<!>The Historical Linguistics Thread (2014-08-29 03:27:49)
The Historical Linguistics Thread
Anthologica Universe Atlas / Forums / Terra Firma / The Historical Linguistics Thread / <!>The Historical Linguistics Thread (2014-08-29 03:27:49)

? Nessari ?????? ?????? ????????
posts: 932
, Illúbequía, Seattle, Cascadia
message
quoting dhok:
I had been intending to make this for a while, but I have been browsing T. Burrow's The Sanskrit Language (an excellent reference work for all diachronic things Sanskrit), and stumbled upon the following intriguing passage:


The intermediate forms ś, ź, źh will explain most of the Indo-Iranian developments, as they will the Balto-Slavonic, but it is likely that before complete assibilation there was an affricate stage. Evidence of this is preserved in the Kafiri dialects, which occupy an intermediate position between Indian and Iranian. The treatment that occurs in Kati duć '10' and ćui 'empty' for instance (Sanskrit dáśa, śūnyá-) seems clearly to reflect a form more ancient than that of Sanskrit.

I know many of the people I've talked to, at least, doubt there ever was a true affricate stage in the Satem development of the palatovelars, and of course material on Dardic is hard to come by, especially diachronic material. But what do we make of this?

First of all, get your language group right: the old term Kaffir/Kafir/Kafiri refers to the Nuristani languages (of which Kati is one), not the Dardic languages. Do not confuse the two groups, they are of quite distinct origins.

Second off, http://nuristan.info/, http://nuristan.info/Nuristani/phon.html, and http://nuristan.info/lngFrameL.html.
Richard Strand's pages on the Nuristani languages have been on the Net for well over a decade…I'm rather perplexed as to how you haven't ran into them before, if you've actually been looking around.