nAsadIya sUktaM (Hymn of creation)

[srkris]

What prevents someone from inventing a language for the sole purpose of preserving the information contained in the Vedas?

Certainly not a language as complex as Vedic. There is no other logical way out other than evolution.

Is there any evidence that anyone spoke Vedic Sanskrit ?

Is there any evidence the Vedic people did not speak Vedic? There is no evidence on either side. But for the Vedas to have been intelligible to the Vedic people, they must have spoken it. That is why we (after thousands of years) still are able to study it. That is why Sayana could write his bhasya after thousands of years. Yes, Vedic was most definitely spoken and understood by the Vedic people.

On the contrary, what is not logical is the contention that Vedic was merely a written language and not a spoken language.

What this means is that we have a people who were capable of an extremely intricate and advanced language (starting from the arrangement of the alphabet to myriad grammatical rules) to encode the Vedas, but did not know how to write!

The very purpose of having intricate rules of preserving the Vedas and the error-correction mechanism, was probably that they could not be preserved permanently in writing, and so had to be guarded against corruption as they passed from mouth to ear.

What is furthermore absurd is the Indus valley civilization. If we are to believe the AIT and its variants, we have a civilization that was vast in extent but has not left a single piece of literature even though they had a script. Is there such a parallel anywhere ? And the double whammy is that the supposed "Aryans" who apparently were illiterate, have left us the Vedas.

The Indus Valley script has been found to not be a script at all. They are rather pictographic inscriptions, not a language. This is the latest position. This coincides with the already existing notion that Vedic was also not a written language in the early vedic times. So the Indus Valley people who did not have a written language were in fact the Vedic people who had only a spoken language without a script.

It is "universally accepted" by linguists and not by others.

The validity of Proto-Indo-European needs to be accepted only by linguists. Others are merely ignorant bystanders whose opinions on the issue don't matter.

The problem with that statement is that it reduces the Vedas to triviality. If revelations were obviously visible and straightforward and easy to understand, then there would be no need for the massive corpus of commentaries (bhashyas) and no need for the six darsanas of Indian philosophy.

This is called "petitio principii". The Vedas are definitely more ancient than any of the bhashyas on them. So ancient, in fact, that they became archaic even before the Sarasvati dried up and before many of the Upanishads were composed.

And why should that be exclusive of revelation?

Simply because only human compositions are expected to contain such verses.

This is only a conjecture which cannot pass muster by any modern scientific standards.

Modern scientific standards lean more towards the claim that the Vedas were preserved orally for centuries before they were first written down, than towards the claim that they just appeared along with the Vedic language lock-stock-and-barrel.

[Sangeet Rasik]

Certainly not a language as complex as Vedic. There is no other logical way out other than evolution.

By the way, what is the insistence on linking the "complex" nature of Vedic language to the discussion on whether it is evolved or invented ? Why does a "complex" language have to be evolved ? Tomorrow a group of 100 linguists can get together and invent an extremely "complex" language in a period of less than 5 years. Why is this so implausible ?

Is there any evidence the Vedic people did not speak Vedic? There is no evidence on either side.

Exactly, however my issue was regarding the confidence with which you explained why there is nothing other than the Vedas preserved for us from the Vedic age.

Your explanation was that there was nothing else worth preserving orally, and so it was lost over time. First of all, you have to decide whether Vedic civilization was either:

1) Pastoral/agricultural with little of value in terms of science, arithmetic, astronomy, and other literature; in which case I would be amazed that they had the ability, creativity, and reason to evolve such a highly "complex" language. Is there a parallel for such a thing anywhere in the world ?

2) An advanced civilization of the same/higher level as Mesopotamia/Indus/Egypt; in which case I would be firstly amazed that their science, arithmetic, trade/commercial records, astronomical records, etc were all preserved orally without a script, and secondly even more amazed that these were considered "not worth preserving".

In my mind, neither of these stand up to common sense.

You also have to decide where they were located.

1) Were the Vedas composed in India ? In the Sarasvati/Indus area ? If so, what was the relationship of the Vedics with the Indus Valley civilization ? Were they the same (and if so how do you explain the fact that the Indus Valley civilization had a script) ? If they were different, then what fraction of people spoke Vedic Sanskrit ?

This is where the problem I mentioned earlier comes up again: one has to get in touch with reality instead of linguistic hypotheses.

But for the Vedas to have been intelligible to the Vedic people, they must have spoken it.

Are the "Vedic people" a monolithic entity ? Again, is there any evidence that everyone spoke Vedic Sanskrit in that age ? Was Vedic a language for specific purposes or was it the lingua franca ? Unless this question can be answered with a high degree of likelihood, all the other questions are meaningless. If you are the inventor of a language, you can speak it and teach it to a limited number of others who need to know it for purposes of preserving the Vedas.

That is why we (after thousands of years) still are able to study it. That is why Sayana could write his bhasya after thousands of years. Yes, Vedic was most definitely spoken and understood by the Vedic people.

Sayana was a brahman and among that caste, he was a Vedic scholar, one of those whose duty was to study and preserve the Vedic corpus in the first place. Hence, why would we not expect him to understand Vedic Sanskrit ? Whether the language was "invented" or "evolved", the brahmans who were in charge of preserving it must obviously know, understand, and even speak it. This has nothing to do with how the language came into being. And this in no way allows anyone to claim that "definitely it was spoken and understood by the Vedic people" (assuming that by "Vedic people" you mean the general populace).

On the contrary, what is not logical is the contention that Vedic was merely a written language and not a spoken language.

I never said it was not. The original question was whether the language is "evolved" out of some hypothetical PIE or was "invented" independently. What does that have to do with the question of whether it was spoken or not (after it came into being) ?

The Indus Valley script has been found to not be a script at all. They are rather pictographic inscriptions, not a language. This is the latest position. This coincides with the already existing notion that Vedic was also not a written language in the early vedic times. So the Indus Valley people who did not have a written language were in fact the Vedic people who had only a spoken language without a script.

Sir, what intrigues me is the finality of your statements (e.g., "has been found" instead of "has been suggested"). Note the "scholar" responsible for this wonderful work: one Steve Farmer, a wannabe Indologist whose primary expertise is in the use of Adobe Photoshop. These interpretations are already challenged and are not accepted in the Indological community. These are very active debates on the "scholarly" Indological discussion/mailing lists.

Also:

http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/arti ... apans.html

There is a detailed comment on the "illiteracy" of the Vedics. Please go through it and let me know your views:

Excerpt:

Many indologists continue to assume that the Vedas were composed by an illiterate nation. The well-known practice of committing the Vedas to memory and training Brahmins' sons from early childhood onwards in reciting them by heart, has been interpreted as proof that the Vedic writers needed an alternative way of preserving the hymns in the absence of writing. Yet, the practice in other cultures suggests otherwise. In the Middle Ages, Chinese children were made to recite the Confucian Classics by heart; yet, there is no doubt that the Classics existed in writing. In fact, the practice of learning them by heart was only started many decades after their publication in writing.

[srkris]

By the way, what is the insistence on linking the "complex" nature of Vedic language to the discussion on whether it is evolved or invented ? Why does a "complex" language have to be evolved ?

I guess your principal aim is to discredit all science and research that runs counter to your understanding. Else how clear are you about your ideas? First you said it appeared from God "as-is". Next you said "It was invented for the sole purpose of preserving the Vedas". Both of which are most unlikely and contradict each other.

Then you challenged the view that Vedic is an evolved language saying that it wouldnt pass the muster according to modern scientific standards, as if your ideas above were the most scientific ones.

Then you said all independent western scholars are fed and bred with the Aryan Invasion prejudice.

Then you seem to suggest that Vedic was the exclusive preserve of a group of people. So how did it "leak out" to so many other nations, as well as within India itself where it has influenced practically every major language? Surely a closely guarded artificial secret language has no business influencing so many other languages across continents like how vedic has done. Why the invention theory is so implausible is that virtually all the Indo Aryan languages spoken in this country and across several continents are descendants of your so-called secret language Vedic. Someone let the cat out of the bag?

Note the "scholar" responsible for this wonderful work: one Steve Farmer, a wannabe Indologist whose primary expertise is in the use of Adobe Photoshop. These interpretations are already challenged and are not accepted in the Indological community.

First of all, Steve Farmer does not subscribe to the hypothesis that Vedic and Indus Valley people are one and the same. So if the Harappans did not have a script, he pronounces them illiterate. I dont say that he is the most scholarly one out there, but he is not your average indologist who rides high on subjectivity and low on objectivity. I had been thinking all along that the Indus script was not a script at all. People who know how to write dont need drawings with pictographic signs to preseve a message. That does not make them illiterate, though.

Even if the Harappan script is a script, it was in the developed phase of the Harappan Civilization (with cities et al), so the early Indus Valley people are the ones we must credit the Vedas with, since people start with being pastoral before they form colonies or cities.

[vasanthakokilam]

This is just a sidebar comment, please continue with your main debate point, but if you have some thoughts on this please share.

It is interesting that both Latin and Sanskrit, when we have encountered them, they are already very refined, complex and fully developed. Then they get "diluted" into many other languages with relaxation in rules, many case endings are dropped and made 'common people friendly' and 'street speak'. Latin, gave rise to the Romance languages. Sanskirt gave rise to many of our Indian languages .

I can relate to the potential for evolving complexity as the needs arose. But the way the linguists form these Proto languages, the farther in the past we go, the more perfect and more complex these Proto languages seem to be ( since the hierarchy itself is built out of known rules of linguistic transformation and PIE is hypothesized by back applying these rules from Latin and Vedic Sanskrit. This by definition has to result in a combined baggage of rules, probably more complex and comprehensive).

Or, there have always been the 'formal and elegant langauges' strictly kept in check by the rulers/tribe chief/leader whereas the people spoke an "easy" and "common" version of the same language. If one believes that "entropic" principles apply to languages as well, then it is easy to see the people's languages losing the strict rules. You need an external agent or energy to stop the "entropic dilution". One possibility is that the kings, tribal and religious leaders provided that external agency to keep the language "high" by decree.

The meaning of the word Sanskrit itself provides the hint that it is a 'higher' and 'purer' form of the language spoken by the people. Atleast that is what I read. Is the word 'Sanskrit' mentioned in the Rig Veda itself?

[Sangeet Rasik]

I guess your principal aim is to discredit all science and research that runs counter to your understanding. Else how clear are you about your ideas? First you said it appeared from God "as-is". Next you said "It was invented for the sole purpose of preserving the Vedas". Both of which are most unlikely and contradict each other.

First of all, I said I *believe* as a Hindu that the Vedas and Vedic Sanskrit are divinely manufactured. This is beyond science/logic. There is not a single soul on Earth that can disprove this, because it is beyond logic and is not a refutable statement.

Secondly, if at all one wants to apply logical principles to trace the origin of Sanskrit, in that case my contention is that they will likely find that it did not "evolve" but it "appeared" as an invention.

Indeed, religious belief and logic contradict each other only for those who try to compare them : it is an apples-to-oranges comparison. I can perform "hardcore" science in my daily life but at the same time believe that the Vedas and Vedic are of divine origin. If someone thinks they have a better understanding than me by subjecting the origin of Sanskrit to "logical" analysis (which nevertheless on closer scrutiny does not approach the same standards we are used to in daily scientific life) then I wish them good luck. I hope they don't end up "neither here nor there".

Then you challenged the view that Vedic is an evolved language saying that it wouldnt pass the muster according to modern scientific standards, as if your ideas above were the most scientific ones.

I did not say that. I said that the various statements advanced to "support" Vedic Sanskrit evolution do not pass muster.

Then you said all independent western scholars are fed and bred with the Aryan Invasion prejudice.

Did I say this ? I said that Western linguists coming out of a standard academic background are all trained in the PIE hypothesis and hence do not question the other aspects of the debate. The "Aryan Invasion" question involves a number of other "Western" scholars such as archaeologists.

Then you seem to suggest that Vedic was the exclusive preserve of a group of people. So how did it "leak out" to so many other nations, as well as within India itself where it has influenced practically every major language?

Again, I will not make statements with certainty. However, remember that in every region of India the men of learning have historically belonged overwhelmingly from the same caste (brahmans) that knew Vedic Sanskrit. The brahmans contracted Vedic to a classical form, and it was primarily they that introduced Sanskrit into almost every other language in India. So such a thing is quite natural. Again, the men of learning could likely have travelled to other nations and influenced their languages through association with the elites of those nations.

Surely a closely guarded artificial secret language has no business influencing so many other languages across continents like how vedic has done.

Please read this carefully: the Vedic language is "closely guarded" in the sense that the brahmans made full attempts to not allow it to be used for anything else in its pure form. The Vedas were also "closely guarded" in the same sense. Nothing prevented the brahmans from developing another language (classical Sanskrit) out of Vedic, that could be used for other purposes. Nothing prevented them from introducing Sanskrit into other languages, and nothing prevented the evolution of Prakrits either.

Why the invention theory is so implausible is that virtually all the Indo Aryan languages spoken in this country and across several continents are descendants of your so-called secret language Vedic. Someone let the cat out of the bag?

This makes no sense. Nobody is saying that Vedic Sanskrit was some kind of a secret that nobody knew of its existence except a few brahmans. Again, you are confusing the issue of origin with later developments. I am talking about the former, and you reply with unrelated comments regarding the latter.

First of all, Steve Farmer does not subscribe to the hypothesis that Vedic and Indus Valley people are one and the same. So if the Harappans did not have a script, he pronounces them illiterate. I dont say that he is the most scholarly one out there, but he is not your average indologist who rides high on subjectivity and low on objectivity. I had been thinking all along that the Indus script was not a script at all. People who know how to write dont need drawings with pictographic signs to preseve a message. That does not make them illiterate, though.

Again, you are assuming what the Harappans need and don't need. This very issue of why all the Harappan writing is in form of seals/tablets has been discussed over the years. It may very well be that the only writing that has survived the ages is in the form of these seals/tablets. The Harappans could very well have had writing on other media (e.g., leaves, bark, etc) that will not survive. As Parpola notes, the amount of archaeological discovery is very small in relation to the size of the Indus/Sarasvati civilization. For example, only about one-tenth of the city of Mohenjodaro has been excavated to date. As Elst notes, there are also several references to writing in the Vedas.

Even if the Harappan script is a script, it was in the developed phase of the Harappan Civilization (with cities et al), so the early Indus Valley people are the ones we must credit the Vedas with, since people start with being pastoral before they form colonies or cities.

Your assumption that the writing found on the seals is the only Harappan writing we will ever find, is not valid. Especially since only a small fraction of the sites have even been excavated.

[Sangeet Rasik]

I can relate to the potential for evolving complexity as the needs arose. But the way the linguists form these Proto languages, the farther in the past we go, the more perfect and more complex these Proto languages seem to be ( since the hierarchy itself is built out of known rules of linguistic transformation and PIE is hypothesized by back applying these rules from Latin and Vedic Sanskrit. This by definition has to result in a combined baggage of rules, probably more complex and comprehensive).

Exactly! I can understand language evolving in "complexity" as society becomes more sophisticated. But classical Sanskrit and Latin are essentially contractions of a previous, *more* complex language; not vice versa. Vedic Sanskrit is a myriad web of grammatical rules. What was all this for ? Is this really "evolution" ?

If Vedic Sanskrit is "evolved" from the "grunts and growls" of primitive Man, wouldn't one expect to have a correlation between increasing sophistication of civilization and complexity of language. So far, all evidence seems to point in the opposite direction!

Note: I said "correlation", which does not establish cause and effect.

[srkris]

VK,

When we speak about sanskrit in the usual sense, what we refer to is the "purified" Sanskrit following the rules of Panini's Ashtadhyayi, which is otherwise called classical sanskrit. As is the case with such exercises, more colloquial versions (Prakrit) did exist among the laity that did not have to conform to all the rules of Sanskrit. Serious literature however had to follow the grammar, at least with the Hindus (maybe not so with the Buddhists who wrote and spoke Pali which was Prakritic). However Sanskrit and Prakritic forms were removed from each other only to the extent of grammar they followed, not as different languages altogether.

Vedic is the older original that is not wholly bound by such rules of perfection because the Vedas were not to be revised, so Vedic was left as-is. Also Vedic was more difficult to handle even by scholars of the day, since it was already at-least 1500-2000 years old in Panini's time itself (Panini lived around 2500 years ago).

I am not sure whether the name "Sanskrit" occurs in the Rig Veda, I think not.

These are pages that speak about the reconstructed PIE language:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo ... n_language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_In ... pean_roots
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo ... n_numerals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo ... _particles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_sound_laws
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centum-Satem_isogloss
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo ... n_pronouns
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo ... n_religion

[Sangeet Rasik]

VK,
Vedic is the older original that is not wholly bound by such rules of perfection...

srkris,

1) Can you define what you mean by a language being "more perfect", and why is Vedic "less perfect" than classical Sanskrit ? As far as I know, Vedic grammar has even more extensive rules (than classical Sanskrit) that would make it even more precise.

2) Consider the Vedic literature itself. The Rgveda is the seminal text, whereas vast portions of the Samaveda and Yajurveda are identical to the Rgveda except for rearrangement of the verses. However, there are very minor alterations to the original Rgvedic material in the Samaveda and Yajurveda.

3) Moving on to the Atharvaveda period, there are still further minor changes in the grammar and vocabulary. Further along, the Brahmanas and the Upanishads show a contraction in grammatical rules (if at all), not an increase in "complexity".

4) So even in the Vedic age, the "evolution" (if any) continued to be downwards (not upwards). Is there a single known step from the so-called PIE to modern Indian languages that involved "upward" evolution, or is it a just a conjecture ?

5) If such a conjecture is made, what it amounts to is that humans beginning from "grunts and growls" developed complex languages and grammatical rules while still being in the Stone Age (I wonder what for ?) but have nothing significant to show in any other field of human civilization. And further, the arrival of the Bronze Age and civilization (as we know it) coincided with "simplification" of these complex Stone Age languages. Is this what you believe the overall picture is ?

SR

[srkris]

I said I *believe* as a Hindu that the Vedas and Vedic Sanskrit are divinely manufactured. This is beyond science/logic. There is not a single soul on Earth that can disprove this, because it is beyond logic and is not a refutable statement.

There is not a single soul on earth that has proved it either. Disproving comes after things are proved or accepted as fact. Since your beliefs do not concern themselves with facts, science and logic do not present themselves for any rational explanation.

I however, am concerned about facts, science and logic while approaching history. If you are into the domain of blind beliefs, please dont present them as facts.

Secondly, if at all one wants to apply logical principles to trace the origin of Sanskrit, in that case my contention is that they will likely find that it did not "evolve" but it "appeared" as an invention.

On the contrary, all those who have applied "only" logical principles have so far not suggested any divine origin theory.

Indeed, religious belief and logic contradict each other only for those who try to compare them : it is an apples-to-oranges comparison. I can perform "hardcore" science in my daily life but at the same time believe that the Vedas and Vedic are of divine origin.

That is because you dont apply hardcore science to the Vedas, and once you do that, you have to cast aside your blind beliefs. Blind belief and logic are therefore not compatible with each other. All religious beliefs however need not be blind. They are blind as long as they merit no scientific explanation.

If someone thinks they have a better understanding than me by subjecting the origin of Sanskrit to "logical" analysis (which nevertheless on closer scrutiny does not approach the same standards we are used to in daily scientific life) then I wish them good luck. I hope they don't end up "neither here nor there".

"ekam sat viprā bahudhā vadanti", goes the saying. If you think you can apply differing standards to analyse truth, then I must be the person to wish you luck. By the way, I dont claim to know more than you, rather this is about what is fact and what is not, and not about who knows what. My knowledge of Sanskrit is definitely not better than yours.

I said that the various statements advanced to "support" Vedic Sanskrit evolution do not pass muster.

This statement itself does not pass muster. It is common knowledge that Sanskrit evolved. Where and when was it scientifically proved that it did not?

I said that Western linguists coming out of a standard academic background are all trained in the PIE hypothesis and hence do not question the other aspects of the debate. The "Aryan Invasion" question involves a number of other "Western" scholars such as archaeologists.

Being trained in the PIE hypothesis does not mean the hypothesis is never questioned. Learning is to bring down prejudice and dogmas and not to increase it.

About the Aryan invasion theory, I again state that I dont support it and I know it has fundamental flaws. This has nothing to do with the existence of the PIE language.

The brahmans contracted Vedic to a classical form, and it was primarily they that introduced Sanskrit into almost every other language in India. So such a thing is quite natural. Again, the men of learning could likely have travelled to other nations and influenced their languages through association with the elites of those nations.

You seem to say that even classical sanskrit was 'invented' as a contraction of vedic, which is again a blind claim.

There exist linguistic proofs that show Vedic influenced several western languages before the language became reduced to classical sanskrit.

the Vedic language is "closely guarded" in the sense that the brahmans made full attempts to not allow it to be used for anything else in its pure form.

This is absurd because Vedic by itself was not the absolutely pure form (it had lost a bit of its original characteristics when compared to PIE). The re-purification exercise was done much later which resulted in Classical Sanskrit.

Avestan language bears close resemblance to Vedic (although it was derived from Vedic before classical sanskrit came into being)... so your statement that the Vedic language was a "closely guarded secret" is wrong.

Nothing prevented the brahmans from developing another language (classical Sanskrit) out of Vedic, that could be used for other purposes.

So classical sanskrit was also invented, eh? We all know classical sanskrit is removed from Vedic by a couple of thousand years. So the brahmans found that they needed a spoken language for India after 2000 years?

Nobody is saying that Vedic Sanskrit was some kind of a secret that nobody knew of its existence except a few brahmans.

Knowing its existence is not enough. It has widely influenced most Indo-European languages, which does not happen merely by "knowing its existence".

Again, you are assuming what the Harappans need and don't need. This very issue of why all the Harappan writing is in form of seals/tablets has been discussed over the years. It may very well be that the only writing that has survived the ages is in the form of these seals/tablets. The Harappans could very well have had writing on other media (e.g., leaves, bark, etc) that will not survive.

The issue is not about how much they wrote, but about whether they wrote at all. What has been excavated pertains to what output the late Harappans had in the form of seals etc. As you dig deeper, you are only going to find earlier artifacts. If the late harappans did not write, the early Harappans would not have had a script either.

And as far as the writings on perishable materials is concerned, "even if they existed", and even when more artifacts are excavated, it may or may not prove that the pictographic symbols form a script. Generally people dont draw on all seals unless they dont know writing. All harappan artifacts unearthed, that have any expression inscribed on them, contain drawings.

[srkris]

1) Can you define what you mean by a language being "more perfect", and why is Vedic "less perfect" than classical Sanskrit ? As far as I know, Vedic grammar has even more extensive rules (than classical Sanskrit) that would make it even more precise.

Did I say Vedic is less perfect? What I said is that in the course of its evolution from Vedic to Prakrit, the language had lost some of its grammar and rigor, so it had to be purified (Sanskritised). This was what Panini did. He laid the grammatical rules.

2) Consider the Vedic literature itself. The Rgveda is the seminal text, whereas vast portions of the Samaveda and Yajurveda are identical to the Rgveda except for rearrangement of the verses. However, there are very minor alterations to the original Rgvedic material in the Samaveda and Yajurveda.

Which means that Veda was altered, and such alterations were accepted. The Vedas also did not appear at one point in time. Rather they were composed over large time periods (hundreds of years). Also the Rig Veda got its name only when the classification work was done (classification of Vedic verses into the 4 Vedas from the original corpus).

3) Moving on to the Atharvaveda period, there are still further minor changes in the grammar and vocabulary. Further along, the Brahmanas and the Upanishads show a contraction in grammatical rules (if at all), not an increase in "complexity".

All this shows that the language evolved.

4) So even in the Vedic age, the "evolution" (if any) continued to be downwards (not upwards). Is there a single known step from the so-called PIE to modern Indian languages that involved "upward" evolution, or is it a just a conjecture?

Evolution just means "change". Whether that change makes things simple or complex depends on whether it had any foreign influence. In the case of Tamil, for example, old classical Tamil is much more complex than spoken tamil of today. That makes it a downward evolution in terms of complexity, but since Sanskrit has heavily influenced Tamil for the last two thousand years or more, today's tamil is all the more rich in terms of its expressions. So the grammar of Tamil itself must have changed over time to an extent we cannot realize.

If you take the development of other classical languages, you can see it starts out independently, has its golden age, and then wanes out. I believe in this cycle.

5) If such a conjecture is made, what it amounts to is that humans beginning from "grunts and growls" developed complex languages and grammatical rules while still being in the Stone Age (I wonder what for ?) but have nothing significant to show in any other field of human civilization. And further, the arrival of the Bronze Age and civilization (as we know it) coincided with "simplification" of these complex Stone Age languages. Is this what you believe the overall picture is ?

In the biblical perspective some scholars believed that all human languages were descended from the language of Adam and Eve, a language called the Adamic language. Many of these scholars believed that the Hebrew language was, in fact, the same as the Adamic language.

Please note that beliefs such as these dont require any intellectual exercise and may therefore be popular. I believe in well researched and logical hypotheses, even though they might not be conclusive, it is enough for me if they are strongly suggestive.

I dont care for theories arising out of blind beliefs, if those are put forth as facts.

[drshrikaanth]

Disproving comes after things are proved or accepted as fact. Since your beliefs do not concern themselves with facts, science and logic do not present themselves for any rational explanation.

Hey! Not really. Only "hypotheses" are either proved or disproved- one may start with a null hyothesis or otherwise. Of course if a belief/hypothesis is "non-falsifiable", science has no place there but then that is the limitation of science, not of the hypothesis/belief. 8)

"ekam sat viprā bahudhā vadanti", goes the saying. If you think you can apply differing standards to analyse truth, then I must be the person to wish you luck. By the way, I dont claim to know more than you, rather this is about what is fact and what is not, and not about who knows what. My knowledge of Sanskrit is definitely not better than yours.

I said that the various statements advanced to "support" Vedic Sanskrit evolution do not pass muster.

This statement itself does not pass muster. It is common knowledge that Sanskrit evolved. Where and when was it scientifically proved that it did not?

There exist linguistic proofs that show Vedic influenced several western languages before the language became reduced to classical sanskrit.

Iam not sure of "proofs". That too I think falls in the realm of beliefs. If one believes that Vedic sanskrit was PIE, then yes, but if instead we accept it as an offshoot of PIE, albeit an early one(As linguists generally agree), then the influence on "Western Languages" is not so significant.

The issue is not about how much they wrote, but about whether they wrote at all. What has been excavated pertains to what output the late Harappans had in the form of seals etc. As you dig deeper, you are only going to find earlier artifacts. If the late harappans did not write, the early Harappans would not have had a script either.

Is this a case of "sour grapes" with the linguists/archaeologists who have beem flummoxed and stymied in their attempts to decipher the script? Most other ancient civilizations whose "scripts" have been deciphered have also been pictorial/hieroglyphics. SO writing in pictures is not "Infra-dig" if it occurred in the Indus Valley. I got the impression that SR was pointing towards a wider area than depth when mentioning the need for more excavations. But the problem could well be that much of what was written perished as it was written on perishable material. This is a problem that is well knwon in India due to writing on palm leaves. That could well be the reason for meagre samples(seals) available on excavation.

[drshrikaanth]

Evolution just means "change". Whether that change makes things simple or complex depends on whether it had any foreign influence. In the case of Tamil, for example, old classical Tamil is much more complex than spoken tamil of today. That makes it a downward evolution in terms of complexity,--------------

You are right about evolution being change. As for today,s spoken tamizh being simpler compared to classical sangam tamizh, we have o remember tow things

1)We are comparing wo different things which perhaps ought not to be compared. One is "Classical" "Written" language while the other is the spoken tongue. Even today,s written tamizh is very significantly different from spoken tongue.

2) Much of it is a matter of perspective. To us, spoken tamizh is simple because of our familiarity with it. But to a samgam poet, Iam damn certain it is more complicated and complex than sangam tamizh.

[drshrikaanth]

4) So even in the Vedic age, the "evolution" (if any) continued to be downwards (not upwards). Is there a single known step from the so-called PIE to modern Indian languages that involved "upward" evolution, or is it a just a conjecture ?

5) If such a conjecture is made, what it amounts to is that humans beginning from "grunts and growls" developed complex languages and grammatical rules while still being in the Stone Age (I wonder what for ?) but have nothing significant to show in any other field of human civilization. And further, the arrival of the Bronze Age and civilization (as we know it) coincided with "simplification" of these complex Stone Age languages. Is this what you believe the overall picture is ?

SR

There is something which is being overlooked here. We can only reconstruct languages back in time upto a certain point. So all the development/"evolution" that took place from babbles and grunts to the point of the proto-language with its elaborate set of rules is lost as it simply becomes impossible to go back that far. Lingusist can only work with their knowledge of the available languages and extrapolate backwards to some extent. Beyond that is darkness and attempts to go futher back will result in a free-for-all as anything can be proved or refuted. It is anybody's guess.

Also there is a difference between written and spoken language in almost every language we know of. The written language tends to retain the set of rules and often represents a more archaic form. But with the passage of time, the written language in take into account thee spoken language if it has to remain intelligible and hence there is a mutual influence. This is how languages change with time and there is a dichotomy between oral and written forms(diglossia).

[drshrikaanth]

When we speak about sanskrit in the usual sense, what we refer to is the "purified" Sanskrit following the rules of Panini's Ashtadhyayi, which is otherwise called classical sanskrit. As is the case with such exercises, more colloquial versions (Prakrit) did exist among the laity that did not have to conform to all the rules of Sanskrit. Serious literature however had to follow the grammar, at least with the Hindus (maybe not so with the Buddhists who wrote and spoke Pali which was Prakritic). However Sanskrit and Prakritic forms were removed from each other only to the extent of grammar they followed, not as different languages altogether.

prAkRta had its onwn set of grammatical rules and specifications about how sanskrit words should be modified. Elaborate books have been written about prAkRta grammar just as for sanskrit. So it is wrong to dismiss it as a colloquial version with meagre rules. ANd often, sanskrit has influenced the other languages only through prAkRta and pALi. This is especially the case with dravidian languages which have borne tremendous prAkRta influence, not least because of Jains(and buddhists) contribution to literature.

You might be interested to know that there is also an srgument that prAkRta is older and more "natural"(Hence the name) than sanskrit and that the latter was actually developed by Brahmans by "refining" the former. I dont have to specify which group is advocating this theory.

I am not sure whether the name "Sanskrit" occurs in the Rig Veda, I think not.

It doesnt.

[vasanthakokilam]

Linguistics is not an exact science, we all agree. Atleast not when compared to the natural sciences. They use techniques like comparative methods and the internal reconstruction methods to come up with the proto languages. I was under the impression though that these are hypothetical constructs just to have a scholarly field. But the various links I read, the way they state things, it looks like the Linguistics believe that these languages actually existed and even come up with how they sounded.

To put some more muscle into such extrapolation, have they tried this exercise? For example, present to a few linguists (who do not know Sanskrit) the languages of India that are derived from Classical Sanskrit and let them apply comparative and internal reconstruction methods and see if they come up with Classical Sanskrit comptible in grammar with Panini. If they do, then I will have better faith that there techniques are solid.

[Sangeet Rasik]

There is something which is being overlooked here. We can only reconstruct languages back in time upto a certain point.

Great point. I agree with you (as I also mentioned in a previous post, the reconstruction becomes unreliable as we go further in the past.

So all the development/"evolution" that took place from babbles and grunts to the point of the proto-language with its elaborate set of rules is lost as it simply becomes impossible to go back that far. Lingusist can only work with their knowledge of the available languages and extrapolate backwards to some extent. Beyond that is darkness and attempts to go futher back will result in a free-for-all as anything can be proved or refuted. It is anybody's guess.

Yes, I believe this is the case. However, my intention was to present a scenario wherein we assume that the linguists are able to reconstruct the so-called PIE which then must be more than 6000 years old. This does not mean they have to go back to the "grunts and growls stage". Consider the reconstructed PIE itself, which is a highly "evolved" hypothetical language.

The issue is, how do we reconcile archaeology with PIE linguistics ? What is being proposed is that the "evolution" of language can go whatever which way the linguists feel like. They would have us believe that between the pre-historic period to the PIE period, a highly complex language was "evolved" (no doubt by a fairly advanced civilization). But who were these people ? Why is there no physical trace nor memory of them ? And if they were Stone Age people of primitive means, how could they possibly develop the intricate grammar and vocabulary of the PIE ? Furthermore, even if we assume that this somehow occurred, we are then asked to believe that the same PIE after reaching a height of development, started to contract into more "classical", less intricate forms such as Sanskrit, Greek, Latin etc. while at the same time civilization was actually becoming more sophisticated. The two developments seem incongruous and in totally opposite directions. It would be helpful if there was even one example of such a thing occurring, or some type of physical evidence. Without that, we can all consider the "evolution" of Vedic Sanskrit from some hypothetical PIE as an interesting theory, but that does not mean we should elevate it to the status that serious science backed up by physical evidence deserves.

Also there is a difference between written and spoken language in almost every language we know of. The written language tends to retain the set of rules and often represents a more archaic form....

The Indian philosopher/grammarian Bhartrhari has the very interesting theory of "sphota" in this respect. But I believe this is not critical to the present discussion.

[cmlover]

Have you considered the theories of EriK Vandoonikan of 'chariot of the Gods' fame. He was more after physical evidence of the visitations by the extra-terrestrials but never looked at Indian subcontinent or Languages. Though highly speculative it is possible that the 'vedic language' was handed over by some 'visitors' and folks were told to memorize andtreat them as Sacred. That would explain such advanced compositions in prehistoric times. Further the vedic sanskrit may not have been spoken but prakarita evolved over time patterned after that which got refined into samskritam and made into the 'classical language' by Panini. Perhaps we should give the credit to Sage Valmiki for creating the framework for the classical sanskrit..

[srkris]

DRS

Hey! Not really. Only "hypotheses" are either proved or disproved- one may start with a null hyothesis or otherwise. Of course if a belief/hypothesis is "non-falsifiable", science has no place there but then that is the limitation of science, not of the hypothesis/belief

OK, but equally, such non falsifiable hypotheses are also not provable. You have some assumptions. Can you prove them - no. Can you disprove them - no again. Which means we are always at point zero. When we have facts, those have to take precedence over such blind hypotheses if the discussion is to proceed on systematic and logical lines. If not, it merely will be a case where sufficient data is not available for science to give a conclusion. So such a case may not really push science to its limits.

If one believes that Vedic sanskrit was PIE, then yes, but if instead we accept it as an offshoot of PIE, albeit an early one(As linguists generally agree), then the influence on "Western Languages" is not so significant.

As far as I know, Vedic was not really a variant... rather it was a continuation of PIE, albeit with some small changes. Avestan, on the other hand was a variant. Similarly most later western languages had outside influence and are not organically descended from PIE alone. So whether Vedic influenced the Western languages or PIE influenced them does not seem to matter.

Is this a case of "sour grapes" with the linguists/archaeologists who have beem flummoxed and stymied in their attempts to decipher the script? Most other ancient civilizations whose "scripts" have been deciphered have also been pictorial/hieroglyphics. SO writing in pictures is not "Infra-dig" if it occurred in the Indus Valley.

I just stated my beliefs regarding this, which is based on the fact that all 100+ attempts to decode the Harappan script have failed so far. It may be because of non-availability of sufficient data, but this however is another story altogether, independent of the PIE issue.

People who say the Harappan civilization was different from the vedic one, however point out that there is no evidence of any "horse" discovered so far in Indus Valley excavations, an animal which is considered central to Vedic culture.

We are comparing wo different things which perhaps ought not to be compared. One is "Classical" "Written" language while the other is the spoken tongue.

Very correct. However my observation stands, which is that all classical languages reach a peak and then decline. Else they get morphed into something entirely different, with only a common base. This was what happened to Sanskrit also. So it is incorrect to say Sanskrit appeared as the most complex language at a point in time owing to divine revelation, and then became less and less complex over time.

My take is that since the language began its course downhill over the last 5000 years, it must have taken about the same time (or more time) to get to the level of complexity we find in Vedic. Who knows, Vedic itself might have been a toned down version of the original PIE (with all its glory). Mere absence of other literature of the same period does not mean there was none that could not have been lost.

prAkRta had its onwn set of grammatical rules and specifications about how sanskrit words should be modified. Elaborate books have been written about prAkRta grammar just as for sanskrit. So it is wrong to dismiss it as a colloquial version with meagre rules.

Oh, I was not aware that Prakrit (apart from Pali) has its own grammar. I was thinking it was a colloquial variant of sanskrit. Can you let me know any good sources of Prakrit grammar? I was also under the impression Pali could be converted to Sanskrit following some standard rules, am I right?

That said, I have read a bit of Pali (from the Buddhist Nikayas) and there is nothing I could find that was not-understandable for someone that could read classical sanskrit.

You might be interested to know that there is also an srgument that prAkRta is older and more "natural"(Hence the name) than sanskrit and that the latter was actually developed by Brahmans by "refining" the former. I dont have to specify which group is advocating this theory.

There could be truth in it being more natural considering the fact that Classical Sanskrit indeed is a so-called "perfected" language. But I dont see how it could be older. Isn't Prakrit a variant, a mutant?

VK

To put some more muscle into such extrapolation, have they tried this exercise? For example, present to a few linguists (who do not know Sanskrit) the languages of India that are derived from Classical Sanskrit and let them apply comparative and internal reconstruction methods and see if they come up with Classical Sanskrit comptible in grammar with Panini. If they do, then I will have better faith that there techniques are solid.

I dont think any such exercise has been undertaken although I can imagine the probable result of such an exercise. It would closely match classical sanskrit although not with 100% perfection. As always, you never know unless such an exercise is actually done . The problem is no one may sponsor such a mammoth exercise. PIE itself has been reconstructed over a century by hundreds/ thousands of linguists working in co-ordination.

CML

Perhaps we should give the credit to Sage Valmiki for creating the framework for the classical sanskrit..

Why Valmiki in particular? For Ramayana?

I have this serious doubt. Did Vyasa live all through the Vedic period to the end of the Mahabharat and even later? How confidently can we therefore state that the itihasas are indeed "iti-hAsa" and not mere mythology?

[drshrikaanth]

OK, but equally, such non falsifiable hypotheses are also not provable.

Correct. Thats what I said.

As far as I know, Vedic was not really a variant... rather it was a continuation of PIE, albeit with some small changes.

This is your assumption/belief. There is no proof for this so far.

Avestan, on the other hand was a variant. Similarly most later western languages had outside influence and are not organically descended from PIE alone.

This again makes avestan no less a descendant than vedic sanskrit. It would be "self-righteousness" to say so. What are the outside influences that you are talking about? As I mentioned, Mundarian and Dravidian have both influenced sanskrit in its formative stages.

So whether Vedic influenced the Western languages or PIE influenced them does not seem to matter.

This is crucial as current consensus is that Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Avestan are all sister languages. If Vedic was PIE, the the relationship changes.

Very correct. However my observation stands, which is that all classical languages reach a peak and then decline. Else they get morphed into something entirely different, with only a common base.

I find the word "decline" a very narrow way of looking at it and saying "old is gold". Your second view of "Morphing" is correct and closer to reality. See change is indeed the mark of a "Living language". Only dead languages stop changing. There was no unifying force in those days as we have now- AIR, DD etc to project a standard form of language. Thus, in course of time, regional differences became prominent and dialects developed as independent languages as we know them. This is the case with Dravidian languages as well as the "prakrit" dialects that have now become hindi, bengali, oriya etc.

Oh, I was not aware that Prakrit (apart from Pali) has its own grammar. I was thinking it was a colloquial variant of sanskrit. Can you let me know any good sources of Prakrit grammar?

Link

http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/P_0254.htm

Relevant part.

The history of Prakrit grammar is very old. However, the writings of some grammarians such as Shakalya, Kohal, Bamanacharya and Samantabhadra are no longer extant. But subsequent works like Bararuchi's Prakrtprakash, Hemchandra's Shabdanushasan, Trivikram's Prakrta Byakaran and Markendeya's Prakrtsarbasva deserve special mention. Hemchandra occupies a special place in writing Prakrit grammar. There are not many dictionaries in Prakrit. The only two dictionaries worth mentioning are Dhanapal's Paiyalachchhi-Nammala (10th century) and Hemchandra's Deshi-Nammala (12th century). The second book is a collection of local and regional words of unknown origin.

Prakrit prosody was well developed. It is not surprising, therefore, that there were a number of books in Prakrit on prosody, the most important being Pingal's Prakrtpaingal, which contains discussions of both Prakrit and Apabhramsa metres. The influence of Prakrit metres on the growth and development of Bangla poetry was more pronounced than that of Sanskrit.

More links

http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/t ... 9e526.html

A google search for "Prakrit grammar" will yield more.

[srkris]

This again makes avestan no less a descendant than vedic sanskrit.

Right, but Avestan is a more recent descendant and also it varies to a higher degree from PIE than does Vedic. This is not my assumption, I will get you the source.

I have a problem with dating the Rig Veda at 1500BC. There are too many loose ends from a historical (though maybe not linguistic) perspective. 900-1000 years down the line, the Buddha lived and preached. Do you think it would have been possible for all the Vedic and post Vedic puranic literature to have been composed within this 900 years?

Again, Krishna avatar was known as late as about 200BC to be a historic divine character (evidence exists). Which means that you need at least some centuries for the Mahabharata to have passed into history. There is even a controversy about the time of Adi Shankara's life.

But generally we know that Panini and Buddha were real people who lived. If we are not so certain about the composition of Mahabharata and Ramayana, they must have preceeded Panini and Buddha. So this 1500BC dating for Rig Veda seems to be erroneous.

If the Rig Veda came around 2000BC or before that, the time period of Vedic and PIE would overlap. Already Vedic is recognized as one of the two or three oldest descendants of PIE.

Also please note that the Mittani were an Indo-Aryan (not Indo-Iranian) kingdom in existence by 1500 BC outside India, and they already spoke something close to Vedic, if not vedic itself, at about the proposed date of the RigVeda.
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitanni

[drshrikaanth]

Right, but Avestan is a more recent descendant and also it varies to a higher degree from PIE than does Vedic. This is not my assumption, I will get you the source.

This point is correct. But what you said was Vedic is PIE with some changes(Again a variant) wjile Avestan is a "VarianT". That appeared rather biased. Also you havent said what "Foreign influences" you were referring to.

The earliest AVestan that we get is "GAthas' but you must account for the tremendous upheavals in politico-socio-reliogious milieu of Iran with an organsied destruction of all that was "Pre-Islamic". ANd the Zorastrians themselves had to flee their homeland. PLUS ALexander and his hordes burnt down the Library in Persepolis witha ll its Avestan texts in a drunker frenzy. So in all likelihood, Literature older than the Gathas(and less varied from PIE/Vedic) existed.

I have a problem with dating the Rig Veda at 1500BC. There are too many loose ends from a historical (though maybe not linguistic) perspective. ------

----
If the Rig Veda came around 2000BC or before that, the time period of Vedic and PIE would overlap. Already Vedic is recognized as one of the two or three oldest descendants of PIE.

I agree that the RgvEda has been placed erroneously on a temporal scale. And the period of PIE has been determined on the basis of current assumptions(erroneous though) about periods of literature including the RgvEda. So if RgvEdas is placed earlier, PIE will also consequently fo further back or Vedic, with more study, will be proven as PIE. The deciphering of the Harappan seals could play a vital role here.

Also please note that the Mittani were an Indo-Aryan (not Indo-Iranian) kingdom in existence by 1500 BC outside India, and they already spoke something close to Vedic, if not vedic itself, at about the proposed date of the RigVeda.

Well the article actually says they spoke another language, Hurrian which was from a different language family.

[drshrikaanth]

ANother interesting info which could help you all. toda(tOda) language, an ancient language of the Dravidian group spoken by a tribe in the Nilgiris has an interesting feature. They use 3 different dialects in their day-to-day life- one while conversing among themselves and with baDagas(ANother dravidian tribe), a second dialect in their prayers and religious congregations and a 3rd when discussing their Cattle(Which they rever and cherish greatly).

So it is a possibility that Vedic was used from early on for Religious and sacred purposes while the language used for other purposes was different(Perhaps the forerunner of Classical sanskrit?). But we must remember that this does not make them 2 different languages. Vedic could jut be an archaic form(Even during the vedic times I mean) that was used for religion and philosophy.

SR
But I disagree completely that it was a closely-guarded secret of the brAhmaNas. We have many parts of the RgvEda compiled by non-brahmans(Even SUdras). It is a myth perpetuated by some groups with vested interests that the masses were deprived of this knowledge by the "Priests". Thank God, some of the "priests" had the sanity to cherish and save this beautiful and priceless language for posterity.

[drshrikaanth]

I have some related questions. What date has the Ramayana been assigned? Before being written down, it was handed don oralls as well for nearly a milleniun(700-800 yrs it is thought).

Does the time period of the vEdas and rAmAyaNa overlap? If the vEdas are older, how is vAlmIki given the title of Adikavi and the "Father of prosody". Because chandas(Which is another name for vEdas)/prosody clearly is there in the vEdas- various types- anuShTup, gAyatrI, jagatI, triShTup etc. The SlOka of rAMAyaNa is but a derivative of anuShTup. So is rAmAyaNa older than the vEdas. If yes, then clearly it means that vEdic sanskrit was different from the sanskrit used for writing kAvya. rAmAYaNa does have differences from the language used in later literature, but they do fall in a direct line.

[cmlover]

I have a copy of Alfred C Woolner (1917) 'Introduction to Prakrit'(obtainable from Motilal Banarasidas). He discusses the grammar elaborately and it is much simpler than sanskrit itself!

He mentions three kinds of prakrits
1. Old Indo-Aryan which was supposedly spoken during Rig vedic times which was refined into Sanskrit.
2. The Middle Indo-Aryan which represented Pali and the buddhist literature
3. Late Prakrit which evolved into apabhramsha handled effectively by tulsi.

Hence the evolution of Prakrit could give us clues to the morphing of our vedic language over time upto the Modern Hindi which is the outcome of the Muslim influence.

Valmi chose Sanskrit to communicate with folks of his time since by then the vedic sanskrit was getting lost as the medium of communication. Vyasa uses out and out classical sanskrit and does not violate Paninian rules and hence must belong to a later period. I am not sure whether vyasa references valmiki at all. The Ramopakhyana occurring in Mahabharata may be a later insertion. But some of the shlokas are distinctly from valmiki. We however do not find any reference in valmiki about vyasa or mahabharata though some characters e.g., Jambavan occur in both.

One thing is clear. The chronology by the westerners is biassed and spurious. Most definitely dating Rigveda to 900-1500 is a travesty of facts.

[drshrikaanth]

Hence the evolution of Prakrit could give us clues to the morphing of our vedic language over time upto the Modern Hindi which is the outcome of the Muslim influence.

The prAkrita gave rise to several apabhrAmSas of which Hindi was just one. Bengali, oriya, marathi & Gujarati(Which have a substantial Dravidian element and were hence classified among the pancadrAviDa) etc were also developed from prAkRta. In fact Hindi is a late entry into the group.

[Sangeet Rasik]

But I disagree completely that it was a closely-guarded secret of the brAhmaNas. We have many parts of the RgvEda compiled by non-brahmans(Even SUdras). It is a myth perpetuated by some groups with vested interests that the masses were deprived of this knowledge by the "Priests". Thank God, some of the "priests" had the sanity to cherish and save this beautiful and priceless language for posterity.

I did not use the term "closely guarded" in the sense of "a few brahmans hanging on to Vedic like it was a secret". This idea was introduced into the discussion by srkris. I have clarified what I meant when I said Vedic was "invented" by a relatively small group of people (I do not know about the castes of those persons). The Rgveda does not mention the "caste" of all the rishis. However, we do know that definitely by the classical age the brahmans were the ones mainly associated with Vedic Sanskrit and thus would have played an important role in contracting it to classical Sanskrit as well as introducing Sanskrit into other languages.

[cmlover]

DRS
The pancha dravida would refer to
Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Dravida(Tamil Nadu and Kerala) and Andhra Pradesh. see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dravida

It will be difficult to demonstrate the penetration of prakrit in the distinctly southern languages while the sanskrit terms were easily assimilated! The urdu/persian influence is clearly observable in the Northern languages. Is there evidence of muslim penetration in Kannada after the reign of Tippu Sultan. The malayalam (naadan) of north kerala shows substantial muslim influence and several arabic words have been assimilated. Tamil is distinct in this respect that it never got 'arabised' while it easily got 'anglicised'.

[Suji Ram]

CML,
There is persian influence in all Indian languages esp. colloquial. I was recently watching hindi news in one channel...they use khabar instead of samaachar. In places like Hyd, people use Urdu words while speaking Telugu-including my dad and mom... and it sounds very funny. Their telugu isnt perfect either.
I have heard that some novelists in recent times use them. I have no reference though.

[drshrikaanth]

It will be difficult to demonstrate the penetration of prakrit in the distinctly southern languages while the sanskrit terms were easily assimilated! T

Wrong CML. The influence of prAkrita on the South Indian languages(All of them) is well established and very substantial. A lot of sanskrit terms have passed into our vocabulary only through prakrit.

Is there evidence of muslim penetration in Kannada after the reign of Tippu Sultan.

As Suji Ram has already pointed, a lot of Persian and Arabic words have entered our vocabulary, with regards to Administrative terms. We see this in Tamizh also. But this is seen maximum in Telugu and Malayalam. Not surprising as the Nawabs ruled Hyderabad and a substantila part of AP. In fact the Telugu word for News is "khabar"(On Television.)

[Suji Ram]

The "Telugu" word for news is Khaburlu. Sometimes it refers to gossip :cheesy:

[drshrikaanth]

The "Telugu" word for news is Khaburlu. Sometimes it refers to gossip :cheesy:

Which is the plural of khabaru.

[srkris]

CML

With respect to the Pancha Dravida, they may not exactly correspond to the linguistic states which we have today.

But what is interesting is that they all are on the coast.

This makes me think whether Dravidam has anything to do "Drava-idam"?

[vasanthakokilam]

>This makes me think whether Dravidam has anything to do "Drava-idam"?

That is new for me... and I like it!! Makes sense!!!

[drshrikaanth]

With respect to the Pancha Dravida, they may not exactly correspond to the linguistic states which we have today.

No they dont. Because the extent of the states was very different. ANd there was no concept of states anyway. For instance, the extent of kannaDa speaking areas was much wider and extended further north as is evident from literture and vast inscriptional evidences. BTW pancadrAviDa referred not to the languages but to the 5 brAhmaNa groups(Like pancagauDa).

This makes me think whether Dravidam has anything to do "Drava-idam"?

No it doesnt. For one, the word in sankrit is draviDa, drAviDa, dramila. The "M" ending is only on adding dvitIyA vibhakti pratyaya. And for another, drava and iDam are words from entirely diffrent languages and combining them is not kosher even now(arisamAsa in kannaDa whic is discouraged). So an ancient combination is unlikely. ANywya all this is just additional.

And importantly, drAViDa means "tamizh" and not to all "dravidian" languages. It was Caldwell who first used it in the generic sense.

As I have mentioned earlier on sangeetham BBOard, drAviDa is thought by scholars to have come from "tira vIDu" meaning"Open home"(Plains).
Likewise one of the theories for deriving karNATa is from karunADu meaning "elevated country"(plateau).

tiravIDu-- tiramIDu-- tamizh(With other intermediate forms). Note that several of the intermidiate forms are seen in sanskrit and other languages while some are not seen but "Constructed" on linguistic logic.

[cmlover]

I recollect that when EVR and DK were pushing for 'drAviDa nADu' nationalists (Rajaji etc) were calling it 'thIrA viDaM' (ultimate poison)

DRS

does the word 'drAviDa' occur in the vedic literature or Ramayana? It occurs in Mahabharata, i know for sure.. Also what is the feminine form of the word (since by the dictionary (Apte) drAviDI means Cardomam)!

[drshrikaanth]

Ho come the thread has gone all quite? Is that it?

[kaapi]

DRS,
My knowledge of linguistics, archaeology and age of Rig Veda is very poor. However, I am reading the articles on the above and related topics , including PIE, from the net. It would take some time to come up with a reasonably acceptable post. I hope to do it.

One of the first benefits of such reading has been to disabuse my mind of the thought that Tamil is the oldest Dravidian language.Every average Tamilian believes in this as it gets dinned into him in every possible way. But I read in one of the Kannada related sites that Kannada branched off from proto Dravidian at a very early age and hence can be assumed to be "older " than Tamil. Even if this is not true they will be equally "ancient".

After going through some forums discussing Harappa, PIE , age of Rig Veda etc. I found that the regional and other tensions of today are brought into every post. Contrary to this, the posts on this thread were devoid of acrimony. Atleast for this reason I hope the members continue to post.

[kaapi]

Though not directly connected to the thread an interesting article.
http://www.geocities.com/indianpaganism/hornedgod.html

[srkris]

He mentions three kinds of prakrits
1. Old Indo-Aryan which was supposedly spoken during Rig vedic times which was refined into Sanskrit.
2. The Middle Indo-Aryan which represented Pali and the buddhist literature
3. Late Prakrit which evolved into apabhramsha handled effectively by tulsi.

Quite true. Prakrit is not a single monolithic language. As far as I understand it is a name given to a group of languages that does not belong to a purified class which classical sanskrit was known to be.

But when applied in the generic sense, it would have to encompass Old-Indo-Aryan (i.e Vedic and Avestan).

I think this Sanskrit purification time would have been the period when the Vedic religion began to crystallize into what we now call Hinduism, when Vishnu and Shiva emerged as the favourite among the pantheon of Vedic deities. This would have happened well after the Deva-Asura split... for we find a lot of Asura bashing in our scriptures written in classical sanskrit, which includes almost all of the puranic literature and later Upanishads. Scholars have a kind of rule-of-thumb approach to identify post Vedic scriptures... while Vedic literature extensively used the word 'Viswa', this word in most cases got replaced in post Vedic (classical sanskrit) literature by 'Sarva'.

[drshrikaanth]

Goood to see your post Kaapi.

But I read in one of the Kannada related sites that Kannada branched off from proto Dravidian at a very early age and hence can be assumed to be "older " than Tamil. Even if this is not true they will be equally "ancient".

It actually is true and It is accepted by linguists that kannaDa and tuLu branched off earlier than Tamizh from Proto-Dravidian. kannaDa completely eschews palatalization(ka turning to ca) which is common in tamizh but more widespread in telugu. ka is the older form of these. e.g

In kannaDa key/kay means "to do"(verb) as well as the "hand"(noun).

In tamizh cey is "to do" while "kai" is hand

In telugu cey is used for both "to do" and "hand. But old telugu also has "kai" which is seen in usages such as "kaikO".

There are 2 kinds of people who consider that tamizh is the "oldest". One is the group that simply "believes" this to be the case. the other group argues that literature was first composed?(at least written) in tamizh.

[vasanthakokilam]

Quite true. Prakrit is not a single monolithic language. As far as I understand it is a name given to a group of languages that does not belong to a purified class which classical sanskrit was known to be.

But when applied in the generic sense, it would have to encompass Old-Indo-Aryan (i.e Vedic and Avestan).

In the Sangeetham BB, you posted a Darius inscription that was interesting. I thought there was an open question about whether it was Avestan or Prakrit. I searched for it but could not find it. Could you post that again please?

There are 2 kinds of people who consider that tamizh is the "oldest". One is the group that simply "believes" this to be the case. the other group argues that literature was first composed?(at least written) in tamizh.

I guess I belong to the "believe" group since I have read that in many places. Until I read about this today, I was under the mistaken belief that kannaDa branched from the old Tamil long time back. So what time periods are we talking about.. BCE or CE? Does the literature claim have any validity?

With respect to the "oldest Dravidian language", would the Dravidian language that is spoken in the Northwest India-Pakistan region? I do not know much about it, whether it has any resemblance to our languages or not.

[drshrikaanth]

In the Sangeetham BB, you posted a Darius inscription that was interesting. I thought there was an open question about whether it was Avestan or Prakrit. I searched for it but could not find it. Could you post that again please?

VK. Srkris posted this on this thread as well. Look up the previous pages.

So what time periods are we talking about.. BCE or CE?

Most certainly BCE. An a long way back in BCE although exact periods are nt known.

Does the literature claim have any validity?

Of the literature found so far, tamizh literature is the earliest followed by kannaDa. But tamizh scholars have the tendencey to push the dates back by several centuries which "magnifies " the differences. It is clear that earlier well-developed literature existed in kannaDa from the kannaDa texts themselves where the poets recall poets who had been before their time. We also find quotes of individual verses from texts now lost to us. Tamizh literature also bears this out. Ancient tamizh literature mentions kannaDa among the ancient languages. Also "yAppperungaLakkArigai" was written after a kannaDa work of HUGE proportions "guNagAnkiyam" as acknowledged by the author himself. This text is sadly lost.

With respect to the "oldest Dravidian language", would the Dravidian language that is spoken in the Northwest India-Pakistan region? I do not know much about it, whether it has any resemblance to our languages or not.

No Just as PIE, proto-dravidian is a reconstructed language. brAhui spoken in N.W Pakistan(Baluchistan) is ancient no doubt but is not considered as the "origin". It certainly is a Dravidian language without any doubt.

[vasanthakokilam]

>VK. Srkris posted this on this thread as well. Look up the previous pages.

Thanks. I found it now.

On brAhui, that is an enigma, isn't it? I just read about the brAhui people, they still seem to be nomadic cattle herders living the hard desert life.

I wanted to listen to how brAhui sounds. I found this from a Christian missionary site: The Jesus film in brAhui.

http://www.everytongue.com/list1-on-line-recordings.htm

Look for brAhui and the corresponding real video or audio link.

How does this sound to you? The same film is available in Tamil, kannaDa, Telugu and Malayalam as well so, if time and interest permits, one can compare the dialogue.

[cmlover]

Did you notice they have no recordings in Sanskrit!

[vasanthakokilam]

May be the missioneries figured.. if we do this then those darn Hindus might subsume Jesus as another avatar, like they did for Buddha
I bet there is already some school of Hinduism that is pretty close to Christianity in theology.

[srkris]

CML & VK, see this:

http://www.bhaktivani.com/

[cmlover]

Chembai
That does not answer my query!

VK

This one will

'matsya kUrma varAhasya nArasimhasya vAmanaH!
rAmO rAmasya rAmasya kriShna k^Ristu janArdanaH||

(JayadEva inserted buddha among the dashAvatAra but the evangelists in Kerala substituted Christ in place of Kalki as the 'Saviour of the World'!

[drshrikaanth]

On brAhui, that is an enigma, isn't it? I just read about the brAhui people, they still seem to be nomadic cattle herders living the hard desert life.

Are you referring to its geographical position and isolation as enigma? The dravidians seem to have been far more widepread and migrated southerly later(for whatever reasons). This being so, brahui is not an enigma.

Look for brAhui and the corresponding real video or audio link.

How does this sound to you?

Hardly dravidian. Iam not at all sure it is brahui. While brahui has had lot of give and take with the urdu-arab-persian- IE languages due to millenia of coexistence, it is still distinctly recognisable as dravidian(As I have seen in books). This film to me sounded very much Arabicish-urduish.

[vasanthakokilam]

Are you referring to its geographical position and isolation as enigma? The dravidians seem to have been far more widepread and migrated southerly later(for whatever reasons). This being so, brahui is not an enigma.

Yeah, the geographical position and isolation...I am wondering if the linguists/others have a good explanation as to how that pocket retained its dravidian language whereas there is a huge geographical gap between there and south india.

There are two mp3 audio links at the bottom of this page which is supposed to be in brahui. ( Again from the missionaries. as a side benefit, you can infer about their conversion strategies from these conversations points ).

http://globalrecordings.net/program/C03530

[cmlover]

VK/DRS

Look at
http://globalrecordings.net/country/IN
the languages spoken in India (of interest to evangelists).
There is no SankEti!
Is it an accident or that they could not find 'messengers' to spread the word of God. I though there are a few thousands at NA alone!