Dravidians from Africa/not Europe

[Clyde A. Winters]

On Sat, 15 Mar 1997, Larry Trask wrote:
 
> Right, well, somebody has to say it, so it might as well be me.  I am
> neither a Dravidianist nor any kind of Africanist, but I am a
> historical linguist, and I have some idea what linguistics looks like,
> and I don't see any here.
>
> C. A. Winters writes as follows in defense of some kind of
> Dravidian-African link:
>
> ************************************************************
>
> >    The first linguist to recognize the genetic relationship between
> > Dravidian and African languages was the french linguist
> > L. Homburger.  Homburger explained the close relationship between
> > Dravidian languages and the Bantu and west atlantic group of African
> > languages back in the 1940's and early 1950's.
>
> "[C]lose"?  Bantu isn't even very closely related to West Atlantic,
> though at least they *are* related.
>
> > Her research was confirmed by Upadhyaya, and the Senegalese linguist
> > C.T.  N'Diaye who proved conclusively the genetic relationship
> > between Dravidian languages and the West atlantic group of African
> > languages.
>
> *Only* West Atlantic?  Nothing else?
>
> > C.A. Winters, has discussed the proto-Indo-African terms
> > for African and Dravidian languages. he has also illustrated the
> > close relationship of the Dravidian group to Manding, Somali and
> > Nubian.
>
> This is absurd.  Whatever "Manding" is, it's presumably Niger-Congo.
> Somali is Afro-Asiatic.  Nubian is a group of languages commonly
> assigned to Nilo-Saharan.  These three families are not known to be
> related at all.  Now Winters is relating Dravidian to *all* of them at
> once?
 
 
   Manding is the term used to refer to the Malinke and Bambara languages.
Moreover you have made the distinction that Somali is not related to the
Other Black African languages this distinction is not accepted by most
linguist of African languages that are of afrrican descent and know and
speak the languages every day.
 
   The terms used in this discussion are mainly taken from the Tamil
Family of Dravidian languages.
 
 
 
 
>
> >                    Common Indo African Terms
>
> > English       Dravidian        Senegalese        Manding
> > Mother           amma              ama             ma
> > pregnancy        basaru              bir           bara
> > skin               uri               guri            guru
> > King              mannan          mansa             mansa
> > Grand             biru               bur            ba
> > Saliva           tuppal             tuudde           tu
> > boat              kulam             gaal            kulu
> > cultivate           bey              mbey            be
> > stream             kolli            kal              koli
>
 
  The reason we can find analogy between the Senegambian (Wolof, Fula
etc.) and the Manding and Dravidian languages result from their origin in
Middle Africa.
 
> Dravidian is not a language, but a large family, so where do these
> words come from?  If they're reconstructed Proto-Dravidian (I doubt
> it), they should have asterisks; if they're from a particular
> language, this should be identified; if they're from several
> languages, shame.  And what on earth is "Senegalese"?  I can find no
> record of such a language.  Are we talking about Wolof, or what?  And
> again I have little idea what "Manding" is supposed to be: is it even
> a single language?
>
> Nursery words like /ama/ `mother' have no business being cited in
> comparisons: they are worthless as evidence.  The same is true of
> imitative words like /tu-/ for `spit, saliva', which are found all
> over the planet: Basque, Burushaski, Caucasian, Yeniseian -- you name
> it.
>
> And the rest?  A little list of miscellaneous chance resemblances, of
> the sort that can always be found between arbitrary languages.
>
 
 
These resemblances can not be called chance resemblances because of the
clear analogy in their construction and meaning.
 
 
> > Pronominal Agreement
> > Language        1P SG        2nd P        3rd P
> > Dravidian     an, naa,ne      i             a
> > Somali         ani          adigu        isagu
> > Nubian         anni            ir          tar
> > Bantu           ni             u            a
> > Manding         na, n          i            a
> > Hausa           na             kin          ya
> > Wolof           ma             ya           na
 
This is clear evidence of a close relationship between all of these
languages as pointed out by Obenga and other African linguist.
 
 
C.A. Winters