?????????? ??? ? ?????? ????????????…?? ?? ????? ???? ?? ???? ???????? ??? ??????? ??????? ?????? ??? ???? ?? ??????? ?????????? ?? ????????? ?????????? ????????? ?????????. ??????? ???? ??????? ?? ????? ????? ??? ???????? ?? ??? ???? ?? ????????, ?????, ??????????? ??? ????? ??? ?????? ??? ???????? ??? ?????????? ?????? ?? ????? ???? ????? ?? ??????? ?? ????????? ?????????? ?????????? ??? ?????? ?? ????? ?????? ????? ?????? ?? ??? ???? ?? ??????? ??? ??????? ????????.

Sarianidi admits that none of these parallels in the Near East could be dated to earlier than the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. Sarianidi believed in a lower chronology of the Oxus civilization and therefore found nothing out of place in this. Nevertheless, we now know that the Oxus civilization began as early as 2400 BCE i.e. hundreds of years before the Indo-Europeans begin showing up in the Near East.

Yet if we were to hold onto the parallels Sarianidi draws between the culture of the Oxus and the 2nd millenium BC IE groups in Syria, Anatolia and the Aegean, we have to wonder – is this evidence of Oxus influence on the IE groups of the Near East ? And if so, was Oxus an Indo-European civilization ?

In this context, the monkey iconography also assumes significance. The Near Eastern monkey iconography is unlikely to have influenced the parallel iconography in Oxus since the Oxus dates from an earlier period but also because, the Oxus was culturally close to the Sarasvati Sindhu Civilization where monkeys were found in their natural habitat.

Rather, it is more likely that the monkey iconography of the Oxus influenced the Indo-European groups of the 2nd millennium BCE Near East. Also important to note in this respect is that the monkeys were depicted in religious and sacred imagery both in the Oxus and in the Indo-European Near East which demonstrates the importance that monkeys held for them.

More recently, archaeologists of the Aegean Bronze Age, managed to conduct a multi-disciplinary study of the Minoan frescoes and were pleasantly surprised to find that the uptailed blue colored monkeys were Hanuman langurs of Indian origin. Not only that, these Indian monkeys were found playing an important role in an iconic Minoan frescoes fundamental in the understanding of Minoan religious beliefs and practices. In that fresco, a female attendant in shown giving a flower to the Hanuman langur who in turn in shown giving to a seated goddess.

Pareja et al also show that Indian monkeys are also depicted in some other objects found among the Minoans such as a seal made from carnelian, a stone of Harappan origin and also an ivory stamp seal with a typical Harappan cross and chevron motif. The depiction of monkeys on Minoan frescoes is so realistic that Pareja et al argue that the Minoan artist must have seen a real Hanuman langur.

Here we may note that monkeys have been found buried at the site of Shahr-i-Sokhta in Iran, far away from its Indian homeland. Shahr-i-Sokhta is the site from which the majority of Harappan ‘migrant’ samples were published by Narasimhan et al. Thus, Harappan monkeys could well be travelling long distances with their human masters.

We can see that monkeys from Sarasvati Sindhu Civilization went on to become important players in sacred and religious iconography of the Oxus civilization and likely in Eastern Iran and subseouently in the Syrian, Anatolian and Aegean world of the 2nd millennium BCE, in a period when that region was dominated by several Indo-European groups.

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We have seen that the Indo-Europeans knew of the monkey in their homeland and had a word for it directly derived from a proto-Indo-European root and not borrowed from another language group. This would mean that the Proto-Indo-European homeland had direct contacts with the monkeys and not secondary via a non-Indo-European group. This would imply the presence of monkeys in Proto-Indo-European homeland. The only Bronze Age civilization whose geography overlaps with the natural habitat of monkeys was the Sarasvati Sindhu Civilization.

Similarly, we can also see that it is the monkeys from the Sarasvati Sindhu Civilization that likely inspired and played an important role in the religious and cultic beliefs of the Oxus civilization and the Near Eastern civilizations, several of which were Indo-Europeans such as the Mitanni, Hittites and the Mycenaeans.

Therefore, there is strong evidence that it is from the Sarasvati Sindhu Civilization that the monkeys and the word of it became known in the Bronze Age Near East. The sacred role of monkeys is also worthy of note and may have also derived from the Harappans since in Hinduism, a religion majorly derived from the Bronze age civilization of Harappans, monkeys continue to hold a sacred significance.

Since this word for monkey is clearly of Indo-European origin, how does one explain it if the Sarasvati Sindhu Civilization was not an Indo-European civilization ?