Retroflexion

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/6/01 2:31:55 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
dlwhite at texas.net writes:

> I note (with some trepidation) that L&M assert that having "high-domed
> palates", which renders retroflex articulations unsually easy to make and
> distinctive in sound, is an Indian racial trait.  I find it difficult to
> believe that it is just a
> coincidence that the one IE language that went into India developed such
> sounds

-- that's intriguing; is there any support for this in recent work on
physical anthropology?  And which Indian populations are L&M referring to?
If we're going back to the period of composition of the RV, then we're
probably talking about only the Indus Valley-Punjab-western Ganges areas,
which is not particularly similar in physical-anthropology terms to, say,
Orissa, and still less so to the Dravidian-speaking areas of the southern
penninsula.