Mother of All Languages (Part 2)

Dean Brown was a Sanskrit scholar, computer scientist, translated Upanishads and Yoga Sutra. He was a physicist of the highest order - making contributions to the development of the hydrogen bomb and designing the fuel element for the Nautilus, the world's first nuclear submarines.

A friend of Albert Einstein, Prof. Dean Brown points out that most European language can be traced back to a root language that is also related to Sanskrit - the sacred language of the ancient Vedic Hindu religions of India.

It has always been believed that Sanskrit was created and then refined over many generations, typically over more than a thousand years, until it was considered complete and perfect in all respects.

As per the Indian tradition Sanskrit Language has no beginning and no ending.  It is eternal. Self-born God has created it.  It is divine.  It is everlasting.  It was first used in Vedas and thereafter it has been the means of expression in other fields.

Sanskrit can be divided into two periods- the Vedic Sanskrit period (assumed to have been spoken from approximately 1500-200 B.C.) and the Classical Sanskrit period (approximately 500 B.C. - 1000 A.D.).

The Vedic period is typified by an archaic style and religious subject matter. The Classical period is more secular in orientation and closer to the written style as it continued in the current era. While the Vedic period’s most important works are the four Vedas, the Classical period witnessed the Ramayana and Mahabharata.

A strong relationship is evident between the various forms of Sanskrit, the Middle Indo-Aryan "Prakrits" and the modern Indo-Aryan languages. The Prakrits are estimated to have been descended from Vedic Sanskrit and its other forms and there is evidence of a large degree of mutual interchange of terms, words and phrases between later forms of Sanskrit and that various Prakrits that evolved.

In 1786 Sir William Jones, the English Chief Justice in India, noticed similarities between Greek and Sanskrit. This observation led Jones to hypothesize that Greek and Sanskrit, as well as Latin, descended from a common linguistic ancestor, now lost, and further that this language was also the source of the Germanic and Celtic languages. Jones, who was already familiar with Greek and Latin, when came in contact with Sanskrit, remarked that Sanskrit is more perfect than Greek, more copious than Latin and more refined than either.

As the Latin language evolved into the Romance languages in Europe, Sanskrit gave rise to a variety of dialects that in time became separate languages. In modern India there are a number of languages that descend from Sanskrit, such as Sindhi, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu. Romany, the dialect of the Gypsies in western Asia and Europe, is also descended from Sanskrit.

Sanskrit has also exhibited reciprocal influences with the Dravidian languages, with the influences of Sanskrit imprinted in Dravidian language Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.

Today, Sanskrit is mostly used as a ceremonial language, in hymns and mantras. But the evidence of Sanskrit still exists underneath the national consciousness of modern India. Bengali and Marathi still retain a largely Sanskrit vocabulary base. The national anthem, "Jana Gana Mana" is composed in an extremely Sanskritized form of Bengali. The national song, "Vande Mataram" originally a poem taken from the book "Anandmath" written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay is in pure Sanskrit like a tribute to the mother of all the Indian languages today.

The beauty of this language, and the innumerable works written in it cannot easily be summed up in one go. But perhaps it can be rightly said that Sanskrit was the origin of it all, and it continues to live and flourish even today.

The Mother Of All Languages (Part 1)

All social animals communicate with each other, from bees and ants to whales and apes, but only humans have developed a language which is more than a set of prearranged signals.
Language, as per the Oxford dictionary, is defined as the method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way. Language helps in expressing our thoughts, ideas and feelings. What lies in our mind and heart can be conveyed by this powerful tool.

Languages change as they are handed down from generation to generation. 

In a large population, languages are likely to be relatively stable - simply because there are more people to remember what previous generations did. Some have argued that language evolved independently in different parts of the world, while others say it evolved just once, and that all languages are descended from a single ancestral mother tongue. Over the years, the style of speech and expression has changed. There have been new additions in dictionaries. Some words have evolved while others have completely acquired a new meaning.

The question is where did it all start?

Statistics show that the 1.8 billion speakers in the world communicate in English thus making it the largest spoken language in the world. Let’s go back in history. The form of English spoken from mid 5th to mid 11th century was Old English which is derived from Latin.

In 1786 Sir William Jones, the English Chief Justice in India, noticed similarities between Greek and the ancient language of India, Sanskrit. This observation led Jones to hypothesize that Greek and Sanskrit, as well as Latin, descended from a common linguistic ancestor. Going deeper, we see that Latin was actually a form of a group of languages that are known as the Proto Indo European languages.

What sparks the debate is whether Sanskrit is the mother of all languages.

The word "samskrata", in the strictest sense, means "purified, consecrated, sanctified". Sanskrit, usually referred to as "Samskrata Vāk", would mean a "refined language". Sanskrit has, by definition, always been considered to have been a language chiefly employed for religious and scientific discourse and is assumed to have contrasted with the languages spoken by the people.

Sanskrit was introduced on the earth planet, by the eternal Sages of Sanatan Dharm along with the Divine scriptures such as the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Puranas. Since the start of human civilization on the earth, people and the Sages both spoke pure Sanskrit language. The historical records indicate that three public programs of the recitation of the Bhagwatam and the discourses on Krishna leelas had happened in Sanskrit language in 3072 BC, 2872 BC and 2842 BC in which Saints and the devotees participated.

In the Classical period Sanskrit was used much like Latin in Medieval Europe, as a literary language of educated elite.

Sanskrit has a similar position in India to that of Latin and Greek in Medieval Europe, and is a central part of Hindu/Vedic traditions. In its pre-classical form, called Vedic Sanskrit, Sanskrit is one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family. The oldest example of Sanskrit literature available is the Rig-Veda.

After the 11th century, the development of Sanskrit literature considerably declined due to the rise of derivative languages like Hindi, Bengali and other languages. However, the influence of Sanskrit in the literary cultures in these languages is very evident, with earlier works in Sanskrit constantly undergoing reinvention and reinterpretation over subsequent ages.

As the Latin language evolved into the Romance languages in Europe, Sanskrit gave rise to a variety of dialects that in time became separate languages.

Perhaps Sanskrit is the beginning of it all?