Reviews Of Different Books

Page 47

REVIEWS 293 assumption of an Austroasiatic provenance. In that case the lexical elements can only be very early borrowings from a source whose nature it remains to determine more exactly: Old Munda or para-Munda? Nih. te(')- 'to eat', tu- 'to embrace' can, it is true, have been taken from a Munda language now lost, but isolated cases like Dhimal unku 'cauli, rice' (if correct, see Nahali, p. 51) are a warning against rash conclusions. In the present state of our knowledge it would seem essential to recognize that there are some questions which cannot be answered until much more material is available. These facts have here been summarized because Zide, for the reason mentioned above, was unable to give a coherent account of this problem. Of the monograph of 1962 it is only said that the author "demonstrated that Nihali has borrowed heavily from IndoAryan and especially Dravidian, but he did not suggest that Nihali is Indo-Aryan or Dravidian". The last words are not singularly to the point because no one has ever thought of ascribing Nihali to either of these families. The only thing Zide could do was to state that he had long considered Nihali a Munda language but that he had changed his mind. His observations contain nothing new except the confirmation that Nihali is actually an argot, as had been suggested in 1962. There is obviously no point in criticizing Zide. His survey is a silent warning to all those who undertake a journey with a manuscript in their brief-case and omit to leave a carbon-typed or xeroxed copy back home. Roy Andrew Miller wrote the chapter on "The Tibeto-Burman Languages of South Asia" (pp. 431-449) and D. N. Mackenzie that on "Iranian Languages" (pp. 450-477), the latter not limited to India as it also comprises Old Iranian and Middle Iranian. So much of this interesting account is somewhat out of place in this book. In Part Four, "Linguistics and Related Fields in South Asia" (pp. 481-752), there is, first (pp. 481-498), Renou's masterly survey on Panini ("who ... is less interested in describing than in characterizing and analyzing", p. 493) and J. F. Staal's contribution "Sanskrit Philosophy and Language" (pp. 499-531). Of general interest for every linguist is "General Linguistics in South Asia" by Ashok R. Kelkar (pp. 532-542), a fascinating picture of the present situation in India. To his final critical remarks (p. 538ff.) every linguist will no doubt subscribe. He ends up with the words: "We have a long way to go. We can begin (...) by acquiring what we have inherited -- from our own past as well as from the rest of the world." It is encouraging to see that the generation of Kelkar, V. I. Subramoniam and others is well aware of "the Indian penchant for synthesis or desire to displease nobody" (which "often results in cheerful conflation of disparate or even conflicting elements"), of the "lackadaisical" editing of journals, and the difficulties arising from "the stratified power structure of lhe South Asian academic community" (p. 539f.). "Toward a phonological Typology of the Indian linguistic area" by A. K. Ramanujan and Colin Masica (pp. 543-577) is the most thorough attempt so far to test the areal theory for the whole subcontinent. This important study, which contains nine maps of India with various isoglosses, leads to the conclusion that "there appears to be, thus, a number of multi-familial Sprachbunds in the Indian area" (p. 577). Some doubts, however, may be expressed regarding the idea that diffusion is due to the "prestige of one community over another as the chief social factor causing adoption of traits and bilingualism" (p. 543f.), even if "prestige" is broadly interpreted as "importance to the borrower". Some other factors must sometimes be involved in the process. If the theory of a prehistoric diffusion of Dravidian traits in proto-Indo-Aryan is correct, other possible factors instead of prestige must be taken into consideration (in addition to the assumption of a social stratification in the pre-Vedic society which is only very feebly and indirectly reflected in the priestly literature). The Malay loan-words formerly used in "colonial Dutch" are also an interesting example of linguistic reflexes of a social symbiosis where prestige is inadequate as an explanation, mber of multi-famion regarding the idea factor causing acope.si