Hydronomy of Tamil rivers (Re: Again, SANSKRIT broadcasts)

[Michael Witzel]

In answer to several messages listed under both threads:

Obviously, when trying to etymologize S. Indian river names we have to try
all Dravidian possibilities, -- within the realm of probability.

River names are preferably taken from the color, speed,  shape of rivers,
but also from many other concepts than can be associated with rivers.

When I  -jokingly- refered to "palm tree" rivers recently (and last year),
I did not have access to K.H. Pinnow's Berlin dissertation (unprinted) on
Indian River names. (1951).

Among the many hundreds of river names, he has a list of some 30 rivers
based on tree names (there  also are those based on flowers, lotus
especially, grass, reed, sugar cane, pepper,and some other plants).

The tree names (how could I forget the plakSa-born Sarasvatii?)  include:
* fig trees (plakSa, udumbara, pippala)
* sandal wood (candana)
* rose apple (jambu)
* 'wine palm'  (tAladhvajI, varuNatAlI, haritAla)
* other trees:  betel nut, palAza, kadamba, rohitaka, zalmali

There have been many studies, especially in S. India, on toponymy, see the
coll. volume:

Nachimuthu, K. and Puthusseri Ramachandran (eds.)  Perspectives in Place
Name Studies : Proceedings of the National Seminar on South Indian Place
Names, Held at Trivandrum on 21-23 June 1985. A Festschrift to Prof. V.I.
Subramoniam, On His Sixtieth Birth Day. Trivandrum : Place Name Society,
1987.

Of course, we have to  look to non-Skt, non-Drav. sources as well. There
is, after all, a Nilgiri substrate (Zvelebil 1990).

And the Nahal/Nihal on the Tapti river have some 26%  vocabulary that is
pre-Munda, pre-Drav., pre-Indo-Aryan (in that order; Kuiper 1962;  latest
news from Asha Mundlay in Mother Tongue: Nihali lexicon, MT II, 1996,
17-40.     (note, MT = $ 25 only per year, see:
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/aslip.html  )

And there are, also, the Vedda in Sri Lanka with another unknown substrate.
Plus other remnants (Kusunda in the Nepalese Himalayas,  Burushaski in N.
Pakistan, Andamanese)  The latter is now very much endangered by
immigration from the Indian mainland; just a few hundred are left.
Important (but not enough studied yet) as they are remnants, its seems, of
the first Out-of-Africa emigration eastwards some 50 kya, and perhaps to be
linked with Papuan, see Greenberg. We cannot yet tell about the other
remnant languages listed here, but see recent vols. of Mother Tongue!)

In sum: just as there were, in North India,  many non-IA languages before
the IA ones spread  everywhere, see
http://www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs/issues.html  (Oct. 1999),
there were pre-Dravidian languages in S.India.

In other words, the Nahals are the "oldest Indians". Genetics eventually
will tell the tale.

You can follow these discussions in Mother Tongue and in the associated
ASLIP/MotherTongue newsletters, now re-named Long Ranger:  this via the
website mentioned above).

I always hope that this  perspective, -- we all come out of Africa after
all -- would dilute the N/S, "Aryan"/Dravidian debate, but maybe in vain.

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========================================================
Michael Witzel
Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University
2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA

ph. 1- 617-496 2990 (also messages)
home page:  http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm

Elect. Journ. of Vedic Studies:  http://www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs