Sanskrit : A Philologist View

Sir William Jones (1746–1794) was an Anglo-Welsh philologist, was a linguistic prodigy and is reputed to have mastered 28 languages. While posted as Judge in the Supreme Court at Fort Williams in Bengal, he founded Asiatic Society and gave ten annual lectures in which he established that there is close affinity between Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and many other languages forming Indo-European family of languages. He concluded that these languages have a common origin. Jones’ famous ‘philologer passage’ — which declared a relationship between Sanskrit and several other Indo-European languages, is often cited as the beginning of Indo-European and of comparative-historical linguistics in general, but this passage is selectively quoted. The full passage is quoted hereunder:-

“Five words in six, perhaps, of this language [Hindustani (= Hindi)] were derived from from both these tongues [Sanskrit and Hindi-Urdu] but differs from both as Arabick differs from Persian, or German from Greek. Now the general effect of conquest is to leave the current language of the conquered people unchanged, or very little altered, in its ground-work, but to blend with it a considerable number of exotick names both for things and for actions… and this analogy might induce us to believe, that the pure Hindi, whether of Tartarian [Turkic and other central Asian peoples] or Chaldean [i.e. Semitic] origin, was primeval in Upper India, into which the Sanscrit was introduced into it by conquerors from other kingdoms in some very remote age; for we cannot doubt that the language of the Véda’s was used in the great extent of country which has before been delineated, as long as the religion of Brahmá has prevailed in it.

[Here begins the “philologer” passage as normally cited]

“The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either; yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists. There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family, if this were the place for discussing any question concerning the antiquities of Persia. “(Jones, Sir W. “The third anniversary discourse, delivered 2d February, 1786)

Why the passage is selectively quoted in all history books and even in popular search sites on internet ? Because Sir William Jones exposes his bias in these lines. Although, he accepts that five out of six words of Hindi are derived from Sanskrit, but refuses to accept that Hindi originated from Sanskrit. The commonality of words he ascribes to imposition of Sanskrit over Hindi by invaders. Why it was required, because geographical names of places, rivers and flora-fauna from Afganistan to Rameshwaram were in Sanskrit. There is consensus among linguists that these names do not change over a long period of time. This paradox was difficult to solve if Sanskrit was to fit their world view of language of the invaders.

There is a view among scholars that Sir William Jones seems to abandoned the scientific comparative linguistics in favor of his religious beliefs to prove a very long-standing biblical account about descent from the sons of Noah and about Mosaic chronology. Look at the following statement made by him:-

“That the Vedas were actually written before the flood, I shall never believe. ”

“Either the first eleven chapters of Genesis, all due allowances being made for a figurative Eastern style, are true, or the whole fabric of our national religion is false; a conclusion which none of us, I trust, would wish to be drawn.” (Jones’s essay “On the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India,”)

“We cannot surely deem it an inconsiderable advantage that all our historical researches have confirmed the Mosaic accounts of the primitive world … Three families migrate in different courses from one region, and, in about four centuries, establish very distant governments and various modes of society: Egyptians, Indians, Goths, Phenicians, Celts, Greeks, Latians, Chinese, Peruvians, Mexicans, all sprung from the same immediate stem. (Tenth Discourse)”

Leaving aside his religious bias, let us look closer at Jones’ linguistic methods. Noted Sanskrit scholars Max Muller’s assessment of his method is that “it was impossible to look, even in the most cursory manner, at the declensions and conjugations, without being struck by the extraordinary similarity, or, in some cases, by the absolute identity, of the grammatical forms in Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin”. Because the relationship of Sanskrit to these other Indo-European languages was so unmistakable, it was obvious to Jones (and others who looked at it) without the application of any particularly sophisticated historical linguistic method. This being the case, Jones’ methods (or lack of method) may, in fact, not be particularly instructive when it comes to looking at more challenging cases of potentially related languages where the relationship may not be so obvious. In assessing Jones’ historical linguistic methods, it is important to bear in mind not only the cases in which he mistakenly grouped unrelated languages (mentioned above), but also the cases of related languages which his methods led him to dismiss(for example Hindi and Sanskrit, or Pahlavi and other Iranian languages), and even cases he correctly grouped together but for the wrong reasons.”

It is appropriate to end this discussion of Jones’ methods with a citation which reveals just how very different his views of language relationships were from those of today:

“Any small family detached in an early age from the parent stock, without letters, with few ideas beyond objects of the first necessity, and consequently with few words, and fixing their abode on a range of mountains, in an island, or even in a wide region before uninhabited, might, in four or five centuries, people their new country, and would necessarily form a new language, with no perceptible traces, perhaps, of that spoken by their ancestors. ” (Jones, Sir W. “The eighth anniversary discourse, delivered 24 February, 1791)

Today it is generally accepted that there are no languages “with few words”, and that languages do not change so rapidly as to lose all “perceptible traces” of their ancestry in only 400 or 500 years — typically only dialect differences develop in 500 years, and even with 1,000 years separation, often the question remains of whether one is dealing with divergent dialects of a single language or with separate but very closely related languages.

Sir William Jones, a truly gifted man, conclusion that Sanskrit was a language brought in 1500 BCE by invading Aryans does not have basis in evidence. All Indian languages including Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Malyalam and Tamil have all originated from same stock as Sanskrit. Yes, Tamil too, when these languages part ways in the remote past is a matter of research. All common names in Tamil have roots in Sanskrit e.g. Karunanidhi, Ramchandran, Jaylalita so on; seventy five percent Tamil vocabulary is in Sanskrit.

Sanskrit has the largest literature of all ancient languages. It has more than 10 million manuscript available whereas Greek, Latin all put together has not more than 30000. Rigveda considered to be oldest book in the human library, has more than 10000 hymns. How it is preserved for millennium is a miracle in itself. The Sanskrit has not changed its form for thousands of years due to rigid rules of grammar. There is no evidence that Sanskrit developed out of Indian Subcontinent, whereas Rigveda, which describes Indian Geography in great details is in itself proof of origin of Sanskrit in India and its antiquity.