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Linguistic Evidence for Cultural Exchange in Prehistoric Western Central Asia SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS Number 129 December, 2003 Linguistic Evidence for Cultural Exchange in Prehistoric Western Central Asia by Michael Witzel Victor H. Mair, Editor Sino-Platonic Papers Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 USA [email protected] www.sino-platonic.org SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS FOUNDED 1986 Editor-in-Chief VICTOR H. MAIR Associate Editors PAULA ROBERTS MARK SWOFFORD ISSN 2157-9679 (print) 2157-9687 (online) SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS is an occasional series dedicated to making available to specialists and the interested public the results of research that, because of its unconventional or controversial nature, might otherwise go unpublished. The editor-in-chief actively encourages younger, not yet well established, scholars and independent authors to submit manuscripts for consideration. 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We do, however, strongly recommend that prospective authors consult our style guidelines at www.sino-platonic.org/stylesheet.doc. Manuscripts should be submitted as electronic files, preferably in Microsoft Word format. You may wish to use our sample document template, available here: www.sino-platonic.org/spp.dot. Beginning with issue no. 171, Sino-Platonic Papers has been published electronically on the Web at www.sino-platonic.org. Issues 1–170, however, will continue to be sold as paper copies until our stock runs out, after which they too will be made available on the Web. Please note: When the editor goes on an expedition or research trip, all operations (including filling orders) may temporarily cease for up to three months at a time. In such circumstances, those who wish to purchase various issues of SPP are requested to wait patiently until he returns. If issues are urgently needed while the editor is away, they may be requested through Interlibrary Loan. You should also check our Web site at www.sino-platonic.org, as back issues are regularly rereleased for free as PDF editions. Sino-Platonic Papers is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. Michael Witzel, "Linguistic Evidence for Cultural Exchange in Prehistoric Western Central Asia," . Sino-Platonic Papers, 129 (December, 2003) Linguistic Evidence for Cultural Exchange in Prehistoric Western Central Asia Michael Witzel q Abstract Recently discovered evidence suggests that there is a body of loan words preserved independently from each other in the oldest Indian and Iranian texts that reflects the pre-Indo-Iranian language(s) spoken in the areas bordering N. Iran and N. Afghanistan, i.e. the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex. These loans include words from agriculture, village and town life, flora and fauna, ritual and religion. They were taken over and then exported to Iran and N. India by the speakers of the various Old Iranian and Old Indo-Aryan (Vedic) languages, as well as by a western off-shoot, the Mitanni Indo-Aryan of Syria/Iraq and by the language of related tribes indicated by some Indo-Iranian words in Kassite. All these represent series of intrusions by Indo­ Iranian speakers into the world of the great Mesopotamian, Bactro-Margiana, and Indus civilizations and their acculturation. lt § 1.1. Introduction Over the past few decades archaeologists have discovered an increasing number of sites of the great Oxus Civilization, perhaps better known nowadays as the Bactria­ Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), as well as its Neolithic and Chalcolithic predecessors. 1 While they have filled in a large gap between the great civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Indus, so far no written documents have been found, with the exception of the seal from"Anau reported by F. Hiebert.2 However, little to nothing is known about the language(s) spoken in the areas east of Mesopotamia (Hurrite, ~ " This study is a detailed follow-up on earlier notes (Witzel 1995: 103, 1997b: xx-xxiv), lectures (Erlangen, Indogermanische Gesellschaft, Oct. 1997 =Witze12000c; Philadelphia, Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World, May 2001 - 3rd Harvard Round Table on the Ethnogenesis of Central and South Asia, May 2001, preprint: http://wwwlas.harvard.edu/-sanskrit/images/C._ASIA_.pdf.Leiden.Third IntI. Vedic Workshop 2002 = forthc. b), and investigations (Witzel 1999a: 58-60, 1999b, 1999c: 388-393; Witze12000a, 2000c). - Special thanks are due to John Colarusso: he has suggested, just before printing, a substantial number of additions and corrections, especially from Caucasian; they are quoted below as "J. Colarusso, pers. comm." " ) Sarianidi 1992, 1998a, 1998b Dani 1992, Francfort 1989, 1990, 1994, 1998, 1999, 2001, Hiebert 1988, 1992,2001. 2 Hiebert 2002, Colarusso 2002, however, see Mair 2001. A few Elamite seals have been found in S. Turkmenistan. 1 Michael Witzel, "Linguistic Evidence for Cultural Exchange in Prehistoric Western Central Asia," Sino-Platonic Papers, 129 (December, 2003) . Akkadian, Sumerian, Elamite/, and those west of the Indus area. The language(s) of the Indus civilization also are by and large unknown, that is if we neglect the materials that can be distilled from the materials contained in the earliest texts in Indo-Aryan, the Vedas,4 but which have unfortunately been overlooked for that purpose. Nevertheless, these serve as a guide of what language(s) may have been present in the subcontinent in c. 2000 BCE.5 " The picture can be enlarged and projected back in time by using the oldest Iranian counterparts of the Vedas, the Avestan texts of the Zoroastrians, as well as the Old Persian inscriptions. Since Old Iranian and Old Indo-Aryan (Vedic) are so closely related, items common to both languages can be used to reconstruct the common­ Proto-language, Indo-Iranian. Otherwise, we have virtually no evidence for the areas between the great civilizations and those north of Greater Iran as they are too distant from the Near Eastern, Indian, and Chinese cultures to have been discussed or described in details in their texts.6 However, the seal recently discovered at Anau should alert us to the possibility that early writing might be found in the area after all. 7 In the meantime all that we can establish for the languages used in the western Central Asian area comes from early Near Eastern and Indian (and also Old Iranian) sources. There are some references in the Sumerian and Akkadian documents of the 3rd to 1st mill. BCE, but they deal just with the border areas of Mesopotamia8 and furnish only some vague references such as that to Aratta, probably Arachosia.9 Similarly, we have only a few vague reminiscences in the earliest Indian texts (~gveda) composed in the Greater Panjab (c. 1200 BeE-lOOO BCE) 10 which seem to refer back to the ar~a along the Volga (Rasa) and secondly, to the people along the River Sindes (Tacitus' name for the Merw or Tedzhen river): the Dasa or O.P. Daha (whom the Greeks called Da{h]ai), the Arii, 3 Languages known from barely more than the names given to their speakers in Mesopotamian sources, such as those of the Guti and Lullubi at c. 2250 BCE, are neglected here. For the contemporary situation on the Iranian plateau, see Vallat 1980, 1985, 1993, Steinkeller 1982, 1989, Blazek 1999. For (possible) connections between Blamite and Vedic names see BlaZek 2002. 4 For such (loan) words see Witzel 1999 a,b. 5 For a discussion see Witzel 1999 a, b, 2001b, and forthc. a. 6 For some such data see, however, §2, where the linguistic boundaries ofW. Central Asia are discussed. 7 See, however, V. Mair 2001; yet note Proto-Elamite seals close by, at Tepe Hissar, as well as at Shahdad, Shahr-i Sokhta, etc., and recent finds to the west of Tehran at Tepe Uzbeki. 8 Such as the Guti and the Lullubi; similarly, the texts of the Hittite and Urartu realms for the boundary areas of Anatolia, NW Iran. 9 Lapis lazuli is found in the nearby Chagai Hills (just south of Arachosia/Aratta) and in Badakhshan. Note Steinkeller 1982: 250 with details about a green variety, "carnelian with green spots," possibly turquoise, from Marh-aiL However, the blue Badakhshan variety is more famous, until today. For Aratta see Steinkeller 1982, Vasil'kov and Gurov 1995, Gamkrelidze and Ivanov 1989: 36, Witzel 1995: 320-2, BlaZek 2002b: 215-218. 10 The lowest date depends on the date of iron, c. 1000 BCB; see Possehl and Gullapalli 1999. For present purposes, "Greater Panjab" indicates the area from Gandhara (Peshawar) and Swat in the west to Delhi and the Upper Doab in the east, from the lower PamirIHimalayan ranges in the north to the borders of Sindh and the Bolan in the south; however, the clear center of the ~gvedic area is western and eastern Panjab/Haryana. 2 Michael Witzel, "Linguistic Evidence for Cultural Exchange in Prehistoric Western Central Asia,lI Sino-Platonic Papers, 129 (December, 2003) and the *Parna eYed.
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