The ancient literary language spoken on the banks of Rivers Sarasvati and Sindhu was Dravidian. Due to the large number of Dravidians living in India alongside the Aramaic, Munda and Indo-Aryan speakers Sanskrit was invented as a link language and lingua franca to unite the Indians. At the base of Sanskrit was the Dravidian languages.
Dr. Kalyanaraman has made it clear that he is skeptical of the integrity of the I-E linguistic discipline. I agree with Kalyanaraman. The affinities between Sanskrit and Greek/Latin result from 1) the early contact between the Indic languages when the Greeks ruled India-Pakistan; and 2) the Latin popularity and spread of Greek civilization and culture when the Romans ruled the world.
At the end of the 18th century Sir William Jones, suggested that Sanskrit was closely related to Western languages that could not be attributed purely to chance. Jones maintained that these Indic and European languages must be descended from a common ancestor. It was from this observation that Indo-European linguistics was born.
In Sir Jones time we knew little about the history of the Greeks in India. Today we know much more about the historical evidence relating to Greek influence in India. The textual material make it clear that when Sanskrit was codified Greek was spoken by many Indians and due to bilingualism, Greek elements probably used in the Prakrits and everyday speech became of the link language: Sanskrit.
The Dravidians formerly were the major linguistic group in Central Asia and India-Pakistan. Many north Dravidian people are presently found in Central Asia. The cattle rearing Brahuis may represent descendants of the Dravidian pastoral element that roamed the steppes in ancient times. North Dravidian speaking Brahuis are found in Afghan Baluchistan , Persian Sistan and the Marwoasis in Soviet Turkmenistan (Elfenbein 1987: 229).
There are islands of Dravidian speakers in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. There are over 300,000 Brahui speakers in Qualat, Hairpur and Hyderabad districts of Pakistan. Other Dravidian speakers are found in Iran, Russia and Yugoslavia (ISDL 1983: 227). The distribution of Northern Dravidian speaking groups outlined above, corresponds to the former spread of Harappan cultures in the 3rd millennium B.C., in Central Asia.
Due to early the Dravidian settlement of Central Asia the Dravidian speakers influenced many languages. There is a Dravidian substratum in Indo-Aryan. There are Dravidian loans Rg Veda, eventhough Aryan recorders of this work were situated in the Punjab, which was occupied around this time by Dravidians using BRW.
Emeneau and Burrow (1962) found 500 Dravidian loan words in Sanskrit. In addition, Indo-Aryan illustrates a widespread structural borrowing from Dravidian in addition to 700 lexical loans (Kuiper 1967; Southward 1977; Winters 1989).
It is therefore not surprising that Dravidian languages lie at the base of the languages spoken in Indo-Aryan languages spoken in Pakistan and India. It is therefore not surprising that the Dravidian languages great influenced Sanskrit.
Many researchers reject the idea that Sanskrit was greatly influenced by the Dravidian languages. They dispute this theory because of the Greek relationship to Sanskrit. Although researchers have used the relationship between Greek and Sanskrit in support of an Indo-European linguistic family, it is clear that the relationship between Sanskrit and Greek result from the long influence in India-Pakistan of the Greeks .
The Greco-Bactrians were probably bilingual . Bilingualism can be induced through two methods 1) state coercion or 2) its ability to offer advantages to two or more populations in contact. The latter method of change usually accounts for bilingualism--people use the new language to obtain better access to status, security, ritual or goods. The Greek emphasis on direct methods of political control in Bactria forced many non-Greeks to become bilingual due to its advantage as a tool for greater upward mobility during Greek rule.
The Greek colonization of Bactria, made the Greek language a link language between the non-IE languages spoken in Central Asia three thousand years ago, after many generations of bilingualism led to an interlanguage phenomena that became a permanent feature of the literate speech community in this region. We can define the institutionalization of an interlanguage as language recombination, i.e., the mixing of the vocabulary and structures of the substratum language (Dravidian) and the superstratum language (Greek and later Slavic speaking Saka people) to form a new mixed language: Tocharian.
The Greek culture was transplanted in Bactria by the army of Alexander the Great. It can be assumed that due to direct rule, the Greek language was well established in this region by the cultural matrix accompanying it since possession of Greek culture and language played a major role in the upward mobility of "colonial subjects" in Bactria.
Eteo-Tocharian is a good example of the influence of Greeks in Central Asia. Eteo-Tocharian was written in a modified Greek alphabet (Maricq 1958:398). This script is a manifestation of the Greek influence in Bactria, even after the Kushana subjugation of this area. This latter point is evident in the Grand Inscription of Kaniska (Maricq 1958).
An intruding community like the Greeks in Central Asia did not have to outnumber the colonized people in Bactria to impact on the language of the original Bactrians. The mere fact that the new speech community, although ethnically different were now recognized as socially superior to the subject peoples of Bactria, it was useful for Bactrians to become bilingual so they would be able to function both within their own culture and the new culture introduced by the conquering Greeks. This hypothesis is congruent with Ehret's (1988:569) view that people make cultural choices on the basis of what appears to be most advantageous to the lives they live.
The Greeks made a conscious effort to affect the underpinnings of the native Bactrian's material world and their relations with their spirits or gods. For example, Greek influence is evident in the Gandharan Buddhist style sculptures. This art style illustrates Hellenistic influences in the modeling of the hair and facial features.
The relationship between Greek and Indic languages results from the early contact of the speakers of these languages in Northwest India and beyond during a period in which the Greeks were a major power in Central Asia.
The Greeks also ruled Pakistan and India. The Indian rule of India is discussed in the following books: F.L. Holt, Thundering Zeus ;W.W. Tarn, The Greeks of Bastria and India ; A.K. Narain, The Indo-Greeks ; and H. Kulke & D. Rothermund, History of India .
Many Pakistanis recognize Dravidian as the root language for many languages spoken in Pakistan (Rahman.2004). They accept the fact that a Dravidian language was probably spoken by the people who formerly lived in the Indus Valley.
It was in Pakistan that the Greek language was probably corporated into Sanskrit. Many of the rules for Sanskrit were codified by Panini, who was born in Salatura, in Northwest Pakistan. Panini’s grammar contains 4000 rules.
When Panini wrote his grammar of Sanskrit, it was spoken by the elites in the area. Greek was also popular when Panini wrote the Sanskrit grammar. The Greeks were called Yunani or Yavana. Thus we learn from Agrawala (1953) that the Yavanani lipi (edict) was well known in Gandahara, and even Panini mentions the Yavana in his grammar . The term Yauna meant Ionian (Woodcock, 1966).
The history of Greeks in the area is quite interesting. When Alexander entered the HinduKush region in 327 B.C., Greek settlements were already in the area. By 180 BC, as the Mauryas fell into decline, the Greek Kings of Bactria took control of Western Punjab and Gandhara up to the Indus River. Under King Menander (d.130 B.C.) the Greeks had their capital at Taxila. The center of Greek culture in the area was Charsadda near Peshawar (Woodcock,1966).
Many Greek terms were probably already incorporated in the Prakrits of Northern India-Pakistan and Central Asia. Here the Greeks minted their coins with Kharoshthi, Brahmi and Greek inscriptions.
Greek was used for commercial purposes and served as a patrician lingua franca of the Kabul valley and of Gandhara. During the rule of Pushyamitra many Greeks settled in India. Due to the long history of Greeks in India, Ashoka had some of his edicts written in Greek and Aramaic bilinguals. In 44 A.D., Appolonius of Tyana when he visited Taxila found that merchants and kings learned Greek “as a matter of course” (Rahman, 2004; Woodcock,1966).
Given the popularity of Greek in the region it is not surprising that Sanskrit would show such a strong relationship to the Indic languages, since it was spoken throughout the area of a couple of hundred years. Commenting on the Greek rulers of India, Kulke and Rothermund (1998), said that “They are referred to as ‘Indo-Greeks’, and there were about forty such kings and rulers who controlled large areas of northwestern India and Afghanistan….They appear as Yavanas in stray references in Indian literature, and there are few but important references in European sources. In these distant outposts, the representatives of the Hellenic policy survived the defeat of their Western compatriots at the hands of the Parthians for more than a century” (p.70). The greatest of the Indo-Greek rulers was Menander, who is mentioned in the famous Milindapanho text. The Shakas adopted many elements of Indo-Greek culture which they perpetuated in India for over 100 years (Rahman, 2004).
The large corpus of non-IE words in Tocharian discussed by Blazek (1988) and Winters (1988a, 1990, 1991) is congruent with the hypothesis that IE elements in Tocharian, especially Greek (and Slavic) were loanwords into Tocharian after the Greek conquest of Bactria. This borrowing pattern is consistent with the spread of the Greek language into Bactria by a small politically dominant minority of Greek settlers into a far larger and previously long-established non-IE speaking majority population.
It is impossible to argue for a genetic relationship between Vedic and Greek languages based on the fact that speakers of these languages formerly lived in intimate contact in historical times. Secondly, we know the Dravidians were in Greece before the Indo-Europeans enter the country. These non-I-E speakers were called Pelasgians. As a result, Anna Morpurgo Davies, The linguistic evidence:Is there any?, in Gerald Cadogan, The End of the early Bronze Age in the Agean (pp.93-123), says that only 40% of Greek is of Indo-European etymology (p.105). Since only 40% of the Greek terms are of I-E origin, many of the Greek terms that agree with the Indic languages may be from the 60% of the Greek lexical items that came from non-I-E speakers which as noted by Lahovary in Dravidian origins and the West, were people who spoke either Dravidian languages, or other languages from Africa, genetically related to the Dravidian group.
In conclusion, as a result of the Greek influence in Bactria and India-Pakistan , Indians and Bactrians had to acquire "Greek Culture" to enhance their position and opportunity in North India and Bactria during Greek rule. Greek rule placed prestige on status elements introduced into the region by the Greeks, especially the Greek language. Status acquired by Bactrians and Indian-Pakistanis was thus centered around acquisition of Greek language and Greek culture. This supported by the evidence that Indian elites used Greek in business and government (Rahman, 2004). This would have inturn added pressure on the Bactrians to incorporate Greek terms into a Bactrian lingua franca (i.e., Tocharian).
Given the fact that Greek administrators in Bactria and Northern India-Pakistan ,refused to fully integrate Bactrians and Indians into the ruling elite, unless they were “well versed in Greek culture and language) led to subsequent generations of native Bactrians and Indian-Pakistanis to progressively incorporate more Greek terms into their native language. This would explain why Tocharian has many features that relate to certain IE etymologies and Panini’s Sanskrit grammar, present many terms that are associated with the Greeks, but illustrates little affinity to Indo-Iranian languages which are geographically and temporally closer to Tocharian. Some researchers might dispute the influence of the Greek language on Sanskrit because Panini’s grammar was suppose to have been written around 400 B.C. This date for the grammar might be too early, because Rahman (2004) and Agrawala (1953) maintains that Greek was spoken in Gandahara in Panini’s time.
The influence of colonial Greeks in Central Asia would explain why the most important evidence of an I-E relationship with Sanskrit and Tocharian relations within the IE family are the Greek cognates (Mallory 1989).
The "elite dominance model" hypothesis would have two basic consequences in relation to Tocharian linguistics. First, it would account for the correspondence in grammar (especially agglutination) and vocabulary between Dravidian and Tocharian on the one hand, and Tocharian and Indo-European on the other. Secondly, the settlement of the Saka in Bactria after the Greeks, would explain the great topological similarity between Tocharian and Balto-Slavic. The evidence of Saka and Greek conquest of Bactria/ Central Asia confirms the Sherratt (1988) hypothesis that Tocharian may be a trade language, and offers a plausible solution to the "Tocharian Problem".
References:
Agrawala, V.S. (1953). India as known to Panini: A study of the cultural material
in the Ashtadhyayi. Lucknow: University of Lucknow.
Elfenbein, J. 1987. A periplus of the Brahui Problem. Studia Iranica 16: 215-233.
Emeneau, M. and T. Burrow. 1962. Dravidian Borrowing from Indo Aryan.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Holt,F.L. (1999). Thundering Zeus. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
ISDL. 1983. Report on the Dravidian Languages. International Journal of
Dravidian Linguistics 12(1): 227.
Kulke, H. & Rothermund, D. (1998). History of India . New York: Routledge.
Mallory, J.P. In Search of the Indo-Europeans. London: Thames and
Hudson.
Maricq, A. 1958. La Grande inscription de Kaniska et L' eteo-
Tokharien l'ancienne langue de la Bactriane.Journal Asiatique 246:
345-439.
Narain, A.K. (1957). The Indo-Greeks . Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Rahman,T. (2004). Peoples and Languages in Pre-Islamic Indus Valley.
Retrieved on : 4-21-04
http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/peoplesandlanguages.html
Sherratt, Andrew and Susan. 1988. Archaeology of Indo-European: An
Alternative View. Antiquity 62: 584-595.
Tarn, W.W. (1984). The Greeks of Bastria and India . Chicago: Ares Press.
Winters, Clyde A..1989. Review on Dr. Asko Parpola's "The Coming of the
Aryans".International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics 18 (2): 98-127.
Woodcock,G. (1966). The Greeks in India. London: Faber & Faber.
Showing posts with label Tocharian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tocharian. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Buddhist Meroites used Tocharian and Kharosthi
Philostratus:The Life of Apollonius of Tyana makes it clear that the Gymnosophist lived in Upper Egypt and the Meroitic Empire. The Gymnosophists were Buddhists.
There were Gymnosophist communities in Upper Egypt and the Meroitic Sudan. The Gymnosophists used Tocharian and the Kharosthi script to write their scriptures. This makes it clear that Tocharian and Kharosthi were important means of communication for this Meroite population. Tocharian was therefore probably a major language in the Meroitic Sudan.
The historical evidence makes it clear that there was probably two migrations of Buddhist Gymnosophists to Egypt and the Meroitic Empire.Asoka was a supporter of Buddhism. Zacharias P. Thundy, in Buddha and Christ make it clear that the edits of Asoka (c.274-236 BC) indicate that this ruler sent missionaries to Egypt to preach the Buddhist Dharma(pp.242-243).
There were Gymnosophist communities in Upper Egypt and the Meroitic Sudan. The Gymnosophists used Tocharian and the Kharosthi script to write their scriptures. This makes it clear that Tocharian and Kharosthi were important means of communication for this Meroite population. Tocharian was therefore probably a major language in the Meroitic Sudan.
The historical evidence makes it clear that there was probably two migrations of Buddhist Gymnosophists to Egypt and the Meroitic Empire.Asoka was a supporter of Buddhism. Zacharias P. Thundy, in Buddha and Christ make it clear that the edits of Asoka (c.274-236 BC) indicate that this ruler sent missionaries to Egypt to preach the Buddhist Dharma(pp.242-243).
Thundy maintains that archaeological evidence exist for a community of Indian sages living in Memphis as early as 200 BC (p.243).We know that decendents of these missionaries were still in Egypt over two hundred years later because they were visited by Apollonius of Tyana.
Asoka used Kharosthi to write his edits. The Buddhist also used this writing system to record their scriptures. This means that the Gymnosophists would have had a long tradition of employing Kharosthi to communicate their ideas. The Gymnosophists were probably well respected by the Meroites and some Meroites probably had knowledge of Buddhist teachings and literacy.
Some Meroites may have played an important role in Buddhist because Blemmyae, a prominent group in the Meroitic Sudan are mentioned in Pali text Tipitaka (see:JDM Derrett, (2002) A Blemmya in India, Numen 49:460-474). Dr.Derrett wrote that in early Pali text " wehave a Blemmya (an African) in front rank Buddhist texts of very respectable age (p.465).The Buddhist text where Blemmya were mentioned are very old. The Vinaya pitaka, is dated to the 4th century B.C.E.
If Blemmya are mentioned in Buddhists text we can be sure that Meroites were not ignorant of Kharosthi. This would explain why many of the Meroitic symbols agree with Kharosthi. They agree because some Meroites were probably already literate in Kharosthi due to the influence of Buddhism in the Meroitic Empire.
There seems to have been a second migration of Buddhists to the Meroitic Empire many years after Asoka sent missionaries to Egypt. These migrants came to the Meroitic Empire after their king was murdered.
Flavius Philostratus, the writer of the Vita Apollonii, Vol.1 , claimed that the Gymnosophists of Meroe originally came from India (see F.C. Conybeare, Philostratus:The Life of Apollonius of Tyana(p.45),1950). Given the fact that the Kushana had formerly ruled India around the time that the Meroitic writing was introduced to the Kushite civilization, led to the hypothesis that the ancestors of the Gymnosophist may have been Kushana philosophers. The historical evidence of the Kushana having ruled India made the Classical references to Indians, the Gymnosophists in Meroe, an important source for the construction of alternative theories about the possible location of the cognate language of Meroitic.
There is external evidence, which supports my theory. A theory explains observed phenomena and has predictive power. I have theorized that due to the claims of the Classical writers that some of the Meroites came from India (F.C Conybeare (Trans.), Philostratus: The life of Apollonius of Tyana Vol.2, (1950) pg.271).According to the Life of Apollonius, the Indian Meroites were formerly led by a King Ganges, who had "repulsed the Scythians who invaded this land [India from] across the Caucasus" (Conybeare, Vol.1, Pg.273). Pilostratus also made it clear that the Indians of Meroe came to this country after their king was killed.
The presence of this tradition of an Indian King of the Indian-Meroites conquering the Scythians predicts that the Indian literature should record this historical episode. This prediction is supported by a Jaina text called the Kalakeharya-Kathanaka , which reports that when the Scythians invaded Malwa, the King of Malwa, called Vikramaditya defeated the Scythians (H. Kulke & D. Rothermund, History of India(London, Routledge: 1990, pg.73). This king Vikramaditya may be the Ganges mentioned in the Life of Apollonius.Confirmation of the Ganges story,supports the Classical literary evidence that their were Indianized -Meroites that could have introduced the Tocharian trade language to the Meroites.
In addition to the classical mention of the Indians settling Meroë, and Asoka's edit sending missionaries to Egypt, we also have a horde of Kushana coins that were found on the floor of a cave at the present monastery-shine at Debra Demo in modern Ethiopia in 1940.
Moreover, there were other Indians in Egypt in addition Gymnosophist/Buddhist communities in Upper Egypt and Kush/Meroe. For example, at Quseir al-Qadim there was a large Indian speaking community (see: R. Salomon, "Epigraphic remains of Indian traders in Egypt", Journal of the American oriental Society, (1991) pp.731-736; and R. Salomon, Addenda,Journal of the American Oriental Society, (1993) pg.593). These Indians were in Egypt writing messages in their own language, around the time we see a switch from Egyptian hieroglyphics to the Meroitic writing system. All of this supported the traditions of the Meroites that speak of a knowledge of the Kushana/Indians among the Meroites.
The evidence that the Classical references to an Indian-Meroite King who conquered the Scythians is supported by the Indian literature, provides external corroboration of the tradition that some of the Meroites were of Indian origin.
The presence of Indian traders and settlers in Meroe (and Egypt), makes it almost impossible to deny the possibility that Indians, familiar with the Tokharian trade languagedid not introduce this writing to the Meroites who needed a neutral language to unify the diverse ethnic groups who made up the Meroite state. In relation to the history of linguistic change and bilingualism, itis a mistake to believe that linguistic transfer had to take place for the Meroites to have used Tokharian, when it did not take place when they wrote in Egyptian hieroglyphics.
In summary the classical literature makes it clear that there was a connection between the Gymnosophists (of Meroe) and the Indians. The fact that historical events mentioned in the classical sources are found in the Indian literature confirm the view that there were Indian-Meroites who could have introduced the Tokharian trade language to the Meroites. The fact that the Nubians who were probably not part of the"Meroitic state", used hieroglyphics and Coptic to write their language without abandoning their native language support the view that the Meroites could have also used Tokharian to write Meroitic. And that eventhough the Kushites wrote Meroitic inscriptions in Tokharian, theywould not have had to abandon their own language.
My decipherment of Meroitic is based on the Kushana theory.The Kushana theory is that a group of “East Indian” scholars introduced the Meroitic writing system to the Meroites. The Kushana hypothesis was based on the following evidence, 1) no African language has been found to be a cognate language of Meroitic 2) the Classical literature says that the Kushites lived in Asia and Africa; 3) the Gymnosophists, or "naked sages" of Meroe came from India.
My decipherment of Meroitic is based on the Kushana theory.The Kushana theory is that a group of “East Indian” scholars introduced the Meroitic writing system to the Meroites. The Kushana hypothesis was based on the following evidence, 1) no African language has been found to be a cognate language of Meroitic 2) the Classical literature says that the Kushites lived in Asia and Africa; 3) the Gymnosophists, or "naked sages" of Meroe came from India.
Before I began work on Meroitic, other researchers had already falsified the African theory for Meroitic's cognate language. Meroitic is not related to languages spoken in this area. Griffith and Haycock tried to read Meroitic using Nubian and failed. K.H. Priese tried to read the Meroitic text using Eastern Sudani; he also failed.The fact that not even Nubian, a language spoken by a people who were engaged in constantly conflict with the Meroites , failed to be the cognate language of Meroitic made it clear that we must look elsewhere for the cognate language spoken by the Meroites.
The evidence presented above provides internal and external validity for my theory based upon the sources I have cited previously. The sources I have used are impartial, to disconfirm my hypothesis someone needs to show that my propositions are not fully informed[i.e., there were no Indians North Africa and Kush when the Classical writers maintained they were] and present rival explanations based on the evidence.
The fact that the claims made by the Classical writers issupported by the Indians themselves if further strong confirmation of the Kushana hypothesis. The hypothesis based on the classical literature, was enough to support the original Kushana Hypothesis. The predicting power of the original theory, matches the observed natural phenomena which was confirmed elsewhere by cognate place names, ethononyms, lexical items and grammatical features, indicate that my theory has not be falsified.
The ability to reliably predict a linguistic relationship between Kushana and Meroitic, was further confirmation of the Kushana Hypothesis, because the linguistic connections were deducible from prediction. I controlled the Kushana Hypothesis by comparing the statements of the classical writers, with historical, linguistic anthropological and toponymic evidence found not only in Africa, but also India and Central Asia [where the people also used Tokharian as a trade language to unify the various people in Central Asia].
I constructed three testable hypotheses in support of the Kushana theory, and it seems only fair that these variables must be disconfirmed, to falsify the Kushana Hypothesis.
Hypothesis 1: If the meroites used a writing system of non-African origin a tradition mentioning this fact will exist. (Hypothesis confirmed. Classical literature mentions Indian scholars in ancient Meroe.)
Hypothesis: 2. If the classical literature mentions Indians who lived in Egypt influencing the Meroites their should be historical evidence relating to this tradition. (Hypothesis confirmed .Classical literature mentions a King who left his country is mentioned in the Jaina text called the Kalakeharya-Kathanaka.)
Hypothesis: 3. If Classical literature is true about the Indian origin of the Gymnosophists Indians will be found living near the Meroites around the time the Meroitic inscriptions appear. (Hypothesis confirmed. Artifacts and coins with Indian inscriptions have been found in Egypt and Ethiopia.) Failure to disconfirm this theorem, implies validity of my prediction.
My confirmation of the above , and 1) the presence of Kushites in Africa and Asia; 2) Asoka sent many Buddhist missionaries to Egypt who wrote their scriptures in Kharosthi and Tocharian; 3) a Blemmya--native to the Meroitic empire, is mentioned in numerous Buddhist Pali text; 4)the presence of Kushana sages in India who may have migrated to Meroe;5) cognate lexical items; 6)cognate verbs and 7) cognate grammatical features; indicates systematic controlled, critical and empirical investigation of the question of Kushana representing the Meroitic cognate language. As a result of these facts we can now use Tocharian or Kushana to read the Meroitic text. The historical evidence make it clear that the Meroites were probably not strangers to Kharosthi literacy since the Gymnosophists had been in Upper Egypt and Meroitic Empires hundreds of years.
The evidence is clear Tocharian and Kharosthi was a popular media among Upper Egyptians and Meroites. As a result, it was a nativized Meroitic language spoken by a major group of Meroites.
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The evidence is clear Tocharian and Kharosthi was a popular media among Upper Egyptians and Meroites. As a result, it was a nativized Meroitic language spoken by a major group of Meroites.
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Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Part 3:Winters' Response to Burlak's Meroitic and Tocharian: The length of Meroitic words
Clyde Winters response to Burlak’s Meroitic & Tocharian Part3 Winters length of Meroitic Words is too short
S.A. Burlak, in Meroitic and Tocharian: From the point of View of a Tocharianists (Sudan & Nubia, Bulletin 12: 99-103) disputes my decipherment of Meroitic: Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1999). The inscriptions ofTanyidamani. Nubica IV und Nubica V., pp.355-388. Herein, I will discuss Dr. Burlak’s propositions and evidence.
Burlak (2008) argues that a basic problem of my decipherment is the word length. Whereas I have found that the average length of Meroitic words is one-to-three characters in length . Burlak (2008) maintains that the average length of Meroitic words is not one –to- three charaters, but five to eight characters in length based on Meroitic proper names.
Using Meroitic names to determine the length of Meroitic words fails to accurately describe Meroitic lexemes, because names usually are compound words e.g., Kasta/ Kushto ‘the Kushite’ (Abdalla, 1989 p.876; Trigger, 1964 p. 193; Welsby, 1996). For example many Meroitic names include the names of deities: Tamwetamani ; Arqamani; Anlamani ; and Takideamani.
Welsby (1996 p.190) noted that other Meroitic names include the words mak (god), malo (good) and mote (child). Many Meroitic words are only two-three characters e.g., mk (god), Wos (Isis), mn (Aman) and nob (Nubian). A common place name element in Meroitic place-names is –te, e.g., Np-te (Napata), and ph rs-te (Faras). The majority of Meroitic ethnonyms are also two-three characters lk (Lak), šq (Shaqa), and nob (Nubian).
A comparison of Meroitic and Tocharian grammatical features also indicates that in many cases Meroitic words average one- three characters. In recent years researchers were able to develop a grammar of Meroitic, without being able to read Meroitic. The research of Hintze (1979) and Hoffman (1981) made it possible for us to find the cognate language of Meroitic: Tokharian (Winters 1984 ,1989).
Hintze (1979) grammar of Meroitic provided the necessary material to compare Meroitic with other languages to find its cognate language. Hintze (1979) recognized three approaches to the study of Meroitic: 1) philological, 2) comparative, and 3) structural (i.e., the morphological-syntactical).
The philological methods of Hintze (1979) was informed guesses based upon context.In the comparative method the structures of two or more languages are compared to determine the relationship between languages. Hintze's (1979) discussion of the Meroitic affixes provided us with the linguistic material to compare Meroitic successfully with Tocharian.
The comparative method is used by linguist to determine the relatedness of languages, and to reconstruct earlier language states. The comparative linguist looks for patterns of correspondence, i.e., the isolation of words with common or similar meanings that have systematic consonantal agreement with little regard for location and/or type of vowel. Consonantal agreement is the regular appearance of consonants at certain locations in words having analogous meanings.
Hintze (1979) was sure that there were a number of Meroitic affixes including:
p
ye
-te
-to
-o
B.G. Trigger in his "Commentary" (Hintze 1979) mentioned several other possible Meroitic affixes including:
-n
-te
-b
In addition , A. M. Abdalla in his "Commentary" (Hintze 1979)mentioned three possible verbal suffixes , including:
-ñ
-t
-y
These alleged Meroitic grammatical elements encouraged me to seek out a language that contained these typological features as the possible cognate language for Meroitic. The Kushana language includes all of these affixes.
Researchers working on Meroitic determined several possible prefixes:
p,
-s
y.
These proposed affixes for Meroitic are one character in length. Given the fact that experts in Meroitic like Abdalla and Hintze recognized that Meroitic had a number of single character lexemes makes it clear that when I found that many Meroitic terms were one-to-three character in length illustrates that I was only following the linguistic findings of other Meroitists who are the foundation of this decipherment of Meroitic.
Winters took these suggested Meroitic lexemes and compared them to Tocharian to discover if similar affixes existed in Kushana. In Tocharian we find these prefixes: p(ä), the imperfect prefix and imperative, y- the Tocharian element are joined to demonstratives , e.g., yopsa ‘in between’.
There are other affixes that relate to the Meroitic suffixes proposed by Abdalla and Hintze (1979) that are explained by Tocharian including –te, the demonstrative ‘this, etc.’; -o, the suffix used to change nouns into adjectives. For example: aiśamñe ‘knowledge’, asimo ‘knowing; klyomñ ’nobility’, klyomo ‘noble’.
Other Tocharian affixes which provide insight into Meroitic affixes include –te and -l. The Tocharian locative suffix is –te. The ending particle in Tocharian is –l. The Meroitic –t, corresponds to the –t ‘you’. In Tocharian the pronouns are placed at the end of words: nas-a-m ‘I am’, träkä-s ‘he says’, träkä-t ‘you say’.
The –t element in Tocharian can also be used to represent the third person singular e.g., kälpa-t ‘he found’.The p-, element used to form the imperative and imperfect in Tocharian . This affix is used in both Tocharian A and B. For example,Tokh.A klyos "to hear, to listen"p(a)klyos "You listen"p(a)klyossu "s/he listens"Tokh. B klyausp(a)klyaus 'you listen"A. ta, tas, "to lay, to put"ptas 'you lay'B. tes, tas 'to put, to lay'ptes 'you put'.
The Tocharian -n-, has many uses . It can be used to form the subjuntive, e.g., yam 'to do', yaman 's/he do(es). It is also used to form the plural se 'son', pl. sewan 'sons; ri 'city', pl. rin 'cities'.The plural in Tocharian is formed by the –ñ. For example,are ‘plough’, pl. areñ ‘ploughs’ ri ‘city’ , pl. riñ ‘cities.
Recognition of analogous structural elements in relation to Kushana/ Tocharian and Meroitic allowed us to divide the Meroitic phonemes into words. Griffith (1911a,1911b,1912) provided us with evidence for selected Meroitic nouns.
These examples of Meroitic names and lexical items make it clear that the average length of characters for Meroitic words is less than 5-8 characters. It also illustrates that Winters based his ideas on the possible length of some Meroitic words on the research of Abdalla and Hintze (1979). This makes Burlak’s (2008) claim that the length of Meroitic terms is generally five-seven characters as he alle
S.A. Burlak, in Meroitic and Tocharian: From the point of View of a Tocharianists (Sudan & Nubia, Bulletin 12: 99-103) disputes my decipherment of Meroitic: Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1999). The inscriptions ofTanyidamani. Nubica IV und Nubica V., pp.355-388. Herein, I will discuss Dr. Burlak’s propositions and evidence.
Burlak (2008) argues that a basic problem of my decipherment is the word length. Whereas I have found that the average length of Meroitic words is one-to-three characters in length . Burlak (2008) maintains that the average length of Meroitic words is not one –to- three charaters, but five to eight characters in length based on Meroitic proper names.
Using Meroitic names to determine the length of Meroitic words fails to accurately describe Meroitic lexemes, because names usually are compound words e.g., Kasta/ Kushto ‘the Kushite’ (Abdalla, 1989 p.876; Trigger, 1964 p. 193; Welsby, 1996). For example many Meroitic names include the names of deities: Tamwetamani ; Arqamani; Anlamani ; and Takideamani.
Welsby (1996 p.190) noted that other Meroitic names include the words mak (god), malo (good) and mote (child). Many Meroitic words are only two-three characters e.g., mk (god), Wos (Isis), mn (Aman) and nob (Nubian). A common place name element in Meroitic place-names is –te, e.g., Np-te (Napata), and ph rs-te (Faras). The majority of Meroitic ethnonyms are also two-three characters lk (Lak), šq (Shaqa), and nob (Nubian).
A comparison of Meroitic and Tocharian grammatical features also indicates that in many cases Meroitic words average one- three characters. In recent years researchers were able to develop a grammar of Meroitic, without being able to read Meroitic. The research of Hintze (1979) and Hoffman (1981) made it possible for us to find the cognate language of Meroitic: Tokharian (Winters 1984 ,1989).
Hintze (1979) grammar of Meroitic provided the necessary material to compare Meroitic with other languages to find its cognate language. Hintze (1979) recognized three approaches to the study of Meroitic: 1) philological, 2) comparative, and 3) structural (i.e., the morphological-syntactical).
The philological methods of Hintze (1979) was informed guesses based upon context.In the comparative method the structures of two or more languages are compared to determine the relationship between languages. Hintze's (1979) discussion of the Meroitic affixes provided us with the linguistic material to compare Meroitic successfully with Tocharian.
The comparative method is used by linguist to determine the relatedness of languages, and to reconstruct earlier language states. The comparative linguist looks for patterns of correspondence, i.e., the isolation of words with common or similar meanings that have systematic consonantal agreement with little regard for location and/or type of vowel. Consonantal agreement is the regular appearance of consonants at certain locations in words having analogous meanings.
Hintze (1979) was sure that there were a number of Meroitic affixes including:
p
ye
-te
-to
-o
B.G. Trigger in his "Commentary" (Hintze 1979) mentioned several other possible Meroitic affixes including:
-n
-te
-b
In addition , A. M. Abdalla in his "Commentary" (Hintze 1979)mentioned three possible verbal suffixes , including:
-ñ
-t
-y
These alleged Meroitic grammatical elements encouraged me to seek out a language that contained these typological features as the possible cognate language for Meroitic. The Kushana language includes all of these affixes.
Researchers working on Meroitic determined several possible prefixes:
p,
-s
y.
These proposed affixes for Meroitic are one character in length. Given the fact that experts in Meroitic like Abdalla and Hintze recognized that Meroitic had a number of single character lexemes makes it clear that when I found that many Meroitic terms were one-to-three character in length illustrates that I was only following the linguistic findings of other Meroitists who are the foundation of this decipherment of Meroitic.
Winters took these suggested Meroitic lexemes and compared them to Tocharian to discover if similar affixes existed in Kushana. In Tocharian we find these prefixes: p(ä), the imperfect prefix and imperative, y- the Tocharian element are joined to demonstratives , e.g., yopsa ‘in between’.
There are other affixes that relate to the Meroitic suffixes proposed by Abdalla and Hintze (1979) that are explained by Tocharian including –te, the demonstrative ‘this, etc.’; -o, the suffix used to change nouns into adjectives. For example: aiśamñe ‘knowledge’, asimo ‘knowing; klyomñ ’nobility’, klyomo ‘noble’.
Other Tocharian affixes which provide insight into Meroitic affixes include –te and -l. The Tocharian locative suffix is –te. The ending particle in Tocharian is –l. The Meroitic –t, corresponds to the –t ‘you’. In Tocharian the pronouns are placed at the end of words: nas-a-m ‘I am’, träkä-s ‘he says’, träkä-t ‘you say’.
The –t element in Tocharian can also be used to represent the third person singular e.g., kälpa-t ‘he found’.The p-, element used to form the imperative and imperfect in Tocharian . This affix is used in both Tocharian A and B. For example,Tokh.A klyos "to hear, to listen"p(a)klyos "You listen"p(a)klyossu "s/he listens"Tokh. B klyausp(a)klyaus 'you listen"A. ta, tas, "to lay, to put"ptas 'you lay'B. tes, tas 'to put, to lay'ptes 'you put'.
The Tocharian -n-, has many uses . It can be used to form the subjuntive, e.g., yam 'to do', yaman 's/he do(es). It is also used to form the plural se 'son', pl. sewan 'sons; ri 'city', pl. rin 'cities'.The plural in Tocharian is formed by the –ñ. For example,are ‘plough’, pl. areñ ‘ploughs’ ri ‘city’ , pl. riñ ‘cities.
Recognition of analogous structural elements in relation to Kushana/ Tocharian and Meroitic allowed us to divide the Meroitic phonemes into words. Griffith (1911a,1911b,1912) provided us with evidence for selected Meroitic nouns.
These examples of Meroitic names and lexical items make it clear that the average length of characters for Meroitic words is less than 5-8 characters. It also illustrates that Winters based his ideas on the possible length of some Meroitic words on the research of Abdalla and Hintze (1979). This makes Burlak’s (2008) claim that the length of Meroitic terms is generally five-seven characters as he alle
Part7:Winters' Response to Burlak's Meroitic and Tocharian
Clyde Winters response to Burlak’s Meroitic & Tocharian Part 7: Burlak claims that too many Tocharian words used to read Meroitic does not have an Indo-European origin.
12. Burlak believes Winters’ decipherment of Meroitic and use of Tocharian words to read Meroitic must be wrong, because the Tocharian words used by Winters to read Meroitic have no plausible Indo-European etymology.
This is a silly complaint. The fact that the Tocharian words used to read and translate Meroitic do not have an Indo-European etymology should have nothing to do with using Kushana words to read Meroitic.
Burlak (2008) acknowledges that many attested Tocharian terms are “hapax legomena, or have unknown meaning. The vocabulary of both languages is full of loan-words which are themselves not recognized and etymologised. Additionally there are many words which may be either native or loan” (p.99). If many of the terms recognized as Tocharian, are not I-E in origin Burlak’s complaint about the origination of Tocharian terms used to read Meroitic is quite petty, since many Tocharian terms lack I-E etymology in the first place and he already recognizes this fact in his article.
Winters (1990) has argued that their ancestral culture was the Qijia culture of western China. The Chinese claimed that the Tocharians called themselves Kushana > Kuishuang. The Qijia culture is characterized by domesticated cattle, sheep and pig. This culture existed from the upper Weishui Valley in the east, the Huangshui Valley of Qijia in the West, Ningxia and the westernmost Inner Mongolia in the north.
This was the most advanced agro-pastoral group in early China (Chang 1987:283). The Qijia pottery signs are analogous to those found in the Harappan writing and on Harappan pottery (Chang 1987:283).
Many Indo-Europeanists would agree that the spread of the Pit Grave and Andronovo cultures of the 3rd and 2nd millennium B.C., may reflect the Indo-Iranian infilling of the steppe zone Mallory 1989; Sherratt & Sherratt, 1988). This view is complicated by Tocharian which reflects little affinity to Indo-Iranian.
To explain this anomaly Tocharianists argue that Tocharian early separated from its Proto-Indo-European neighbors (Adams 1995). An additional argument used to explain the difference between Tocharian and the Iranian speakers is the theory that Tocharian is a "western" Indo-European language that early lost contact with its cogeners, but reflects palatals that place it in the centum I-E branch (Pulleyblank 1995). This second hypothesis is used to explain the numerous archaisms in Tocharian and the few common innovations shared by Tocharian and speakers of the "western" Indo-European languages (Adams 1995:411). But Adams (1995) makes it clear that:” Subsequent investigation has led to the conclusion that Tocharian is not closely related to any other Indo-European branch. Shared lexical innovations do tend to show a greater degree of relationship with various western branches of Indo-European than with the eastern ( i.e., Indo-Iranian) but the lexical associations are not very overwhelming" (p.404).
The Sherratts (1988) have suggested two solutions to the Tocharian "problem". The first solution is that Tocharian may represent the earliest phase of Indo-European migration from the Proto-Indo-European homeland. The alternative solution is that Tocharian is a late Indo-European language associated with trade along the Silk Road (Sherratt 1988:587; Winters, 1998).
In 1908 Sieg and Siegling published their findings that Tocharian was an IE language. This discovery was accepted without any challenge. But Ringe (1995) maintains that although Tocharian is an IE language "the Tocharian languages do not closely resemble any other IE languages. In other words Tocharian is a separate "branch" of the I-E family, on a par with Germanic, Greek, Indo-Iranian, etc." (p.439).
Tocharian does not detail many features associated with I-E languages. For example, Tocharian fails to illustrate original cases associated with I-E nouns. Moreover, whereas I-E languages are grammatically synthetic, in contrast Tocharian is an agglutinative language. For example, grammatically Latin illustrates a genitive case and nominative case.
Although Tocharian is accepted as an IE language there is disturbing linguistic evidence that makes it difficult to properly place Tocharian in the IE family. A large part of the vocabulary of Tocharian detailed etymology. There is considerable influence on Tocharian from Sanskrit and Iranian due to Buddhism. Tocharian also shares many phonological and word formational and lexical correspondences with Balto-Slavic languages.
J.Van Windekens (1976) has compared Tocharian and IE vocabularies and established the following Tocharian isoglosses, ranked as follows: 1) Germanic, 2) Greek, 3) Indic, 4-5) Baltic and Iranian, 6) Latin, 7) Slavic, 8) Celtic, 9) Anatolian, 10) Armenian and 11) Albanian. D.Q. Adams (1984) established a different rank order 1) Germanic, 2) Greek, 3) Baltic, 4) Indic, 5) Slavic, 6-8) Latin, Celtic, Iranian, 9) Albanian, 10) Anatolian and 11) Armenian.
Tocharian shares many ancient features with Hittite in noun morphology. For example, Tocharian A e-, B ai- 'to give' : Hittite pai- < pa-ai-; Tocharian A ya- 'to do': Hittite iia-;Tocharian A tkam, B kem 'earth': Hittite tekan.
In relation to Sanskrit and Greek, Tocharian has preserved the mediopassive voice and the presence of both subjunctive and optative mood. The most important evidence of Tocharian relations within the IE family are the Greek and Tocharian cognates: Tocharian A ñkat, B ñakte 'God'; A natäk 'lord', nasi 'lady'; Greek wanakt 'King', *wanakya queen' .
There is also evidence of Sanskrit and Iranian influences in relation to religious and technical terms. Tocharian has a limited association with Iranian, especially in relation to "Old Iranian" or Avestan terms, Bactrian terms and Ossetic terms.
Indo-European archaisms are preserved in Tocharian, Celtic, Phrygian and Anatolian (Mallory 1989:155). In addition, Tocharian, Latin, Irish, Hittite and Phrygian retain the medio-passive ending in -r, e.g., Tocharian A -mar, B -mar; A klyosmar, B klyausemar 'hear'; Latin loquitur, Old Irish labrithir 'speaks'.
Bonfante (1987:77) has observed that Tocharian has old contacts only with Slavic or through Slavic. As a result of this contact Tocharian shares many phonological, word formational and lexical correspondences with Balto-Slavic.
Ringe (1990)believes that many of the Tocharian innovations which link it to the western IE languages may have developed independently in Tocharian and reflect " natural" language changes (Ringe, 1995: 440). Bonfante (1987) list four Tocharian innovations shared with Slavic: 1) IE *eu becomes yu; 2) the prefix so- with perfective value (found Tocharian only in the imperative); 3) Tocharian A rake, B reki; Slavic rec, and 4) Tocharian A sar, B ser, Slavic sestra 'sister'.
Schmidt (1990) has argued that many of the innovations in Tocharian may be the result of substratum influences of non-IE languages. Winters (1988a, 1989, 1991, 1998) has argued that there is a Dravidian substratum to Tocharian.
The Dravidian substratum in Tocharian appears to be from the Tamil and Telugu languages. In addition to lexical items, the Tamil and Tocharian languages possess structural and grammatical analogy. For example, Dravidian and Tocharian share the plural ending element -lu and -u, e.g., Telugu magadu 'man, husband', (pl.) magalu 'men'; Tocharian wast 'house', (pl.) wastu 'houses'.
It is interesting to note that Dravidians and Tocharians share many terms for animals, e.g., Dravidian ku-na 'dog', Tocharian ku 'dog'; and Dravidian kode 'cow', Tocharian ko 'cow'.
There are five different IE roots for horse. This multiplicity of IE roots for horse makes these terms inconclusive for the IE proto-lexicon. This is interesting because the Dravidian term for horse is iyuli, this is analogous to Tocharian yuk (Winters 1988,1991, 1998).
The Tocharian lexicon has also been influenced by Tibetan, Chinese and Uighur (Blazek 1988; Winters 1991). The Sino-Tibetan influence is evident in certain key terms, e.g., Tocharian B plewe 'boat, Gurung plava 'boat', Archaic Chinese plyog and ancient Chinese plyow 'boat'; these terms for boat corresponds with Tamil patavu 'boat'; Tocharian A kuryur, B karyar 'business', purchase', B kary 'to buy', Tibetan-Burmic *kroy , in Burmic Krwè 'debt', Kochin khoi 'borrow or lend'; and Tocharian A and B par 'bring, take', IE *bher 'bring', Tibeto-Burmic *p-, in *par 'trade, buy, sell' and Kannanda bar 'bring'.
The Dravidian and Altaic substratums in Tocharian supports the hypothesis of Winters (1998) and, Andrew and Susan Sherratt (1988) that Tocharian was a trade language. This would also agree with Chinese evidence that the Tocharians migrated into Central Asia from the east, not the northwest.
If Tocharian was a trade language , this would explain the evidence that Tocharian is not a centum language and its illustration of a clear dual contrast in reflexes of the gutturals. This hypothesis also offers an explanation of the great time depth indicated for the separation of Tocharian from Proto-IE.
Central Asia has long been characterized by the habitation of this area by diverse groups. Thus its history is manifested by the infilling of central Asia by various nomadic groups in search of conquest and/or colonization made this part of Asia a centre of pluralistic societies. Given Central Asia's situation as a centre of linguistic fragmentation made the development of a lingua franca advantageous for inter-tribal relations.
A down the line pattern of conquest and settlement by successive non-indigenous populations in Central Asia probably led to extensive bilingualism in central Asia. These bilingual speakers handled trade between the various Central Asian populations, and their trading partners in neighboring countries.
This suggest that down the line exchange directional trade pattern through the use of bilingual speakers at each step of the chain may offer one explanation for the origin of Tocharian as a trade language combining elements and vocabulary from the language spoken by populations of different bilingual speakers participating in the Central Asian exchange system. This means that Tocharian may be a mixed language--a Central Asian lingua franca similar to the Swahili language of east Africa, which combines the Bantu and Arabic languages.
The large corpus of non-IE words in Tocharian discussed by Blazek (1988) and Winters (1988a, 1990, 1991) is congruent with the hypothesis that IE elements in Tocharian, especially Greek (and Slavic) were loanwords into Tocharian after the Greek conquest of Bactria. This borrowing pattern is consistent with the spread of the Greek language into Bactria by a small politically dominant minority of Greek settlers into a far larger and previously long-established non-IE speaking majority population.
The Greco-Bactrians were probably bilingual . Bilingualism can be induced through two methods 1) state coercion or 2) its ability to offer advantages to two or more populations in contact. The latter method of change usually accounts for bilingualism--people use the new language to obtain better access to status, security, ritual or goods. The Greek emphasis on direct methods of political control in Bactria forced many non-Greeks to become bilingual due to its advantage as a tool for greater upward mobility during Greek rule.
The historical and linguistic evidence suggest that convergence in Central Asia, was unidirectional, in that successive IE speaking populations namely Greek and Slavic speakers conquered the indigenous Central Asian Dravidian speakers. This convergence led to the raise of Tocharian as a trade language.
As a result of prolonged bilingual contact between Greek and non-Greek speakers, Tocharian was more than likely an interlanguage used for purposes of trade based on the Greek superstratum and Dravidian substratum. The view that Dravidian was spoken over a large part of Central Asia is supported by the islands of Dravidian speakers found today in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Southern Russia. These pockets of contemporary Dravidian speakers support the archaeological evidence of Dravido-Harappan colonization of Central Asia over 4000 years ago (Winters 1988a,1990).
Tocharian shares linguistic features with Altaic, Greek and Dravidian. These analogies suggest centuries of contact within a multilingual setting.
Over the centuries various nomadic groups have swept into the Central Asian steppes to plunder and conquer sedentary populations, e.g., Greeks, Turks, Sogdians and Sakians. As a result of this conflict, widespread bilingualism became a normal feature of the socio-linguistic reality of ancient Central Asia. This inturn would lead to analogous phonetic surface structures resulting from centuries of interference. The diverse languages spoken in Central Asia around this time would have made a lingua franca necessary to insure trade and communication could effectively and efficiently take pace in this region. Tocharian probably served this purpose, and probably explains the numerous non-I-E features and vocabulary found in Tocharian.
As a result of the Greek influence in Bactria, Bactrians had to acquire "Greek Culture" to enhance their position and opportunity in Bactria during Greek rule, placed prestige on status elements introduced by the Greeks. Status acquired by Bactrians was thus centred around acquisition of Greek language and Greek culture. This would have inturn added pressure on the Bactrians to incorporate Greek terms into a Bactrian lingua franca (i.e., Tocharian).
Given the fact that Greek administrators in Bactria refused to fully integrate Bactrians into the ruling elite led to subsequent generations of native Bactrians to progressively incorporate more Greek terms into their native language. This would explain why Tocharian has many features that relate to certain IE etymologies associated with the Greeks, but illustrates little affinity to Indo-Iranian languages which are geographically and temporally closer to Tocharian.
The influence of colonial Greeks in Central Asia would explain why the most important evidence of Tocharian relations within the IE family are the Greek and Tocharian cognates (Adams, 1984; Mallory 1989: Windekens, 1976).
The Greek invasion/elite dominance model for IE elements in Tocharian is congruent with the linguistic and historical evidence which indicates the early settlement of Central Asia by Dravidian speakers among a diverse Bactrian population that used a Proto-Dravidian language as a lingua franca. This lingua franca: Tocharian, probably allowed intra-ethnic communication in the region. Mallory's (1989:182) hypothesis of a Pontic-Caspian steppe homeland for the Tocharians lacks congruency given the historical evidence for the subjugation of the Bactrians by IE speakers, and a Chinese origin for the Tocharians (Pulleyblank 1995; Winters 1990, 1991).
In summary, Andrew and Susan Sherratt's (1988) hypothesis that trade may have played a role in the raise of Tocharian, may be the best solution for the Tocharian problem. It supports the historical evidence of a strong Greek influence in Central Asia which allowed the Greek language to become a Superstratum of a Dravidian based trade languages which we call Tocharian today.
The Greek colonization of Bactria, made the Greek language a link language between the non-IE languages spoken in Central Asia three thousand years ago, which after many generations of bilingualism led to an interlanguage phenomena that became a permanent feature of the literate speech community in this region. We can define the institutionalization of an interlanguage as language recombination, i.e., the mixing of the vocabulary and structures of the substratum language (Dravidian) and the superstratum language (Greek and later Slavic speaking Saka people) to form a new mixed language: Tocharian.
The "elite dominance model" hypothesis would have two basic consequences in relation to Tocharian linguistics. First, it would account for the correspondence in grammar (especially agglutination) and vocabulary between Dravidian and Tocharian on the one hand, and Tocharian and Indo-European on the other. Secondly, the settlement of the Saka in Bactria after the Greeks, would explain the great topological similarity between Tocharian and Balto-Slavic. The evidence of Saka and Greek conquest of Bactria/ Central Asia confirms the Sherratt (1988) hypothesis that Tocharian may be a trade language, and offers a plausible solution to the non-I-E character of Tocharian.
In conclusion, it is clear from this review that Tocharian is the cognate language to Meroitic. It has been explained that Tocharian was probably a trade language and it was adopted by the Meroites to serve as a means of communication—a lingua franca-- for the diverse populations living in the Meroitic empire.
12. Burlak believes Winters’ decipherment of Meroitic and use of Tocharian words to read Meroitic must be wrong, because the Tocharian words used by Winters to read Meroitic have no plausible Indo-European etymology.
This is a silly complaint. The fact that the Tocharian words used to read and translate Meroitic do not have an Indo-European etymology should have nothing to do with using Kushana words to read Meroitic.
Burlak (2008) acknowledges that many attested Tocharian terms are “hapax legomena, or have unknown meaning. The vocabulary of both languages is full of loan-words which are themselves not recognized and etymologised. Additionally there are many words which may be either native or loan” (p.99). If many of the terms recognized as Tocharian, are not I-E in origin Burlak’s complaint about the origination of Tocharian terms used to read Meroitic is quite petty, since many Tocharian terms lack I-E etymology in the first place and he already recognizes this fact in his article.
Winters (1990) has argued that their ancestral culture was the Qijia culture of western China. The Chinese claimed that the Tocharians called themselves Kushana > Kuishuang. The Qijia culture is characterized by domesticated cattle, sheep and pig. This culture existed from the upper Weishui Valley in the east, the Huangshui Valley of Qijia in the West, Ningxia and the westernmost Inner Mongolia in the north.
This was the most advanced agro-pastoral group in early China (Chang 1987:283). The Qijia pottery signs are analogous to those found in the Harappan writing and on Harappan pottery (Chang 1987:283).
Many Indo-Europeanists would agree that the spread of the Pit Grave and Andronovo cultures of the 3rd and 2nd millennium B.C., may reflect the Indo-Iranian infilling of the steppe zone Mallory 1989; Sherratt & Sherratt, 1988). This view is complicated by Tocharian which reflects little affinity to Indo-Iranian.
To explain this anomaly Tocharianists argue that Tocharian early separated from its Proto-Indo-European neighbors (Adams 1995). An additional argument used to explain the difference between Tocharian and the Iranian speakers is the theory that Tocharian is a "western" Indo-European language that early lost contact with its cogeners, but reflects palatals that place it in the centum I-E branch (Pulleyblank 1995). This second hypothesis is used to explain the numerous archaisms in Tocharian and the few common innovations shared by Tocharian and speakers of the "western" Indo-European languages (Adams 1995:411). But Adams (1995) makes it clear that:” Subsequent investigation has led to the conclusion that Tocharian is not closely related to any other Indo-European branch. Shared lexical innovations do tend to show a greater degree of relationship with various western branches of Indo-European than with the eastern ( i.e., Indo-Iranian) but the lexical associations are not very overwhelming" (p.404).
The Sherratts (1988) have suggested two solutions to the Tocharian "problem". The first solution is that Tocharian may represent the earliest phase of Indo-European migration from the Proto-Indo-European homeland. The alternative solution is that Tocharian is a late Indo-European language associated with trade along the Silk Road (Sherratt 1988:587; Winters, 1998).
In 1908 Sieg and Siegling published their findings that Tocharian was an IE language. This discovery was accepted without any challenge. But Ringe (1995) maintains that although Tocharian is an IE language "the Tocharian languages do not closely resemble any other IE languages. In other words Tocharian is a separate "branch" of the I-E family, on a par with Germanic, Greek, Indo-Iranian, etc." (p.439).
Tocharian does not detail many features associated with I-E languages. For example, Tocharian fails to illustrate original cases associated with I-E nouns. Moreover, whereas I-E languages are grammatically synthetic, in contrast Tocharian is an agglutinative language. For example, grammatically Latin illustrates a genitive case and nominative case.
Although Tocharian is accepted as an IE language there is disturbing linguistic evidence that makes it difficult to properly place Tocharian in the IE family. A large part of the vocabulary of Tocharian detailed etymology. There is considerable influence on Tocharian from Sanskrit and Iranian due to Buddhism. Tocharian also shares many phonological and word formational and lexical correspondences with Balto-Slavic languages.
J.Van Windekens (1976) has compared Tocharian and IE vocabularies and established the following Tocharian isoglosses, ranked as follows: 1) Germanic, 2) Greek, 3) Indic, 4-5) Baltic and Iranian, 6) Latin, 7) Slavic, 8) Celtic, 9) Anatolian, 10) Armenian and 11) Albanian. D.Q. Adams (1984) established a different rank order 1) Germanic, 2) Greek, 3) Baltic, 4) Indic, 5) Slavic, 6-8) Latin, Celtic, Iranian, 9) Albanian, 10) Anatolian and 11) Armenian.
Tocharian shares many ancient features with Hittite in noun morphology. For example, Tocharian A e-, B ai- 'to give' : Hittite pai- < pa-ai-; Tocharian A ya- 'to do': Hittite iia-;Tocharian A tkam, B kem 'earth': Hittite tekan.
In relation to Sanskrit and Greek, Tocharian has preserved the mediopassive voice and the presence of both subjunctive and optative mood. The most important evidence of Tocharian relations within the IE family are the Greek and Tocharian cognates: Tocharian A ñkat, B ñakte 'God'; A natäk 'lord', nasi 'lady'; Greek wanakt 'King', *wanakya queen' .
There is also evidence of Sanskrit and Iranian influences in relation to religious and technical terms. Tocharian has a limited association with Iranian, especially in relation to "Old Iranian" or Avestan terms, Bactrian terms and Ossetic terms.
Indo-European archaisms are preserved in Tocharian, Celtic, Phrygian and Anatolian (Mallory 1989:155). In addition, Tocharian, Latin, Irish, Hittite and Phrygian retain the medio-passive ending in -r, e.g., Tocharian A -mar, B -mar; A klyosmar, B klyausemar 'hear'; Latin loquitur, Old Irish labrithir 'speaks'.
Bonfante (1987:77) has observed that Tocharian has old contacts only with Slavic or through Slavic. As a result of this contact Tocharian shares many phonological, word formational and lexical correspondences with Balto-Slavic.
Ringe (1990)believes that many of the Tocharian innovations which link it to the western IE languages may have developed independently in Tocharian and reflect " natural" language changes (Ringe, 1995: 440). Bonfante (1987) list four Tocharian innovations shared with Slavic: 1) IE *eu becomes yu; 2) the prefix so- with perfective value (found Tocharian only in the imperative); 3) Tocharian A rake, B reki; Slavic rec, and 4) Tocharian A sar, B ser, Slavic sestra 'sister'.
Schmidt (1990) has argued that many of the innovations in Tocharian may be the result of substratum influences of non-IE languages. Winters (1988a, 1989, 1991, 1998) has argued that there is a Dravidian substratum to Tocharian.
The Dravidian substratum in Tocharian appears to be from the Tamil and Telugu languages. In addition to lexical items, the Tamil and Tocharian languages possess structural and grammatical analogy. For example, Dravidian and Tocharian share the plural ending element -lu and -u, e.g., Telugu magadu 'man, husband', (pl.) magalu 'men'; Tocharian wast 'house', (pl.) wastu 'houses'.
It is interesting to note that Dravidians and Tocharians share many terms for animals, e.g., Dravidian ku-na 'dog', Tocharian ku 'dog'; and Dravidian kode 'cow', Tocharian ko 'cow'.
There are five different IE roots for horse. This multiplicity of IE roots for horse makes these terms inconclusive for the IE proto-lexicon. This is interesting because the Dravidian term for horse is iyuli, this is analogous to Tocharian yuk (Winters 1988,1991, 1998).
The Tocharian lexicon has also been influenced by Tibetan, Chinese and Uighur (Blazek 1988; Winters 1991). The Sino-Tibetan influence is evident in certain key terms, e.g., Tocharian B plewe 'boat, Gurung plava 'boat', Archaic Chinese plyog and ancient Chinese plyow 'boat'; these terms for boat corresponds with Tamil patavu 'boat'; Tocharian A kuryur, B karyar 'business', purchase', B kary 'to buy', Tibetan-Burmic *kroy , in Burmic Krwè 'debt', Kochin khoi 'borrow or lend'; and Tocharian A and B par 'bring, take', IE *bher 'bring', Tibeto-Burmic *p-, in *par 'trade, buy, sell' and Kannanda bar 'bring'.
The Dravidian and Altaic substratums in Tocharian supports the hypothesis of Winters (1998) and, Andrew and Susan Sherratt (1988) that Tocharian was a trade language. This would also agree with Chinese evidence that the Tocharians migrated into Central Asia from the east, not the northwest.
If Tocharian was a trade language , this would explain the evidence that Tocharian is not a centum language and its illustration of a clear dual contrast in reflexes of the gutturals. This hypothesis also offers an explanation of the great time depth indicated for the separation of Tocharian from Proto-IE.
Central Asia has long been characterized by the habitation of this area by diverse groups. Thus its history is manifested by the infilling of central Asia by various nomadic groups in search of conquest and/or colonization made this part of Asia a centre of pluralistic societies. Given Central Asia's situation as a centre of linguistic fragmentation made the development of a lingua franca advantageous for inter-tribal relations.
A down the line pattern of conquest and settlement by successive non-indigenous populations in Central Asia probably led to extensive bilingualism in central Asia. These bilingual speakers handled trade between the various Central Asian populations, and their trading partners in neighboring countries.
This suggest that down the line exchange directional trade pattern through the use of bilingual speakers at each step of the chain may offer one explanation for the origin of Tocharian as a trade language combining elements and vocabulary from the language spoken by populations of different bilingual speakers participating in the Central Asian exchange system. This means that Tocharian may be a mixed language--a Central Asian lingua franca similar to the Swahili language of east Africa, which combines the Bantu and Arabic languages.
The large corpus of non-IE words in Tocharian discussed by Blazek (1988) and Winters (1988a, 1990, 1991) is congruent with the hypothesis that IE elements in Tocharian, especially Greek (and Slavic) were loanwords into Tocharian after the Greek conquest of Bactria. This borrowing pattern is consistent with the spread of the Greek language into Bactria by a small politically dominant minority of Greek settlers into a far larger and previously long-established non-IE speaking majority population.
The Greco-Bactrians were probably bilingual . Bilingualism can be induced through two methods 1) state coercion or 2) its ability to offer advantages to two or more populations in contact. The latter method of change usually accounts for bilingualism--people use the new language to obtain better access to status, security, ritual or goods. The Greek emphasis on direct methods of political control in Bactria forced many non-Greeks to become bilingual due to its advantage as a tool for greater upward mobility during Greek rule.
The historical and linguistic evidence suggest that convergence in Central Asia, was unidirectional, in that successive IE speaking populations namely Greek and Slavic speakers conquered the indigenous Central Asian Dravidian speakers. This convergence led to the raise of Tocharian as a trade language.
As a result of prolonged bilingual contact between Greek and non-Greek speakers, Tocharian was more than likely an interlanguage used for purposes of trade based on the Greek superstratum and Dravidian substratum. The view that Dravidian was spoken over a large part of Central Asia is supported by the islands of Dravidian speakers found today in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Southern Russia. These pockets of contemporary Dravidian speakers support the archaeological evidence of Dravido-Harappan colonization of Central Asia over 4000 years ago (Winters 1988a,1990).
Tocharian shares linguistic features with Altaic, Greek and Dravidian. These analogies suggest centuries of contact within a multilingual setting.
Over the centuries various nomadic groups have swept into the Central Asian steppes to plunder and conquer sedentary populations, e.g., Greeks, Turks, Sogdians and Sakians. As a result of this conflict, widespread bilingualism became a normal feature of the socio-linguistic reality of ancient Central Asia. This inturn would lead to analogous phonetic surface structures resulting from centuries of interference. The diverse languages spoken in Central Asia around this time would have made a lingua franca necessary to insure trade and communication could effectively and efficiently take pace in this region. Tocharian probably served this purpose, and probably explains the numerous non-I-E features and vocabulary found in Tocharian.
As a result of the Greek influence in Bactria, Bactrians had to acquire "Greek Culture" to enhance their position and opportunity in Bactria during Greek rule, placed prestige on status elements introduced by the Greeks. Status acquired by Bactrians was thus centred around acquisition of Greek language and Greek culture. This would have inturn added pressure on the Bactrians to incorporate Greek terms into a Bactrian lingua franca (i.e., Tocharian).
Given the fact that Greek administrators in Bactria refused to fully integrate Bactrians into the ruling elite led to subsequent generations of native Bactrians to progressively incorporate more Greek terms into their native language. This would explain why Tocharian has many features that relate to certain IE etymologies associated with the Greeks, but illustrates little affinity to Indo-Iranian languages which are geographically and temporally closer to Tocharian.
The influence of colonial Greeks in Central Asia would explain why the most important evidence of Tocharian relations within the IE family are the Greek and Tocharian cognates (Adams, 1984; Mallory 1989: Windekens, 1976).
The Greek invasion/elite dominance model for IE elements in Tocharian is congruent with the linguistic and historical evidence which indicates the early settlement of Central Asia by Dravidian speakers among a diverse Bactrian population that used a Proto-Dravidian language as a lingua franca. This lingua franca: Tocharian, probably allowed intra-ethnic communication in the region. Mallory's (1989:182) hypothesis of a Pontic-Caspian steppe homeland for the Tocharians lacks congruency given the historical evidence for the subjugation of the Bactrians by IE speakers, and a Chinese origin for the Tocharians (Pulleyblank 1995; Winters 1990, 1991).
In summary, Andrew and Susan Sherratt's (1988) hypothesis that trade may have played a role in the raise of Tocharian, may be the best solution for the Tocharian problem. It supports the historical evidence of a strong Greek influence in Central Asia which allowed the Greek language to become a Superstratum of a Dravidian based trade languages which we call Tocharian today.
The Greek colonization of Bactria, made the Greek language a link language between the non-IE languages spoken in Central Asia three thousand years ago, which after many generations of bilingualism led to an interlanguage phenomena that became a permanent feature of the literate speech community in this region. We can define the institutionalization of an interlanguage as language recombination, i.e., the mixing of the vocabulary and structures of the substratum language (Dravidian) and the superstratum language (Greek and later Slavic speaking Saka people) to form a new mixed language: Tocharian.
The "elite dominance model" hypothesis would have two basic consequences in relation to Tocharian linguistics. First, it would account for the correspondence in grammar (especially agglutination) and vocabulary between Dravidian and Tocharian on the one hand, and Tocharian and Indo-European on the other. Secondly, the settlement of the Saka in Bactria after the Greeks, would explain the great topological similarity between Tocharian and Balto-Slavic. The evidence of Saka and Greek conquest of Bactria/ Central Asia confirms the Sherratt (1988) hypothesis that Tocharian may be a trade language, and offers a plausible solution to the non-I-E character of Tocharian.
In conclusion, it is clear from this review that Tocharian is the cognate language to Meroitic. It has been explained that Tocharian was probably a trade language and it was adopted by the Meroites to serve as a means of communication—a lingua franca-- for the diverse populations living in the Meroitic empire.
Conclusion: Clyde Winters response to Burlak’s Meroitic & Tocharian: Conclusion
Clyde Winters response to Burlak’s Meroitic & Tocharian Part 9: Conclusion
In conclusion, it is clear from this review that Tocharian is the cognate language to Meroitic. It has been explained that Tocharian was probably a trade language and it was adopted by the Meroites to serve as a means of communication—a lingua franca-- for the diverse populations living in the Meroitic empire.
The ability to reliably predict a linguistic relationship between Kushana and Meroitic, was further confirmation of the Kushana Hypothesis, because the linguistic connections were deducible from prediction. I controlled the Kushana Hypothesis by comparing the statements of the classical writers, with historical, linguistic anthropological and toponymic evidence found not only in Africa, but also India and Central Asia (see Appendix).
I constructed three testable hypotheses in support of the Kushana theory, and it seems only fair that these variables must be disconfirmed, to falsify the Kushana Hypothesis.
Hypothesis 1: If the Meroites used a writing system of non-African origin a tradition mentioning this fact will exist. (Hypothesis confirmed. Classical literature mentions Indian scholars in ancient Meroe.)
Hypothesis: 2. If the classical literature mentions Indians who lived in Egypt influencing the Meroites their should be historical evidence relating to this tradition. (Hypothesis confirmed .Classical literature mentions a King who left his country is mentioned in the Jaina text called the Kalakeharya-Kathanaka.)
Hypothesis: 3. If Classical literature is true about the Indian origin of the Gymnosophists Indians will be found living near the Meroites around the time the Meroitic inscriptions appear. (Hypothesis confirmed. Artifacts and coins with Indian inscriptions have been found in Egypt and Ethiopia.) Failure to disconfirm these theorem, implies validity of my prediction. Burbak (2008) attempted to deny a relationship between Meroitic and Tocharian by making claims that were not supported by the evidence. His claims that the length of words was too short, and selected elements associated with Tocharian was not evident in Meroitic have proven to be false, and did not reflect the significant in roads into reading Meroitic made by Abdalla and Hintze (1979).
My confirmation of the above variables in the Kushana Hypothesis: 1) the presence of Indians in Africa writing in their own scripts; 2) the presence of Kushana sages in India who may have migrated to Meroe;3) cognate lexical items; 4)cognate verbs and 5) cognate grammatical features; indicates systematic controlled, critical and empirical investigation of the question of Tocharian representing the Meroitic cognate language.
The evidence that the Classical references to an Indian King who conquered the Scythians is supported by the Indian literature, provides external corroboration of the tradition that some of the Meroites were of Indian origin. The presence of Indian traders and settlers in Meroe (and Egypt), makes it almost impossible to deny the possibility that Indians, familiar with the Tocharian trade language did not introduce this writing to the Meroites who needed a neutral language to unify the diverse ethnic groups who made up the Meroite state. In relation to the history of linguistic change and bilingualism, it is a mistake to believe that linguistic transfer had to take place for the Meroites to have used Tocharian, when it did not take place when they wrote in Egyptian hieroglyphics for hundreds of years.
The Classical literature makes it clear that Indians physically settled in the Meroitic Empire. It was these Indians who probably introduced Kharosthi writing and the Tocharian A language. The direct transfer of Tocharian A to the Meroites by Indian scholars would explain why the language of the Meroitic inscriptions are written in Tocharian A .
Burbak (2008) failed to illustrate that Tocharian and Meroitic were not related because he did not know that textual and archaeological material indicated that the Classical literature made it clear that Indians lived in the Meroitic empire. This provided evidence that Indians physically introduced Tocharian and the Kharosthi script to the Meroites. The physical transfer of Tocharian and Kharosthi by the Gymnosophists would explain why a specific Kushana language: Tocharian A was used to write Meroitic.
My research into Kushana or Tocharian has led me to recognize that this language was probably used as a lingua franca or trade language in Central Asia by the diverse peoples living there in an intense bilingual environment (Winters 1996a, 1996b). Winters (1991,1998) has illustrated how the Greek and Slavic terms in Tocharian were loanwords, absorbed by Tocharian after the Greek conquest of Bactria.
This borrowing pattern was consistent with the spread of the Greek language into Bactria by a small elite group of warriors.The classical and Egyptian sources make it clear that Upper Nubia and the Sudan was inhabited by numerous tribes. The possible early use of Kushan\Tocharian as a trade language made it an ideal candidate for use by the Meroitic elites who ruled an empire that was made up of many diverse ethnic groups as the language for literate Meroites
The evidence is clear Meroitic was a lingua franca that allowed the diverse people of the Meroitic Empire to communicate in a common language. I have never argued that the Kushites abandoned their native language or that Meroitic was spoken anywhere except in the Meroitic Sudan.
I have argued, and supported with evidence the fact that the Kushites. never wrote their inscriptions in a Kushite language. They used lingua francas to unite the diverse speakers in the Napatan and Meroitic civilizations first Egyptian and later Meroitic.
This is supported by the abundance of Kushite documents written in Egyptian before the introduction of Meroitic. the Napatans and Meroites wrote their inscriptions in Egyptian until the Egyptians became a sizable minority in the Meroitic Empire.
The Kushites had a tradition of using a non-Kushite language to record their administrative and political religious activities due to the numerous and diverse subjects from different tribes they ruled. Since the Meroitic and Napatan documents were written in Egyptian there is no lexical evidence of the languages spoken by the Kushites and other groups in the inscriptions left by these people.
The classical literature makes it clear that there was a connection between the Gymnosophists (of Meroe) and the Indians. The fact that historical events mentioned in the classical sources are found in the Indian literature confirm the view that there were Indian-Meroites who could have introduced the Tocharian trade language to the Meroites. And that since Meroitic was probably a lingua franca, the Kushites would not have had to abandon their own native language while using Meroitic for purposes of communication.
The discovery that Tocharian is cognate to Meroitic has led to the full decipherment of the Meroitic script. We can now translate Meroitic using Tokharian. This allows us to obtain new information about the Meroitic civilization.
In conclusion, it is clear from this review that Tocharian is the cognate language to Meroitic. It has been explained that Tocharian was probably a trade language and it was adopted by the Meroites to serve as a means of communication—a lingua franca-- for the diverse populations living in the Meroitic empire.
The ability to reliably predict a linguistic relationship between Kushana and Meroitic, was further confirmation of the Kushana Hypothesis, because the linguistic connections were deducible from prediction. I controlled the Kushana Hypothesis by comparing the statements of the classical writers, with historical, linguistic anthropological and toponymic evidence found not only in Africa, but also India and Central Asia (see Appendix).
I constructed three testable hypotheses in support of the Kushana theory, and it seems only fair that these variables must be disconfirmed, to falsify the Kushana Hypothesis.
Hypothesis 1: If the Meroites used a writing system of non-African origin a tradition mentioning this fact will exist. (Hypothesis confirmed. Classical literature mentions Indian scholars in ancient Meroe.)
Hypothesis: 2. If the classical literature mentions Indians who lived in Egypt influencing the Meroites their should be historical evidence relating to this tradition. (Hypothesis confirmed .Classical literature mentions a King who left his country is mentioned in the Jaina text called the Kalakeharya-Kathanaka.)
Hypothesis: 3. If Classical literature is true about the Indian origin of the Gymnosophists Indians will be found living near the Meroites around the time the Meroitic inscriptions appear. (Hypothesis confirmed. Artifacts and coins with Indian inscriptions have been found in Egypt and Ethiopia.) Failure to disconfirm these theorem, implies validity of my prediction. Burbak (2008) attempted to deny a relationship between Meroitic and Tocharian by making claims that were not supported by the evidence. His claims that the length of words was too short, and selected elements associated with Tocharian was not evident in Meroitic have proven to be false, and did not reflect the significant in roads into reading Meroitic made by Abdalla and Hintze (1979).
My confirmation of the above variables in the Kushana Hypothesis: 1) the presence of Indians in Africa writing in their own scripts; 2) the presence of Kushana sages in India who may have migrated to Meroe;3) cognate lexical items; 4)cognate verbs and 5) cognate grammatical features; indicates systematic controlled, critical and empirical investigation of the question of Tocharian representing the Meroitic cognate language.
The evidence that the Classical references to an Indian King who conquered the Scythians is supported by the Indian literature, provides external corroboration of the tradition that some of the Meroites were of Indian origin. The presence of Indian traders and settlers in Meroe (and Egypt), makes it almost impossible to deny the possibility that Indians, familiar with the Tocharian trade language did not introduce this writing to the Meroites who needed a neutral language to unify the diverse ethnic groups who made up the Meroite state. In relation to the history of linguistic change and bilingualism, it is a mistake to believe that linguistic transfer had to take place for the Meroites to have used Tocharian, when it did not take place when they wrote in Egyptian hieroglyphics for hundreds of years.
The Classical literature makes it clear that Indians physically settled in the Meroitic Empire. It was these Indians who probably introduced Kharosthi writing and the Tocharian A language. The direct transfer of Tocharian A to the Meroites by Indian scholars would explain why the language of the Meroitic inscriptions are written in Tocharian A .
Burbak (2008) failed to illustrate that Tocharian and Meroitic were not related because he did not know that textual and archaeological material indicated that the Classical literature made it clear that Indians lived in the Meroitic empire. This provided evidence that Indians physically introduced Tocharian and the Kharosthi script to the Meroites. The physical transfer of Tocharian and Kharosthi by the Gymnosophists would explain why a specific Kushana language: Tocharian A was used to write Meroitic.
My research into Kushana or Tocharian has led me to recognize that this language was probably used as a lingua franca or trade language in Central Asia by the diverse peoples living there in an intense bilingual environment (Winters 1996a, 1996b). Winters (1991,1998) has illustrated how the Greek and Slavic terms in Tocharian were loanwords, absorbed by Tocharian after the Greek conquest of Bactria.
This borrowing pattern was consistent with the spread of the Greek language into Bactria by a small elite group of warriors.The classical and Egyptian sources make it clear that Upper Nubia and the Sudan was inhabited by numerous tribes. The possible early use of Kushan\Tocharian as a trade language made it an ideal candidate for use by the Meroitic elites who ruled an empire that was made up of many diverse ethnic groups as the language for literate Meroites
The evidence is clear Meroitic was a lingua franca that allowed the diverse people of the Meroitic Empire to communicate in a common language. I have never argued that the Kushites abandoned their native language or that Meroitic was spoken anywhere except in the Meroitic Sudan.
I have argued, and supported with evidence the fact that the Kushites. never wrote their inscriptions in a Kushite language. They used lingua francas to unite the diverse speakers in the Napatan and Meroitic civilizations first Egyptian and later Meroitic.
This is supported by the abundance of Kushite documents written in Egyptian before the introduction of Meroitic. the Napatans and Meroites wrote their inscriptions in Egyptian until the Egyptians became a sizable minority in the Meroitic Empire.
The Kushites had a tradition of using a non-Kushite language to record their administrative and political religious activities due to the numerous and diverse subjects from different tribes they ruled. Since the Meroitic and Napatan documents were written in Egyptian there is no lexical evidence of the languages spoken by the Kushites and other groups in the inscriptions left by these people.
The classical literature makes it clear that there was a connection between the Gymnosophists (of Meroe) and the Indians. The fact that historical events mentioned in the classical sources are found in the Indian literature confirm the view that there were Indian-Meroites who could have introduced the Tocharian trade language to the Meroites. And that since Meroitic was probably a lingua franca, the Kushites would not have had to abandon their own native language while using Meroitic for purposes of communication.
The discovery that Tocharian is cognate to Meroitic has led to the full decipherment of the Meroitic script. We can now translate Meroitic using Tokharian. This allows us to obtain new information about the Meroitic civilization.
References/Bibliography Winters' Response to Burlak's Meroitic and Tocharian
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Salomon,R.(1993). Addenda, Journal of the American Oriental Society :593.
Special Correspondent.(21 November 2007).Tamil Brahmi script in Egypt. TheHindu:pg1.
http://www.hindu.com/2007/11/21/stories/2007112158412400.htm
Taylor,J.H. 1991. Egypt and Nubia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Torok, L. 1990. Ambulatory Kingship and settlement history: a study on the contribution of archaeology to Meroitic history. Etudes Nubiennes, Vol.I, 11-126
Torok, L. 1984. Meroitic Religion: Three Contributions in a Positivistic Manner", Meroitica 7,8, pp.156-182.
Török, L. 1997b: The Kingdom of Kush. Handbook of the Napatan-Meroitic Civilization. Leyde: E.J. Brill, 1997. Coll. Handbook of Oriental Studies I. The Near and Middle East.
Trigger, B.G. 1970. The Meroitic Funerary Inscriptions from Armina West. New Haven, Philadelphia.
UNESCO. 1978. The peopling of ancient Egypt and the Decipherment of Meroitic Script. Paris: Unesco.
Vychile, W. 1957. Le pays de kousch dans une inscription Ethiopiénne. Annales d'Ethiopie, 2, 177-179.Wang, P. 1995. Tokharian words in Altaic Regnal Titles. Central Asiatic Journal 39: 165-207.
Welsby, D. A. 1996: The Kingdom of Kush. The Napatan and Meroitic Empire. Londres. British Museum Press, 1996.
Wenig, S. 1978: Africa in Antiquity. The Arts of Ancient Nubia and the Sudan. II. Catalogue of the Exhibition Brooklyn 30 sept. - 31 déc. 1978. Brooklyn, 1978.
Windekens van, A.J. 1941. Lexique etymologique des dialectes. Louvain.---------------
---.1979. Le Tokhrien confronte avec les autre Langues Indo-Europeenes.2vols.Louvain.
Winter, Werner. (1982). Tocharian and Proto-Indo-European,Lingua Posnaniensis25:33-40.
Winters,Clyde A. 1984. "A note on Tokharian and Meroitic".MeroiticNewsletter, no. 23: 18-21.
Winters, C.A. 1984. The Inspiration of the Harappan Talismanic Seals. Tamil Civilization 2(1): 1-8.
____________.1984b. The Indus Valley Writing is Proto-Dravidian., Journal of Tamil Studies 25: 50-64.
___________.1985a. The Proto-Culture of the Dravidians, Manding and Sumerians. Tamil Civilization 3(1): 1-9.
____________.1985b. The Far Eastern Origin of the Tamils. Journal of Tamil Studies 27: 65-92.
_____________.1986a. The Dravidian origin of the mountain and water toponyms in Central Asia. Journal of Central Asia 9(2): 141-145.
_____________.1986b. Dravidian settlements in Ancient Polynesia.India Past and Present 3(2): 225-241.
______________.1987. The Harappan Script. Journal of Tamil Studies 30: 89-111.
______________.1988a. The Dravidian and Manding Substratum in Tokharian. Central Asiatic Journal 32 (1&2): 131-141.
______________.1988b. Common African and Dravidian Place Name Elements. South Asian Anthropologist 9 (1): 32-36.
_______________.1988c. The Proto-Dravidians in Central Asia. Journal of Tamil Studies 31: 73-76.
______________.1989. Review on Dr. Asko Parpola's "The Coming of the Aryans". International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 18 (2): 98-127.
______________. 1990. The Dravido-Harappan Colonization of Central Asia. Central Asiatic Journal 34 (1-2): 120-144.
_____________.1991. Linguistic Evidence for Dravidian influence on Trade and Animal Domestication in Central and East Asia. International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics 20(2): 91- 102.
___________.1996a. Meroitic Decipherment.Ancient Near East Digest 3 (179). Chicago Oriental Institute. ANE Archive. 4 June . http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/ANE/OI_ANE.html.
________.1996b. Meroitic Decipherment. Ancient Near East Journal 3 (180). Chicago Oriental Institute. ANE Archive. 8 June.[On Line] http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/ANE/OI_ANE.html.
________.1996c. Meroitic Texts. Ancient Near East Digest 3 (182). Chicago Oriental Institute. ANE Archive. 14 June.http://www-i.uchicago.edu/OI/ANE/OI_ANE.html.
Winters, C.A. 1998c, 'Is Tocharian a Dravidian Trade Language?', PILC Journal of Dravidian Studies, 8 (1), 1-12.
Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1999). The inscriptions ofTanyidamani. Nubica IV und Nubica V., pp.355-388.
Winters, Clyde.(2008a). Decipherment of Meroitic..Retrieved February 23 2008. :http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bay/7051/mero.htm
Winters, Clyde .(2008b). Meroitic Dictionary. Retrieved February 23 2008. :http://geocities.com/olmec982000/meroitic.pdf
Winters, Clyde.(2008c).. Meroitic Evidence for a Blemmy Empire in theDodekaschoinos. Retrieved February 23, 2008. :http://arkamani.org/meroitic_studies/Kalabsha.htm
Winters, Clyde. (2008d). Natakamani and Amanitore. Retrieved February 23, 2008. http://www.arkamani.org/arkamani-library/meroitic/natakamani-and-amanitore.htm
Winters, Clyde. (2008e). Meroitic Religion. Retrieved February 23, 2008. http://www.arkamani.org/arkamani-library/meroitic/meroitic-religion.htm
Yellin, J. 1982. The role of Anubis in Meroitic religion. In Nubian Studies, J.M. Plumley (ed.), (Cambridge: Selwyn College), 227-234
Abdalla, A.M. 1994. Personal Descriptions in Meroitic Funerary inscriptions. In Hommages a Jean Leclant, (ed.) by C. Berger, G. Clerc & N. Grimal, (Institute Francais d'Archeologie Orientale: Bibliotheque d' Etudes 106/2) pp.1-15.
Abdalla, A.M. 1978. The Meroitic Civilization:Its Mediterranean Contacts and Africaness. In Afrique Noire et monde mediterranean dans L'Antiquité Colloque de Dakar. (Dakar: Université de Senegal) 89-114.
Adams, W.Y. 1977. Nubia:Corridor to Africa. London: Penguin Ltd.
Adams, W.Y. 1975. "Meroitic North and South". Meroitica 2,Berlin:Akademie-Verlag.Adams, D.Q. (1988). Tocharian Historical Phonology and Morphology. American Oriental Society.
Arkell, A.J. 1961. A History of the Sudan from earliest times to 1821. London: University of London Press.
Aubin,P. (1996). Evidence for an Early Nubian Dialect in Meroitic Inscriptions: Phonological and Epigraphic Considerations. Meroitic Newsletter, pp.16-39.
Adams, D.Q. 1984. The Position of Tocharian among the other Indo-European Languages. Journal of the American Oriental Society 104: 395-402.
___________. 1995. Mummies. The Journal of Indo-European Studies ,23 (3&4): 399-413.
Bagchi, P.C. 1955. India and Central Asia. Calcutta: National Council of Education.
Blazelc, Vaclav. 1988. Tocharian Linguistics during the last 25 years. Archiv Orientalni 56:76-81.
Bonfante, G. 1987. The relative position of the Indo-European languages. Journal of Indo-European Studies 15 (1&2): 77-80.
Burlak, S.A.(2008) Meroitic and Tocharian, Sudan & Nubia, Bulletin 12:99-103.
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Glass, A. (2000). A Preliminary Study of Kharosthi Manuscript Paleography. M.A. Thesis. University of Washington.
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Griffith, F. Ll. 1911b. Meroitic Inscriptions: Part I. London: The Offices of the Egypt Exploration Fund.
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Haycock, B.G. 1978. "The Problem of the Meroitic Language",Occasional Papers in Linguistics and Language Learning, no.5: 50-81.Haynes, J.L. 1992. Nubia:Ancient Kingdoms of Africa. Boston:Museum of Fine Arts.
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Hintze, F. 1962. Die inschriften,des lowentempel von Mussawwarat es Sufra. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.Hintze, F. 1971. Mussawwarat es Sufra. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
Hintze, F. (1974). "Some problems of Meroitic philology". In Studies in Ancient Langugaes of the Sudan, (ed.) by A.M. Abdalla, (Khartoum: Khartoum University Press) pp. 73-78.
Hintze,F. 1978. The Meroitic Period. In Africa in Antiquity: The Arts of Ancient Nubia and the Sudan Vol.I. (Brooklyn, N. Y. : Brooklyn Museum) 89-105.
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MacAdam,M.F.L. 1950. Four Meroitic inscriptions , Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 36, 42-46.
MacIver, D.R. and Wooley, C.L. 1909. Areika. PhiladelphiaUniversity Museum. Philadelphia.Mallory, J.P. In Search of the Indo-Europeans. London: Thames and Hudson.
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Millet, N.B. 1974. Writing and literacy in the ancient Sudan. In Studies in ancient Languages of the Sudan, (ed.) by A. M. Abdalla ,(Khartoum: Khartoum University Press, 1974) pp.49-57.
Millet,N.B. 1984. Meroitic Religion, Meroitica 7/8,pp.111-121.
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Ringe, D.A. 1990. Evidence for the position of Tocharian in the Indo-European family ?. Die Sprache34: 59-123.
__________.1995. Tocharian in Xinjiang: The Linguistic Evidence.
The Journal of Indo-European Linguistics 23 (3&4): 439-444.
Reisner,A. 1922. Historical Inscriptions from Gebel Barkal, Sudan Notes and Records , 4(2), pp.59-71.
Schmidt, K.H. 1990. The Postulated Pre-Indo-European Substrates in Insular Celtic and Tocharian. In When Worlds Collide: The Indo-Europeans and Pre-Indo-Europeans, (Ed.) by T.L. Makey and J. A. C. Greppin (pp. 180-202). Karoma Publishers, Inc.
Sherratt, Andrew and Susan. 1988. Archaeology of Indo-European: An Alternative View. Antiquity 62: 584-595.
Shinnie, P.L.1967. Meroe:A Civilization of the Sudan. London: Thames & Hudson.
Salomon,R.(1991)."Epigraphic remains of Indian traders in Egypt", Journal of the American oriental Society: 731-736.
Salomon,R.(1993). Addenda, Journal of the American Oriental Society :593.
Special Correspondent.(21 November 2007).Tamil Brahmi script in Egypt. TheHindu:pg1.
http://www.hindu.com/2007/11/21/stories/2007112158412400.htm
Taylor,J.H. 1991. Egypt and Nubia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Torok, L. 1990. Ambulatory Kingship and settlement history: a study on the contribution of archaeology to Meroitic history. Etudes Nubiennes, Vol.I, 11-126
Torok, L. 1984. Meroitic Religion: Three Contributions in a Positivistic Manner", Meroitica 7,8, pp.156-182.
Török, L. 1997b: The Kingdom of Kush. Handbook of the Napatan-Meroitic Civilization. Leyde: E.J. Brill, 1997. Coll. Handbook of Oriental Studies I. The Near and Middle East.
Trigger, B.G. 1970. The Meroitic Funerary Inscriptions from Armina West. New Haven, Philadelphia.
UNESCO. 1978. The peopling of ancient Egypt and the Decipherment of Meroitic Script. Paris: Unesco.
Vychile, W. 1957. Le pays de kousch dans une inscription Ethiopiénne. Annales d'Ethiopie, 2, 177-179.Wang, P. 1995. Tokharian words in Altaic Regnal Titles. Central Asiatic Journal 39: 165-207.
Welsby, D. A. 1996: The Kingdom of Kush. The Napatan and Meroitic Empire. Londres. British Museum Press, 1996.
Wenig, S. 1978: Africa in Antiquity. The Arts of Ancient Nubia and the Sudan. II. Catalogue of the Exhibition Brooklyn 30 sept. - 31 déc. 1978. Brooklyn, 1978.
Windekens van, A.J. 1941. Lexique etymologique des dialectes. Louvain.---------------
---.1979. Le Tokhrien confronte avec les autre Langues Indo-Europeenes.2vols.Louvain.
Winter, Werner. (1982). Tocharian and Proto-Indo-European,Lingua Posnaniensis25:33-40.
Winters,Clyde A. 1984. "A note on Tokharian and Meroitic".MeroiticNewsletter, no. 23: 18-21.
Winters, C.A. 1984. The Inspiration of the Harappan Talismanic Seals. Tamil Civilization 2(1): 1-8.
____________.1984b. The Indus Valley Writing is Proto-Dravidian., Journal of Tamil Studies 25: 50-64.
___________.1985a. The Proto-Culture of the Dravidians, Manding and Sumerians. Tamil Civilization 3(1): 1-9.
____________.1985b. The Far Eastern Origin of the Tamils. Journal of Tamil Studies 27: 65-92.
_____________.1986a. The Dravidian origin of the mountain and water toponyms in Central Asia. Journal of Central Asia 9(2): 141-145.
_____________.1986b. Dravidian settlements in Ancient Polynesia.India Past and Present 3(2): 225-241.
______________.1987. The Harappan Script. Journal of Tamil Studies 30: 89-111.
______________.1988a. The Dravidian and Manding Substratum in Tokharian. Central Asiatic Journal 32 (1&2): 131-141.
______________.1988b. Common African and Dravidian Place Name Elements. South Asian Anthropologist 9 (1): 32-36.
_______________.1988c. The Proto-Dravidians in Central Asia. Journal of Tamil Studies 31: 73-76.
______________.1989. Review on Dr. Asko Parpola's "The Coming of the Aryans". International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 18 (2): 98-127.
______________. 1990. The Dravido-Harappan Colonization of Central Asia. Central Asiatic Journal 34 (1-2): 120-144.
_____________.1991. Linguistic Evidence for Dravidian influence on Trade and Animal Domestication in Central and East Asia. International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics 20(2): 91- 102.
___________.1996a. Meroitic Decipherment.Ancient Near East Digest 3 (179). Chicago Oriental Institute. ANE Archive. 4 June . http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/ANE/OI_ANE.html.
________.1996b. Meroitic Decipherment. Ancient Near East Journal 3 (180). Chicago Oriental Institute. ANE Archive. 8 June.[On Line] http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/ANE/OI_ANE.html.
________.1996c. Meroitic Texts. Ancient Near East Digest 3 (182). Chicago Oriental Institute. ANE Archive. 14 June.http://www-i.uchicago.edu/OI/ANE/OI_ANE.html.
Winters, C.A. 1998c, 'Is Tocharian a Dravidian Trade Language?', PILC Journal of Dravidian Studies, 8 (1), 1-12.
Winters, Clyde Ahmad. (1999). The inscriptions ofTanyidamani. Nubica IV und Nubica V., pp.355-388.
Winters, Clyde.(2008a). Decipherment of Meroitic..Retrieved February 23 2008. :http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bay/7051/mero.htm
Winters, Clyde .(2008b). Meroitic Dictionary. Retrieved February 23 2008. :http://geocities.com/olmec982000/meroitic.pdf
Winters, Clyde.(2008c).. Meroitic Evidence for a Blemmy Empire in theDodekaschoinos. Retrieved February 23, 2008. :http://arkamani.org/meroitic_studies/Kalabsha.htm
Winters, Clyde. (2008d). Natakamani and Amanitore. Retrieved February 23, 2008. http://www.arkamani.org/arkamani-library/meroitic/natakamani-and-amanitore.htm
Winters, Clyde. (2008e). Meroitic Religion. Retrieved February 23, 2008. http://www.arkamani.org/arkamani-library/meroitic/meroitic-religion.htm
Yellin, J. 1982. The role of Anubis in Meroitic religion. In Nubian Studies, J.M. Plumley (ed.), (Cambridge: Selwyn College), 227-234
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