This is just too funny. Apparently some new research has shown that the mother of Sanskrit and all Indo-European languages was spoken in Turkey almost 10,000 years ago. Now I’m not a language expert and in the absence of knowing better, I’ll just go with what the scientific community says. Who cares after all. It’s not as if this new research actually matters right? I mean it might be interesting from a historical perspective, but has no possible impact on us today.
Right?
Wrong! Going by the reactions of over 600 (so far) comments on the TOI article, you’d get the impression that some grand travesty has been committed. I was expecting this and headed straight to the comments section for some fun reading :D. Honestly, I didn’t even bother with the article itself. And boy was it rewarding :D
Look at this juicy sample:
Its absolutely wrong.Sanskrit itself is mother of all languages and is oldest gramatically and lofically perfect language on the earth.Here is the reference from sincere phiosophers:-Max Muller also pointed out that Sanskrit provides perfect examples of the unity and foundation it offers to the Celtic, Teutonic, Slavonic, Germanic and Anglo-Saxon languages, not to mention its influence on Asian languages. The transmission of Buddhism to Asia can be attributed largely to the appeal to Sanskrit. Even in translation the works of Sanskrit evoked the supreme admiration of Western poets and philosophers like Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau, Melville, Goethe, Schlegel and Schopenhauer. The fact is that Sanskrit is more deeply interwoven into the fabric of the collective world consciousness than anyone perhaps knows. After many thousands of years, Sanskrit still lives with a vitality that can breathe life, restore unity and inspire peace on our tired and troubled planet. It is a sacred gift, an opportunity. The future could be very bright.
Seriously? I mean you’re so invested in a language that was neither invented by you and most likely not even spoken by you. Reading your comment one will think you have some personal involvement with it…but no!
I swear – what benchmark do people use when determining what to get outraged and what not to get outraged over?
Much of TOI-let comments are just trolls, do not feed them and do not let them know you’re talking about them.
<3
Ppl are looking desperately to their supposed to be ancestral/religious heritage for something to feel proud off. That is how they see Theory of relativity in Quran and Higgs boson in Vedas. Right wing mobilisation of groups based on culture, language, nationality etc need such ‘pride’ factors to fuel their movement.
In reply to Arun
Yup – this is where they get their sense of self worth from. Seems to fill in the lack of an intrinsic worth maybe?
They are quoting Max-Muller, but castigate Max-Muller for suggesting Central Asian origins of Aryans.
Those who credit Sankskrit for spread of Buddhism should be re-reading (no sorry, reading) their history books
Most Indians on the Internet are obsessed with history. Maybe the present does not inspire pride anymore. Maybe the future is not worth striving for. Maybe we need history to provide the feel-good factor? Who knows…
I had fun reading the comments on TOI! Sooo defensive, as if Indians dropped out of the sky and started speaking Sanskrit. One of the arguments was “No one in my village comes from Turkey.”Ahahaha. And why do Jews keep getting blamed in the comments?!? I don’t understand…
“The language spread and changed over the millennia and exists today in these different forms.” I think the outrage is really about who was here (on Earth) first. I lean towards the theory that humans originated in Africa, and then over millennia migrated and colonized all parts of the world. So logically it makes sense that as people moved around, their language slowly changed over thousands of years to give us the many languages we have today. In my mind this doesn’t take anything away from Indian culture and language – the accomplishments that were there before are still there, whether or not Sanskrit was the mother/oldest/first language.
But noooo apparently this is an attack on Indian culture by the evil New Zealanders. While Indians were busy writing the Vedas, inventing the number zero (debatable) and devising the caste system, the rest of the world (Egypt, China, all of it) was living in caves and not bathing, so obviously Sanskrit was the first language. Why are these psuedo-scientists wasting time debating our obvious superiority? :P
In reply to BBD-Lite
The references to jews surprises me as well. I can’t understand it or the reasons behind it.
Also, there is the implicit assumption that older = better. So any notion that Sanskrit is a derived language pisses people off who derive their self worth from their “great Indian heritage”.
In reply to BBD-Lite
Hi, You used the phrase “debatable” to inventing zero. But against the “caste system” you left it alone! You should have added “Not debatable”!
So instead of being happy about learning something new, people actually got offended? My goodness. -__- Just because Sanskrit isn’t the oldest language, that doesn’t take away from the other contributions from Indian culture.
In reply to RenKiss
Insecure people aren’t noted for their logic. Very unappealing.
it is just not language but i have also seen people taking pride of their religion they follow and say their came in first or theirs is far more Superior that others.. i can understand there is an identity linked up with religion or community.. but why so much of boasting.. best is as always iyer-iyangar fight in tamil nadu.
In reply to ashreya
This is what happens when you link up your identity with things like this. Those “things” become disproportionately important.
Blah! I don’t have time to live with my day-to-day stuff!! I’m truly jealous how people find time for getting so worked up and researching stuff that they have no personal involvement whatsoever with! :-| Pah!
Sanskrit was never the oldest language, its the oldest LIVING language, there are thousands of languages older than Sanskrit. One would think they would get their facts right if they care so much about ‘Indian culture’! Language itself goes so far back, I doubt anyone knows what the oldest language was.
In reply to quarkle
I’m pretty sure Tamil is older than Sanskrit though…
In reply to bhagwad
bhagwad, more than a month late on this, but this statement irked me enough to comment.
I may only be slightly male chauvinist but I am easily a very rabid Thamizh chauvinist. I am so rabid, I insist on spelling it ‘Thamizh’ just to annoy people into learning how to pronounce it.
And even I don’t believe Thamizh is older than Sanskrit.
There is a very fallacious argument based on the fact that there are much older epigraphic evidence of Old Thamizh in many inscriptions all over southern India than the earliest ones for Sanskrit. Around 500BC vs 1000 AD. But this completely ignores other evidence that Rig Veda is dated to 1500 BC or earlier by many other means, especially the fact that the language is extra ordinarily similar to proto Iranian/Avestan in the Zend-Avesta. The Wikipedia article ‘List of languages by first written accounts’ acknowledges this large gap (though we should be careful about taking Wikipedia’s version as authority).
And then, if one argues that Vedic Sanskrit is not Classical Sanskrit (as frozen by Panini), then it is imperative that we treat Old Thamizh differently from Sangam Thamizh. Even though very different, Vedic Sanskrit is intelligible to me and I have been a very (very) poor Classical Sanskrit student. Old Thamizh felt like Old English to me when my dad once read some texts out to me. I couldn’t even make out if was closer to Kannada or Telugu just like Old English sometimes feels like German or Scandinavian (and rightly, some people refer to certain Old Thamizh texts as proto-Dravidian texts as to not portray modern Thamizh as the prime core of that language). Things have changed so much that I know a certain 60 year old scholar with a BA in Thamizh and she can’t understand some of the Thamizh of 18th century commentaries on the 12th century Kambar’s Ramavatharam (A retelling of the Ramayana)!
And even then scholarly opinion places Panini around 6th century BC, around the times of the oldest Old Thamizh epigraphs!
In a comment above you mentioned:
> … Also, there is the implicit assumption that older = better …
This is the sole reason for the existence of documents put up by Thamizh propagandists to claim its ancientness. Almost all information on the web or anywhere that makes the claim that Thamizh is older than Sanskrit can be traced back to the rhetoric of the Dravidian parties DK and DMK (Whom, sadly, I can’t seem to agree with on anything. Except atheism).
Even the modified claim that its the “oldest living language” is not usually scrutinized thoroughly. By the same metrics that are put forth in those views, Archaic Latin should be considered the same as modern Italian and many scholars feel that “Carmen Saliare” was like 8th century BC or something like that.
I hope you were not merely trying to be sarcastic when you replied with “I’m pretty sure Tamil is older than Sanskrit though…” as a potshot at these Thamizh propagandists.
This is my first post on your awesome blog and didn’t mean it to be this lengthy. But I hardly find anything I seem to disagree with on your blog and you know how I feel like saying something only when I have something to say!
In reply to TheSlightlyChauvinistIyer
Actually, I did think that Tamil was older than Sanskrit. Not that I care, but that’s what I’ve heard.
And thanks for dropping by :). Your blog isn’t up yet?
In reply to bhagwad
I keep worrying that my verbosity frequently distracts from my quick points. And this a case in point [insert favourite smiley here]. I’ll try to be more succinct:
Your words:
> I’m pretty sure Tamil is older than Sanskrit
> though…
Then:
> Actually, I did think that Tamil was older than
> Sanskrit. Not that I care, but that’s what
> I’ve heard.
Also from another comment:
> … Also, there is the implicit assumption that
> older = better …
Given you feel that many Indians hold the view that older is better, and there is a ton of political interest in regional exceptionalism in our dear country, shouldn’t you have been a little more careful and scrutinized “Thamizh older than Sanskrit” when you ‘heard’ it?
The moment I hear ‘greatest’, ‘first’, ‘fastest’ etc I telescope out my skeptic (and nowadays cynic) antennae.
Anyways, old thread. Let’s restart this when I stop being lazy and post on my blog.
I did not read the article or the comments, but I am pretty sure that the existence of a root language to sanskrit discredits so many things that people tend to believe and love to oppose. For instance that Aryans came to India from Central Asia and beyond. (Who cares.. no one, it doesnt matter at all in today’s world). But accepting or rejecting the theory feeds to one’s own wrongly placed sense of inferiority and superiority
In reply to Sakthi
It has to come down to insecurity. If you feel inferior in today’s present world, look to the past to get some reflected glory from other people!
This news piece challenges that reflected glory.