Linguistic Evidence for Indian Origin of Indo-European Languages

[Extract from paper: Priyadarshi,P, Recent Studies in Indian Archaeo-linguistics and Archaeo-genetics having
bearing on Indian Prehistory, presented at seminar Recent Achievements of Indian Archaeology, held at
Department of Ancient Indian History and Archaeology, Lucknow University, Lucknow, India, 28-30 December
th
2010, during Joint Annual Conference of Indian Archaeology Society (44 Conference), Indian Society for
th
th
Prehistoric and Quaternary Studies (38 Conference), Indian History and Culture Society (34 Conference)]

Recent linguistic research by Bernard Comrie1 and by Dorian Fuller2 point out that the IndioEuropean languages evolved at a place which had a developed agriculture. This conclusion they have
derived from presence of agriculture related cognate words in the languages of this family separated
widely by geography, but all having had their origin from one common ancestral language at a
common place.
It has also been noted that often such ancient agricultural words of Indo-European family are shared
by languages of Munda (Austro-Asiatic) as well as Dravidian families (see Fuller, 2003, p. 201; Fuller
2006, pp. 4, 15, 18, 35, 39, 40, 55; Fuller, 2007; Fuller, 2008). Whether these words entered from
ancestors of Munda and Dravidian families into Indo-European or vice-versa, such examples indicate
that the early Indo-European people lived with the Munda and Dravidian speakers before dispersal
to Iran and Europe. By this time genetic studies have ruled out ancient presence of both Munda
family and Dravidian family in the West Asia. Only place where the three could have come into
contact with each other was India.
In fact Fuller is the first author to have said, on linguistic grounds, that India was an independent
centre of framing. Moreover he notes that origins of Indian farming was different qualitatively from
West Asian farming and was similar in many ways to African and Eastern North American origins of
farming. It is not irrelevant to mention here that Indian origin of many DNA lineages currently found
in Sub-Saharan Africa (male Y-chromosomal, F*, R1b, R1a, H, K2-M70, L; and female mtDNA, M1)
have been found in Sub-Saharan Africa exhibiting a peri-LGM migration from India to East Africa via
sea.
Fuller finds that evidence based on both archaeo-botanical material and colloquial agricultural
terms more parsimoniously postulates that early Dravidian had an epipaleolithic pre-agricultural
heritage and that it originated near a South Asian core region. This should be read with the fact
that recently Indian epipalaeolithic (microlithic) has been dated 35,000 B.P. to 12,000 B.P.3 Fullers
assertion is an acceptance of India as the oldest place of farming culture. Fuller (2006) claims that
there were several independent centres of plant domestication within the Indian peninsula by
indigenous peoples. Fuller concedes an earlier and independent rice-Neolithic in Ganga Valley and

Comrie, Bernard, Farming dispersal in Europe and the spread of the Indo-European language family, in
Bellwood, Peter and Renfrew, Colin (Eds.); Examining The Farming/language Dispersal Hypothesis, CUP
Archives, Cambridge, 2003.
2

Fuller, D. Q., Agricultural Origins and Frontiers in South Asia: A Working Synthesis, J World Prehist 2006,
20:186. Also see ----------, An agricultural perspective on Dravidian historical linguistics: archaeological crop
packages, livestock and Dravidian crop vocabulary, in Bellwood, Peter and Renfrew, Colin (Eds.); Examining
The Farming/language Dispersal Hypothesis: (191-213), 2003, p. 204.
3
Petraglia, M. et al, Population increase and environmental deterioration correspond with microlithic
innovations in South Asia ca. 35,000 years ago, PNAS 2009 Aug., cgi doi 10.1073, pnas.0810842106

western Orissa. He accepts that indigenous Indian plants, trees and vegetables have contributed
words to Sanskrit (and other Indo-European languages).4
Bellwood, Higham and many such authors had suggested in the past that Austro-Asiatic speakers
originated in South China, and from there they came to Southeast Asia, and from SE Asia to India
with rice farming.5 This has not been supported by DNA studies, which suggests that eastern India
was the source of the Austro-Asiatic speaking population, from where they migrated to Southeast
Asia with haplogroup O2a (Y).6 Other DNA studies have also confirmed Indigenous origin of AustroAsiatic speaking tribes of India.7 DNA studies of rice, cattle, buffalo and mice too support an Indian
origin of rice farming with subsequent migration to Southeast Asia.
Jerold Edmondson of Department of Linguistics, University of Texas, has done a large number of
detailed studies based on linguistics as well as DNA, on Neolithic and human migrations towards east
of India. He found that the Tai speakers of the Kradai branch of Austro-Asiatic language family
migrated from India, and first settled in Southeast Asia long back. They were master cultivators and
they took agriculture from India to Thailand and then from the latter to the Yunnan province of
southwest China, and to South China by 10,000 ybp during Neolithic expansion.8
On the other hand Harvard scholar Michael Witzel has been struggling hard to prove that the
agriculture related words in the Indo-European languages entered Sanskrit during the hypothetical
stay of Indo-Aryans in Iran and then their contact with the Dravidian speakers in the Indus Valley
area and Munda family tribes in the Ganga Valley.9 Yet the presence of the same word in Indo-Aryan
as well as European languages indicates that these words, even if had entered from some other
languages, had entered Proto-Indo-European language in India before migration to Europe and Iran
had started. This places origin of the family within India.
Thus Aryans, which is primarily speakers of a particular language family, can no longer be considered
pastoralists. Moreover it is wrong to assume that pastorals are independent of agriculture. Renfrew
(1990) pointed out that pastoral life is a part of agricultural society. He wrote: The pastoral
economy is usually symbiotic with the agricultural one as it has been shown that a major component
of the diet of these pastoralists was bread. The practice of agriculture is thus a precondition of a
pastoral economy.10 Added to this fact, the recently noted linguistic evidence as discussed above
shows that the Aryans were farmers from the very beginning.

Fuller, D. Q.; Agricultural Origins and Frontiers in South Asia: A Working Synthesis, J World Prehist 2006, 20:1
86.
5
Higham, C., Languages and Farming Dispersals: Austroasiatic Languages and Rice Cultivation, Bellwood, P.
and Renfrew, C. (Eds.), Examining the farming/language dispersal hypothesis, Cambridge: The McDonald
Institute for Archaeological Research, 2003.
6
Kumar, V. et al, Y-chromosome evidence suggests a common paternal heritage of Austro-Asiatic populations,
BMC Evol Biol. 2007; 7: 47.
7

Chaubey, G. et al; Phylogeography of mtDNA haplogroup R7 in the Indian peninsula, BMC Evol Biol 2008, 8:
227. Maji, S. et al, Distribution of Mitochondrial DNA Macrohaplogroup N in India with Special Reference to
Haplogroup R and its Sub-Haplogroup U, Int J Hum Jenet 2008, 8(1-2): 85-96. Kivisild, T. et al, The genetic
heritage of the earliest settlers persists both in Indian tribal and caste populations, Am J Hum Genet 2003 Feb, 72 (2)
: 313-32, p. 313.
8
http://ling.uta.edu/~jerry/pol.pdf
9
Witzel, Michael, The linguistic history of some Indian domestic plants, J Biosciences 2009, 34(6): 829-833.
Fulltext of this article is available at http://www.ias.ac.in/jbiosci/dec2009/Witzel_fulltext.pdf. We shall refer
that article as Witzel, Fulltext, 2009.
10
Renfrew, Colin, Archaeology and Language. The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins, CUP Archive,
Cambridge, 1990, p. 198.

Earlier, Renfrew had claimed that Indo-Europeans were farmers from the very beginning, and that
the Mehrgarh people and the Indus Valley people were Aryans i.e. speakers of Indo-European
languages from the very onset of farming culture in these areas.11 He had further claimed that an
early Indo-European language had been in place in the north India stretching from the Ganga Valley
to Mehrgarh when Mehrgarh civilization was emerging.12 He wrote, Certainly the assumption that
the Aryas were recent immigrants to India and their enemies were aborigines, has done much to
distort our understanding of the archaeology of India and Pakistan.13
Renfrew wrote, We should in other words, consider seriously the possibility that the new religious
and cultural synthesis which is represented by the Rigveda was essentially a product of soil of India
and Pakistan, and that it was not imported, ready-made, on the back of steeds of Indo-Aryans. Of
course it evolved while in contact with the developing cultures of other lands, most notably Iran, so
that by a process of peer polity interaction, cultures and ideologies emerged which in many ways
resembled each other. It is not necessary to suggest that one was borrowed, as it were, directly from
the other.
This hypothesis that early Indo-European languages were spoken with India and Pakistan and on
the Iranian plateau at the sixth millennium BC has the merit of harmonising symmetrically with the
theory for the origin of Indo-European languages of Europe. It also emphasises the continuity in the
Indus valley and adjacent areas from the early Neolithic through to the foruit of the Indus Valley
Civilizationa point which Jarrige has recently stressed. Moreover the continuity is seen to follow
unbroken from that time across the Dark Age succeeding the collapse of the urban centres of the
Indus Valley, so that features of that urban civilization persists, across a series of transformations, to
form the basis of later Indian civilization. A number of scholars have previously developed these
ideas of continuity.14
Having said this, the new evidence changes some of Renfrews assumptions. While Renfrew thought
Anatolia was the original home of the Indo-Europeans where they had developed the first farming
culture, and from where they had migrated to Europe and North India by 6,000 B.C., present
evidence indicates that India was the place of origin of the Indo-Europeans and an independently
evolved centre of farming. Otherwise it is impossible to explain presence of farming related words of
Austro-Asiatic and Dravidian origins in the European branch of Indo-European languages. Renfrews
views about Anatolia may have proved wrong, yet his views on South Asia hold true in light of recent
genetic evidence.
Genetic evidence as well as linguistic evidence has made it clear that both the Dravidian and the
Austro-Asiatic languages and their speakers have evolved in Indiathe Dravidians in the
southernmost part and Austro-Asiatic in the eastern part of the South Asia. The current findings
about early Dravidian languages contradict Renfrew and many other authors who had suggested in
past that the place of origin of Dravidian was in West Asia from Proto-Elamite after 10,000 B.P.,
originally proposed by McAlpin.15

11

Renfrew, Colin, Archaeology and Language. The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins, CUP Archive,
Cambridge, 1990, pp. 190, 192, 195-6.
12
Ibid, p. 190.
13
Renfrew, Colin, Archaeology and Language. The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins, CUP Archive,
Cambridge, 1990, p. 195.
14
Ibid. p. 196.
15
McAlpin, David W., Elamite and Dravidian: Further Evidence of Relationship, Current Anthropology 1975,
16(1): 105-115. ---------, Proto-Elamo-Dravidian: The Evidence and its Implications, The American Philosophical
Society, Philadelphia, 1981.

We can now have a look at some of the farming related words in the Indo-European languages:

1. Harvest (English), karbitas (to harvest, Proto-Germanic), kerpu (Lithuanian), kerp (PIE),
kripANa (knife, Sanskrit).
2. Sow (E.), sawan (Old English), sero and sevi (Latin, to sow), semen (Latin, seed), seju and seti
(Lithuanian, to sow), *se and seh (PIE, to sow), Santhal, Ho and Munda si, siu (to plow), and
Munda Kharia silo (to plow), sA- (Sanskrit, to sow), sita (Sk. a furrow of a ploughshare), sulh
(Old English, a furrow or ploughshare), sira (Sk., plough, a plough ox). Related to this group
of words are *sehm (PIE, grain), sasa (Sanskrit; sasam in Rig-Veda), sasya (Sanskrit, food,
seed, grain, herb), sas (Kashmiri, beans, peas, lentils), sas (Bangla, grain, fruit), sasa (Oriya,
kernel, nutritious part), sabz (Iranian, green vegetable), sem (Hindi, beans), *sito- and *sitya(PIE, corn), sitiyam (Sanskrit, corn, ploughed), siri and siri (Khowar, barley), and sili (Kalasha
of Hindukush, millet) are all related. Munda family language Sora has saro, sar (paddy) and
Munda and Kharia have sro and srA (rice, as compound words in ko-soro and ko-sra) are
also related. Words sro, sre and sru meaning rice in some Khmer (Cambodia) dialects are
obvious cognates of Munda sro, Sora saro etc meaning rice. On the other hand the root is
also found in CaucasianChechen sos oats, Eastern Caucasian susV rye which are millets.
Witzel thinks that these non-IE languages borrowed these words while Indo-European was
passing across their territories. This is only partly correct--the direction of migration was
from India to West Asia, not from Central Asia to India, as DNAs reveal.

3. Plough (E.), *plogo (Proto-Germanic), plugas (Lithuanian) and langala (Sanskrit) are
cognates. The ultimate origin of the words is from Munda family (Witzel).16 Fuller
writes, Of interest in this regard is historical linguistic analysis for widespread
cognate terms for plough in Indo-Aryan, Dravidian and Munda languages which may
derive from early borrowing between these groups or from a common substrate,
perhaps from the Harappan zone (Southworth, 2005, p. 80; Witzel, 1999, pp. 29
30).17
4. Pita (English, bread), petta (Greek, bread), peptos (Greek, cooked), pita (bread,
Modern Hibrew), pizza (Italian, a cooked food), pastry, pasta (Italian), pittha (Bihari,
a cake made of rice flour), paiSHTa (Sanskrit, meaning cake; derivative of Sanskrit
piSHTa meaning ground or flour, and pis meaning to grind). English paste (dough)
is related. Pastry may be related.
5. Pestle (E.) related to Old French pestel from Latin pistillum (to pounder, to pestle)
from PIE *pis-to-, to grind; Sanskrit pish- (HK piS to grind), pishta (HK piSTa
grinded), pIs (Hindi to grind).
6. Mill (E.) from Old English mylen; Latin mola, millstone and molere to grind; PIE mel
/ mol / ml to grind; German muhle and Sanskrit musala (grinder) are from the same
root. In Thai language mill-stone is called moh. In Thai language mo:h is the word
for mill-stone which also means to grind.
7. Grind (E.), O. E. grindan, P. Germanic grindanan, PIE *ghren, *ghreu-, *ghen,
(?*grendh-) all have same meaning i.e. to grind. PIE *gher and *gherzdh mean
barley. The Sanskrit word godhuma, Persian gandum and Tamil godhumai all
meaning wheat seem to have originated from the same root. This implies use of
grinding by PIE speakers. Munda guru, Santhal and Kherwa guRgu (both meaning
grinding stone), Thai gruaam (to grind), gro:hng (mortar), gra deuuang (stamp-mill,
mortar) are all related with the roots meaning grinding.
16

Witzel, Michael, The linguistic history of some Indian domestic plants, J Biosciences 2009, 34(6): 829-833.
Fulltext of this article is available at http://www.ias.ac.in/jbiosci/dec2009/Witzel_fulltext.pdf. We shall refer
that article as Witzel, Fulltext, 2009.
17
Fuller, 2006, p. 15.

8. Acre> agri- from P. Germanic akraz, PIE agros field, Sk. ajra, ajras field. It is likely
that Sanskrit kriS to pull, to cultivate, may have some relation with PIE agros.
9. Sanskrit sUpa and English soup have same meaning, pronunciation and etymology.
They are from PIE *sub- derived from another PIE base seue, to take liquid food.
Proto-Germanic base *supp- and English supper are cognates to these. Tamil
sappara may be a cognate. Iranian sabzi meaning vegetable curry or soup is a
cognate. Witzel correlates Iranian sabz- (vegetable) with Old Sanskrit sapa- (drifted
reed), Old Iranian sapar-ku, Rosani (Pamir language) sabec beans, Lithuanian sapas
stalk and English dialect haver stalk, which all are possibly cognates of Sanskrit
supa.
10. Bread (English), bhrajj (Sanskrit, pan cake), bhrijj (Sanskrit, the act of baking,
roasting or frying). Other cognates are Old Irish bruth to heat, French braser to
burn, Germanic brese hot coal, Old English beorma yeast, Old High German
brato to roast meat, English brew, PIE *bhreu- to brew etc.
11. Sanskrit KshIra meaning milk and a porridge made of rice or millets in milk
(derived from Sanskrit root-word ghas : Monier Williams), its Hindi form khir, and
Hindi ghee (from Sanskrit ghrita, purified butter) are derived from PIE ghwer. From
PIE ghwer are also derived English burn, brandy, therm- etc. It shows some form of
cooking process during PIE stage.
12. Cook, coc (Old English), cocus (Vulgar Latin), coquus (Latin), from PIE pekw(cooking). Related to this PIE root is Sanskrit pach- and pak-, Hindi pakAnA and
pakwan.
13. Candy/ candid (English), qand (Persian), khanda (Sanskrit, sugar). These all are
possibly from Tamil kantu (candy), kattu (to harden).
14. Meter (E.), measure (E.), matra (Sk.), metre (Fr.), metron (Gk.), Old English mete,
PIE *mat/*met. Many food items, which were measured are from this root, and they
include: Sanskrit masura, masUrikA, mas*, mishta etc, English meat, Hindi mItha
(lump sugar) etc. Sanskrit mASa (a small unit of weight used by jwellers), which
means a pulse (oorad) too, is from the same root.
15. English cotton, Sanskrit kartta-na (weaving), Hindi kata-na (weaving), Munda
koTNe (pillow) and Santhal kotre (pillow) are most likely from the same root. Persian
kurta (upper garment), Proto-Germanic kalithas (cloth) and English cloth are also
related. Another set of related words is kapara (Hindi, cloth), kappaTam (Tamil,
cloth), karpAsa (Sanskrit, cotton).
16. Pot (E.), potus (L. drinking vessel), pAtra (Sk. pAtra, drinking vessel, MW, p. 612).
In sanskrit patra means leaf (Greek pter). Large leaves were earlier used as dish
plates in India. Presence of this word widely in IE languages clearly indicates that the
Proto-Indo-Europeans had pottery before they migrated.
17. Wheel (E.), cycle (E.), chakra (Sanskrit), charkha (Persian) and PIE k(w)el probably
pertain to pottery-wheel.
18. We get cognate words for cow, pig, goat, sheep and mouse in almost all of the IndoEuropean languages.
19. Fuller (2008) gives a list of cognates for cotton, spindle and weaving in IndoEuropean and Austro-Asiatic languages, indicating that Proto-Indo-European as well
as Proto-Austro-Asiatic languages had enough contact for exchange of words. This
place could only have been in India, and not West Asia or Central Asia. Words which
are related with weaving but are found in Indo-Aryan, European, Dravidian and
Austro-Asiatic languages are: tantu (Sk., fiber), tantra (Sk., loom), tAna (Sk., fiber,
tone, tension), tanti and tatamA (Hindi, weaver), tendon (E.), tentacle (E.) tendril (E.),
tent (E.), tenter (E., loom), tenet (E.), tonti (Juang, weaver), dendra (Telgu, a weaver

caste); tay (Bonda, to weave), tor (Thai, to weave), tan (Kharia, to weave), thai:n
(Khasi, to weave), tan (Alak, Lave and Niahon, to weave);
20. tUla (Sk., cotton), tUlika (Sk., brush), tula (Munda-Juang; cotton, feather, hair), tol
(Old Mon; cotton, hair, feather), tuy (Tamil, cotton).
Having proved that the Indo-Europeans were farmers, we need to settle their place of
evolution. There were only two places where farming evolved the earliest. Both can be
claimed to be the place of origin of Indo-Europeans. One is Anatolia (Turkey, West Asia)
and the second is India. Central Asia being a cold desert and grassland combination can
hardly harbor pastoralist populations but not farming. Nor can it have large growth of
population to force migration. All the prehistoric migrations have taken place from
tropical to temperate region (genetic studies).
Conclusion: We note a large number of words from Austro-Asiatic (Munda family) and
Dravidian families in the Indo-European languages located as far away as West Europe.
This is a big list. Some of them have been mentioned above. This could be only possible
if the Indo-European journey started in India, having evolved over ages in neighborhood
of these languages. Hence we can conclude, on the basis of linguistic analysis that the
Indo-European languages evolved in India from where they migrated out to various
regions of the world.

1. Pita (English, bread), petta (Greek, bread), peptos (Greek, cooked), pita (bread,
Modern Hibrew), pizza (Italian, a cooked food), pastry, pasta (Italian), petha (western
Hindi, a cooked food, made of sugar and gourd), pittha (Bihari, a cake made of rice
flour), paiSHTa (Sanskrit, meaning cake; derived from Sanskrit piSHTa meaning
ground or flour, and pis meaning to grind). English paste (dough) is related.
Pastry may be related with this group of words.
2. Pestle (E.) related to Old French pestel from Latin pistillum (to pounder, to pestle)
from PIE *pis-to-, to grind; Sanskrit pish- (HK piS to grind), pishta (HK piSTa
grinded), pIs (Hindi to grind).
3. Mill (E.) from Old English mylen; Latin mola, millstone and molere to grind; PIE
mel / mol / ml to grind; German muhle and Sanskrit musala (grinder) are from the
same root. Hence it is inferred that the Proto-Indo-Europeans used milling of grains.
In Thai language mo:h is the word for mill-stone which also means to grind.
4. Harvest (English), karbitas (to harvest, Proto-Germanic), kerpu (Lithuanian), kerp
(PIE), kripANa (Sanskrit).
5. Plough (E.), *plogo (Proto-Germanic), plugas (Lithuanian) and langala (Sanskrit)
are cognates. The ultimate origin of the words is from Munda family (Witzel).i Fuller
writes, Of interest in this regard is historical linguistic analysis for widespread
cognate terms for plough in Indo-Aryan, Dravidian and Munda languages which may
derive from early borrowing between these groups or from a common substrate,
perhaps from the Harappan zone (Southworth, 2005, p. 80; Witzel, 1999, pp. 29
30).ii
6. Acre> agri- from P. Germanic akraz, PIE agros field, Sk. ajra, ajras field. It is likely
that Sanskrit kriS to pull, to cultivate, may have some relation with PIE agros.
7. Sanskrit sUpa and English soup have same meaning, pronunciation and etymology.
They are from PIE *sub- derived from another PIE base seue, to take liquid food.
Proto-Germanic base *supp- and English supper are cognates to these. Tamil

sappara may be a cognate. Iranian sabzi meaning vegetable curry or soup is a

cognate. Witzel correlates Iranian sabz- (vegetable) with Old Sanskrit sapa- (drifted
reed), Old Iranian sapar-ku, Rosani (Pamir language) sabec beans, Lithuanian sapas
stalk and English dialect haver stalk, which all are possibly cognates of Sanskrit
supa.
8. Bread (English), bhrajj (Sanskrit, pan cake), bhrijj (Sanskrit, the act of baking,
roasting or frying). Other cognates are Old Irish bruth heat, French braser to burn,
Germanic brese hot coal, Old English beorma yeast, Old High German brato to
roast meat, English brew, PIE *bhreu- to brew etc.
9. Sanskrit KshIra meaning milk and a porridge made of rice or millets in milk
(derived from Sanskrit root-word ghas : Monier Williams), its Hindi form khir, and
Hindi ghee (from Sanskrit ghrita, purified butter) are derived from PIE ghwer. From
PIE ghwer are also derived English burn, brandy, therm- etc.
10. Cake is from PIE *gag- (Pokorni). Sanskrit kalkaka and western Hindi gajak both
meaning a cake, usually made of sugar and sesame may be related. Although an
earlier etymology of cake suggested its derivation from Vulgar Old English coc or
cocus meaning cook (Latin coquere to cook), from PIE pekw- (cooking). Related
to this PIE root is Hindi pakwam (fried food made of wheat flour) from Sanskrit pAka
meaning cake.
11. Candy/ candid (English), khanda (Sanskrit, sugar); cane (E.) kanda and khanda (Sk);
Khanda (Sk.) also means segment. The sugarcane plant is a segmented rod of grassfamily. Tamil kantu (candy), kattu (to harden), Arabic qandi (sweet) are also cognates
of candy found outside Indo-European family.
12. Sugar (E.), zucker (Ger.), kroke (Gk., pebbles), sharkara (grit, gravel or sugar, Sk.)
are cognates. Arabic sukkar (sugar) seems to be a borrowing from Indo-European.
13. We have discussed in the last chapter, Meter (E.), matra (Sk.), metre (Fr.), metron
(Gk.), Old English mete, PIE *mat/*met, all meaning to measure. From this are
derived meat, Sanskrit masUrikA (lentil), Hindi masura (lentil), Sanskrit mishti
(sweet) Sanskrit mas* (to measure) etc. Thai maai meaning to measure is probably
related.
14. Cotton (E.), karttan (spinning, Sk.). Arabic qutn, qoton are borrowings from IndoEuropean. Persian word kurta meaning shirt has same origins. English shirt may be
cognate of Indo-European kurt rather than from skirt. Munda koTNe and Santhal
kotre mean pillow, which is made of raw cotton.
15. The Indo-Europeans had wool and the art of weaving also. A large number of words,
mutually cognates, associated with weaving and cotton are found in Indo-European,
Dravidian and Mon-Khmer languages (vide supra), indicating that weaving had
started before these three language groups trifurcated. Fuller (2008) gives a list of
cognates for cotton, spindle and weaving in Indo-European and Austro-Asiatic
languages, indicating that Indo-European as well as Austro-Asiatic migrations took
off from India only after weaving had started.
16. Pot (E.), potus (L. drinking vessel), pAtra (Sk. pAtra, drinking vessel, MW, p. 612).
In sanskrit patra means leaf (Greek pter). Large leaves were earlier used as dish
plates in India. This clearly indicates that the Proto-Indo-Europeans had pottery
before they migrated.
17. Wheel (E.), chakra (Sanskrit) and PIE k(w)el probably pertain to pottery-wheel.
18. We get cognate words for cow, pig, goat, sheep and mouse in almost all of the IndoEuropean languages (see Chapter 5). And genetics tells us that these all had been
domesticated in India before the putative time of Neolithic revolution.

19. Sow (E.), sawan (Old English), sero and sevi (Latin, to sow), semen (Latin, seed),
seju and seti (Lithuanian, to sow), *se and seh (PIE, to sow), Santhal, Ho and Munda
si, siu (to plow), and Munda Kharia silo (to plow), siiam (Thai, spade), sae (Thai,
spade), sA- (Sanskrit, to sow), sita (Sk. a furrow of a ploughshare), sulh (Old English,
a furrow or ploughshare), sira (Sk., plough, a plough ox).
Related to this group of words are *sehm (PIE, grain), sasa (Sanskrit; sasam in RigVeda), sasya (Sanskrit, food, seed, grain, herb), sas (Kashmiri, beans, peas, lentils),
sas (Bangla, grain, fruit), sasa (Oriya, kernel, nutritious part), sabz (Iranian, green
vegetable), sem (Hindi, beans), *sito- and *sitya- (PIE, corn), sitiyam (Sanskrit,
corn, ploughed), siri and siri (Khowar, barley), and sili (Kalasha of Hindukush,
millet) are all related. Munda family language Sora has saro, sar (paddy) and Munda
and Kharia have sro and srA (rice, as compound words in ko-soro and ko-sra) are
also related.
Words sro, sre and sru meaning rice in some Khmer (Cambodia) dialects are
obvious cognates of Munda sro, Sora (a Munda family language) saro etc meaning
rice. On the other hand the root is also found in CaucasianChechen sos oats,
Eastern Caucasian susV rye which are millets. Witzel thinks that these latter non-IE
languages borrowed these words while Indo-European was passing across their
territories. This is only partly correct. The words could have been borrowed into the
Caucasian languages, but when migration was moving from India to Anatolia, not
from Central Asia to India.
Read more in the Book: In Quest of the Dates of the Vedas by P. Priyadarshi, 2014.
http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Dates-Vedas-Comprehensive-IndoEuropean/dp/1482834251/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424606756&sr=81&keywords=In+quest+of+the+dates+of+the+vedas

Witzel, Michael, The linguistic history of some Indian domestic plants, J Biosciences 2009, 34(6): 829-833.
Fulltext of this article is available at http://www.ias.ac.in/jbiosci/dec2009/Witzel_fulltext.pdf. We shall refer
that article as Witzel, Fulltext, 2009.
ii
Fuller, 2006, p. 15.