Lecture | Descriptive Linguistics Seminars
The Diachronic Phonology of Indo-Iranian Loanwords in Balti and Ladakhi
- Josiah Medin
- Date
- Friday 17 May 2024
- Time
- Series
- Descriptive Linguistics Seminars
- Location
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 0.02
Abstract
Balti and Ladakhi are two Northwestern Tibetic languages spoken in Northeastern Pakistan and across the border in India that exhibit a large amount of vocabulary not traceable to Classical Tibetan or Tibeto-Burman. Through the pioneering work of Anton Kogan of the Russian Academy of Sciences, it has been proposed that many of these words can be explained as Indo-Iranian, specifically from either Dardic or Iranian. The present talk will discuss what can be gathered about the phonology or phonologies of this lost substrate language on the basis of these loanwords with specific attention given to Indo-Iranian classification. It will be shown that, while Kogan's work is indispensable for understanding the characteristics of the substrate language, some of his initial hypotheses regarding the characteristics of this language cannot be maintained. It will also be shown that it must be the case that at least two languages donated words to these Northwest Tibetic dialects, one of which may be the ancestor of the Wakhi language.