Sanskrit

From Metapedia

Sanskrit the name applied by Hindu scholars to the ancient literary language of India. The word sarytskrita is the past participle of the verb kar(k):), " to make " (cognate with Latin creo), with the preposition sam, " together " (cog. aµa, (3µos, Eng. " same "), and has probably to be taken here in the sense of " completely formed " or " accurately made, polished, refined " - some noun meaning " speech " (esp. bhasha) being either expressed or understood with it. The term was, doubtless, originally adopted by native grammarians to distinguish the literary language from the uncultivated popular dialects - the forerunners of the modern vernaculars of northern India - which had developed side by side with it, and which were called (from the same root kar, but with a different preposition) Prakrita, i.e. either " derived " or " natural, common " forms of speech. This designation of the literary idiom, being intended to imply a language regulated by conventional rules, also involves a distinction between the grammatically fixed language of Brahmanical India and an earlier, less settled, phase of the same language exhibited in the Vedic writings. For convenience the Vedic language is, however, usually included in the term, and scholars generally distinguish between the Vedic and the classical Sanskrit.

I. Sanskrit Language The Sanskrit language, with its old and modern descendants, represents the easternmost branch of the great Indo-Germanic, or Aryan, stock of speech. Philological research has clearly established the fact that the Indo-Aryans must originally have immigrated into India from the north-west. In the oldest literary documents handed down by them their gradual advance can indeed be traced from the slopes of eastern Kabulistan down to the land of the five rivers (Punjab), and thence to the plains of the Yamuna (Jumna) and Ganga (Ganges). Numerous special coincidences, both of language and mythology, between the Vedic Aryans and the peoples of Iran also show that these two members of the Indo-Germanic family must have remained in close connexion for some considerable period after the others had separated from them.

The origin of comparative philology dates from the time when European scholars became accurately acquainted with the ancient language of India. Before that time classical scholars had been unable to determine the true relations between the then known languages of our stock. This .fact alone shows the importance of Sanskrit for comparative research. Though its value in this respect has perhaps at times been overrated, it may still be considered the eldest daughter of the old mothertongue. Indeed, so far as direct documentary evidence goes, it may be said to be the only surviving daughter; for none of the other six principal members of the family have left any literary monuments, and their original features have to be reproduced, as best they can, from the materials supplied by their own daughter languages: such is the case as regards the Iranic, Hellenic, Italic, Celtic, Teutonic and Letto-Slavic languages. To the Sanskrit the antiquity and extent of its literary documents, the transparency of its grammatical structure, the comparatively primitive state of its accent system, and the thorough grammatical treatment it has early received at the hand of native scholars must ever secure the foremost place in the comparative study of Indo-Germanic speech.