Abstract
Ever since the discovery of Indus valley civilization, scholars have debated the linguistic identities of its people. This study analyzes numerous archaeological, linguistic, archaeogenetic and historical evidences to claim that the words used for elephant (like, ‘pīri’, ‘pīru’) in Bronze Age Mesopotamia, the elephant-word used in the Hurrian part of an Amarna letter of ca. 1400 BC, and the ivory-word (‘pîruš’) recorded in certain sixth century BC Old Persian documents, were all originally borrowed from ‘pīlu’, a Proto-Dravidian elephant-word, which was prevalent in the Indus valley civilization, and was etymologically related to the Proto-Dravidian tooth-word ‘*pal’ and its alternate forms (‘*pīl’/‘*piḷ’/‘*pel’). This paper argues that there is sufficient morphophonemic evidence of an ancient Dravidian ‘*piḷ’/‘*pīl’-based root, which meant ‘splitting/crushing’, and was semantically related to the meanings ‘tooth/tusk’. This paper further observes that ‘pīlu’ is among the most ancient and common phytonyms of the toothbrush tree Salvadora persica, which is a characteristic flora of Indus valley, and whose roots and twigs have been widely used as toothbrush in IVC regions since antiquity. This study claims that this phytonym ‘pīlu’ had also originated from the same Proto-Dravidian tooth-word, and argues that since IVC people had named their toothbrush trees and tuskers (elephants) using a Proto-Dravidian tooth-word, and since these names were widely used across IVC regions, a significant population of Indus valley civilization must have used that Proto-Dravidian tooth-word in their daily communication. Since ‘tooth’ belongs to the core non-borrowable ultraconserved vocabulary of a speech community, its corollary is that a significant population of IVC spoke certain ancestral Dravidian languages. Important insights from recent archaeogenetic studies regarding possible migration of Proto-Dravidian speakers from Indus valley to South India also corroborate the findings of this paper.
Highlights
Indus valley civilization (IVC) and its linguistic diversity
Types of languages presently spoken in the IVC regions are: IndoAryan (e.g., Punjabi in Punjab with dialects Siraiki and Lahnda, Sindhi in Sindh, Hindi, Marwari, Gujarati in eastern parts of Greater Indus Valley); Dardic (e.g., Shina, Khowar, Kohistani); Iranian (e.g., Baluchi, Dari, Pashto, and Wakhi in western parts of Greater Indus Valley); Nuristani in northeastern Afghanistan; Dravidian; Brahui; and Burushaski spoken in northernmost Pakistan close to the Chinese border (Parpola, 2015, pp. 163–164)
It discusses how the linguistic and archaeological evidence presented in this paper buttresses an intriguing possibility indicated in recent genetic-anthropological studies, i.e. the North-to-South migration of Proto-Dravidian
Summary
Indus valley civilization (IVC) and its linguistic diversity. IVC, stretching across almost one million square kilometres of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the North-Western part of India (Kenoyer, 2010), was the most expansive of chalcolithic civilizations. The relation between ProtoDravidian tooth-word and the Dravidian ‘pal’/‘pīl’-based elephant-words must be deeply etymological, not accidental Another revealing and independent evidence of pīlu’s connection with the meaning of tooth comes from the widespread Indic phytonym of Salvadora persica, known in the western world as ‘toothbrush tree’, and in Arabic countries as ‘miswak’ tree; ‘miswak’ meaning ‘tooth-cleaning-stick’ (Haque and Alsareii, 2015). It is important to note that this study cautiously refrains from either proving or disproving the presence of any other language-group in this likely multilingual civilization All these points are elaborated in the sections “Results” and “Conclusion”, along with a detailed discussion of how certain archaeological and linguistic evidences corroborate suggestions of certain archaeogenetic studies regarding the existence of ancestral Dravidian people in IVC
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
