by BAHATA ANSUMALI MUKHOPADHYAY
Abstract
Ever since the discovery of Indus valley civilization, scholars have debated the linguistic identities of its people. This study analyzes numerous archaeological, linguistic, archaeogenetic and historical evidences to claim that the words used for elephant (like, ‘p?ri’, ‘p?ru’) in Bronze Age Mesopotamia, the elephant-word used in the Hurrian part of an Amarna letter of ca. 1400 BC, and the ivory-word (‘pîruš’) recorded in certain sixth century BC Old Persian documents, were all originally borrowed from ‘p?lu’, a Proto-Dravidian elephant-word, which was prevalent in the Indus valley civilization, and was etymologically related to the Proto-Dravidian tooth-word ‘*pal’ and its alternate forms (‘*p?l’/‘*pi?’/‘*pel’). This paper argues that there is sufficient morphophonemic evidence of an ancient Dravidian ‘*pi?’/‘*p?l’-based root, which meant ‘splitting/crushing’, and was semantically related to the meanings ‘tooth/tusk’. This paper further observes that ‘p?lu’ is among the most ancient and common phytonyms of the toothbrush tree Salvadora persica, which is a characteristic flora of Indus valley, and whose roots and twigs have been widely used as toothbrush in IVC regions since antiquity. This study claims that this phytonym ‘p?lu’ had also originated from the same Proto-Dravidian tooth-word, and argues that since IVC people had named their toothbrush trees and tuskers (elephants) using a Proto-Dravidian tooth-word, and since these names were widely used across IVC regions, a significant population of Indus valley civilization must have used that Proto-Dravidian tooth-word in their daily communication. Since ‘tooth’ belongs to the core non-borrowable ultraconserved vocabulary of a speech community, its corollary is that a significant population of IVC spoke certain ancestral Dravidian languages. Important insights from recent archaeogenetic studies regarding possible migration of Proto-Dravidian speakers from Indus valley to South India also corroborate the findings of this paper.
Introduction
Indus valley civilization (IVC) and its linguistic diversity
IVC, stretching across almost one million square kilometres of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the North-Western part of India (Kenoyer, 2010), was the most expansive of chalcolithic civilizations. Right from the discovery of IVC and its enigmatic script, several scholars have tried to trace the types of languages spoken in IVC. Types of languages presently spoken in the IVC regions are: Indo-Aryan (e.g., Punjabi in Punjab with dialects Siraiki and Lahnda, Sindhi in Sindh, Hindi, Marwari, Gujarati in eastern parts of Greater Indus Valley); Dardic (e.g., Shina, Khowar, Kohistani); Iranian (e.g., Baluchi, Dari, Pashto, and Wakhi in western parts of Greater Indus Valley); Nuristani in northeastern Afghanistan; Dravidian; Brahui (spoken in Baluchistan and Sindh); and Burushaski (a language isolate) spoken in northernmost Pakistan close to the Chinese border (Parpola, 2015, pp. 163–164).
Since the ancient world was generally more multilinguistic (12,000–20,000 languages existed before spread of agriculture, compared to some 7000 human languages of present times) (Pagel, 2009), ancient IVC too arguably hosted more languages than today. This makes it unlikely that all the languages spoken in its 1,00,0000 square-kilometre expanse belonged to only one linguistic group, whether Proto-Indo-Aryan, Proto-Dravidian or Proto-Austroasiatic. Languages of various groups, including some presently extinct languages (Masica, 1979), might have coexisted in IVC for ages, influencing and shaping one another.
The perennial puzzle regarding IVC languages: how archaeologists, linguists, historians and genetic anthropologists approach the problem
Arguments from archaeology and linguistics
Incommoded by the absence of any deciphered written record composed in IVC (Indus script is still undeciphered), scholars hold vastly different opinions regarding types of languages spoken in IVC. Once an advocate of the idea of a ‘Para-Munda’ (not ‘Proto-Munda’) speaking IVC (Witzel, 1999, 2000, 2009), Witzel, presently prefers keeping the question of ‘original’ Indian language(s) ‘open’, till better reconstructions of Dravidian and Munda languages, and investigation of substrate words of ancient indigenous languages present in North-Indian Indo-Aryan languages are done (Witzel, 2019). While many linguists (Parpola, 2015; Driem, 1999; Osada, 2006) have opposed the Austroasiatic-related hypotheses regarding IVC’s languages, Southworth (2004, pp. 325–328) shares Witzel’s ‘Para-Munda’ theory, despite vigorously advancing the idea of prehistoric Dravidian influence on various languages presently spoken in IVC regions (e.g., Sindh, Gujarat, Maharashtra). Although some scholars claim that IVC language(s) belonged to some Proto-Indo-Aryan/Early-Indo-European language group (Renfrew, 1987, pp. 185–208; Rao, 1982), many others (e.g., Krishnamurti, 2003, p. 501; Parpola, 1994) defend a Proto-Dravidian speaking IVC. Parpola (1988, 1994, 2015) proposes Proto-Dravidian etymologies of suspect substrate words (e.g., kiy?mbu, ?aka?am, o?, kinnara) present in Vedic texts, and certain suspect Indic words found in Mesopotamian texts (the ‘magilum’ boats of Meluhha); suggests that some of the fish-like signs of Indus script represented the Dravidian fish-word ‘mina’, to spell out certain Dravidian theophoric astral names prevalent in IVC; and adduces additional anthropological and ethnographic proofs of Dravidian influence, including Dravidian kinship and cross-cousin marriage rules practiced in the presently Indo-Aryan speaking societies of IVC regions (e.g. Gujarat). Though the prehistoric existence of ‘Language X’, an unknown primordial language not of proto-Indo-Aryan, Proto-Dravidian, or Proto-Munda type, was suggested by Masica’s (1979) analysis of various agricultural terms prevalent in some North-Indian languages, Masica (1991, p. 40) has later commented that the Dravidian stock is “a strong but as yet unproven contender for the languages of the Harappans”.
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