Talk:Meluhha

message: 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)
replies: text: Transferred from help desk:question about possible connections between Meluhha, Moluccas (and maybe other words 
like Malay, latin mal, Moloch, etc?)130.86.14.9 (talk) 06:23, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: These are interesting speculations, but we would have to attribute them to published sources in order to mention them in an article. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 13:24, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: yes, perhaps i went against talk page guidelines by posting them here.--Rich Peterson130.86.14.35 (talk) 22:57, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Meluhha-Malaku question

message: The statement that Magan is usually identified with Egypt is contradicted by Magan, which prefers Oman. Orcoteuthis (talk) 10:25, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Isn't. It was one, then the other, as mentioned. -LlywelynII (talk) 16:07, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Magan

message: This is particularly awful:
:Meluhha, however, is hotly debated. Currently (2010) the mainstream scholars of this period in history confidently identify Meluhha with the Harappan Civilization.
It's one or the other and can't be both. Will remove obvious "currently (2010)" ... "of this period in history" silliness ("Today, scholars" works just fine), but I'll have to leave the main contradiction since I don't know which of the two opposing views is more accurate or whether one should be discarded or merely modified (Something like "Meluhha's identity was hotly debated" e.g.). -LlywelynII (talk) 16:07, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Another problem: article gives two different words, then says the Dravidian word is "the exact same." (And the claim seems specious anyway, as there are various Dravidian languages whose vocabulary presumably differs.) -LlywelynII (talk) 16:19, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Is there a "Make up your mind" template?

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: McIntosh's claim is at best controversial, it shouldn't be stated as a claim. Helenuh (talk) 09:51, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the claim because it has no bearing on the topic of this article. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:46, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Austro-Asiatic arrived in India before Dravidian?

message: Why did you move the line  back to the other caption? I don't see anything about that line which is specific to only that image and not applicable to the other; moving it to the other makes the captions more even and keeps the context nearby. If anything, that line is more appropriate to the first image since it actually depicts rowers. – Scyrme (talk) 14:43, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Scyrme! Actually, that line is totally specific to the second seal (which is an Indus seal). The first photograph, on the contrary, is a Mesopotamian bas-relief, so, obviously, the "Indus seal" caption is inadequate there... The price to pay is indeed a bigger caption on the right. Best पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 14:58, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  My mistake. The captions could be made more balanced by elaborating on the first by discussing its relevance, perhaps citing someone who makes a comparison between the boating technologies of these cultures. It would make things a bit clearer. – Scyrme (talk) 16:54, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Captions 

message: It is just a so-called theory that Meluha people belonged to the Indus civilization, there is no solid evidence for this, and anyway, Shunga dynasty has called Mlechha to Yavanas. and indus civilisation is considered to be a better well mannered civilization , it is nonsense to call it them Mlecha. And the word Dravid itself is derived from dravin, the son of King Prithu and from Prithu itself the Sanskrit word Prithvi(earth) has come, in Hinduism Rama Krishna is a dark skinned deity who has been called Arya. 103.206.177.49 (talk) 12:19, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  indus civilization were not mlecchas 

message: There is no similarity between Mlech and Meluha, such words are slightly similar to each other, but it does not mean that they are similar! In some places some words of Europeans are abusive and in some places the same word is an indicator of respect! And the Sumerian people themselves were not of white race before, whereas even today the people there meet less than Europeans! indus civilization was a well developed civilization there jewelery factory to swastika everything found by archaelogist which related to so called aryan race ! 103.206.177.82 (talk) 09:50, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Indus Civilization was a civilized civilization, before Max Muller of yesterday the Europeans themselves did not know who they are who today call themselves Aryans. 

message: Will take a stab at improvement. Not-so-recent discourse. TrangaBellam (talk) 13:10, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Horrible article