The Tehenu in Anatolia

Using boats the Kushites moved down ancient waterways many now dried up, to establish new towns in Asia and Europe after 3500 BC. The Kushites remained supreme around the world until 1400-1200 BC. During this period the Hua (Chinese) and Indo-European (I-E) speakers began to conquer the Kushites whose cities and economies were destroyed as a result of natural catastrophes which took place on the planet between 1400-1200 BC. Later, after 500 AD, Turkish speaking people began to settle parts of Central Asia. This is the reason behind the presence of the K-s-h element in many place names in Asia e.g., Kashgar, HinduKush, and Kosh. The HinduKush in Harappan times had lapis lazuli deposits.

Kushites expanded into Inner Asia from two primary points of dispersal : Iran and Anatolia. In Anatolia the Kushites were called Hattians and Kaska. In the 2nd millennium BC, the north and east of Anatolia was inhabited by non-I-E speakers.

Anatolia was divided into two lands “the land of Kanis” and the “land of Hatti”. The Hatti were related to the Kaska people who lived in the Pontic mountains.

Hattians lived in Anatolia. They worshipped Kasku and Kusuh. They were especially prominent in the Pontic mountains. Their sister nation in the Halys Basin were the Kaska tribes. The Kaska and Hattians share the same names for gods, along with personal and place-names . The Kaska had a strong empire which was never defeated by the Hittites.

Singer (1981) has suggested that the Kaska, are remnants of the indigenous Hattian population which was forced northward by the Hittites. But at least as late as 1800 BC, Anatolia was basically settled by Hattians.

Anatolia was occupied by many Kushite groups,including the Kashkas and or Hatti. The Hatti , like the Dravidian speaking people were probably related



Some of the Tehenu or Kushites settled Anatolia. Some of the major Anatolian Kushite tribes were the Kaska and Hatti speakers who spoke non-IE languages called Khattili. The gods of the Hattic people were Kasku and Kusuh (< Kush).

The Hattic people, may be related to the[b] Hatiu, one of the Delta Tehenu tribes. Many archaeologist believe that the Tehenu people were related to the C-Group people. The Hattic language is closely related to African and Dravidian languages for example:
•English ……Hattic …..Egyptian…….. Malinke (Mande language)

powerful ……ur………. wr'great,big' ………fara

protect…….. $uh……… swh …………………solo-

head …………tup ………tp ……………tu 'strike the head'

up,upper….. tufa ………..tp……………… dya, tu 'raising ground'

to stretch put… pd ………pe,……………….. bamba

o prosper …….falfat …..-- …………………..find'ya

pour ……………duq …….---………………….. du 'to dispense'

child …………..pin………,pinu………………… den


Mother ………..na-a ………--…………………….. na

lord …………….sa ………..--………………………. sa

place ………….-ka………… -ka

The languages have similar syntax Hattic le fil 'his house'; Mande a falu 'his father's house'. This suggest that the first Anatolians were Kushites, a view supported by the Hattic name for themselves: Kashka.


•Hurrians



An important group in Anantolia in addition to the Hatti, were the Hurrians. The Hurrians enter Mesopotamia from the northeastern hilly area . They introduced horse-drawn war chariots to Mesopotamia .



Hurrians penetrate Mesopotamia and Syria-Palestine between 1700-1500 BC. The major Hurrian Kingdom was Mitanni , which was founded by Sudarna I (c.1550), was established at Washukanni on the Khabur River . The Hurrian capital was Urkesh, one of its earliest kings was called Tupkish.



Linguistic and historical evidence support the view that Dravidians influenced Mittanni and Lycia . (Winters 1989a) Alain Anselin is sure that Dravidian speaking peoples once inhabited the Aegean . For example Anselin (1982, pp.111-114) has discussed many Dravidian place names found in the Aegean Sea area.



Two major groups in ancient Anatolia were the Hurrians and Lycians. Although the Hurrians are considered to be Indo-European speakers, some Hurrians probably spoke a Dravidian language.



The Hurrians lived in Mittanni. Mittanni was situated on the great bend of the Upper Euphrates river. Hurrian was spoken in eastern Anatolia and North Syria .



Most of what we know about Hurrian comes from the Tel al-Armarna letters. These letters were written to the Egyptian pharaoh. These letters are important because they were written in a language different from diplomatic Babylonian.



The letters written in the unknown language were numbered 22 and 25. In 1909 Bork, in Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatische Gesellschaft, wrote a translation of the letters.



In 1930, G.W. Brown proposed that the words in letters 22 and 25 were Dravidian especially Tamil. Brown (1930), has shown that the vowels and consonants of Hurrian and Dravidian are analogous. In support of this theory Brown (1930) noted the following similarities between Dravidian and Hurrian: 1) presence of a fullness of forms employed by both languages; 2) presence of active and passive verbal forms are not distinguished; 3) presence of verbal forms that are formed by particles; 4) presence of true relative pronouns is not found in these languages; 5) both languages employ negative verbal forms; 6) identical use of -m, as nominative; 7) similar pronouns; and 8) similar ending formations:



[*]Dravidian Hurrian

a a

-kku -ikka

imbu impu



There are analogous Dravidian and Hurrian terms:



English Hurrian Dravidian

mountain paba parampu

lady,woman aallay ali

King Sarr,zarr Ca, cira

god en en

give tan tara

to rule irn ire

father attai attan

wife,woman asti atti





Many researchers have noted the presence of many Indo-Aryan words. In Hurrians. This has led some researchers to conclude that Indo –Europeans may have ruled the Hurrians. This results from the fact that the names of the Hurrian gods are similar to the Aryan gods:



[*]Hurrian Sanskrit

Mi-it-va Mitra

Aru-na Varuna

In-da-ra Indra

Na-sa-at-tiya Nasatya



There are other Hurrian and Sanskrit terms that appear to show a relationship:



English Hurrian Sanskrit Tamil

One aika eka okka ‘together’

Three tera tri

Five panza panca añcu

Seven satta sapta

Nine na nava onpatu



Other Hurrian terms relate to Indo-Aryan:



English Hurrian I-A Tamil

Brown babru babhru pukar

Grey parita palita paraitu ‘old’

Reddish pinkara pingala puuval



English Mitanni Vedic Tamil

Warrior marya marya makan, maravan



References:

Itamar Singer, Hittites and Hattians in Anatolia at the beginning of the Second Millennium B.C., Journal of Indo-European Studies, 9 (1-2) (1981), pp.119-149.

Indo-Aryan languages originated in Anatolia

I believe that Dravidian languages were spoken in India when the Indo-Aryans invaded the region. The Proto-Indo-Aryan (Kaska/Mitanni/Hatti) speakers were probably descendents of the Kushites who formerly lived in Anatolia. Since Dravidians speakers also belonged to the Kushite Dwipa, like the Proto-Indo-Aryans it is only natural that the languages are related.



The relationship between the Dravidian languages and Prakritic languages is much more complicated than the ideas presented by Bh Krishnamurti. Krishnamurti argues that there were many Dravidians in India when the Indo-Aryans arrived; and that as a result Dravidian influenced the Indo-Aryan languages through the introduction of lexical items and (grammatical) structural features.



Due to early Dravidian settlement in Northern India there is a Dravidian substratum in Indo‑Aryan. There are Dravidian loans in the Rg Veda, even though Aryan recorders of this work were situated in the Punjab which occupied around this time by the BRW Dravidians.

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. There are an additional 40,000 Brahui in 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).

Iran and several thousand along the southern border of Russia and Yugoslavia. (ISDL 1983:227)

Emeneau and Burrow (1962) have found 500 Dravidian loan words in Sanskrit. the number of Dravidian loans in Indo‑Aryan is expected to reach 750.

There are numerous examples of Indo‑Aryan structural borrowings from Dravidian. For example, the Bengali and Oriya plural suffix ‑ra is analogous to the Tamil plural suffix ‑ar. Both of these suffixes are restricted to names of intelligent beings. (Chatterji 1970:173) Oriya borrowed the ‑gura plural suffix from the Dravidians. (Mahapatra 1983:67) Some researchers believe that the syntax of the Indo‑Aryan languages is ambivalent because of the Dravidian influence on these languages. As a result, they represent both SOV and SVO traits. If my theory is correct the relationship between Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages is not the result of borrowing, it is due to the fact that the ancestors of the Vangi, Odri and Maharastri were descendents of the Kushite Anatolians.



In conclusion,the relationship between indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages are not the result, purely of contact with Dravidian speakers in India. These languages are related because the speakers of these languages formerly belonged to the C-Group or Kushite people of the region called Kusha Dwipa in the Sankritic text.

I believe that after the Hittites defeated the Hatti and Kaska and other peoples belonging to the Hurrian and Mitanni kingdoms, these people were uprooted and forced into Iran. The lost of Anatolia to the Hittites, probably forced these people to become nomads.


In Iran the Hatti, Kaska and Mitanni probably formed a significant portion of the Proto-Indo-Aryan population. Here they may have met Iranian speaking people,who may have practiced a hunter-gatherer existence, that adopted aspects of their Kushite culture , especially the religion and use of Mitanni religious terms and chariot culture. Joining forces with the Indo-Aryan (Mitannian-Hurrian-Kaska-Hatti) exiles they probably attacked Dravidian and Austronesian speaking people in India who lived in walled cities. The Austronesian and Dravidian people probably came in intimate contact during the Xia and Shang periods of China.


I have to reject the Afghanistan origin for the Indo-Aryan speaking people because the cultures there in ancient times show no affinity to Indo-European civilization. Given the Austronesian and Dravidian elements in Sanskrit and etc., I would have to date the expansion of the Indo-Aryan people sometime after 800 BC, across Iran, down into India.
This would explain why "the Vedic and Avestan mantras are not carbon copies of each other", they may have had a similar genesis, but they were nativised by different groups of Indic and Iranian speakers after the settlement of nomadic Hurrian, Kaska, Hatti and Mitanni people in Iran.



If this theory is correct the Kaska, Mittani and etc., were probably the ancestors of Prakrit speaking tribes of the Vangi, Odri and Maharastri.This view is supported by the relationship between Indo-Aryan and Mittani. H.H. Hock in Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship , noted that Mittani “words contained in these passages are phonetically closer to the earliest attested Indo-Aryan than to Old Iranian” (p. 62).