Talk:Meluhha

Afro-Uralic

Google for "Afro-Uralic" and "Bernard Sergant" reveals approx. 4 sources, all of which are copies of this text. "Bernard Sergent" and "Afro-Dravidian" have better (but still scarce) results, so I am changing them accordingly, although I'm not precisely sure what the term means. --Peter Farago 23:45, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I wrote this article about a year ago, so I don't actually remember what my references were. I'm going to go back and check. I *think* I may know where I got them. AreJay 00:17, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't want to censor the Afro stuff, but surely this is fringe science? Bernard Sergent seems to be notable for his books about historical homosexuality, but that hardly makes him a "renowned" expert on Dravidian linguistics and early migrations. Some toning-down and putting-in-perspective may be needed here. dab (ᛏ) 08:32, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

it is quite fringy. I've cut it down and present it as Sergent's idiosyncratic view. I think it can stand like this, and I have removed the "disputed" tag. dab (ᛏ) 08:44, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

I am currently writing my dissertation on the Kushites in New Kingdom Egypt and came across the term Meluhha in the Amarna Letters. In Moran (1992) p139, it is suggested that Meluhha could probably be identified as Kush. Also in Amarna Letter EA 133, it says "[Sen]d me 10 [men from Meluh]ha: Ka[si that I may gua]rd" (as translated by Moran (1992) p215). As Kasi is the term for Kush, it would appear that Meluhha and Kush are the same. - Pim Aelbers, 12 March 2006

Wow, if that is substantiated, some parts of this article will definitely have to be revised, like the statement in there that no documents refer to Meluhha between 1700 and 668 BC... The main question I have is, do those parts you have in [brackets] represent lacunae that someone has hypothetically reconstructed, or what? Cheers, ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 03:09, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

interesting indeed, we need to make note of this. But, as Codex points out, [Meluh]ha does hardly equal Meluhha in terms of incontrovertibility :) dab (ᛏ) 09:12, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I did not check this page for some time. I am currently away from home so can't check the book by Moran for another week at least. I'll try to remember as soon as I get back. If my memory serves me right, in the specific letter I quoted, the [brackets] represent lacunae, but I think there are also letters where there are no or much smaller lacunae. These cases, however, do not also mention Kasi/Kush, but they still negate the comment that there is no mnetion of Meluhha between 1700 and 668 BC. Anyway, I'll check and report back as soon as I can get my hands on the book. - Pim Aelbers 5 April 2006

Meluhha-Malaku question

Question: Could "the Moluccas", that is, "Maluku", be derived from Meluhha? Maybe because Meluhhan settlers to Maluku named it that just as English settlers gave North American places English names. Or because Meluhha means port. These two possible reasons blend together, I know. Could Meluhhans also have settled Kush and Kush then was sometimes called Meluhha? Richard L. Peterson 4/17/06

"Maluku" does seem phonetically very similar, but I have a feeling that "Meluhha" has a higher likelihood of being related more closely to ethnonyms and toponyms such as Brahui and Baluchistan, which are both obvious candidates for relics of the defunct Indus Valley civilization. It is especially interesting to me that the */-lah-/ vs. */-luh-/ variation that has been noted by Sumerologists can be found in various modern renditions of the Brahui/Baloch/Baluch name. Of course, all these names are also similar to "Maluku," as you mentioned, as well as to Sanskrit mleccha (barbarian) and Germanic Walha (used to refer to foreign peoples, often those that were under control of the Roman Empire, such as the Welsh of Britain or the Vlachs of Eastern Europe, but it is supposed to be derived from the name of the Volcae).

As for the genetic side of things, it appears that most of the "older" (Paleolithic?) populations of the Malay Archipelago, New Guinea, and Melanesia belonged to Haplogroup K5, Haplogroup K1, Haplogroup M, or Haplogroup C2. The present-day inhabitants of Maluku (the Moluccas) appear to share a great deal of genetic heritage with the Papuan peoples directly to their east, as the Y-chromosomes of a great percentage of the males of populations of both Maluku and Papua New Guinea fall into the aforementioned haplogroups (excluding Haplogroup K1, which appears to be limited to Fiji and the Solomon Islands in eastern Melanesia). All these "Paleolithic Melanesian" haplogroups are peculiar to populations of East Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia, and Oceanic Austronesia (i.e., Micronesia and Polynesia), and they have apparently not been detected among any populations of continental Eurasia nor among any indigenous populations of Australia. This uniqueness of the Y-chromosomal complement of Papua-Melanesian-like populations seems to exclude any possibility of their being descended primarily from recent immigrants, and it seems more likely that most of the ancestors of these peoples have been resident in the region of the Malay Archipelago for tens of thousands of years, perhaps as many as 40,000 years. There is, however, a clearly intrusive, recently introduced element in the genetic heritage of many peoples of this region, and this is reflected also in the spread of languages belonging to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family. The Y-chromosome haplogroups associated with these Malayo-Polynesian-speaking colonists include Haplogroup O1, Haplogroup O2a, Haplogroup O3, and Haplogroup C*. Haplogroup R1b, Haplogroup G, Haplogroup C3, Haplogroup N, and Haplogroup D1 have also been found among modern speakers of Malayo-Polynesian languages, but it is not clear whether the minor presence of these haplogroups in the region is due solely to recent and historical (i.e., post-Neolithic Asian and colonial European) admixture from continental Eurasia. The high frequency of Haplogroup O2a in some parts of Indonesia may represent an earlier Neolithic influence (proto-Nicobarese? proto-Mon-Khmer? proto-Vietnamese?) from India or Southeast Asia, as this haplogroup is rather typical of Austro-Asiatic populations of mainland South and Southeast Asia, and its distribution is somewhat different from the distributions of Haplogroup O1 and Haplogroup O3, which are much more typical of Austronesian people and East Asians in general.

So, in short, for "Maluku" to have any sort of connection with "Meluhha," it would be necessary for it to have been applied to the island group by one of the populations of Neolithic settlers, either the Malayo-Polynesians or a hypothetical seafaring Austro-Asiatic population. It seems to me that this would only be possible if "Maluku," like Sanskrit "mleccha," had become a synonym for "barbarians" in the language of one of these invading Neolithic populations, and was applied to a region that had a high density of indigenous Papuan-like peoples. Ebizur 06:07, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• • Ebizur, thankyou so much for the thoughtful and fascinating reply!Rich 06:22, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I go back on forth on whether the following is silly:Could "Malay" itself be derived from Meluhha?

Does anyone know, or have an opinion?130.86.14.90 05:59, 23 May 2007 (UTC)