Elamite

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In a message dated 11/15/2000 2:33:21 PM, mclssaa2 at fs2.mt.umist.ac.uk writes:

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

[ Moderator's note:
  Mr. Appleyard's query is in response to Steve Long's post of 3 Nov 2000:

  > Apparently a characteristic of "Elamite" is that the texts that are
  > readable (e.g., the Behistun inscription) are "like Ottoman Turkish, made
  > up of many borrowed words, particularly Persian and Semitic."  Early
  > "Elamite" texts have not been deciphered. >>

The foremost mentioned work in terms of making the Elamite-Dravidian
connection is David McAlpin's "Proto-Elamian-Dravidian: the evidence and its
implications"
(1981). (See also "Elamite and Dravidian: Further evidence of relationship"
(With discussion by M.B. Emeneau, W.H. Jacobsen, F.B.J. Kuiper, H.H.
Paper, E.  Reiner, R. Stopa, F. Vallat, R.W. Wescott, and a reply by
McAlpin) 16 Current Anthropology (1975); also, N. Lahovary, Dravidian Origins
and the West (Madras,1957) -- notes structural similarities in the Dravidian,
Sumerian and Elamite languages.)

One problem is, once again, that the supposed "proto-Elamite" language of the
pre-cuneiform inscriptions is still undeciphered.  This leaves open the
opinion that the similarities between later cuneiform Elamite and Dravidian
are the result of borrowings -- this Elamite showing a great deal of foreign
influence otherwise.  This is why Kamil Zvelebil, Possehl and other
Dravidian-Tamil scholars refer to the relationship with Elamite as being
"poorly understood."  Bernard Sergent -- a proponent of the idea that
Harappan-Indus was Dravidian -- in "Genesis of India" (1997) apparently also
takes the position that the isoglosses cited by McAlpin can be explained
"through contact rather than common origin."

It seems the main commonality between Elamite and Dravidian is that they are
both agglutinating.   Proto-Dravidian however has been reconstructed as
exclusively suffixal while Elamite apparently is not strict about the
location of the lexical root.  McAlfin also found a number of common
agricultural terms that suggested that Proto-Elam-Dravidian separated after
"neolithization."

Much of the cuneiform texts are however heavily influenced by Semitic,
Persian and possibly even Turkic -- suggesting that Dravidian-like elements
may have been transfered in a number of ways.  The pictographic
"proto-Elamite" script itself apparently shows some affinities with Harappan
scripts, but also shares some common elements with Anatolian and Sumerian
scripts.  The Harappan scripts have not been deciphered according to any
consensus.

>From what I can see there is no clear consensus that Elamite and Dravidian
were the same or related languages.

BTW - in the category of credibility of ancient historians - Herodotus scored
big points by matching almost perfectly the report regarding Darius the Great
given on the Behistun (or Bisutun) Stone located in modern Iran.  His list of
Darius' local conspiratorial enemies was the first key to deciphering the
official royal inscriptions written in three undeciphered languages -- Old
Persian, Elamite and Babylonian.

Regards,
Steve Long