Dravidians from Africa/not Europe

[Steven Schaufele]

In response to Clyde Winters' remarks about the ethnic affinities of
South Indians, i don't think anybody contests that, in terms of physical
anthropology, they are closely affiliated with certain African groups.
What's this got to do with language?  We all know that linguistic
affiliation has no necessary connection with biological affiliation.
Nowadays, the English language counts members of all ethnic groups among
its speakers; that doesn't change the fact that it's historically (and
glossagenetically) a Northwestern European language, a Low-German dialect
of the Indo-European family.  Suppose some near-universal cataclysm wipes
out all English-speaking communities outside of Australia & New Zealand.
Will our descendants conclude therefrom that, since these regions were
settled from Southeast Asia and, possibly, indirectly Africa, that
English must be either a Southeast Asian or an African language in its
origin?
 
It should also be borne in mind that there is a Dravidian island along
the Afghan/Pakistani border.  I've usually understood that this datum
could be used to support a hypothesis that the Dravidian family was
originally indigenous to the Indus Valley area, that in late prehistoric
times expanded into the Indian subcontinent, overwhelming whatever
languages were used by the local population (which in whole or in part
had come from Africa) before being in turn overwhelmed in much of the
northern half of the subcontinent by invading Indo-European speakers.
Not that i'm necessarily promoting such a hypothesis, but i don't know of
a great deal of evidence on the subject one way or another.  My point is
that it is not usually a very good idea to build an argument for the
linguistic affiliation of a certain ethnic group on the basis of its
undeniable *physical* affinities.
 
Best,
Steven
---------------------
Dr. Steven Schaufele
712 West Washington
Urbana, IL  61801
217-344-8240
fcosws at prairienet.org
http://www.prairienet.org/~fcosws/homepage.html
 
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