Dravidian/Uralic

[Gonzalo Rubio]

On Sat, 8 Mar 1997, Emil HERSAK (by way of B. Reusch) wrote:
 
> there seem to be inconsistencies, and despite my attempts, I have not found
> any information on either HARALI or the Sumerian he mentions in the
> following quote. Some persons I contacted on the matter assumed the
> references were pure fabrication. Nevertheless, before rejecting the idea,
 
I'm afraid I'm not an Indologist, but an Assyriologist with an
"Indo-European past". However, I'll try to answer some of your questions.
 
a-ra-li (also written a-ra-a-li, a-ra-al-li, arali [E2.KUR.BAD or just
KUR.BAD, and perhaps arali2 [URUxGAL]) was the name of the steppe between
Uruk and Badtibira (bad3-tibira-KI) from very early texts (Presargonic and
so on), and later on it was the name of a place in which demons dwell, the
netherworld, etc. You may want to look at the _Pennsylvania Sumerian
Dictionary_ A/1: 136ff.
 
This a-ra-li is different from ha-ra-li, the place where gold comes from
in Sumerian texts. Some stuff you may find interesting is Jacobsen's note
in _Journal of the American Oriental Society_ 103 (1984): 195; Stol
_Studies in Old Babylonian History_ 41 f.; _Chicago Assyrian Dictionary_
A/2: 227 (under arallu^).
 
I cannot think of any example in which a-ra-li and Dilmun occur in the
same text or context. However, since Dilmun seems to have been a sort of
mythical paradise for the Sumerians, it's sound pretty likely that
ha-ra-li (but not a-ra-li), the source of gold, may have been mentioned
together with Dilmun.
 
Regarding your other questions. The term "Indo-European" seems to have
been coined by Thomas Young in his review of Adelung's _Mithridates_
(Berlin 1806-1817), "Mithridates, oder allgemeine Sprachenkunde", in _The
Quarterly Review_ 10 (1813): 250-292. Thomas Young was born in 1773 and
died in 1829.
 
Concerning Dravidian and its alleged relations to other language families,
from Rask's "Scytian" to McAlpin's Elamite hypothesis (and also the
different Uralic and Altaic theories proposed by Caldwell, Schoebel,
Schrader, Burrow, Bouda, and Menges), you may want to read Kamil V.
Zvelebil's highly informative review of McAlpin's _Proto-Elamo-Dravidian_
(Philadelphia 1981), in _Journal of the American Oriental Society_ 105
(1985): 364ff.
 
I hope this may help you.
 
------------------------
Gonzalo Rubio
Near Eastern Studies
Johns Hopkins University
gonzalor at jhu.edu
------------------------