Re: Origin of Sanskrit (was: Mapping the Origins and Expansion of...

I agree Richard W can perhaps help. Doubt Francesco can because he makes wild claims that classical Sanskrit is not descended from Vedic. Though he gives no evidence when asked.

Mitanni IMHO shows Middle Indo Aryan features. It has satta for seven, showing assimilation from vedic sapta. Furthermore Mitanni had the stop -pt- as Wilhelm has shown. (Wilhelm, G., "Hurritisch naipti `Weidung,' `Weide' oder eine bestimmte Art von Weide," in Kulturgeschichten altorientalische Studien für Volkert Haas zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Th. Richter, D. Prechel und J. Klinger, Saarbrücken, 2001, p. 449)

Indeed there are dialects known to Sanskrit grammarians. Panini gives gives many rules which have no meaning at all unless related to living speech. For example he explains accent or the lengthening of vowels in calling from a distance, while questioning and answering or salutation etc.

Yaska and Panini also mention peculiarity in the dialects of easterners and northerners. Katyayana mentions divergences in his local areas and Patanjali mentions sanskrit words that only occur in single districts.

So the argument that Sanskrit was not a spoken language is false. It was indeed spoken very widely.

I doubt that Sanksrit was just a court language because the evidence from Sanskrit Grammarians does not support this claim.

Regards,
Shivraj

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:
>
> Read a reliable history of Classical Sanskrit. I'm sure Richard and Francesco can recommend a good one. My knowledge of Sanskrit is about at the Wikipedia level. Keep in mind that to have a polished court language, you must have a sedentary court to recite it in. AFAIK, the first evidence of Sanskrit is c. 200 BCE but writing reached again c. 3-400o BCE. Panini lived c. 400 BCE and he was the one who codified Classical Sanskrit. FInd out what court or courts he served in and you may have a clue as to exactly where Classical Sanskrit arose. My understanding is that even in Vedic Old Indic, there were regional dialects in Vedic Old Indic (see Witzel), in the form of the texts we possess, goes back to about 1,000 BCE, although the events referred to are clearly from about 500 years earlier or so. Have you read Michael Witzel's articles? If not, read them.
> The early history of Indo-Iranian has some conundrums, e.g. how do Dardic and Nuristani fit in? Are they Indian, Iranian or neither. If Indian, how early did they diverge? What if anything do they tell us about early Indic? 
> And then, there's a Twilight Zone of Mitanni Indian, Sindos Indian and possible Indic substrate in Iran.
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: shivkhokra <shivkhokra@...>
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Friday, September 28, 2012 1:15 PM
> Subject: [tied] Re: Origin of Sanskrit (was: Mapping the Origins and Expansion of...)
>
>
>  
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" <richard.wordingham@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "shivkhokra" shivkhokra@ wrote:
> > >
> > > Does Sanskrit bear no relationship to the language used in Rg Veda?
> > > If not what is Sanskrit derived from?
> >
> > The Indian languages usually described as Indo-Aryan are clearly related. What is more complicated is their precise relationships. As at least until recently the bulk of the Indo-Aryan languages of village India formed a dialect continuum, any tree may be expected to be fuzzy.
> >
> Here is an example of Sanskrit, Gatha and Pali:
>
> Sanskrit_Gatha_Pali
>
> Gatha was a language of the bards in Buddhist times.
>
> Regards,
> Shivraj
>