Gonur And The Early Indians
Going through 'Early Indians' a book by Tony Joseph I came accross 'Gonur', an archaeological site in Turkmenistan. Since the place name has a Dravidian resonance I searched google, and to my astonishment, I found three places in South India.
First, in Telangana - Tandur Mandal, Rangareddy District. It is 11 K M away from Tandur
The second one is in Karnataka - Taluk and District: Chitradurga. And Chitradurga is the nearest town to Gonur.
The Third one is in Tamilnadu - Here it is Panchayath in Nagavalli Block of Salem District.
In Tamil and Malayalam vernacular, 'kon' means king or chieftain. So the the word means the abode of chieftain.
The word Konur also resonates Gonur. And you can find more
Konur in Tamilnadu - In Namakkal, Dindigul, Thanjavur, Vriddhachalam and Cuddalore.
There is one in Telangana, Kasipet Mandal, Adilabad District.
A slight change in phenome from G to K brought more places under this name.
Do these similarities point to linguistic evidence of migration?
Let us look at the original Gonur. Now, it is an archaeological site in Turkmenistan. It is a Tepe or Depe. It means a mound. A mound is a triangle. The word Gon means an angle. The word has its roots in Greek. When people migrate language also migrates. Like people it get mixed with, languages too. Living languages always assimilate words from other languages with which they have trading relationship.
Some words are rendered redundant in the course of time; perhaps it may find a place in lexicon. Two such words in Malayalam vernacular are: ala (ആല്) and aalam (ആലം) The first word means water, and the latter one sea.
Nobody now uses these words in the above sense. But these words are there in the Malayalam lexicon (ശബ്ദതാരാവലി) compiled by Sreekanteswaram G Padmanabha Pilla ( ശ്രീകണ്ഠേശ്വരം ജി പത്മനാഭ പിള്ള ) and published by National Book Stall.
But, before the lexicon was compiled and published these words found their space in place names of Western and Eastern coasts of peninsular India. The details of these places are given in the link at the bottom.
In Malayalam vernacular kon (കോൺ) means an angle. Pictorial representation of hill has a triangular shape. It might be possible that in earlier times the word 'gon' and later the word 'kon' were used to represent
a mound or hill. Gradually the word kunnu (കുന്ന്) found its way to represent a hill or mound. Coonoor in Tamil Nadu, Kunnur in Chikodi Taluk of Belgaum District, Karnataka, again, in Attur Taluk of Salem District, Tamil Nadu. These are only few examples. There are other villages by the same name in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
The original Gonur in Turkmenistan was once a settlement of what historians now call Bactria Margiana Archeological Complex (BAMC). Bactria is a region between River Amu Darya and Hindu Kush Mountain range. The region is now called Balkh, named after one of the tributaries of River Amu Darya. Bactria witnessed Persian, Greek and Macedonian adventurers, who called it River Oxus. The name Amu Darya derives from the ancient town Amul. Gonur is by the ancient trade route from Mehrgarh settlement to Sumeria. Mehrgarh was known as Meluha to Mesopotamian people. Meluha was a pre-runner to Harappan civilization. Their language was proto Dravidian which had its roots in proto Zagrosian language. Gonur Depe is by the ancient trade route from Sumeria to Meluha, and Greek might have absorbed the word from proto Zagrosian or proto Dravidian people. John Hubert Marshall, the British archeologist who conducted the excavation at Harappan site was of opinion that Indus script had link with Dravidian script and that the Dravidians were the precursors of Aryans of most parts of Northern India.
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