Elamite

[Stefan Georg]

>How likely is the supposed connection between Elamite and Dravidian?

As an (obvious) non-specialist, I may throw in a few remarks:

So far, the only *substantial* work to demonstrate this relationship
is McAlpins's TPhilSoc work of 1981, which I have recently had
between my hands.
I don't know much Dravidian, and I don't know Elamite.
*But*: McAlpin does *not* compare a haphazard list of words which
somehow resemble each other. He is at pains to find regularity, and -
although some comparisons do look a bit, say, not-first-class, when
it comes to semantics -  it looks like he found a great deal of it.
On Dravidian: he is an expert, holding (or having hold 20 years ago)
a chair in Dravidian studies.
On Elamite, I cannot comment on his expertise, but, in the work, he
seems to be able to do a lot of necessary homework, i.e.: he cites
Elamite texts at length, arguing for specific functions of some
affixes from context. He is aware of chronological layers of Elamite
texts. On the whole, he seems to have familiarized himself quite
thoroghly with the language (including to learn how to read it and
interpret actual primary sources).
What struck me as best in his work is that he is eager to find
cognate morphology (fulfilling the requirement of finding
polydimensional paradigmaticity) and seems to succeed in that.
Moreover, some of his sound-laws work in affoxes as well, i.e. once
they are found, a lot of morphology seems to fall into place.
Given all that, McAlpin's attempt looks very good and inspiring. I'*m
not aware, whether there have been any reactions from the
Dravidianist and/or Elamicist communities, and what their criticisms,
if any, were.
His conclusion is, quite surprisingly, that Elamite is just another
Dravidian language, or, if I remember correctly, that it is even
closer to (most of) Dravidian, than Brahui is.
What could be done now, would be to check his Elamite data with the
fine and comprehensive dictionary of Hinz', which was published after
McAlpin's work, and anything which has been published on E. grammar
since (those cuneiform-languages are really moving targets ...).
That's everything I, as a non-connoisseur of both language (families)
should say. In method and spirit of approach it looks *miles above*
what Greenberg, Ruhlen and the whole lot are able to produce.
But it could be wrong, nevertheless, let's hear the experts.

StG
--
Dr. Stefan Georg
Heerstraße 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
Tel./Fax +49-228-691332