Munda in Early NW India

[David L. White]

> As a non-IEist, I have some difficulty evaluating statements of
> this sort about substratum languages.  Why would this be any
> stronger a proposal than the idea that Germanic developed its
> stress shift, two-term tense system and periphrastic tenses
> through contact with early Finnic speakers in the Baltic region?
> Both strike me as convenient but pretty much lacking in evidence.

> Herb Stahlke

        Lacking in _direct_ evidence, which it is virtually inconceivable
that we would have anyway.  But when related descendants are around, guesses
about what characteristics an earlier relative probably had are not so wild,
unless all IE-ists are wasting their time.
But I was not making a proposal.  I do not know enough about Munda to do
that.  I was suggesting a possibility.

Dr. David L. White