From basmati to sixth generation war

[masterchief_mirza]

Yeah, try selling that story outside this safe space. No wonder your cult leader Indus Pak got booted from the History forum for his alternate theories.

Don't embarrass yourself as a routine. Once a month is bad enough.

Please clarify the origins of Sanskrit....for the umpteenth time. Prove to me it is a language born of coterminous Hindustan.
T

very true.
Pakistani products are little expensive as compare to Indian chit but its worth. Quality taste smell everything is better as compare to Indian products, even the garments and other products.


Now editing Wiki and creating your own history shows insecurity and complex of Indians.

This is your own Indian source, which shows all Indians (Name given by British, could not even choose your own name) are not blind followers of hindutva version of history.

Fact check: India wasn't the first place Sanskrit was recorded – it was Syria
As the Narendra Modi government celebrates Sanskrit, a look at the oldest known speakers of the language: the Mitanni people of Syria.

Creative Commons
Jun 30, 2015 · 09:05 am
Shoaib Daniyal

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After yoga, Narendra Modi has turned his soft power focus to Sanskrit. The Indian government is enthusiastically participating in the 16th World Sanskrit Conference in Bangkok. Not only is it sending 250 Sanskrit scholars and partly funding the event, the conference will see the participation of two senior cabinet ministers: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who inaugurated the conference on Sunday, and Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani, who will attend its closing ceremony on July 2. Inexplicably, Swaraj also announced the creation of the post of Joint Secretary for Sanskrit in the Ministry of External Affairs. How an ancient language, which no one speaks, writes or reads, will help promote India’s affairs abroad remains to be seen.

On the domestic front, though, the uses of Sanskrit are clear: it is a signal of the cultural nationalism of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Sanskrit is the liturgical language of Hinduism, so sacred that lower castes (more than 75% of modern Hindus) weren’t even allowed to listen to it being recited. Celebrating Sanskrit does little to add to India’s linguistic skills – far from teaching an ancient language, India is still to get all its people educated in their modern mother tongues. But it does help the BJP push its own brand of hyper-nationalism.

Unfortunately, reality is often a lot more complex than simplistic nationalist myths. While Sanskrit is a marker of Hindu nationalism for the BJP, it might be surprised, even shocked, to know that the first people to leave behind evidence of having spoken Sanskrit aren't Hindus or Indians – they were Syrians.

The Syrian speakers of Sanskrit

The earliest form of Sanskrit is that used in the Rig Veda (called Old Indic or Rigvedic Sanskrit). Amazingly, Rigvedic Sanskrit was first recorded in inscriptions found not on the plains of India but in in what is now northern Syria.

Between 1500 and 1350 BC, a dynasty called the Mitanni ruled over the upper Euphrates-Tigris basin, land that corresponds to what are now the countries of Syria, Iraq, and Turkey. The Mitannis spoke a language called Hurrian, unrelated to Sanskrit. However, each and every Mitanni king had a Sanskrit name and so did many of the local elites. Names include Purusa (meaning “man”), Tusratta (“having an attacking chariot”), Suvardata (“given by the heavens”), Indrota (“helped by Indra”) and Subandhu, a name that exists till today in India.

Imagine that: the irritating, snot-nosed Subandhu from school shares his name with an ancient Middle Eastern prince. Goosebumps. (Sorry, Subandhu).

The Mitanni had a culture, which, like the Vedic people, highly revered chariot warfare. A Mitanni horse-training manual, the oldest such document in the world, uses a number of Sanskrit words: aika (one), tera (three), satta (seven) and asua (ashva, meaning “horse”). Moreover, the Mitanni military aristocracy was composed of chariot warriors called “maryanna”, from the Sanskrit word "marya", meaning “young man”.

The Mitanni worshipped the same gods as those in the Rig Veda (but also had their own local ones). They signed a treaty with a rival king in 1380 BC which names Indra, Varuna, Mitra and the Nasatyas (Ashvins) as divine witnesses for the Mitannis. While modern-day Hindus have mostly stopped the worship of these deities, these Mitanni gods were also the most important gods in the Rig Veda.

This is a striking fact. As David Anthony points out in his book, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language, this means that not only did Rigvedic Sanskrit predate the compilation of the Rig Veda in northwestern India but even the “central religious pantheon and moral beliefs enshrined in the Rig Veda existed equally early”.

How did Sanskrit reach Syria before India?

What explains this amazing fact? Were PN Oak and his kooky Hindutva histories right? Was the whole world Hindu once upon a time? Was the Kaaba in Mecca once a Shivling?

Unfortunately, the history behind this is far more prosaic.

The founding language of the family from which Sanskrit is from is called Proto-Indo-European. Its daughter is a language called Proto-Indo-Iranian, so called because it is the origin of the languages of North India and Iran (linguists aren’t that good with catchy language names).

The, well, encyclopedic, Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, edited by JP Mallory and DQ Adams, writes of the earliest speakers of Proto-Indo-Iranian emerging in the southern Urals and Kazakhstan. These steppe people, representing what is called the Andronovo culture, first appear just before 2000 BC.

From this Central Asian homeland diverged a group of people who had now stopped speaking Proto-Indo-Iranian and were now conversing in the earliest forms of Sanskrit. Some of these people moved west towards what is now Syria and some east towards the region of the Punjab in India.

David Anthony writes that the people who moved west were possibly employed as mercenary charioteers by the Hurrian kings of Syria. These charioteers spoke the same language and recited the same hymns that would later on be complied into the Rig Veda by their comrades who had ventured east.

These Rigvedic Sanskrit speakers usurped the throne of their employers and founded the Mitanni kingdom. While they gained a kingdom, the Mitanni soon lost their culture, adopting the local Hurrian language and religion. However, royal names, some technical words related to chariotry and of course the gods Indra, Varuna, Mitra and the Nasatyas stayed on.

The group that went east and later on composed the Rig Veda, we know, had better luck in preserving their culture. The language and religion they bought to the subcontinent took root. So much so that 3,500 years later, modern Indians would celebrate the language of these ancient pastoral nomads all the way out in Bangkok city.

Hindutvaising Sanskrit’s rich history

Unfortunately, while their language, religion and culture is celebrated, the history of the Indo-European people who brought Sanskrit into the subcontinent is sought to be erased at the altar of cultural nationalism. Popular national myths in India urgently paint Sanskrit as completely indigenous to India. This is critical given how the dominant Hindutva ideology treats geographical indigenousness as a prerequisite for nationality. If Sanskrit, the liturgical language of Hinduism, has a history that predates its arrival in India, that really does pull the rug from out under the feet of Hindutva.

Ironically, twin country Pakistan’s national myths go in the exact opposite direction: their of-kilter Islamists attempt to make foreign Arabs into founding fathers and completely deny their subcontinental roots.

Both national myths, whether Arab or Sanskrit, attempt to imagine a pure, pristine origin culture uncontaminated by unsavoury influences. Unfortunately the real world is very often messier than myth. Pakistanis are not Arabs and, as the Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture rather bluntly puts it: “This theory [that Sanskrit and its ancestor Proto-Indo-European was indigenous to India], which resurrects some of the earliest speculations on the origins of the Indo-Europeans, has not a shred of supporting evidence, either linguistic or archeological”.

Fact check: India wasn't the first place Sanskrit was recorded – it was Syria

As the Narendra Modi government celebrates Sanskrit, a look at the oldest known speakers of the language: the Mitanni people of Syria.

scroll.in

@masterchief_mirza @Indus Pakistan @Pan-Islamic-Pakistan @Myth_buster_1

Pathetic clowns in saffron have set themselves up to fail by declaring everything of value as being "out of India" and not gifted to them by benevolent migrants from afar.

 

[Pan-Islamic-Pakistan]

All Pakistanis are proud of our ancient history and cultures. No exceptions.

Imran Khan grew to love Pakistan’s interior as a child who spent his summers in the coolness of the mountains and whose favourite sport was wild boar- and partridge-shooting on the fertile plains. Recently he set out to travel through Pakistan, revisiting those places that meant most to him along the great Indus river, from its delta on the Arabian Sea to its headwaters in the Himalayas, by way of the mysterious ruins at Mohenjodaro, the plains of Sind and the Punjab, the Khyber Pass, and his home town of Lahore. Imran’s amusing anecdotes and acute observations provide a unique insight into the richly varied life of Pakistan’s past and present; a life vividly portrayed by the superb colour photographs of Mike Goldwater. The result is a sumptuous personal view of Pakistan seen through the eyes of one of its most illustrious countrymen.

 

[Chhatrapati]

Please clarify the origins of Sanskrit....for the umpteenth time. Prove to me it is a language born of coterminous Hindustan.

Like I always ask, please give me one single evidence of a text, stone carvings of Sanskrit written anywhere outside India. Just one, not similar words, nor similar names because we can find such with our Persian neighbors. Similar names can still be found as far as Europe because of trade relations those people have with the outside world. But Sanskrit outside India will be nothing short of a miracle. Don't bring me dubious articles written by alternative theorists.

There are countless proofs that Sanskrit is from India because the first known text in Sanskrit specifically mentions regions inside India and almost exclusively those texts are nowhere to be found outside India, Rig Veda. Sanskrit itself went through a modernization with the help of Panini who took inspiration from the written texts to further grammaticize Sanskrit, all these points out to one thing, Sanskrit was born in India and is hence an Indian language.

 

[masterchief_mirza]

Like I always ask, please give me one single evidence of a text, stone carvings of Sanskrit written anywhere outside India. Just one, not similar words, nor similar names because we can find such with our Persian neighbors. Similar names can still be found as far as Europe because of trade relations those people have with the outside world. But Sanskrit outside India will be nothing short of a miracle. Don't bring me dubious articles written by alternative theorists.

There are countless proofs that Sanskrit is from India because the first known text in Sanskrit specifically mentions regions inside India and almost exclusively those texts are nowhere to be found outside India, Rig Veda. Sanskrit itself went through a modernization with the help of Panini who took inspiration from the written texts to further grammaticize Sanskrit, all these points out to one thing, Sanskrit was born in India and is hence an Indian language.

It died outside of the subcontinent. Do you understand that some languages die out? Some languages are superseded (as happened with Sanskrit bifurcations in Iran). In all likelihood, your holy language came from BMAC/Sintashta/Eurasian steppe. Take your pick.

From Sintashta to Samarkand – Brown Pundits

www.brownpundits.com

 

[Chhatrapati]

It died outside of the subcontinent. Do you understand that some languages die out? Some languages are superseded (as happened with Sanskrit bifurcations in Iran). In all likelihood, your holy language came from BMAC/Sintashta/Eurasian steppe. Take your pick.

From Sintashta to Samarkand – Brown Pundits

www.brownpundits.com

Yeah, except those are just theories and you're just pulling wild conjecture with historic facts. My point still stands, there is absolutely zero evidence for the usage of Vedic Sanskrit outside the subcontinent. Meanwhile, there is overwhelming evidence for Sanskrit as a language developed inside the Indian subcontinent. Which one you would pick, a certain someone with a Sanskrit name who didn't even speak Sanskrit, or a series of texts that is verifiable in regards to geography.

It's like saying Avestan originated in Uzbekistan. Everyone knows it's bullshit, but a certain complex makes you feel good clutching over that theory.

 

[DalalErMaNodi]

Pakistani basmati rice is best, In Germany, I travel to another city just to buy Mehran brand basmati rice.


In middle East it's much more easily available, anyhow, I always buy Pakistani products wherever possible instead of Indian ones.



They tend to be off higher quality, for example, Pakistani Masala matches my palate, national mango pickle, basmati rice and so on...




Plus I saw a video where they alleged Indian companies sneak cow urine and other cow excreta into certain products,.... I don't want anything to do with that.



Pakistani products all the way, although I don't mind Bangladesh masala either (it's a little too spicy though).... But almost similar to Pakistani Masala.

 

[Invicta]

From an independent perspective, rice and spices, specially the National and Shan etc are better from Pakistan. Tea is better from India. The only Indian rice brand worth eating is Tilda even that I think is too expensive, Pakistani brands undercut it on cost and taste better here in old blighty.

That MDS shit is vile though.

 

[masterchief_mirza]

Yeah, except those are just theories and you're just pulling wild conjecture with historic facts. My point still stands, there is absolutely zero evidence for the usage of Vedic Sanskrit outside the subcontinent. Meanwhile, there is overwhelming evidence for Sanskrit as a language developed inside the Indian subcontinent. Which one you would pick, a certain someone with a Sanskrit name who didn't even speak Sanskrit, or a series of texts that is verifiable in regards to geography.

It's like saying Avestan originated in Uzbekistan. Everyone knows it's bullshit, but a certain complex makes you feel good clutching over that theory.

You understand very little about linguistics.

"English is a West Germanic language that originated from Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain in the mid 5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon migrants from what is now northwest Germany, southern Denmark and the Netherlands. ... The Anglian dialects had a greater influence on Middle English."

So which parts of Germany still speak English in its modern recognisable form? Or can we safely say it's dead now in that part of Europe?

Likewise Sanskrit. Obviously it was adjusted within the Indian subcontinent, taking on board loan words and a local lexiconic slant. However as a root language, it is perfectly reasonable for it to have originated outside of India. You won't find any takers for your baloney outside of India I'm afraid. Sanskrit is from the Indo-European language family and shares lineage with languages as far west as in Ireland. They had a common precursor, which was not found in Hindustan and did not emerge from the gangetic plains. You are free to believe otherwise of course.

 

[Itachi]

very true.
Pakistani products are little expensive as compare to Indian chit but its worth. Quality taste smell everything is better as compare to Indian products, even the garments and other products.


Now editing Wiki and creating your own history shows insecurity and complex of Indians.

This is your own Indian source, which shows all Indians (Name given by British, could not even choose your own name) are not blind followers of hindutva version of history.

Fact check: India wasn't the first place Sanskrit was recorded – it was Syria
As the Narendra Modi government celebrates Sanskrit, a look at the oldest known speakers of the language: the Mitanni people of Syria.

Creative Commons
Jun 30, 2015 · 09:05 am
Shoaib Daniyal

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• Print
• Share
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After yoga, Narendra Modi has turned his soft power focus to Sanskrit. The Indian government is enthusiastically participating in the 16th World Sanskrit Conference in Bangkok. Not only is it sending 250 Sanskrit scholars and partly funding the event, the conference will see the participation of two senior cabinet ministers: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who inaugurated the conference on Sunday, and Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani, who will attend its closing ceremony on July 2. Inexplicably, Swaraj also announced the creation of the post of Joint Secretary for Sanskrit in the Ministry of External Affairs. How an ancient language, which no one speaks, writes or reads, will help promote India’s affairs abroad remains to be seen.

On the domestic front, though, the uses of Sanskrit are clear: it is a signal of the cultural nationalism of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Sanskrit is the liturgical language of Hinduism, so sacred that lower castes (more than 75% of modern Hindus) weren’t even allowed to listen to it being recited. Celebrating Sanskrit does little to add to India’s linguistic skills – far from teaching an ancient language, India is still to get all its people educated in their modern mother tongues. But it does help the BJP push its own brand of hyper-nationalism.

Unfortunately, reality is often a lot more complex than simplistic nationalist myths. While Sanskrit is a marker of Hindu nationalism for the BJP, it might be surprised, even shocked, to know that the first people to leave behind evidence of having spoken Sanskrit aren't Hindus or Indians – they were Syrians.

The Syrian speakers of Sanskrit

The earliest form of Sanskrit is that used in the Rig Veda (called Old Indic or Rigvedic Sanskrit). Amazingly, Rigvedic Sanskrit was first recorded in inscriptions found not on the plains of India but in in what is now northern Syria.

Between 1500 and 1350 BC, a dynasty called the Mitanni ruled over the upper Euphrates-Tigris basin, land that corresponds to what are now the countries of Syria, Iraq, and Turkey. The Mitannis spoke a language called Hurrian, unrelated to Sanskrit. However, each and every Mitanni king had a Sanskrit name and so did many of the local elites. Names include Purusa (meaning “man”), Tusratta (“having an attacking chariot”), Suvardata (“given by the heavens”), Indrota (“helped by Indra”) and Subandhu, a name that exists till today in India.

Imagine that: the irritating, snot-nosed Subandhu from school shares his name with an ancient Middle Eastern prince. Goosebumps. (Sorry, Subandhu).

The Mitanni had a culture, which, like the Vedic people, highly revered chariot warfare. A Mitanni horse-training manual, the oldest such document in the world, uses a number of Sanskrit words: aika (one), tera (three), satta (seven) and asua (ashva, meaning “horse”). Moreover, the Mitanni military aristocracy was composed of chariot warriors called “maryanna”, from the Sanskrit word "marya", meaning “young man”.

The Mitanni worshipped the same gods as those in the Rig Veda (but also had their own local ones). They signed a treaty with a rival king in 1380 BC which names Indra, Varuna, Mitra and the Nasatyas (Ashvins) as divine witnesses for the Mitannis. While modern-day Hindus have mostly stopped the worship of these deities, these Mitanni gods were also the most important gods in the Rig Veda.

This is a striking fact. As David Anthony points out in his book, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language, this means that not only did Rigvedic Sanskrit predate the compilation of the Rig Veda in northwestern India but even the “central religious pantheon and moral beliefs enshrined in the Rig Veda existed equally early”.

How did Sanskrit reach Syria before India?

What explains this amazing fact? Were PN Oak and his kooky Hindutva histories right? Was the whole world Hindu once upon a time? Was the Kaaba in Mecca once a Shivling?

Unfortunately, the history behind this is far more prosaic.

The founding language of the family from which Sanskrit is from is called Proto-Indo-European. Its daughter is a language called Proto-Indo-Iranian, so called because it is the origin of the languages of North India and Iran (linguists aren’t that good with catchy language names).

The, well, encyclopedic, Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, edited by JP Mallory and DQ Adams, writes of the earliest speakers of Proto-Indo-Iranian emerging in the southern Urals and Kazakhstan. These steppe people, representing what is called the Andronovo culture, first appear just before 2000 BC.

From this Central Asian homeland diverged a group of people who had now stopped speaking Proto-Indo-Iranian and were now conversing in the earliest forms of Sanskrit. Some of these people moved west towards what is now Syria and some east towards the region of the Punjab in India.

David Anthony writes that the people who moved west were possibly employed as mercenary charioteers by the Hurrian kings of Syria. These charioteers spoke the same language and recited the same hymns that would later on be complied into the Rig Veda by their comrades who had ventured east.

These Rigvedic Sanskrit speakers usurped the throne of their employers and founded the Mitanni kingdom. While they gained a kingdom, the Mitanni soon lost their culture, adopting the local Hurrian language and religion. However, royal names, some technical words related to chariotry and of course the gods Indra, Varuna, Mitra and the Nasatyas stayed on.

The group that went east and later on composed the Rig Veda, we know, had better luck in preserving their culture. The language and religion they bought to the subcontinent took root. So much so that 3,500 years later, modern Indians would celebrate the language of these ancient pastoral nomads all the way out in Bangkok city.

Hindutvaising Sanskrit’s rich history

Unfortunately, while their language, religion and culture is celebrated, the history of the Indo-European people who brought Sanskrit into the subcontinent is sought to be erased at the altar of cultural nationalism. Popular national myths in India urgently paint Sanskrit as completely indigenous to India. This is critical given how the dominant Hindutva ideology treats geographical indigenousness as a prerequisite for nationality. If Sanskrit, the liturgical language of Hinduism, has a history that predates its arrival in India, that really does pull the rug from out under the feet of Hindutva.

Ironically, twin country Pakistan’s national myths go in the exact opposite direction: their of-kilter Islamists attempt to make foreign Arabs into founding fathers and completely deny their subcontinental roots.

Both national myths, whether Arab or Sanskrit, attempt to imagine a pure, pristine origin culture uncontaminated by unsavoury influences. Unfortunately the real world is very often messier than myth. Pakistanis are not Arabs and, as the Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture rather bluntly puts it: “This theory [that Sanskrit and its ancestor Proto-Indo-European was indigenous to India], which resurrects some of the earliest speculations on the origins of the Indo-Europeans, has not a shred of supporting evidence, either linguistic or archeological”.

Fact check: India wasn't the first place Sanskrit was recorded – it was Syria

As the Narendra Modi government celebrates Sanskrit, a look at the oldest known speakers of the language: the Mitanni people of Syria.

scroll.in

@masterchief_mirza @Indus Pakistan @Pan-Islamic-Pakistan @Myth_buster_1

Thanks! Another one for the collection.

 

[Chhatrapati]

You understand very little about linguistics.

Linguistics is a complicated subject, I'm not an expert linguist, neither I have to study linguistic to prove simple things.

However as a root language, it is perfectly reasonable for it to have originated outside of India.

You're diving into wild theories. It is a simple yes or no question. Do you have any evidence for Sanskrit originating outside the Indian subcontinent? I'm not talking about loan words, I'm sure we will find a lot of loan words in Avestan, doesn't make Avestan originating from Sanskrit. Avestan is as much as an Iranian language as Sanskrit is Indian. It's not a theory it's an established fact from linguist accounts and historian accounts. And Vedic Sanskrit developed Independently in India.

 

[paritosh]

Mr Mirza
The problem with Indians and their food is it generally tastes shit. Give you an example when I buy mangoes - the Indians start exporting theirs in April May - ours aren’t ready till about June. The taste is chalk and cheese - completely different.
Same goes for the rice - call it what you want - Pakistani rice is far superior. There is a huge cash and carry called Lubna foods in Bradford - the owners are of Indian origin yet their own BRANDED rice is of Pakistani origin. I asked them why and he confirmed the Indian rice tastes sh1t. Indians desperately try to hijack - take over - brand their food as whatever they want to - shit will remain shit.
It’s not rice - honestly it’s everything they touch - rusk cakes - dried fruit - vegetables etc - they are 2nd class.
Btw changing the topic - mum loves chalgozaay - now that’s an expensive but in Pakistan bro - prices going over 10,000 per kilo!

Flawed premise in the light of the controversy being discussed on this thread.
If your product is fundamentally different from the Indian version then why worry about the brand? Labelling your superior product with a brand that’s associated with an inferior product would cause damage to something that otherwise would have been attractive in the market.
It’s marketing 101- don’t put a superior product and a mass market basic product within the same brand.
If your Pakistani rice is superior then no point fighting for a label that mostly is associated with $hit Indian rice.

 

[Myth_buster_1]

Like I always ask, please give me one single evidence of a text, stone carvings of Sanskrit written anywhere outside India. Just one, not similar words, nor similar names because we can find such with our Persian neighbors. Similar names can still be found as far as Europe because of trade relations those people have with the outside world. But Sanskrit outside India will be nothing short of a miracle. Don't bring me dubious articles written by alternative theorists.

There are countless proofs that Sanskrit is from India because the first known text in Sanskrit specifically mentions regions inside India and almost exclusively those texts are nowhere to be found outside India, Rig Veda. Sanskrit itself went through a modernization with the help of Panini who took inspiration from the written texts to further grammaticize Sanskrit, all these points out to one thing, Sanskrit was born in India and is hence an Indian language.

ok ok, but at least it originates from IVC which is now Pakistan. So stop claiming our heritage (not that we are proud of) as Indian. lol

 

[masterchief_mirza]

Vedic Sanskrit developed Independently in India

So Vedic Sanskrit is an independent language that has no proto-language/root form and hence, no relation whatsoever to other indo-European languages? Really??

Of course, you've dug yourself into a hole now. The only real way out is by you suggesting "I'm not saying it's unrelated to indo-European languages. In fact, it is probably the precursor for those languages".

The only possible way for you to defend Sanskrit as a native Gangetic language (n.b. I'm not debating whether it's Indus or Ganges at present - I'm declaring it originated from outside the subcontinent - indeed most scholars believe the Indus script unrelated directly to Sanskrit; but that's a different debate) is by defining it as the source of westerly indo-European languages. It cannot be a coincidence that so many European languages share fundamental lexiconical properties, syntax and grammar with Sanskrit. There must be some relationship, therefore, either there was a common precursor outside the subcontinent OR Sanskrit is itself the progenitor of all others (and curiously it ONLY flowed westward!).

So let's address the possibility that Vedic Sanskrit gave rise to all the westerly tongues that are related to it, since you're excluding a common precursor that existed outside of Hindustan.

"The lexicon of the Indo-European languages quite simply suggests that the people who spoke the language ancestral to Sanskrit were not all that familiar with the features of the Indian subcontinent. The words they had suggest that they lived elsewhere.

They had words for trees like ash, apple, oak, linden, aspen, pine, but nothing for palm tree or sandalwood, for example. They knew animals:bear, wolf, hound, turtle, elk, deer, trout/salmon[16], rabbit, horse, cow, but no words can be reconstructed for tiger or elephant. They had words forsnow but none for typhoon or monsoon.[17] While there are a number of competing proposals for locating the Indo-European homelands, these focus on steppe or woodland territories from Northern Europe, the Ukraine, and Anatolia. The reconstructed lexicon of Indo-European does not suggest that they came from a tropical or subtropical area.[18]

And, by contrast, in the Dravidian languages

, most of which are spoken in southern India, words can be reconstructed for trees like banyan, neem, coconut, mango, palmyra and tamarind; crops like rice paddy, yam, banana, sugarcane, and ginger, and animals like tiger, elephant, mongoose, cobra and monkey.[19] The people who originally spoke Sanskrit had no names for any of those tropical animals or plants. This suggests that the Dravidian languages were first spoken in a place where rice paddies, cobras, and ginger could be found. Unlike the Sanskrit homeland, the homeland of the Dravidian languages seems tropical or subtropical, and looks a lot like India.

Sanskrit, in turn, borrowed many of these words, even borrowing certain Munda and Dravidian sounds.[20] Sanskrit words for which Dravidian etymologies are certain include kulāya, "nest", kulpha, "ankle", daṇḍa, "stick", kūla, "slope", bila, "hollow", and khala, "threshing floor".[21] According to F. B. J. Kuiper, approximately 4% of the lexicon of the Rig Veda is not Indo-European, but was borrowed from Dravidian or Munda languages

.[22]

There were bears and wolves, but no cobras or tigers, where the language ancestral to Sanskrit was spoken. While Sanskrit is foundational to the languages and culture of northern India, its own ancestors came from outside the region.[23]"

In other words, IF Sanskrit was native to the gangetic plains, it would not need loan words for the above scenarios from Dravidian languages. IF Sanskrit itself was a precursor for westerly languages, we would see Dravidian loan words in European lexicons.

For individuals who are not preconditioned by a certain agenda to define Sanskrit as Indian for political benefits, all of the above is pretty straightforward and acceptable. Brahminist folk have an existential problem with accepting this because to accept Sanskrit as a gift of migrants/invaders dilutes ALL other saffronist arguments against ANY other migrant/invading group - I.e. Muslim innovations in the subcontinent must then have equivalent legitimacy as Brahminist ones; quranic Arabic is as "Indian" and "legitimate" for the sons of the subcontinent as Vedic Sanskrit! We all know what's going on here. No need to dress it up as anything remotely academic.

Your bizarre insistence on the absence of Sanskrit words in other languages is actually unfounded. Multiple words are noted as far afield as Greece and Ireland that are derivatives of the same root as Sanskrit ones.

The Sanskrit Connection: Keeping Up With the Joneses

This webpage is for Dr. Wheeler's students in history of the English Language. It includes information on William Jones, Sanskrit, and proto-Indo-European.

web.cn.edu

There must be a common source (the ONLY other explanation beyond divine coincidence is that a Sanskrit was the root, which is a ridiculous assertion as I said previously....but feel free to believe that for whatever agenda you may have to serve). That proto-Sanskrit is not spoken in its ancient form in the postulated source regions presently (pontic steppe or east Europe) is irrelevant and unsurprising. Ancient languages die out routinely, not unusually. Anglo-Saxon precursors of English died out in Saxony, though its descendant (English) survived to dominate the world. Sanskrit survived due to religious devotion in the subcontinent.

 

[Chhatrapati]

So Vedic Sanskrit is an independent language that has no proto-language/root form and hence, no relation whatsoever to other indo-European languages? Really??

Of course, you've dug yourself into a hole now. The only real way out is by you suggesting "I'm not saying it's unrelated to indo-European languages. In fact, it is probably the precursor for those languages".

It doesn't matter, and I'm not the one who dug into a hole claiming, Sanskrit very well originated outside India. The only connecting link to Proto Indo Iranian language is Rig Veda, that's it. Nobody even knew what language was spoken apart from Avestan which came much later after Sanskrit.

We can go back and forth over this, but without absolutely no evidence of usage of Sanskrit outside the Indian subcontinent, you got nothing but theories and hypotheses.

Which is the premise of this whole Basmati rice patent issue that Sanskrit is not even an Indian language so Basmati is not Indian and yada yada.

The only possible way for you to defend Sanskrit as a native Gangetic language (n.b. I'm not debating whether it's Indus or Ganges at present - I'm declaring it originated from outside the subcontinent - indeed most scholars believe the Indus script unrelated directly to Sanskrit; but that's a different debate) is by defining it as the source of westerly indo-European languages. It cannot be a coincidence that so many European languages share fundamental lexiconical properties, syntax and grammar with Sanskrit. There must be some relationship, therefore, either there was a common precursor outside the subcontinent OR Sanskrit is itself the progenitor of all others (and curiously it ONLY flowed westward!).

We don't even know what the Indus script says, the only book on history, geography, and general chara of the public is only found in the Hindu texts up until 400-500BC, either Hindus were not really of the record-keeping type or must have been destroyed in the invasions followed. By the way, how many European languages share a fundamental lexicon with Sanskrit or Syntax? Whatever fundamental lexicon means. The answer is zero. Sanskrit grammar i.e SOV is followed throughout India.
It is nothing surprising if Sanskrit flowed westward because East was desert and mountains for thousands of miles with not many people who live there.
Now I'm not saying it did, or it did not, but there is certainly influences of Sanskrit, although none of which show any definitive proof for Sanskrit being used in any form outside India.

They had words for trees like ash, apple, oak, linden, aspen, pine, but nothing for palm tree or sandalwood, for example. They knew animals:bear, wolf, hound, turtle, elk, deer, trout/salmon[16], rabbit, horse, cow, but no words can be reconstructed for tiger or elephant. They had words forsnow but none for typhoon or monsoon.[17] While there are a number of competing proposals for locating the Indo-European homelands, these focus on steppe or woodland territories from Northern Europe, the Ukraine, and Anatolia. The reconstructed lexicon of Indo-European does not suggest that they came from a tropical or subtropical area.

haha this is fun, no words for Elephant really? What's Gaja, then? Or Hastina. I'd love to talk about more, but meh. This is the funniest, there was no word for Monsoon but there is the word for snow. Monsoon is a recent word, used by sailors who traded with India. Sanskrit don't need to specifically mention Monsoon, just like there is no word for "Potato" in Sanskrit, there is no Monsoon in Sanskrit either.

Sanskrit, in turn, borrowed many of these words, even borrowing certain Munda and Dravidian sounds.[20] Sanskrit words for which Dravidian etymologies are certain include kulāya, "nest", kulpha, "ankle", daṇḍa, "stick", kūla, "slope", bila, "hollow", and khala, "threshing floor".[21] According to F. B. J. Kuiper, approximately 4% of the lexicon of the Rig Veda is not Indo-European, but was borrowed from Dravidian or Munda languages

.[22]

As much as I respect Kulper's works, I don't think this is accurate, for one, the oldest known Dravidian (Tamil) text is from around 500 BC. Around the same age when Sanskrit grammar was made into a written format and Buddha's time. We have around 1300 years of history missing, so to say Rig Veda has words from the Dravidian language doesn't make sense. Now Tamil is known to be as old as Sanskrit or even more (depending on the person you ask). But interestingly, Rig Veda doesn't mention any contact with a tribe or supposed natives.

In other words, IF Sanskrit was native to the gangetic plains, it would not need loan words for the above scenarios from Dravidian languages. IF Sanskrit itself was a precursor for westerly languages, we would see Dravidian loan words in European lexicons.

Based on another wild conjecture that Dravidian (Tamil) languages are in fact older than Sanskrit or of around the same time as Sanskrit which developed back to back. I'm not even going to touch Munda language that is related to South East Asian languages, and by Linguistic accounts it split from Austroasiatic language around 4000 years ago, much later to Rig Vedas.

There were bears and wolves, but no cobras

Oh god, this is exhausting. Naga is the Sanskrit word for Cobra, Which you can find as the Scientific name of the Indian cobra Naja naja.

For individuals who are not preconditioned by a certain agenda to define Sanskrit as Indian for political benefits, all of the above is pretty straightforward and acceptable. Brahminist folk have an existential problem with accepting this because to accept Sanskrit as a gift of migrants/invaders dilutes ALL other saffronist arguments against ANY other migrant/invading group - I.e. Muslim innovations in the subcontinent must then have equivalent legitimacy as Brahminist ones; quranic Arabic is as "Indian" and "legitimate" for the sons of the subcontinent as Vedic Sanskrit! We all know what's going on here. No need to dress it up as anything remotely academic.

Your bizarre insistence on the absence of Sanskrit words in other languages is actually unfounded. Multiple words are noted as far afield as Greece and Ireland that are derivatives of the same root as Sanskrit ones.

It is an interesting perspective I give you that, when you can't connect certain Sanskrit words, you easily arrive at the conclusion that they are adopted from other languages, but then did Dravidian language exist before Sanskrit or after Sanskrit? Is itself a widely debated topic with no definitive proof or answer. Interestingly, the existing "Dravidian" languages are a mix of Sanskrit and Tamil while Tamil is distinct from Sanskrit and is the oldest.

Next time do a little more research instead of embarrassing yourself quoting shoddy blogs. Not only the said words exist in Sanskrit, like say elephant or cobra, but they are in the first known Sanskrit texts like Rig Veda. Don't tell me they are copied from Dravidian languages whose origin is even more complicated and debatable than Sanskrit.

 

[masterchief_mirza]

By the way, how many European languages share a fundamental lexicon with Sanskrit or Syntax? Whatever fundamental lexicon means. The answer is zero

Bull. You're proving your net worth to this forum with every pointlessly belligerent post.

Analytical Comparison of the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and Teutonic Languages, shewing the original identity of their grammatical structure

Issue of Amsterdam Classics in Linguistics, 1800–1925

benjamins.com

Read a book or two. Plenty of grammatical similarities exist between Sanskrit and a number of European languages. You keep obfuscating this harsh truth by demanding an identical word in some modern foreign language. Guess what mate, you're always going to "win" your little circle jerk with yourself that way. Catch up with reality. The relationship between Sanskrit and European languages - some classical, others new - exists. Be proud of it, instead of dismissing it. You're linked to ancient Greece, Rome and Europe through a common precursor. Why the shame? I don't get it. Do you think the Greeks also feel ashamed because the stem of their great language came from outside of Greece?

This is becoming a pointless argument as you are simply in denial.

The rest of your nitpicking exercise shows a few exceptions that simply emphasise the rule.

Carry on mate just as you are.

Greek - a book on Sanskrit grammar - Zabaan School for Languages

Of all the Indo-European languages, ancient Greek and Sanskrit are undoubtedly the two which exhibit the clearest signs of originating from one common ancestral language. T

www.zabaan.com

I mean there are loads of blogs, books and articles on the subject. So take your pick if you don't like the specific details of one I posted.

Or just stick your fingers in your ears and go "la la la la".