Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary

[GthomGt at cs.com]

In a message dated 2/24/01 6:12:17 AM Eastern Standard Time,
indoeuropeanling at lycos.com writes:

> A quick query...  does anyone know whether anyone has ever compiled a
> database,
>  or even just a plain old list, of possible NON Indo-European lexical items
> in
>  Sanskrit?  My thought was that they could be examined with an eye to their
>  possible value to efforts to decode the Indus Valley script.  Does anyone
> know
>  of anything like what I'm describing?

>  --Ed Sugrue

First, there is F.B.J. Kuiper's misleadingly named *Aryans in the Rigveda*
[Rodopi, 1991], since it is in fact an examination of non-Aryan vocabulary in
that text.  His list of non-Aryan words there consists of 383 words, which he
estimates is about 5 % of Rgvedic vocabulary.

More recently, Michael Witzel has pursued this train of thought in a long
article "Aryan and non-Aryan names in Vedic India.  Data for the linguistic
situation, c. 1900-500 BC", in *Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia: Evidence,
Interpretation and Ideology*,  edited by J. Bronkhorst & M. Deshpande ,
Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora vol. 3, 1999.

Both have extensive bibliographies.

For a history of the failed attempts at deciphering the Indus Valley script,
see Gregory Possehl: *Indus Age: The Writing System* [Univ. of Pennsylvania
Press, 1996].

Hope this helps.

George Thompson