Why Sanskrit has strong links to European languages and what it learnt in India

[Chhatrapati]

LOL.

No, no, the Tadi-paar.

Our ********** in Mughalpura.

#notmy**********

 

[Nilgiri]

I'd rather see you in that very classy discussion between @ps3linux and @Nilgiri. That's where you belong, not with the lads out for a beery night and a Balti at the end of it.

Paraphrasing Dumbledore from memory:

You have all the talents that make you ideal for Slytherin Harry....

So why were you sorted into Gryffindor? ...

It is because of your choice Harry.

It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

 

[Uguduwa]

The theory is that the Sinhala are migrants from north India. In reality there may have been a few key families who brought the language across. Whatever the precise mechanism - Sinhala legend talks about a prince who went there from Bengal - after the Aryan languages of the Konkan in the west, and Odiya in the east, there are only Dravidian languages, Telugu and Kannada on the dividing line, Tulu, Tamil and Malayalam deeper down south. That is why it is disconcerting to find another Aryan language right next to Tamil (the northern part of Sri Lanka was, of course, Tamil, the home of the Jaffna Tamils).

Most Sinhalese are also genetically close to Bengalis but I agree that current Sinhalese population is a mix of southern Indians, northern Indians and native Sri Lankans (Veddas). Also there hasn't been any evidence of cities before 500bc. There have been however many hunter gatherer tribes.

I also heard that the closest language to Sinhalese is Dhivehi.

 

[Joe Shearer]

I also heard that the closest language to Sinhalese is Dhivehi.

I did not know that but it makes sense. Not perfect sense; it would be interesting to learn what is the genetic structure and what was the genetic history of the Maldivian.

 

[Vanamali]

He doesn't know the basics, and he tries arguing.

Vo Urdu ko ratta marke sikha.... Pls Don't test
his fundamentals...

 

[Joe Shearer]

Also there hasn't been any evidence of cities before 500bc. There have been however many hunter gatherer tribes.

I was crushed to learn about the current historical thinking about urban and social development in south India. Ifak you can get your hands on a book called "Social Formations of Early South India", by Rajan Gurukkal, it will underline what I mean. Gurukkal has an obvious Marxian tendency, but judging by your id, you might not find that an insurmountable obstacle.

There are other apparently path-breaking historians such as R. Champakalakshmi, M.G.S. Narayanan, Burton Stein and Noboru Karashima, but I still have to read them.

After reading Gurukkal, I went around for a few days in a mentally numbed condition, because he had just made confetti of my reading of south Indian history, based mainly on reading Nilakantha Sastry.

 

[dreamer11]

BR Ambedkar (Constitution draft) want Sanskrit as main language but sickular nehru opted Hindi, anyway we can change it to Sanskrit again by simply inserting Sanskrit vocabulary in Hindi.

 

[letsrock]

Sanskrit as a language is a product of "indomania" among nazi like germans in 18th-19th century. During that time racialism was growing in Europe and many europeans were upset that Jesus is a jew and biblical origins of humanity like Adam/Eve. There was a great search for another more ancient source of themselves. For a while it was Egypt - even now hollywood makes mystical movies about Egypt and pyramids. Later on they settled on India - Voltaire was a great proponent of "Out of India" theory.

Most of sanskrit literature they gathered was in south india but they credit it to north and later on to blonde blue eyed "aryans" from caucasian region. If brits occupied china they would have given some european origin to north chinese vs south chinese.

But this european link is very important for the self worth of a lot of indians.