NIA Conservatisms
This is a list of Indo-Aryan lexical items whch can be traced to Indo-European yet have no preserved Sanskrit intermediaries.
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*ārtá: MIA āṭā ‘flour’, Hindi āṭā, Punjabi āṭṭā, Romani (j)aro … (Turner: 1338)
PIIr. *HārHtás ‘that which is ground’, vriddhi-form of *Hr̥H-tás ‘ground’ < PIE *h₂elh₁- ‘to grind’; cf. MIA āṭā, Persian ārd ‘flour’, Avestan aṣ̌a ‘ground’, Old Armenian ałam ‘to grind’.
Doesn’t seem that the r in the cluster has been preserved in any NIA language (Romani (j)aro has the usual t → r / V_V change), but lack of MIA dental attā ~ ātā supports the presence of r which causes retroflexion.
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*cyātá: Pali sāta, Prakrit sāya ‘happiness’
PIE *kʷyeh₁-to-s < *kʷyeh₁- ‘to rest’; cf. Avestan šiiāta, Old Persian š-i-y-a-t /šiyāta/, whence modern Persian šād. The sound change *cy- > s is found in Skt. cyávate ~ Kamboja Skt. śavati "to go", which is a more Iranic-affected dialect mentioned by grammarians.
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*targá: Hindi tagṛā ‘robust; strong’, Bhadrawahi ṭ͡ḷagṛo, Gujarati trāgũ, Lahnda trakṛā (Turner: 5718)
*targá ‘strong’ + pleonastic -ḍ- < PIE *tergʷ-ós; cf. Ancient Greek tarbéō ‘to be afraid’, Sanskrit tárjati ‘to threaten’. All the non-Hindi cognates point to *tragá however, which may be due to metathesis.
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*tūrá: Apabhraṃśa tūra ‘cheese’ (Turner: 5890)
PIE *tuh₂-ró-s < *tewh₂- ‘to swell’; cf. Ancient Greek tūrós ‘cheese’. Turner connects this with the lexicographically attested Skt. tuvara ‘astringent’, which finds some support in Pkt. tuvara, Gujarati tūrū, Marathi turaṭ, perhaps Kumaoni ṭaur (all same meaning). But the Apabhraṃśa is a perfect match for the Greek.
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*bʰrūrá: Hindi bʰūrā ‘brown’, Gujarati bʰūrũ ‘brown, white’, Kashmiri bura ‘coarse white sugar’, Shina buro ‘whitish’ (Turner: 9690)
PIE *bʰruH-ró-s from the root *bʰerH- ‘brown’; cf. Sanskrit bábʰru (from diff. derivation), Persian būr. Well-documented in IA.
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*vari ‘speech; language’: Kalasha var, Indus Kohistani vārī̀ (Turner: 11327, Zoller: 98)
PIE *werh₁-ís? from the root *werh₁- ‘to speak; say’; cf. Nuristani, Ashkun wērī, Kati werí, Prasun werī. Zoller also mentions the language name Khowar.
References
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Oberlies, Thomas (1999). Middle Indo-Aryan and (the) Vedic (Dialects) (Miscellanea Palica VII). Historische Sprachforschung 112, pp. 39—57.
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Turner, Ralph Lilley (1962—1966). A comparative dictionary of Indo-Aryan languages. London: Oxford University Press. https://dsalsrv04.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/soas/
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Zoller, Claus Peter (2016). Outer and Inner Indo-Aryan, and northern India as an ancient linguistic area. Acta Orientalia 77, pp. 71—132.