The following text came to me in the form of a computer print-out, dated 7.7.97, from New Delhi, and signed by one G.S. Chauhan (Gabar Singh Chauhan). Delivered to me at this past July's meeting of the Himalayan Languages Symposium held in Santa Barbara, it was handed over without further explanation in an envelope with my name on it and a return address of the South Asia Institute, 3 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi. Since it has to do with the controversy surrounding the "Bangani Enigma", I have retyped it here (with a few minor grammatical and spelling corrections made silently).

The page numbers given in parentheses seem to be references to passages in the recent article on Bangani that appeared in "Indogermanische Forschungen"; and the names "Von Driem" and "Sonu Sharma" (spelled in various ways), to its authors.

Peter E. Hook
Ann Arbor, MI
6 August 1997

* * *

It was on the 18th of December, 1994, around 9:30 am, when I with my friend, Balbir arrived at Mori on our way to Delhi from my village, Kiroli. By chance I saw Mr. Harpal Singh (the son of Roshan Bhai) and asked the driver to stop the car (because Harpal Singh is my distant relative. Seeing us Harpal Singh quickly came over and said, "Uncle, your friends from Delhi have come." Harpal Singh wanted to show us our "friends" as the two had wormed their way into the confidence of Roshan Bhai by introducing themselves to him as our "friends". I was somewhat surprised but also curious to meet the "friends" and made a quick move to Roshan Bhai's house with my friend. It is a lie when they claim that the word "barg)" had very quickly become a subject of ridicule and banter amongst the Banganis (page 134) because there were no Banganis in the room when we entered. It is also not true that Harpal Singh had already discussed this word with me and that I myself had begun talking in an apologetic way about those words (page 135), as there was no discussion of those words at that moment. Reaching Roshan Bhai's house, Harpal Singh introduced us to Mr. Sonu Sharma who was standing near the house. One Nepali was also sitting there whom we just passed by. As soon as we made our entry into the house we saw a person wrapped up in a blanket and sitting all alone in the corner of the room. He was being bashful as if he were a newly wedded "Indian" bride. This man later on was discovered to be Dr. Von Driem from Holland, a "good Hindi speaker" (page 108). I cannot believe that Von Driem knows how to speak either Hindi or Pahari, because during our half an hour stay at Roshan Bhai's he did not share even a single word with me. He never introduced himself nor did he say good-bye when we left, thus appearing like an uncouth bloke to me and the other Banganis. To us he appeared like a mysterious and taciturn character.

Soon Sharma started to explain how he got my address in Delhi and how they arrived in Mori. On my asking about the purpose of their visit, Sharma replied that they are interested in doing the same work as Dr. Zoller has been doing. But when I asked Roshan Bhai and Harpal Singh about the purpose of their visit, both Harpal Singh and Roshan Bhai said that they (Von Driem and Sharma) have promised them a big project involving a lot of money from the Government of Holland provided they are "satisfied" with the answers given by them. It bears mention that, in contrast to their approach, we never made big monetary promises to Roshan Bhai and we never made wrong statements about our identities. We rather regularly confronted him in intensive discussions with earlier statements of his and with competing statements of other Banganis.

In our first round of introductory discussions we were only five persons in the room; Mr. Sharma, Von Driem, Balbir, Harpal and myself. Roshan Bhai, who was in the kitchen at that time, joined us after around 10 minutes. So the word "barg)" was not discussed by me with Roshan Bhai in the beginning as claimed by them (page 135).

I invited them to my village Kiroli and Sharma readily accepted my invitation. He even desired to visit one more Bangani village "Jakta", and necessary arrangements were made but finally they did not go. I never invited them to my office in Delhi as claimed by them (page 136). On the contrary, it was Mr. Sharma who requested a meeting with me in Delhi, on their way back from Bangan to Pune. I certainly agreed to this idea of Mr. Sharma, saying that I would like to know their general impression and discuss their research findings on Bangan. But they never turned up.

While I was discussing these things with Sharma, Roshan Bhai came from the kitchen. Even before making his full entry into the room he wasnted to know from me, "Who is this Zoller they are asking me about?" So it is abundantly clear that even after two days these gentlemen were unable to find the local name of Dr. Zoller. Second question Roshan Bhai asked me was, "Why they are connecting the tail of sheep with the meadows of 'GoriE-nauni'? What do they mean? And why are they confusing me?" (page 133). The last word discussed with Roshan Bhai was "p)rk)" and it was the only occasion when Von Driem opened his mouth and started reading from a piece of paper in his hand "khunde sianE tini p))rk)..." (page 132). I stopped him in between and corrected the sentence to "khunde s)anE tini p)rk)..." and this quickly solved Roshan Bhai's problem, who was earlier translating the word "p))rk)" according to its pronunciation as 'of last year'. But it was not fitting in the lines of the song. However, it was at this moment when I cautioned Sharma to be careful about the correct pronunciation of the words.

During our talks I gave a short reference of Dr. Zoller's work on Bangan, where I mentioned some of the words with the examples, their forms, and the occasions when they are used. Assuming that this will be a comparative study on Bangani, I thought the source of their information should not be the same as of Dr. Zoller. My emphasis was therefore more on giving them general information and keeping myself neutral. In Mori, which is the gate to Bangan, they had the possibility to elicit information from hundreds of other Banganis. I tried to explain to them that the word "l)kt)" is also used in the situation of "lit)-kisl)" = 'milk ghee' and "m)nt)" in "m)ntorian)" = 'to slap'. I never told them that "the form had been incorrectly recorded by Dr. Zoller" (page 135).

I wanted to be a polite Bangani, and offered them all possible assistance in a very short time. This was their third day in Mori, sitting in the lonely house of Roshan Bhai. They could muster courage to visit "Motar" only after they met me (page 109). So it was obvious that they lacked even the basic knowledge of the area and language. Thus, if the two call this "apologetic" (page 135), this reminds me of a goat in the famous European tale which always refesed to eat grass during the day time, saying, "I am full." But when asked by its owner in the evening, it used to say, "They did not provide me any food."

The claim of the two that they visited Bangan is pure fiction. They have never been there. They have tried to obtain by devious means the confidence of some Banganis. They have distroted the sentences. On page 139, they have used the Hindi word "balaatkaar" 'rape' of the language. Any word with the meaning of 'rape' does not exist in the history and culture of Bangan. Only the people having literal knowledge of Hindi can understand and make use of this word. So when I asked Roshan Bhai, he could not believe that the word has this meaning. Because in Bangan the word "balaatkaar" stands for '(is) not my concern', (I) give a damn'. Roshan Bhai clarified that when the two gentlemen were confusing him with the pronunciations of the words then he used "balaatkaar" as used in Bangan. ,p. Their contempt for the Banganis not only got expressed through their impolite behaviour but also through their inability to give a correct description of their whereabouts and their host: they not only changed our sentences into structures which no Bangani can understand, they also did not hesitate to freely invent informants with whom they claim to have talked, and they also did not hesitate to freely claim to have visited places which they never did. And their attempts to convince the readers of the existence of male milch-cows (page 140) may perhaps be influenced by the idea of the existence of (F)lying Dutchmen.

Thanks to Suhnu Sharma's mischief, the whole Von Driem affair in Bangan became a grand exercise in deception and cofidence-trickstering. This explains why the Banganis have already started calling him "Shakuni" Sharma - a shady character in the Indian epic "Mahabharata". Thus, the so-called instructive encounter was nothinbg but a fake encounter that only spawned confusion and distortion.

New Delhi; 07.07.97

(Signed) G. S. Chauhan

Gabar Singh Chauhan
E-22, Rouse Avenue
New Delhi - 110 002
India

Back to Bangani indexpage.

DEBATE ON ARCHAISM OF SOME SELECT BANGANI WORDS

Anvita Abbi

Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi, India

ABSTRACT

An old debate on Bangani being related to Kentum group of languages or not (Zoller 1988, 1989, 1993, Beekes 1995 and van Driem and Sharma 1996) is worth investigating into the lexicon, specially those words that belong to the 'basic word list' known to be typically most resistant to change. The author conducted a couple of field trips personally to investigate the phenomenon. The paper discusses the results of this investigation.

As RUKI rule is claimed to be inoperative in many Bangani words, the author has investigated, among others, words that should have gone through the Rule but do not. The author, surprisingly, confirms the existence of most, if not all, the words listed in Zoller (1988) with specified meanings. Some semantic variations was noticed though not totally disturbing the original thesis. It is observed that near total multilingualism due to language contact with Himachali and Hindi, (the languages of the vicinity) at times, motivatesinformants to oscillate between one form and other. The paper is descriptive and not historical in nature and thus avoids to attempt to establish the archaism of the disputed words. At best, it expresses the multilayered lexicon of the language indicative of long and stable multilingual communities in close contact.

The region of Bangan is situated on the western-most tip of Garhwal, Uttar Pradesh, bordering Himachal Pradesh on one side, the tribal area of Jaunsar-Bawar and Tehfi Garhwal on the other, and Dehradun district to the south. To the north stand the lower Himalayas from the northern-most village of Bangan, Monda, it is only a few kilometres to Changshil glacier.

Bangani as a speech community exists socially and linguistically demarcating itself from the neighbouring speech communities more on the linguistic plain than on the social Heavy multilingualism (near total bilingualism) and its penetrating converging forces have not yet touched some of the archaic features of the language -~,.'hich are very distinct from any other Indo-Aryan languages of the neighbourhood Bangani's four tiered/layered lexicon-system, existing through more than 3000 years suggests retention of perhaps Pre Vedic Sanskrit words, some going as far back as P1E and its branches of languages which are extinct now (such as Kentum languages like Tocharian and Anatolian), coexisting with Classical Sanskrit and Middle lndo-Aryan (mainly tadbray) words along with New lndo-Aryan vocabulary highly substratumized by Hindi and its dialects. The four layered system pose enough challenge for any linguist to excavate the archaic words existing in the synchronic Bangani which may relate to cognates of some Western lndo -European languages as well as suggest to Latin origin of which there are no traces of in any of the Indian languages. In fact lexicon of Bangani exhibit North IA, South IA, as well as Western IE influence on it.

- The controversy over the IE archaism and a possible link to Kentum languages as suggested by Zoller (1988, 1989) drew my attention to the possibility of the Bangani community as very ancient, or heavily influenced by a very ancient speech community which must have existed 5000 years ago. Zoller's claim about the Kentum language affiliation and later the strong denial of such a proposition by Beekes (1995) and van Driem et al (1996) was provoking enough to visit the place in person. Zoller claims that words such as kosta "a story" or kotia "several hundred, hundreds of" are

from Kentum branch of languages thus retaining k- and not going through the Ruki rule of palatalization. In fact, there are eleven words in total with initial k- and seven

2

words with medial -k- that he accounts for, some of them being traced back to Kentum languages. We must recall that there is no other language in India which can be considered a branch of Kentum language family.

The question is, do these words exist in the synchronic Bangani? If they do, what are their meanings? Has there been a semantic shift (an expected shift/change in the course of development)? If yes, where did Bangans come from? What are their affiliations and how have they retained these structures till today? I will restrict my investigation to first two linguistic questions and will consider the last three questions/issues at some later date. I would like to discuss only a select list of words with initial and medial velars so as to throw some light on the (non)application of the Ruki Rule

I will first give the word entry as given by Zoller (1988. 1989) and then just below that our recent findings. The number in brackets are the original ones used by Zoller. (please look up the key to the symbols used here at the end of this paper)

1. (3) 'OnkO 'dead, inanimate; a corpse'. ank- 'necessity, force'.

The field investigation shows that the word under consideration was used by people of all age groups for 'dead like, lifeless object'. The only difference was that we did not find nasalized vowel, instead a homoorganic nasal (symbolized here as a cluster of -ng-) was observed in all speeches. Consider:

(Though Bangani makes substantial use of tones. yet they are not marked so in the transcription of the data collected. This omission. however. does not deviate us from discussing the basic issue).

1.1 eu manuj bi-jaigo OngkO

this man also appears dead-like

' This man also appears to be dead'

1. eu la:kRo QngkO

this wood lifeless

this is a dead wood

2.(5) E~rkQ 'a louse, flea'. IikSa- 'nit, young Iouse'.A genetic

term for any kind of lice was used by all age and sex groups. Consider.

2.1 meri bOkri-di erkE poRi gui

my goat-gen lice fall GO'

my goat is infested with lice'

3(6) ErkO 'shining'. The word under consideration was rather rare and only two
informants one each in villages such as Jagta and Chinwa could confirm this in the phrase:

3.4 Accho ErkO 'good lighting'

3.5 ErkO 'twinkling, shining'

4(7) kOtrO - 'a fight'. k`at(e)ro~- 'a fight'; OIAs~Sa`tru 'enemy' A very

prevalent word used for infighting as well as for ordinary fights. Notice the variants also.

4.1 dui ga~o kOtrO-machigo

two villages fight - happened

'Fight took place between two villages'

1. merO tesrO bice-di kOtrO uO/O

I gen. you gen. middle 1oc. fight be past

Fight took place between you and me'

4.3 I~u du~ manchu-rO kOtrO -macho

these two men fight happen

these two men have finished themselves in fight

5.(8) kOpO 'a hoof. kapho-, kopho-., 'a hoof; OIA sa`pha 'hoof

Again a very common word attested by almost all the informants. Some variations were also noticed such as [na:l]

5. I goru-rO kOpO barE chuTi-go ek
cow gen hoof out left GO one
'the hoof of the cow got detached'

6.(9) kapO-kOpO 'several adjacent fields that belong to one person'. ka`p-,

kOp 'a piece of land or plot'.

A very common word used by all. In fact, the diminutive i- is also added on the pattern of Hindi for small fields, i.e., kapuN 'small field'.

6.1 mere kape di paNi bOri
I gen. field gen water much
'There is no dearth of water in my field'.

7.(10) kOrsNO

'to rub oneself, to scratch' kars- 'to scratch'.

We found two variations. kOrsENO and the other kAnaNo 'to scratch back'. However.

an informant aged 55 years gave us a larger number of variations, including those which were drawn from Himachali. Hence, khOrgeS/ konau~/ khOrbar/luut all mean ' to scratch'.

1. mu kOrSoN lagOn-di

I dat. scratch prog.

I feel like scratching (myself).

1. mu~-di khorgeS lagondi tAbE a:o a:pNE cigRi kOnaNdE

I-gen scratch happen then CAME mine back scratch

'When I felt like scratching 1 scratched (completive and reflexive) my back.'

8.(11 ) k OlpiNO 'to disappear, hide oneself (used in connection with gods and spirits)' kl ep-'to hide, keep secret'.

The word under consideration is still used by Banganis while describing a disappearance of ghost or gods. Consider:

8.1 dewu kOlpi-go

God disappear GO pst

'The God disappeared'.

Other words found for the same meaning were orchino and coriui-go (

9.(12) kOsNo 'to address s.o., gruffly, reprimand. Cp. PIE k`as-, k`As'- 'to reprimand,instruct'.

Evidences of the application of RUKI rule is clear in the language of some of the informants though older generation was noticed to stick to kOs.

9.1 teni apno beTa kOsO
you your son scold-pst
'You scolded your son'.

9.2 kOso es kin-de ba-gO

scold he-dat. where go-pst

'Scold him, where has he gone?' ( uttered by a man to his wife at lunch time when he finds his son missing).

10.(13) kOsta~' 'a story'. Compare OIA Sastra-'scripture'

The word was prevalent in the verbal repertoire of all age groups ranging from 20 to 80 years old. Consider:

10.1 e ma: barOt-ri kOsta:

this Mahabharat-gen story

'This is the story of Mahabharat.'

1. e bORi rOdi kosta:

this very bad story

'This is a bad story.'

11.(14). kOsta:r, kOste:r 'lovely, pleasant'.

We found some variations here. While a couple of the informants explained this as 'a loved one', 'wife', a majority of them interpret it as the 'one who is proud (of himself) or in a 'state of a bliss'. Hence:

11.1 teri beTi bORi kOsta:r baajE apkhi

Your daughter much proud consider reflexive

'Your daughter considers herself very clever (a sense of proudness).'

kOsta.'r can also be used as a verb:

11.2 tu apkhi begi kOsta:r-lye

you refl. much proud-2sg

'You think too much of yourself (in the sense of being wise)

11.3 E dlya:N hOd kOsta:rAye

this sister-in-law much proud aux

'This sister-in-law is very conceited'.

12.(15) kO:~.tia ëseveral hundred, hundreds of kmto-. Compare OIA Sata

Surprisingly, we found this word attested by some informants in the metaphoric meaning of 'many', 'too many' etc. just as on the pattern of 1A and its dialects (such as Hindi .vdff~ ' hundreds', 'many'. This definitely draws our attention to the possibility of this word of Kentum origin as suggested by Zoller (1988,1989) or being associated to some Western IE language.

12.1 goiNi-di kO'~tia tara lagon-di

sky-loc. hundreds stars be pres.

Hundreds of (many) stars are there in the sky.

A monolingual informant aged 56 years explained to us that tia refers to "countable entity, something that we can count" while kO~tia means "innumerable, many, something which we cannot count". Consider the following example:

1. es kotre-di kO~tia manuj mori-goye

this war/fight-gen hundreds people die-GO

Innumerable people got killed in this war/fight

Some younger informants were noticed of using a little varied pronunciation with denasalization of vowel and an added aspiration as in kOThia.

13.(16) kairO 'grey, brown, dark, noble

The word under consideration is very prevalent among young and old. Variations such as khairO ~ khaira-ElO for ëgreyishí(Skt. kSa:r 'ashí) were noticed.

Consider:

13.1 mero kairo bo[ed aXo-i-na gore

my grey ox came-emph-neg. home

'My grey ox did not return home (at all)'.

14.(17) kurO 'strong, hard, a brave man'. k`u:ros 'swollen, strong ; hero'...Compare OIA Su:ra- 'hero'

Hundred percent attestations by all kinds of speakers were recorded for this word. Consider:

14.1 tesro baabaa bORO kuro-kurO
his father 'very strong
His father is very strong

The next two etyma attract our attention immediately to the archaic nature of the language. Also notice the initial vowel.

15.(34) dOkO 'ten'. <:PIE dek`m~ 'ten'. OIA dasa 'ten'.

Though Hindi and Himachali influence is strongly visible in the replacement of k by S,/s' in conversation as one does come across das for 'ten', yet, surprisingly a substantial number of old speakers retain dOkO for 'ten':

15.1 muke doko ka:pe

I dat. ten fields (are)

I have ten pieces of farm lands

16.(35) dOkru 'tear'. d(r)akru- 'tear'.

Again a widely used word in songs and used specially by old men.

16. I meri buSE suNiyE ti:kE dOkru chuuTE:
my story hear CP 3rd acc. tears leave pst
Hearing my story he had tears (in his eyes).

17.(36) dukti 'daughter'.

We could only attest the second meaning referring to 'last breath', 'soul' etc.

17.1 dukti aondi laagii
soul leave cont.
the last breath is about to leave

18.(37) pOrkO ' a question'. ask'. O1A praSna-'question'

Patyal (1995) reports of parut 'last year' in Western Pahari dialects. Mandyali has adjectival forms parka:/i.(fem), park(a)Na (fern. -i) 'related to last year'.

Though Beekes (1995) denies the existence of this word in Bangani, we could easily find it in the interior of Bangan. In fact, a minimal pair was found where length made all the difference. Consider:

pOrkO 'a question' vs. pO:.rkO 'last year' pa:r sa:l.

In fact, while interviewing an old blacksmith named Sama in Chinwa he uttered the following sentence when he could not understand our query.

1. ka pOrkO pao taa~i

what question asked you

what did you ask?

19.(52) muskO 'biceps'.mu:s 'mouse, muscle'. OIA mu:Sa-'mouse'.

We had no problem attesting this particular word as young boys started showing their muscles as soon as we asked the meaning of muskO. Variation was noticed as musaiNqO/ musaiNii.

20.(56) IOktO 'milk'. glak~- 'milk'. Latin lacte 'milk'.

The word under consideration was attested in a compound-form as in lOktO-ki.slO 'milk-butter', or 'milk cream'. Neighbouring dialects of the area including Hindi also have the compound formation of the concept of 'milk and butter' (du:dh ghii).

Let us consider now words which have initial and medial/g/. As will be clear from the following examples many a times a typical IA language would expect a voiced palatal obstruent.in the place where Bangani shows /g/..

21.(1) OgnO~ 'unborn': negative of past participle of gOnNO.

Interestingly, though Zo!ler considers this particular word as rare item, we had no problem in attesting the word either from old or from young generation. The only difference was that there had been a slight semantic shil~ as the word means 'stillborn' or 'dead' I would thus consider this as a negative past participle of gonNO (Hindi jAn ma with the basic meaning of 'lifeless'(Hindi Ajiiv). Consider few examples:

21.1 meri bakri-goi OgnO~

my goat GO lifeless

'my goat delivered a lifeless kid'

21.2 meri bakri car mina-ri Ogna-oigoi

my goat four months gen lifeless GO

my goat delivered four month prematured still borns'

21.3 meri gal rO basTu OgnO~ uO

my cow gen calf lifeless be pst

'my cow delivered a still born calf

The other words semantically related to ognO~ listed by Zoller are gOgOnO 'she gave birth ' which he considers as the past tense-reduplication of gonNo 'to give birth'. He cites PIE form genh1- 'to create' for its etymon, and compares it with OIA jAnAti 'gives birth, creates'.

While we could establish various morphological shapes of the infinitive gonNO we could not establish the reduplicated form in the past tense. Consider:

22.1 meri gaIy-ei dui ba.STu gOnON-di

my cow-erg two calves birth-GAVE

'my cow delivered two calves'

The word gOnNO is also used for the meaning of 'happening', or to 'express what is concealed' such as in cases of astrologer's predictions or doctor's diagnosis.

23(18) goiNO 'to sacrifice' OIA juhoti 'sacrifices'. Though we could also collect various other words for similar meaning such as gaTo deno or phEra deno our monolingual informant aged 80 from Chinwa village rendered the following sentence:

23.1 tini.apRO gOr-bar goINO

he refl. house-hold sacrificed

'he sacrificed his house-hold (worldly pleasures)'

Not only from an old man like the case above we also found members from Jagta village and a male informant aged 35 from the village Tiuni to attest this form as he gave us the following sentence:

23.2 burhi-ai apNO gOr gOINOdi

old man refl. house sacrificed

'The old man sacrificed his house'

Another semantically related word that Zoller presents in his work is gomNO 'to sacrifice' with the same etymon PIE gheu- and compares it with the OIA hotna 'libation, offering'. We had no problem in acquiring this particular word also. Consider the following sentence, which was given to us by a monolingual, 56, male member:

1. dewe-rE cOkkOr-di mui badO gOm ai-gO

god-gen swirl-loc i-dat all sacrifice GO pst

I had to sacrifice everything because I was under the influence of God'

Most of the informants (both male and female) were of the view that the word meant 'to give up something without any regrets and repent'. However, the entry no. 22 in Zoller's paper gOmi 'a sacrificer' was attested for a very different meaning.

Almost all of the informants thought that the word meant 'sad person'. Sentences like the following were very commonly heard, even from monolinguals:

25.1 eu manuj hod gomi

this man very unhappy/sad

'he is a very unhappy man'

I wonder whether this particular word is a borowing from Urdu GhAm 'sorrows'.

Let us take another word, which failed to go through expected palatalization as witnessed in other IA languages.

26 (23) gOmbO, gumbO 'a molar tooth'. OIA jambha- 'tooth'.

We are not very sure of its wide prevalence as our monolingual informant gave us the word .l,'rnial'ho ~ dalhi for molar while some speakers from younger generation and bilinguals corroborated the word as in the sentence as:

1. merO gumbO dukhto lOgOndi

my jaw pain feel

'My jaw is aching'

1. merE gumbE-di Da: lagi

my molar-loc. pain feels

'I have pain in my molars'

Another archaic word which we could attest without much problem was gOsti foreigner' ghosti- 'a guest, foreigner'. Consider~

27.1 etra amaare gOsti aSon di
today ours guests come past.
'Our guests have come today'

1. mui apNE badE gOsti OTa-ndi

I refl. all guests invited

'All my guests have been invited'

Some informants were noted to be varying between gOsti and gAsti for the same meaning. A minimal pair was found between gOsti and gusti (O vs.u). Thus gusti meant 'internal desire' as rightly reported by Zoller as well as 'enjoyment' comparable to O1A jusTi - 'love, favour', Latin gusto- 'taste' However, a female informant aged 42 gave us gusti for 'good taste' and gOsti for 'having fun', while another female speaker from another village aged 65 thought that gOsti meant 'guest'.

28 (25) gO~ti 'an expert' g`nteh3- 'to know, recognize'. Also compare OIA jnya.'- 'to recognize, know'. It was not very common word but nonetheless attested by old and young, especially by those whose fluency in second language was either marginal or for all practical purpose they were monolinguals. Consider:

28.1 seu manuch-ai cori kOrne-di bOro gO~'ti

that man-emph to steal gen very expert

'That man (alone) is expert in stealing'.

28.2 mero bai sabu kamo-di puro got~i

my brother all work-gen complete expert

' My brother is expert in all the work'

The most difficult word to attest was the entry no. 26 in the Zoller list, i.e. gO~:te:r 'creator' gonNo and compares it with OIA janitr 'progenitor'. However, among many others our monolingual and old informants one each from Jagta and Chinwa village (aged 80 and 56 years respectively) could attest this word without any problem. No one could explain the meaning very clearly though the sentence rendered by them emoted a generic meaning of' the ones which are created, i.e. creations'. The word under consideration was always used in the context of God and its creations. Consider:

29.1 tere caNo-di gO~te:r aye

yours created -gen creations came

'We, who are creation of yours have come'

29.2 ame bOgwan bade teri gO~te:r

we God all yours creations

' Oh God! We are all your creations'

30 (27) gimO~ 'winter'. 'snow' , OIA hima- 'snow'.

Almost all our informants confirmed using this word for the month of 'Paus'(winter) In general it meant 'cold and damp'. Our monolingual informant aged 80 uttered the following while discussing cold climate.

1. posE-rE mi:nE~'-di lage gim-gimO~

Poos-gen month-loc feels cold (partial reduplication)

'In the month of Paus (one) feels very cold'

Our other monolingual informant aged 56 uttered the following.

30.2 eu moino boRo gimO~
this month very cold
'This is a very cold month'

Another related etymon mentioned by Zoller and very prevalently used in the region is:

31 (28) gimia:LO 'the coldness which prevails before snowfall'. A slight variation in meaning was noticed. That is, gimia:LO was used either for 'cold' as in 29 or for the concept of 'related to cold' such as in phrases Magh, Phagun. ('hOiter gimiaLO 'The months of Magh, Phagun, Chair are cold, ie. wintery'. Once asked in isolation/br the exact meaning of the word. the prompt response came as "iu~ walo" i.e. days/months ëpertaining to snow'.

(31) getu 'the resin from an oak-like tree'. gu'etu- 'resin'. Compare OIA .jatu- 'lac, gum'. We found many variants of this word along with the word getu itself . Most of the informants referred to resins of different trees while getu specifically was referred to the resin of Ban and Chulu trees.

31.1 meri culue-di ase makt~;-i getu

my Chulu-gen tree many resins

There are many resins in my Chulu tree'.

1. bane-rE peRe. koi nikLE getu

Ban-gen tree extract getu

'The extract of the Ban tree is known as Getu'

19

The sentence 32.2 was rendered as an explanation that was sought by us for the word under consideration. Notice the typical syntactic structure of Hindi, a strong case of bilinguals are in Hindi as well as strong urge to be 'helpful' to outsiders. We tried to avoid collect such structures.

What does this all prove7 Zoller's contention is correct. The language seems to have retained some very archaic structures, retaining PIE k-, -l~-, g- and -g-. Many. words in Bangani unlike other IA languages of the region have not witnessed palatalization defying RUKi Rule. It is difficult to prove at this point whether this is because of its affiliation to Kenturn language as claimed by Zoller. However, on the basis of the first-hand data acquired during these two field trips. it can be said without any prejudices and with some certainly that some Western Indo-European language (perhaps Tokharian) of which we have no knowledge so far. either had a significant role in substratumizing Bangani or, Bangani itself was genetically related to this unknown Western IE language. There are many other features in the language such as existence of O as against a of I.Ir., pre-verbal auxiliaries (without being a V2 language system), and post auxiliary negatives that may also be seen as retentions of archaic structure in Bangani of which traces are only in Indo-European languages (Abbi 1997 forthcoming).

Heavy multi-lingualism along with the sense of language retention has given rise to a complex situation where archaic structures coexist with those which share language change processes (in phonology, morphology, and syntax) with the rest of the IA languages spoken in South Asia. Needless to emphasize further, future linguistic research at all levels is warranted in Bangan region especially by those linguists who are engaged in socio-historical linguistics.

A Note on Methodology

A field-trip was undertaken by the author along with two of her students Ms Sunita Singh and Mr Pradeep Kumar in the month of September 1995. A number of tape-recordings of interviews and songs were also made Several informants of both genders also taped the word list given in the paper Later in December 1995 I along with seven students (two females and five males) went to the interiors of Bangan and in all visited several villages such as, Jagta, Chinwa, Dzola Dogri, Moldi Dogri, Tikochi, Barnall, Airala Dogri, Bhattadi Dogri. Kiranu, Duchanu (all in Kothigarh belt), as well as Arakot. Pitlasu, Ravana. Canto. Saran, and Bhutanu (all in Pingalpatti). We had to scale, at times the height of 3000 Mrs in cold snowy winter Most of the words were attested in Chinwa (houses 28-30 households) and Jagta (has 14 Chauhan families and 18 Koli families). All villages are approachable on fi~ot, as there is only one motorable road, which does not touch many villages As our objective during the second trip was wider, I and my students interacted w'ith and observed close to 100 members of the speech community, including village gatherings and discourse contexts of various types, such as a group of Devals with their women before a religious rituals in a tent outside a temple in the afternoon, a village gathering for a quasi-religious, ritualistic 'performance' at night; informal but animated discussions among village elders over tea at a Sarpanch's house on a kev day in the village calendar; relaxed dinner-time family conversations in the kitchen conversation with mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in the kitchen while they were cooking lunch ( being a woman, I enjoyed a special privilege to be invited right in the kitchen where women folks exchanged recipes with me); conversation with our 80 year old informant while he kept working with his hammer (he was a blacksmith)--all revealing linguistically significant behaviour patterns and invaluable pieces of information on the speech community's state of health (as we were obviously very concerned about the obsolescencing phenomenon. if at all, existed because of heavy bilingualism) and vigour. The multilingual component of Bangani speech community, at times, gives a trying time to any field linguist to separate the old from the new. However, in remote villages like Jagta and Chinwa we could identify old men and women whose competence in Hindi or in any other language was minimal. Coupled with indirect observational technique, one employed direct questioning methods to extract relevant information Tape recordings were made wherever its imperativeness was felt. It is to be noted that people love to be taped and heard their own voice, and hence recording speeches in Indian villages is not any problem. The presence of a tape recorder motivated many of them to render songs and ballads. I thank to all our informants for their co-operation and hospitality.

21

References:

Abbi, Anvita 1997. Redundancies and Restructuring in Bangani Syntax: A Case of Language Contact in Western Himalaya Paper read in the 7hird Himalayan language Conterence, Santa Barbara. USA .

Beekes, Robert S P. 1990. Indo European, Linguistics.

Driem, George van and Suhnu R. Sharma. 1996 In Search of Indo-Europeans in Himalayas Indogermanische Forschungen 10 l. Pp 107.-46.

Patyal, Hukum Chand 1995. Archaic Words in Some Western Pahari Dialects A Historical Perspective. Indian Linguistics. Vol. 56, Nos. 1 -4. Pp 129-34.

Zoller, Claus Peter. 1988. Bericht Uber bsondere Archaismen im Bangani, einer Western Pahari-Sprache. Munchener S'tudien zur Sprachwissenschaft. 49 Pp 173-200.

Zoller, Claus Peter, 1989. Bericht Uber grammatische Archaismen im Bangani Muchener ,S'tudien , zur ,Sprachwissenschaft.. 50. Pp 159-218.

Zoller, Claus Peter. 1993. A Note on Bangani . Indian Linguistics. Col. 54, Nos 1-4. Pp 112-14.

KEY TO SYMBOLS

E = higher low, unrounded front vowel. Cardinal No.3.

O = higher low rounded back vowel. Cardinal No. 6.

S = voiceless palatal sibilant

A = mean mid central vowel. Schwa

All capital letters otherwise stand for retroflexion

~ after a vowel = nasalized vowel

INFORMATION ON BANGANI

This is with reference to recent debate on the archaism of a few selected words in Bangani, specifically those first discussed by Claus Peter Zoller 1988) and then later rejected by Beekes, Van Driem and Sharma 1996). The debate and the data discussed by Zoller was challenging enough for me to personally undertake a field trip to Bangan. I first went with two of my students in September 1995 and lived in Jagta and Chinwaa, two villages which are approximately 1500-2000 meters above the sea level. To my utter surprise we attested almost all (50 out of 59) words listed by Zoller. Not only that these words were collected from old informants but also from young men and women. The two students accompanying me also confirmed my findings. These words exist not in isolation but in sentences. I have tape recordings of all these with me. As we collected sentences, we realized that even the syntax of this language was very interesting and unlike any other Indo-Aryan language spoken in the country.

This motivated me to adopt this language as a sample language for the 'Field Methods' course that I teach every Monsoon season at JNU. During the 1995 Monsoon, i.e August to December 1995) I taught the course with Bangani as a model. It was a class of thirteen students. After working on the preliminary grammar with the help of two native speakers visting us regularly for 6 hours a week all of us undertook a trip to Bangan and lived among Banganis for fifteen days. There are many interesting aspects about Bangani syntax, among them the most fascinating is a) the pre verbal auxiliaries but not like V2 of Kashmiri); b) occurrence of double negatives and double durative aspectuals in the same sentence.

I do not know whether the link of this language with any Kentum language group can be established as I am not a Historical linguist but one thing is certain, the syntax and the word list of Bangani show layers of structures some of which may be relic of the past as it neither fits in a typical Indo Aryan group nor as a part of the areal phenomenon. I think more linguists should work on this language, especially descriptivists and historico-sociolinguists.

I have been working on Indian languages for the last 22 years and have been teaching the course in "Field Methods" since 1976. As an Areal Linguist, I have been working on languages of all four families of India. Even with this background I can say that Bangani is surely very challenging.

Anvita Abbi
Professor of Linguistics
Centre of Linguistics and English
School of Languages
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi 110067, INDIA

Phone: (Residence) 91-11-6963315
Fax: (office) 91-11-6165886
e-mail: anvita@jnuniv.ernet.in

Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 15:34:06 +0100 (CET)

From: Claus-Peter Zoller

The van Driem Enigma
Or: In search of instant facts

George van Driem and Suhnu R. Sharma published in the last issue of the Indogermanische Forschungen the first part of an article ("In Search of Kentum Indo-Europeans in the Himalayas"; IF 101:107-146) which not only tries to refute my claims on archaic words in Bangani but moreover attempts to discredit my character. The gist of their article - if I understand correctly what is said more or less overtly as well as between the lines - is (1) that I manipulated the Banganis with the help of alcohol in order to get pseudodata with which I tried to lead scholars up the garden path. Besides, they claim that I am not a qualified field researcher and that I "misheard" the crucial words in the examples quoted by me. Since all the words I "misheard" are - with a few exceptions - those for which I have suggested exceptional antiquity, their suggestion that I "misheard" them intentionally is more than obvious. (2) Since my claims could have fairly far-reaching scientific consequences, they felt it was their mission to verify them. Thus, they decided - at least this is what they say - to go to Bangan and conduct an objective and independent examination of my data. Since they describe themselves as qualified field-workers - in contradistinction to me - they imply that their "findings" must have authoritative status. Moreover, they contend in a very self-congratulatory tone, that they were able to procure enough evidence to show that I have published false data and that consequently all my claims are unfounded.

In response to all these accusations I allege that all their claims are wrong and baseless, and that their article is a collection of untruthful statements. Moreover, I allege that both van Driem and Sharma display in their article a lack of knowledge of even the most basic and elementary facts of Indo-Aryan, especially Pahari linguistics. Since the editor of Indogermanische Forschungen has accepted a detailed rejoinder from my side I will concentrate here only on some of the most crucial points and will not, for instance, elaborate at this moment on the question why their article only partially tries to maintain a scientific tone and frequently lapses into a language of hatred.

Of course, I cannot produce here counterproofs against the "counterproofs" of the two authors, but can only refer to the elaborate and serious fieldwork on Bangani conducted by Professor Abbi from the Jawahar Lal Nehru University in New Delhi. A short description of her work can be found at this webpage. What I can do, however, is to point out some of the crassest untruths, manipulations, and distortions produced by the two. Unlike the archaisms, for which I still claim - even if I may be again accused of mystification - that some of them cannot be verified without a certain investment of time and effort, I maintain that all the following points can easily be examined by everybody who wishes to.

(1) They claim to have visited Bangan in December 1994. This is not the truth. They never put a foot on Bangani soil. Bangan consists of the three belts called Kothigar, Masmor, and Pingal. However, the two places in which they stayed according to their own description, "Mori-Valti" and "Montar" belong to the belt called Shiktur. Since the deities (and thus the people - at least to some extent) of Bangan and Shiktur traditionally preserve unfriendly relations, it is a mystery why the authors undertook this long journey and stopped just outside the area, as if they lost heart at the last moment.

That this fact is more than an isolated error, that the two, although claiming to be the true competent field linguists, in fact were confused about the basic geographical realities, that they apparently did not know where they were, and that they claimed to have been in places where they never were, may be illustrated here with two examples:
(1a) They locate a village named "Bagi" in the belt "Garugarh" in a valley to the left side of the Tons river (1997:109). Actually, "Bagi" belongs to the belt Shiktur. But the truly embarrassing point for them is the fact that "Bagi" is located on the right side on the Tons river just a few hundred meters away from the farmstead "Mori-Valti" where they stayed most of the time. That means that every day they had the village right under their noses without realizing this.
(1b) While commenting on a Bangani utterance published by me, they say (on page 133) about a locality called "Gorie-Naoni" that "We have personally visited the gently sloping area known as "Gorie-Naoni."' This is not true. "Gorie-Naoni" is neither gently sloping, nor has it been visited by the two. "Gorie-Naoni" is so far away from the two places they stayed that it never could have been visited by them within the short time they spent in the area. In December it is frequently under snow, there are no villages in the vicinity, and only during the summer months is it visited by shepherds and hunters. The most effective test would be to ask the two for a detailed description of this locality.

(2) They claim to have conducted their field-work in an independent way. This is not the truth. Despite their effort to make fun of my remark (136-37) that the branch office of the South Asia Institute would be glad to offer assistance to linguists working on Bangan, they did exactly this and made use of the assistance of the institute - of course, without mentioning this anywhere in their article. If their intention to conduct a real independent examination had been sincere, then they should have gone into villages never visited by us and worked with families with whom we never worked. However, they did not do this. Instead, they asked in the branch office for the address of a Bangani who had worked with us, and went to "Mori-Valti," introducing themselves at Roshan Singh Cauhan's place as friends of ours. They assert in their article that my portrayal of the Banganis as suspicious towards outsiders cannot be true, since they found them very friendly and open. This, however, is no surprise and will happen to anybody who introduces himself in the area as our friend. This latter fact, of course, has been withheld by the two explorers.

Although the two spent more than two full days in "Mori-Valti" (and one or two hours in "Montar"), they were apparently unable to sort out the basic facts relating to their informants and of the family of their host. To give just two randomly selected examples: Contrary to their description of Roshan Singh Cauhan's "sons... and daughters-in-law" he has only one son and only one daughter-in-law. And: among the four names they are able to produce of persons with whom they claim to have worked, namely, Roshan Singh Cauhan, his son Harpal, and his younger brother Jay Singh, plus one Anand Singh, two names (or 50%!) are falsely given: There never was an Anand Singh working with them, and Jay Singh, who lives one day's journey away from "Mori-Valti," has never in his life met the two members of that expedition. Thus, the two explorers had not only no overview of the geographical surroundings in which they stayed, but they had also only confused ideas about the family of their host. Should they not, since they claim to be "real" field linguists in contradistinction to me, have been able to produce correct information on such basic points? For me this is an enigma. However, that also this is more than an isolated incident and that they are dilettantes ignorant of the field of Indo-Aryan linguistics will be demonstrated below on the basis of a few examples (a detailed description will be found in the next issue of Indogermanische Forschungen).

Their statement on the very first page of their article that "In Bangani, as in Hindi" the palatal and the retroflex sibilants "have merged to yield one single modern phoneme" sound sensational, but contradicts the most basic textbook knowledge - and is just plain wrong. Should they not have known that the West Pahari languages, to which Bangani belongs, have preserved two voiceless sibilants, whereas Hindi had only one sibilant through most of its history (and, in fact, a number of rural Hindi dialects still have only one sibilant) until the second sibilant was introduced by loan words? On page 108 they try to make their readers believe that Bangani is most closely related to "The distinct Western Pahari language spoken south of the Tons river, in Jaunsar and Bavar." They obviously do not know that in Jaunsar and Bavar several languages are spoken; and they obviously do not know that the languages of Jaunsar and Bavar are not pure Western Pahari, but either mixed Western and Central Pahari or, in the opinion of some, basically Central Pahari languages. They have compared Bangani with them simply because they do not know the names of the languages spoken north and west of Bangan, with which Bangani is, in fact, quite closely related. In addition, on the first page they state that Bangani has one "low tone." Thus, they obviously could not discover more Bangani tones within the short time of their stay. Apart from the fact that they have frequently misplaced their "low tone," they obviously do not understood anything at all about Bangani tonology. Thus, there is not one, but four tones in Bangani, and they are not "low," but they are all high tones of a contour tone system. Although it is not surprising that the authors were unable to discover more than one tone, it is surprising and, in fact, shameful for them that, due to their zeal to "normalize" my IPA transcription with the Indological system of transliteration (their frequent confusion between transcription and transliteration will be described in my forthcoming article), they wiped out a whole class of emically distinct consonants. They failed to recognize one of the most intrinsic features of Western Pahari languages, and thus also of Bangani, namely the emic opposition between palatal and dental affricates. How seriously would someone be taken who failed to recognize the distinction between dental and retroflex stops in Sanskrit? By eliminating this distinction - which, by the way, is not found in the Jaunsari languages - they have seriously corrupted my presentation of Bangani utterances. Therefore, I also allege that they were not in a position to seriously discuss Bangani words with Bangani speakers.

In the beginning I referred to the extensive work done by Professor Abbi on Bangani. Although I will comment in detail in my forthcoming article on the technique used by the two authors - namely, to replace the relevant words in my examples with more or less similar sounding other words (thus "proving" my subnormal hearing ability) - I will demonstrate later the wonderful effectiveness of their approach with two examples. But before that, a few words about their working technique and special rhetoric. Reading their article, surely almost everyone must get the impression that they were a well-established team, competently analyzing my "mistakes" and deconstructing my claims. Far from it - it is only an illusion. All the Banganis interviewed by us after their visit gave the same description: van Driem will be remembered by the Banganis for his conspicuous taciturnity. Despite van Driem's claim to be able to speak Hindi, Roshan Singh Cauhan, who was the most important informant for the two, and on whose statements their article almost completely rests, denies that van Driem ever interrogated him personally. His interlocutor was Sharma, whereas van Driem preferred conversation with Cauhan's young son Harpal. Harpal, on the other hand, compared van Driem's Hindi with the broken Hindi he heard used by western mountain trekkers and seekers of alternative lifestyles. Whether this is a fitting comparison or not, the fact remains that Sharma acted as an interpreter for van Driem and was carrying out the latter's instructions. Therefore, the scenes they mention where they claim to have laughed heartily over the "discovery" of yet another "mistake" of mine, are pure products of fantasy. The occurrence of such scenes has been emphatically rejected by their Bangani informants as wishful thinking.

In their grandiose effort to continually present themselves as splendid stars and moralizers, and us as incompetents they have not shrunk from further distortions. Do they really think that they can convince the readers that the long years of work on Bangani are based on drinking sessions? These tasteless utterances of theirs have been wilfully invented. On the other hand, however, they have not only withheld information on how they freeloaded on the infrastructures offered by the branch office of the South Asia Institute, they have also "forgotten" to mention that at least one of them indeed enjoyed the locally brewed drinks. Or take their self-praise (p. 120) "that Zoller was not wont to ask the type of probing questions we did." Their probing questions, according to Roshan Singh Cauhan, mainly consisted of asking Bangani basic vocabulary for body parts, agricultural items, etc., repeating a work done by us many years before. What Mr. Cauhan in fact had told them expressis verbis, was that we concerned ourselves with recording old stories and old songs. Now, this is true. But is this less probing than asking the Bangani word for "nose"?

When we explained to Roshan Singh Cauhan how he had been quoted in van Driem and Sharma's article, he was deeply shocked and said that he had been misunderstood and misinterpreted on many points. It was therefore decided to record an interview with him. This was done on 10 January 1997 in the language laboratory of the Jawahar Lal Nehru University in New Delhi in the presence of several independent witnesses. The interview, which was conducted in Hindi, was simultaneously translated into English. Anyone who is interested in the interview and who wants to see how Mr. Cauhan's personal statements deviate from the distorted presentation in the article is welcome to receive a free copy from us. Apart from the fantastic number of mistakes and mispresentations mentioned above, Mr. Cauhan's utterances with regard to the archaisms were also frequently misinterpreted. In several cases the alternative interpretations offered by the two are not only the result of one, but of a series of misunderstandings between them and Mr. Cauhan. This will be described in my forthcoming article. Here I would like to draw attention to just two examples:
(a) On pp. 124, 128, and 129 the two authors exchange several different words, for which I have suggested a possible archaic backgound, with one and the same "Hindi" word 'to count'. This raises the question of how I could "mishear" the "same" word in several different ways. Or could it not be that the two authors occasionally went too far (in an unimaginative way) with their technique of arbitrarily exchanging one word with another similar sounding one?
(b) In the example discussed on pp. 127-28 they have exchanged my garsina 'to be terrified' with a garzina 'to freeze in one's tracks'. In other words, they have changed the form of the word but retained more or less the same meaning. Then they suggest to look for connections not with IE 'starren,' but with Hindi garjna 'to roar, bellow, thunder.' The delightful aspect of their conjecture now is this: there is a Bangani gardzina 'to roar,' which is the equivalent to Hindi garjna . However, one can see on p. 128 that the two give the meaning 'to freeze in one's tracks.' Now, this is not the result of some strange semantic development in Bangani, but the result of a complete failure of the two authors to understand Mr. Cauhan. Of course, Mr. Cauhan knows garsina 'to be terrified' as, indeed, most Banganis do. However, he objected to the example, because, according to him, wild boars do not show fear, but rather roar. This was what he attempted to communicate to his visitors, but they took him to mean that garsina does not exist. The fact that the authors retained the meaning in their manipulation but changed the pronunciation clearly shows that they went only half way in discarding my Bangani word. Thus, here they have produced an unintentional but clear proof of the existence of at least one of the words whose existence they try to deny so fanatically.

Claus Peter Zoller

______________________________________________________________
Claus Peter Zoller e-mail: ce0@ix.urz.uni-heidelberg.de
South Asia Institute phone: 0049-6221-548926
Dept. of Indology II private: 0049-6203-63562
Im Neuenheimer Feld 330 fax: 0049-6221-548998
69120 Heidelberg
Germany
----------------------------------------------------------

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: SMTP%"tuitekj@ere.umontreal.ca" 25-JAN-1997 20:09:12.86
Subj: The Bangani mystery resolved (?)

Dear colleagues,

My query to the IE and Nostratic lists concerning Zoller's Bangani data drew a number of responses, posted on one or the other list, or on the Indology list VYAKARAN. Since some individuals have asked me to summarize the results, I give some illustrative excerpts from the messages below. One word of caution: While what follows appears to indicate a unanimous rejection of Zoller's hypothesis, one respondant, a distinguished Indologist who wrote to me privately, is not so sure. The data do not appear to him to have been invented on the spot, even by a clever informant. He has a point there, and I would counsel withholding judgment until more information comes in. On the other hand, I certainly know (from personal experience, alas!) how a clever informant who wants to please a foreign guest -- such as a naive graduate student in the field for the first time -- can show considerable ingenuity in the invention of non-existent forms. Fortunately, I had other Georgians check over the data, which struck even me as suspicious, and of course I made use of corpora and random observation of conversations between Georgians (i.e. "eavesdropping") to corroborate my findings. As for Zoller, he claims to have taken essentially the same precautions: "Etliche der von meinem Mitarbeiter stammenden archaischen Woerter wurden von mir in Bangan mit anderen Sprechern ueberprueft" (p 198). Among these corroboration procedures (ueberpruefungsverfahren) he mentions the observation of conversations between Banganis and invention of speech situations in which the archaisms are likely to be used (planmaessiges Schaffen von Gespraechssituationen, in denen die Archaismen eingebracht werden konnten). Personally, I am willing to take Zoller at his word -- unless VERY strong evidence of his dishonesty is presented -- but my field experience has left me sufficiently chastened that I will treat his data with caution.

Here are some highlights from my Bangani dossier:

1. From: thompson@jlc.net (George Thompson)

Recently [within the past few years, I think] George van Driem of Leiden went to the Bangani area and found the language to be fully Indo-Aryan, and Zoller's data for the most part misinterpretations. He has recently published his findings,I think, in Indogermanische Forschungen (1996? I do not have access to this myself). If this ref. is not correct, please let me know. The subject came up recently [perhaps this Summer] on the Indology-List, where full reference can be found. If you do not have access to the archives of that list I can track the exact ref. down for you.

As far as I know, Indologists in general have abandoned Zoller's thesis.

2. From: rmccalli@MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)

You've either come upon the "Olduvai George" of historical linguistics or its "Piltdown Man". On the other hand, it could be a coincidence between ritual language deformation (or the local Pig Latin) and centum. But, who knows, if the evidence holds up, maybe someone can finally convince Kaulins of the futility of "Indo-Latvian".

3. From: Ralf.Georg@bonn.netsurf.de (Ralf-Stefan Georg)

It is strange, but I read the article by George van driem on the Bangani "enigma" this very day. It is, as George Thompson correctly mentioned, published in "Indogermanische Forschungen". The full reference is: George van Driem/Suhnu: Ra:m Sharma:: In Search of Kentum Indo-Europeans in the Himalayas, IF 101/1996, 107-146. Both authors have in fact been to the Bangani-speaking-area (in Uttarakhand) to check the original claims by Zoller (which have been published in two papers in MSS, 49 and 50, 1988 and 1989). They managed to get in contact with the very same informatns with whom Zoller had worked and could record largely the same texts (quite conventionalized songs and proverbs).

The results are devastating for the Bangani-hypothesis (i.e. for the alleged existence of "Kentum"-I.E. words in the language). The authors' presentation of their methods and the data obtained by them, together with full justifications of their new interpretations, seem to leave no serious doubt on the fact that (as Beekes, who had access to the results of van Driem's campaign earlier, put it in hhe english edition of his "Vergelijkende Taalwetenschap") this marks "the end of the Bangani story".

However, I cannot help mentioning that the style of this paper, especially some of the anecdotes which are told on Zoller and his work in India, well, are somewhat off the mark and border on (for my taste spill over into) outright libeling , something which I greatly disliked reading in this competent and necessary paper, written by our leading specialist in Himalayan linguistics.

Stefan Georg
Heerstrasse 7
>D-53111 Bonn

4. From: iffr762@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu

To quote from Beekes' "Comparative I-E Linguistics", p.20:

"My Leiden colleague George van Driem went to the Bangani area in December 1994, and observed that these forms are incorrect and especially their supposed meanings. Most words have good I-A etymologies ... This is the end of the Bangani story."

Maybe your sources are more recent than, and incorporates, this. But if not ... field work is very often unreliable, unfortunately.

DLW

5. (See the Leiden Webpage.) 6. From: gor05@rz.uni-kiel.d400.de

In response to the question on Bangani, I thought I'd forward this piece of information from the mailing list VYAKARAN, which I manage. I've also forwarded your piece to the VYAKARAN list, so you may be getting a few responses from the members of that list.

John

Dear Professor Haspelmath

My friend Asko Parpola kindly forwarded your query about Bangani to me. I received your request for information today upon returning from abroad.

My colleague Dr. Suhnu Ram Sharma of Deccan College at Poona and myself have conducted investigations on Bangani and discussed the implications of our findings for Indo-European linguistics. The results of our work will appear in two installments in *Indogermanische Forschungen*. The first installment is scheduled to appear in the next volume, Band 101, under the title "In search of Kentum Indo-Europeans in the Himalayas". The second installment, to appear in Band 102, is entitled "Some grammatical observations on Bangani". I thank you for your interest in this matter.

In compliance with John Peterson's request of July 26th, I shall make a copy of this letter available to him for the VYAKARAN and LINGUIST mailing lists.

Sincerely yours,
George van Driem

**************************************************************
Kevin Tuite 514-343-6514 (bureau)
Departement d'anthropologie 514-343-2494 (telecopieur)
Universite de Montreal
C.P. 6128, succursale centre-ville
Montreal, Quebec H3C 3J7 tuitekj@mistral.ere.umontreal.ca
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From: "Hans H. Hock" hhhock@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu
Subject: Bangani

To anyone concerned with the question of Bangani,

The issue of Bangani has recently been revived through discussion on the Vyakaran list (as well as elsewhere). The following observations were sent earlier to the Vyakaran (S. Asia) list and may be of some interest to subscribers to the Indoeuropean list, too.

***On Bangani***

The controversy over Bangani and the authenticity of its apparent evidence for a centum language in northern South Asia does not seem to be coming to an end. In the opinion of some scholars, the claims by Dr. George van Driem and Dr. Suhnu Ram Sharma that their own fieldwork shows Dr. Claus-Peter Zoller's centum forms in Bangani to be spurious has in effect laid the claim -- and the controversy -- to rest. Recent fieldwork by Professor Anvita Abbi (Linguistics and English, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi) supports Zoller's evidence and in so doing casts doubt on the fieldwork and/or claims of van Driem and Sharma. As a consequence, Zoller's evidence must be taken seriously and its implications for Indo-European comparative linguistics and for South Asian linguistic prehistory must be carefully considered.

As is well known, in the course of fieldwork on Bangani, a language of northern South Asia, Zoller unearthed lexical items that appear to show centum developments of PIE palatalo-velars, instead of the satem outcomes expected in an Indo-Aryan language. At the same time, the language also contains lexical layers that are clearly Indo-Aryan and therefore satem; some of these result from recent influence of languages such as Hindi, others exhibit features typical of the northern languages belonging to the Indo-Aryan/Indo-Iranian family.

Among the forms with centum features are various words derivable from PIE *GenH-, such as OgnOM 'unborn' and gOnNO 'give birth', as well as kOtrO 'fight' (cf. Skt. Zatru-, Gaul. catu- 'battle') and dOkru 'tear' (*(d)aKru). [O = open _o_; G(h), M = nasalization, N = retroflex nasal, z = s with hacek, Z = palatal voiceless sibilant, S = retroflex voiceless sibilant, K = PIE palatalo-velars, uu = long [u:], I = Slav. front jer.]

While some of the forms are marked as doubtful, either by Zoller or by Abbi, and some other forms involve etymologies from Pokorny that many Indo-Europeanists would consider uncertain, there remains an impressive residue. What is especially interesting is that dOkru 'tear', with its initial d-, suggests affiliation with a western Indo-European language (cf. Gk. dakru, Lat. dacruma > lacrima, Germ. Zaehre, Engl. tear), while more eastern members show forms without d-: Skt. aZru, Av. asru, Lith. azara, Toch. B akruuna. More western affiliation is also suggested by lOktO 'milk' and gOsti 'guest (of honor)', which have good correspondences in Gk. galakt-, Lat. lact- and Lat. hostis, Gmc. *gasti-, OCS gostI, but not in more eastern Indo-European languages. Note that these forms do not necessarily contain original palatalo-velars (the fact that OCS has _gostI_ may be attributable to the transition-area status of Slavic and Baltic between satem and western centum languages); but they are nevertheless important, since they suggest western IE (rather, than, say Tocharian or even Indo-Iranian) origin.

Van Driem and Sharma claim that their fieldwork suggests that Zoller's forms are spurious, that some are based on misidentification and others are simply non-existent. In a recent summary of arguments pro and con, Dr. Kevin Tuitte further suggests that Zoller may have fallen victim to fieldwork consultants' tendency to provide evidence that they think may please the investigator. Even a priori, however, the latter suggestion is dubious, since it would be hard to imagine how illiterate villagers would be able to know that words like _dOkrO, lOktO, gOsti_ would please an investigator (to have that knowledge would require more than a superficial understanding of comparative Indo-European linguistics).

In January 1997 I had the opportunity to meet with Abbi and to go over some of her Bangani notes from fieldwork that she recently conducted in situ. She will provide a fuller report on her work in due course, but has asked me to provide a preliminary report, so as to set the record straight. While van Driem and Sharma appear not to have actually entered Bangani-speaking territory but limited themselves to interviewing Bangani speakers on the fringes of the territory, Abbi went into the territory and interviewed, among others, at least one monolingual speaker of Bangani. According to her fieldwork, most of Zoller's forms are genuine.

Her fieldwork also confirms that the lexicon of Bangani contains at least three layers: Words of the type _dOkrO, lOktO, gOsti_, words that exhibit "northern" Indo-Aryan features, and words that seem to be borrowed from more southern Indo-Aryan languages, such as Hindi.

Given these circumstances, Bangani poses several challenges to linguistics.

First, there is the question of what appears to be western centum influence. At this point, the evidence for this influence is highly suggestive; but a larger amount of words of the same type would certainly be helpful to allay worries that we might be dealing with chance similarities. (Zoller's data also contain a number of words in which RUKI apparently fails to apply. But RUKI-_S_ merges with dental _s_ (and with _Z_) in most of Indo-Aryan, and there are well-known problems with RUKI in Nuristani; as a consequence, words of this type do not provide unambiguous evidence -- unless we were dealing with words of the type _dOkrO, lOktO, gOsti_ which, qua words, seem to indicate western IE origin.)

A related question is the nature of the western centum influence. Words like _gOsti_ seem to rule out Greek influence (and thus the possibility that we are dealing with linguistic echoes of Alexander's army); _lOktO_ would eliminate Germanic and Celtic; and _kOtrO_ would eliminate Greek and Latin. That is, no known western centum language could be the source for all of the relevant words. At the same time, the fact that *a and *o exhibit the same outcome (O, no doubt via *a, see below) suggests possible affiliation with the Balto-Slavo-Germanic group (or possibly with Antalolian?).

The fact that *a and *o are reflected as O further suggests that, whatever the source of the words, they participated in the Bangani change of earlier *a to O and that therefore they must have entered (the ancestor of modern) Bangani prior to that change. But that change may be a very recent one. The question of what time these words entered Bangani therefore cannot be satisfactorily answered at this point.

Moreover, it is not at all clear whether the words in question actually entered Bangani, or whether they are part of the original lexicon of the language, and the northern Indo-Aryan lexical layer is a later accretion, comparable to the clearly secondary layer of southern Indo-Aryan words.

It is to be hoped that more extensive field work on Bangani will unearth evidence that will make it possible to answer some of these questions, or at least to make it possible to more clearly establish the nature of the different lexical layers of Bangani and their relationship to each other. Moreover, as noted earlier, the evidence for western IE influence or origin at this point is still rather limited; if more evidence could be found this would definitely strengthen the claim that Bangani contains a significant layer of centum vocabulary.

Hans Henrich Hock
Professor of Linguistics and Sanskrit
Linguistics, 4088 FLB, University of Illinois
707 S. Mathews, Urbana, IL 61801
telephone: (217) 333-0357 or 333-3563 (messages)
e-mail: hhhock@staff.uiuc.edu
fax: (217) 333-3466

Acting Director, Program in South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 211 International Studies Building, 910 S. Fifth, Champaign, IL 61820 telephone: (217) 0796, fax: (217) 333-6270