An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s1.5

v1.c9.s1.5

How far the areas of languages, their cousins, cross-cousins, daughters, granddaughters, etc., were conterminal with archaeological cultures form an interesting study. Says Childe: ‘Linguistic divergences may be first as old as the cultural divergences traceable directly in archaeological record’ (Childe, 1942, p. 21). This point has also been touched upon by some in the Indian context (Subbarao, 1958, p. 27; Malik, 1968, p. 165). But all over the world political conquests and spread of foreign cultures have obliterated or modified many a language and the present-day distribution of languages may not have much bearing on ancient cultures. In India, for example, the widespread distribution of the Indo-Aryan languages does not allow us to correlate the pre-Aryan languages with any corresponding cultures. The rise of the new Indo-Aryan languages, the distribution of which is well-mapped, is too late to equate them with the earlier cultures.