Wiktionary talk:About Dardic

Descent from Sanskrit

@AryamanA, Victar, DerekWinters, Kutchkutch This is going to be a little long and I do apologize for returning to this topic. However, the last discussion was rather hasty and premature and has not convinced me at all. Why do we not consider Dardic to be a descendant of Sanskrit? We have Encyclopædia Iranica which cannot be an authority on the subject and another paper which has other factual errors as well. Often when Dardic is classified separately, it is confused with Nuristani. Georg Morgenstierne, Buddruss and Asko Parpola are confident of the fact that they are descended from Sanskrit. The following is the undeniable linguistic evidence that should convince you that Dardic languages are in fact from Sanskrit proper:

• First off, unlike the Prakrits and Pali, Dardic had no later influence from literary Sanskrit. It was confined to remote areas in Pakistan so we cannot say that the consistencies found are later hypercorrections.
• The new Indo Aryan tendency to weaken aspirates bh, dh, gh does not exist in Dardic; as such only the aspiration in lost. Yet, Proto-IA *źʰ results in -h- or is deleted. z exists in Dardic phonology, so why did *źʰ not become ź? (Example: हस्त (hasta) --> Khowar host, Kalasha and Gawri hast. अहि (ahi) --> Khowar ai).
• z is not impossible for Dardic. Yet, Indo-Aryan z and ẓ have been lost. Case in point: पीडयति (pīḍayati), पीळयति (pīḷayati) --> Khowar peḷik. दृळ्ह (dṛḷha) --> Khowar doḷ.
• In the few instances where Sanskrit has weakened bh and dh to h, the following has happened:
  • Prakrits have partially preserved the original sound (Skt. इह (iha) vs Pali idha).
  • However, Dardic has weakened them too! Example: रोहिणी (rohiṇī) from PIE *rewdʰ "red" gives Khowar ron and Gawri ruīnī. गृहते (gṛhate) from grebʰ gives Khowar griik. Dardic never weakens bh and dh to h otherwise as evidenced by many words.
• The outcome of क्ष (kṣa) is Dardic c̣(h) in ALL cases. If they are somewhat the same in the Prakrits, it can be said that it was later influence but not for Dardic. क्षरति (kṣarati) --> Khowar c̣horik as opposed to Pkt. jharai.
  • So we have:
    • PIA *gẓʰ- --> Dardic c̣h (c̣horik)
    • PIA *ćṣ --> Dardic c̣h (क्षेत्र (kṣetra) --> Kalasha and Khowar c̣hetr)
    • PIA *kṣ --> Dardic c̣h (क्षीर (kṣīra) --> Kalasha and Khowar c̣hir)
• In the instances where Sanskrit has turned r to l and it is not present in other IE languages, Dardic has the l. Example: Sanskrit लोमन् (loman) -> Kashmiri lūm.
• Later loans in Vedic (like खल (khala), खण्ड (khaṇḍa)) have made it to Dardic (Khowar khol, Shina khan respectively).
• Terms from later Sanskrit proper like इन्द्रधनु (indradhanu), परलोक (paraloka), इन्द्र-द्यूत (indra-dyūta), वंशी (vaṃśī) have been inherited by Dardic.
• The change PIA ẓḍ --> ḷ is Vedic in origin but also seen in Dardic. Did both of them independently change this sound to the same retroflex l, which in the first place is unlikely to result from ẓḍ?

The above points cannot be coincidental. Dardic and Sanskrit did not independently undergo the sound changes and yet ended up so similar. If we consider Pali and Prakrit, both with their inconsistencies (like preserving pre-Skt clusters), we have to consider Dardic to be descended from Sanskrit. That Dardic is descended from Sanskrit can be said with better certainty than for Prakrits and Pali. -- माधवपंडित (talk) 02:52, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

I will add my thoughts tomorrow, but a lot more examples specific to Dardic are found in Masica 1991 (The Indo-Aryan Languages), particularly chapter 7 "Historical Phonology", and they all appear to agree with Madhavpandit's statements. —Aryaman^{A (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान)} 03:18, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

To be clear, 1. no one is using Encyclopædia Iranica as the basis of fact -- it was simply used to illustrate the commonality of a theory, and 2. to offhandedly dismiss the entirety of {{R:iir-nur:Blažek:2010}} simply because one disagrees with some of the data would be rather foolhardy. I'm heading out of town, so I'll reply more later, but if you can grab a copy, I recommend you read Kogan (2005) Dardic languages: genetic characteristics. --Victar (talk) 03:58, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

@Victar: Using only lexicostatistics as a basis for language classification would also be rather foolhardy. (BTW I didn't disagree with their data, only the chart they took from Starostin, which has been the subject of criticism in literature as well.)

I'll try to find and read Dardic languages: genetic characteristics before commenting though. —Aryaman^{A (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान)} 21:22, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

@AryamanA, माधवपंडित Did you find a copy of Kogan (2005)? If not, Kogan points out that Dardic languages (except Eastern Dardic), differentiate between PII *ḱs and *k⁽ʷ⁾s as *čʰ and *č̣ʰ, respectively. I've also been reading Zoller (2015) A Grammar and Dictionary of Indus Kohistani, which acknowledges this distinction preserved in Dardic, but somehow explains it away, and goes on to postulate that Dardic languages are the modern successors Gāndhārī, itself from Vedic (not Epic or Classical Sanskrit). I'll read through it some more, while doing some other research. --Victar (talk) 05:57, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

@Victar: Could not find a copy but fair enough. What is "Vendic"? Do you mean Vedic? If yes, then Wikt. does not differentiate Vedic and Classical Sanskrit although I did see a separate code recently. Would also like to know about some of the other points like dropping the PIA z in spite of z existing in Dardic phonology. -- माधवपंडित (talk) 06:06, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

@माधवपंडित, no I mean the obscure PIA dialect of Vendic... of course I mean Vedic! I'm aware the project does not differentiate between Vedic and Classical Sanskrit, and I think that's for the best, but when talking about stages of development, one must be specific. To call Dardic a descendent of Vedic is also incorrect. We have to say that Dardic is a descendant of an OIA stage that still retained the distinction between *ḱs and *k⁽ʷ⁾s. Also, if we say Dardic is derived from Gandhari, we have to also say that that common OIA stage also retained *-siy-, which became -sy- in Vedic. Despite all these archasims, Gandhari still underwent Sanskritization, and Dardic was greatly influenced by Nuristani, which is why also we find many contradictions. --Victar (talk) 16:30, 13 February 2018 (UTC)