# The Language
Language is a structured system of communication.
Languages evolve and diversify over time.
Indo-European languages, a family
of languages with the greatest number of speakers, span areas of European
settlement and much of southwestern and southern Asia. They descend from a
single unrecorded language believed to have been spoken over 5,000 years ago in
the steppe regions north of the Black Sea. By 3000 BCE, this language had split
into several dialects. Migrating tribes carried these dialects to Europe and
Asia, where they evolved into distinct languages. The main branches include
Anatolian, Indo-Iranian (including Indo-Aryan and Iranian), Greek, Italic,
Germanic, Armenian, Celtic, Albanian, Baltic, and Slavic. The study of
Indo-European languages began in 1786 with Sir William Jones’s proposal that
Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Germanic, and Celtic were all derived from a “common
source.”
Indo-Aryan languages, or Indic
languages, are spoken by over 800 million people, primarily in India, Nepal,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. The Old Indo-Aryan period is represented
by Sanskrit. Middle Indo-Aryan (circa 600 BCE–1000 CE) includes the Prakrit
dialects, such as Pali. Modern Indo-Aryan speech is largely a single dialect
continuum spread over an undivided geographical area, making the distinctions
between languages and dialects somewhat artificial.
In the Indo-Aryan speech area (the
“Hindi zone”), covering northern India and extending south to Madhya Pradesh,
the most common language of administration and education is Modern Standard
Hindi. Important regional languages in the northern Indian plain include
Haryanvi, Kauravi, Braj, Awadhi, Chhattisgarhi, Bhojpuri, Magahi, and Maithili.
In Rajasthan, regional languages include Marwari, Dhundhari, Harauti, and
Malvi. In the Himalayan foothills of Himachal Pradesh, Grierson’s Pahari
languages are spoken. Surrounding the Hindi zone, the significant languages
include Nepali (East Pahari), Assamese, Bengali, Oriya, Marathi, Gujarati,
Sindhi, Punjabi, and Dogri. The Dardic languages in Jammu and Kashmir and the
far north of Pakistan include Kashmiri, Kohistani, Shina, and Khowar. The
Nuristani languages of northwestern Afghanistan are sometimes considered a
separate branch of Indo-Iranian. Sinhalese (spoken in Sri Lanka), Divehi
(spoken in the Maldive Islands), and Romany are also Indo-Aryan languages.
The language of all the earliest
records of India, whether literary or inscriptional, is Indo-European. The
Aryan tribes, who for generations or even centuries swarmed over the mountain
passes into Southern Afghanistan and the Punjab, or through the plains of
Baluchistan into Sind and the Indus valley, likely spoke a variety of close
dialects. Historical evidence shows that this is invariably the case among
primitive peoples. Over time, as communities become settled and civilization
advances, the dialect of a region that gains importance in religion, politics,
or commerce gradually dominates others and becomes the standard language of
educated people and literature.
In India, such a standard or
literary language first appears in the Hymns of the Rig-Veda, dating from at
least 1200 BCE. This 'Vedic' Sanskrit is the language of priestly poets from
the region now known as Southern Afghanistan, the Northwestern Frontier
Province, and Punjab, differing from the later Classical Sanskrit.
After the Vedic period, Aryan
civilization extended south-easterly over the fertile plains of the Jumna and
Ganges. This area became the chief political and religious center of Brahmanism
and the birthplace of its rival religions, Jainism and Buddhism. The priestly
treatises known as 'Brahmanas' and the epic poems, the Mahabharata and the
Ramayana, were composed in this region.
The language of these literary
classes—the Brahmanas, representing the priestly caste, and the epic poems
belonging chiefly to the warrior caste—is transitional between Vedic and
Classical Sanskrit. The Brahmanas’ Sanskrit gradually merges into Classical
Sanskrit, while the epic language retains its archaic features and
irregularities. By 500 CE, when Yaska's Nirukta, the first work in strictly
Classical Sanskrit, appeared, there were three well-defined types of Sanskrit:
the poetical language of early Aryan settlers, the language of bards, and the
cultivated, literary language of the Brahmans.
Classical Sanskrit, fixed as a
literary language, ceased to undergo material change while the centralization
it represented continued. Its spoken form, however, varied according to the
civilization level of each speaker or writer. While local dialects continued to
evolve, the literary language remained essentially unaltered over nearly
twenty-five centuries.
Local dialects, though fixed
alongside the literary language, continued to evolve and grow independently.
Inscriptions and coin legends of Ancient India illustrate this process:
initially written in Prakrit, they gradually adopted Sanskrit as the dominant
literary language by around 400 CE.
Sanskrit's history is closely
associated with Brahmanism, much like Latin with the Roman Catholic Church.
Jainism and Buddhism, however, revolted against the Brahman tradition of
speech, leading to the development of Prakrit versions of Buddhist scriptures
and the literary language Pali. Pali, the literary form of some Indian Prakrit,
became the sacred language of Buddhism in Ceylon, Burma, and Siam. In India, by
the fifth century CE, both Jain and Buddhist traditions increasingly used
Sanskrit, which became the lingua franca of religion and learning across the
continent.
The early literature of India and
Ceylon, preserved in these languages, is vast and varied, covering almost every
intellectual activity except for the sciences developed in the last 250 years.
However, ancient Indian literature lacks the art of historical composition
found in Greek and Latin classics. While it provides detailed records of daily
life, social systems, religions, and progress in arts and sciences, it rarely
mentions events or provides chronology. Dynastic lists, although present, are
often inaccurate and discrepant, providing no fixed points for determining
Indian chronology. This has led to significant errors in historical timelines
based solely on these documents.
Ancient India has no historians
comparable to Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, or Tacitus. Its literature offers
rich materials to trace the cultural and intellectual life of its people but
lacks a coherent historical record with a clear chronology.
Ref.
1.
Skeat,
English Dialects, in the series of Cambridge Manuals.
2.
Vedic Sanskrit
language | language | Britannica
3.
Indi European Languages-Wikipedia.
