Some areal features of the 110-item wordlist for the Indo-Aryan languages of South Odisha

Abstract

In this paper, I discuss the issue of replacement of basic lexicon due to language contact, specifically focusing on Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, and Munda languages in South Odisha but with implications for Eastern India as a whole. Apart from direct borrowings, special attention is paid to cases of not particularly obvious substrate influence in Indo-Aryan languages, in which inherited lexicon is substituted by other inherited items as a result of semantic shift typical of a neighbouring language family. This type of phenomena should necessarily be taken into consideration in any quantitative studies involving lexicostatistical calculations.