The Evolution of Sanskrit
This ancient Asian language has spawned many members of the Indo-European language group
Sanskrit is one of the foundation languages of the Indo-European family, and an understanding of its evolution is therefore vital to know how the languages of this family interrelate and how the modern languages of South Asia came to be as they are today. Indeed, the science of linguistics owes its origins to the discovery by Sir William Jones, in 1786, of the similarities between Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin.
It is also a religious language, in that it is the language of the ancient texts of Hinduism and Buddhism, and it thus occupies the same revered place for Hindus and Buddhists that Hebrew does for Jews and Arabic for Muslims. Surprisingly, despite its antiquity, it is also a living language, being one of the 22 official languages of India, although it is spoken fluently by only about 14,000 people.
Origins
The origins of Sanskrit are unknown, although one theory is that it derived from a source language that also spawned Greek, Latin, and several other language groups. This has been termed the Proto-Indo-European language (or PIE) which has been traced to Anatolia (part of modern Turkey) and which dates back to at least 6500 BCE. However, this theory is not accepted…
