Devanagari (Hindi) Script

[Joe Shearer]

Do you know Arabic ?

Or do you know Persian ?

Ever read / heard Turk ?

I am just curious, how you concluded that Urdu derived from sanskrit !

and feel free to educate me on this topic.

Dear Sir,

I don't know if I ought to be doing this, as the matter can turn into controversy in the twinkling of an eye. For what it's worth:

1. Urdu began as a camp patter during the period of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire after that.
2. It added mainly Persian, and also Turkic, Pushto and Arabic words to a grammatical system based on a third generation derivative of Sanskrit.
3. The name was derived from the word for camp, and it was sometimes described as Zabān-e-Ordu-e-Mu'alla, which presumably makes sense to Urdu-speakers.
4. In earlier times, using Persian, Turkic and Arabic nouns and verbs, in the same grammatical structure, in preference to words of a Sanskrit derivation, defined Urdu; using Sanskrit derivatives defined Hindi, specifically Khariboli Hindi.
5. I understand that since Pakistan was formed, and Urdu became the state language, it has been taken to new levels of usage. With intensive use over more than 60 years by millions of people, the type of Urdu spoken in Pakistan is very specialised and different from the Urdu still spoken in Indian Urdu-speaking centres.

Sincerely,

'Joe Shearer'

 

[Old School]

Bengali, Hindi (also known as Khadi Boli), Gujarati, Marwadi, Punjabi, Nepali, Sindhi, Marathi, Odiya, Assamese are all Prakrit languages, with much of their original vocabulary being derived from Sanskrit.

Some typical examples -

Kshetra in Sanskrit becomes Khet in Hindi and Shet in Marathi.

Aksha in Sanskrit becomes Aankh in Hindi.

Nidraa in Sanskrit becomes Neend in Hindi.

Shwaas in Sanskrit becomes Saans in Hindi (but remains unchanged as Shwaas in Gujarati and Marathi).

and so on.

And they all belong to Indo-European language family . We have European seeds ( or vice versa) in our language long before European actually came to the sub-continent. We have natural affinity with Latin and German. On the other hand, the fusion with Arabic ( in Hindi/Punjabi) is very interesting as Arabic is a Semitic language.

 

[Kabir Panthi]

And they all belong to Indo-European language family . We have European seeds ( or vice versa) in our language long before European actually came to the sub-continent. We have natural affinity with Latin and German. On the other hand, the fusion with Arabic ( in Hindi/Punjabi) is very interesting as Arabic is a Semitic language.

I would say it's vice-versa

But the Prakrit languages have a special affinity ... for example, Punjabi and Hindi are close, but Pashto cannot be called a Prakrit language (as far as I know).

Maybe people here can tell us what the Pashto words are for

Kshetra (Field), Aksha (Eye), Nidraa (Sleep) and Shwaas (Breath).

Also the Pashto word for Fish, maybe. (Sanskrit Matsya which becomes Machchli in Hindi)

 

[Joe Shearer]

Well , how is Assam these days ? NE India is a mystic area to me.
I mentioned Bengali as a North Indic ( not North Indian ) language which it is. Indic is not a geographic term but Linguistic.

Dear Sir,

I'm in Kolkata at the moment, but will be heading back very shortly. North East India, like North Bengal, or parts of my adopted state, Karnataka, is beautiful.

You do realise I was playing the fool - it doesn't take me much effort

Sincerely,

'Joe S.'

 

[Joe Shearer]

I would say it's vice-versa

But the Prakrit languages have a special affinity ... for example, Punjabi and Hindi are close, but Pashto cannot be called a Prakrit language (as far as I know).

Maybe people here can tell us what the Pashto words are for

Field, Eye, Sleep and Breath.

Also Fish maybe. (Sanskrit Matsya which becomes Machchli in Hindi)

Dear Sir,

It seems that you are an out-of-India (OIT) believer. Remind me not to get into arguments with you.

BTW, Pushto is an East Iranian language.

Sincerely,

'Joe S.'

 

[Old School]

I would say it's vice-versa

But the Prakrit languages have a special affinity ... for example, Punjabi and Hindi are close, but Pashto cannot be called a Prakrit language (as far as I know).

Maybe people can tell us what the Pashto words are for

Field, Eye, Sleep and Breath.

Also Fish maybe. (Sanskrit Matsya which becomes Machchli in Hindi)

Pashtu is much closer to Indo-Persian group which goes back to the Vedic period.

 

[Old School]

I am now particularly interested about the Hellenic period in the sub-continent and it's influences on the Indic languages. This period is not widely discussed beyond the invasion of Alexander the Great. The Hellenic period lasted couple of hundred years.

 

[Kabir Panthi]

Pashtu is much closer to Indo-Persian group which goes back to the Vedic period.

If anybody can translate those five words into Pashto, I'd be interested.

As regards Persian, I think you have to distinguish between Avestan and normal Persian. Avestan originated in the Balkh area of Northern Afghanistan, which had considerable Vedic influence. But most of Persia did not have this Vedic influence.

Something I had posted in another thread:

In fact, the oldest Avestan is so similar to the oldest Sanskrit that you can translate text in one language to another by applying few phonological changes.

Ancient Scripts: Avestan

Avestan Old Iranian & Rig Vedic Sanskrit Similarities
The oldest language or dialect in the Avesta, the language of the Gathas and the Yasna Haptanghaiti, is close of the old Sanskrit language used in the Rig Veda, the older Hindu scriptures. Together, they form some of the oldest surviving literature in the world.

The following is an example of the closeness of the Avestan and Sanskrit languages:
Old Iranian/Avestan: aevo pantao yo ashahe, vispe anyaesham apantam (Yasna 72.11)
Old Indian/Sanskrit: abade pantha he ashae, visha anyaesham apantham
Translation: the one path is that of Asha, all others are not-paths.
[The Sanskrit translation of the Avestan was provided to this writer by Dr. Satyan Banerjee.]

Proto Indo-Iranian
The comparative example of the Avestan and Sanskrit languages above demonstrate that the languages are so close that they are for all practical purposes dialects of the same language.

Zoroastrian Avestan Languages

 

[Kabir Panthi]

I am now particularly interested about the Hellenic period in the sub-continent and it's influences on the Indic languages. This period is not widely discussed beyond the invasion of Alexander the Great. The Hellenic period lasted couple of hundred years.

Well, Greek, being an Indo-European languange, can be expected to show some Sanskrit / Vedic influences.

But I do not think the Greek invasions made any impact on Indic languages whatsoever.

 

[Old School]

If anybody can translate those five words into Pashto, I'd be interested.

Use a translater. I do not know if you can read the script. If you can read Urdu/Arabic/Farsi , it will do.

 

[Old School]

Well, Greek, being an Indo-European languange, can be expected to show some Sanskrit / Vedic influences.

But I do not think the Greek invasions made any impact on Indic languages whatsoever.

The Greeks probably had more influence at the administrative and scientific areas.

 

[Joe Shearer]

The Greeks probably had more influence at the administrative and scientific areas.

Dear Sir,

To be perfectly honest, there is not much evidence in that respect.

Administrative measures went through three major changes in the Gangetic plain and the rest of north India, one being the early Mauryan administrative forms, and the next the Gupta forms. it is astonishing how much of the Gupta administrative system survived into the Sultanate and into the Timurid Empire. The third was a series of changes brought in by administrators under the Sultanate, and then again by Todar Mal's reforms. Thereafter, the fourth and last great change was that of the British.

While Maurya and Greek regimes were roughly contemporary, the primary external influence on the Mauryas seems to have been Persian; there is almost no evidence of the Greek, except for the spread of the Gandhar school of sculpture. Since very few archaeological remains are available to assist us, we cannot comment on architecture, except to say that the true arch had not come in either to the Greeks or to the Indic areas.

Regarding administration, there is nothing to show any Greek influence. The administration in the Bactrian Greek kingdoms themselves are unlikely to have been much influenced by Attic democracy, by Spartan oligarchy or by Macedonian monarchy; these Greeks were descendants of the settlers, and retained only what they had been bequeathed at the series of Alexandrine foundation cities.

On science, the situation is similar. There is not much evidence of any mutual influence.

There is evidence that the Achaemenid Empire had far more influence, considering, for instance, the lion capital and other examples of architecture left to us to ponder over.

If you have any specific instances that excite your curiousity, I would be interested to know what these are.

Sincerely,

'Joe S.'

 

[Old School]

Dear Sir,

If you have any specific instances that excite your curiousity, I would be interested to know what these are.

Sincerely,

'Joe S.'

I am fond of Machiavelli as far as my strategic thinking goes and I also found that His " Il Principe" actually echoes Kautilya's Arthashastra in many ways. How it is possible ?

 

[Joe Shearer]

I am fond of Machiavelli as far as my strategic thinking goes and I also found that His " Il Principe" actually echoes Kautilya's Arthashastra in many ways. How it is possible ?

Dear Sir,

Tough one.

One basic fact seems to be that 'princes' (sovereigns) are advised to behave in much the same way by their advisors, whether in the 4th century BCE or Renaissance Italy or Elizabethan England. If you see the influence of Walsingham on Elizabethan policy, and how that played out, even though none of her advisors wrote a book, certainly none that could compare even remotely with either the Arthasastra or The Prince, the strategies that she used, her policies at home and abroad, all will seem most familiar to a reader of either political treatise.

Richelieu, Mazarin, Metternich, Bismarck, Cavour, all seem to be advisors cut from the same mould, although to my knowledge, none of them wrote on the subject.

That's as good as i can figure out cold turkey!

Sincerely,

'Joe S.'

 

[leo1476]

@Salman108:

The reason I say Urdu is descended from Sanskrit is because Urdu and Hindi have near identical grammar. Only the literary vocabulary is different (the core vocabulary is also the same). Since Hindi descends from Sanskrit, and therefore, so must Urdu.

Nowadays, Pakistanis speak Urdu with so many English words. Someday these English words will become part of the language. Similarly hundreds of years ago, Persian and Arabic words were brought into Urdu and during the last 50 years this process was made more intensive (government policy) and the vocabulary has become more Persianized. The idea was to create an identity separate from Hindi. Similar efforts were made by the Indian government to "purge" Persian words out of Hindustani and use more Sanskrit words, creating the new official "Hindi" for schools and government.