7 ms·

At least with Hindi and Tamil, you can be sure because they come from different language families.

quadrifoliate 6y ago
True. This may sound obvious to you, but I am not so sure about its obviousness in general in the West. A lot of western-educated people have asked me “So Hindi is the main language, and there are a lot of different dialects throughout the country, right?” – and I have no idea where to begin explaining that it's nothing like that, so I go with the time-tested “Well, it's slightly different...”
- vram22 6y ago
  > and I have no idea where to begin explaining that it's nothing like that (I have studied Sanskrit and Hindi in school for multiple years, and can understand a good amount of Marathi and Tamil.) You can say this - I think it is true, not quite verified (partly heard from older relatives, partly deduction based on observing similarities in the mentioned languages' vocabularies): Sanskrit came first - thousands of years ago. It is the language of the Vedas, 4 of India's most ancient scriptures. Many northern (including east and west) Indian languages are similar to Sanskrit and likely are descendants of it. Hindi, Gujarati, Marwari, Punjabi, Bengali, Oriya (not sure, but it sounds some like Bengali), Marathi, are some of these. Languages of Indian states further east than Bengal, called the North Eastern states, like Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, etc. may not show a lot of Sanskrit influence because they may have Oriental influence instead, such as from SE Asia, China, etc. Except Assamese may have some Sanskrit influence, also not sure of Manipuri. And of the southern states in the peninsula, Tamil has the least Sanskrit influence and is also said to be very ancient. The other three, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu, have some Sanskrit influence. Caveat: I am not a language expert.
  - bodhiandpysics1 6y ago
    Bengali is very much a descendent of Sanskrit. Assamese (and Oriya) is essentially a somewhat distant dialect of Bengali. Most languages of Asia that aren't part of the Chinese world (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and modern Vietnamese) have tons of Sanskrit or Pali (or both) in them. Tamil has lots of sanskrit in it (good examples are naka meaning finger nail, singa meaning lion, ampala from ambara meaning sky) it just has less than other dravidian languages, presumbaly because of its much older literary tradition. Literaly Malayalam looks literary Tamil, with all the words converted to Sanskrit. It's kind of funny!
    - guruparan18 6y ago
      And Tamil have long tradition of resisting Sanskirt influence. With elaborate grammar rules dictating if you must use loan words when, where and how to use them. It is more true for literary setting and never true for day-today speaking. Also, Tamil words also made into Sanskrit, don't know what it means. Languages are basically for interchanging ideas. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
      - bodhiandpysics1 6y ago
        I mean... Tamilians sort of dominated of dominated Sanskrit literature in 7th-10th centuries. Dandin, Kumarila, Shankara, Dharmakirti, Ramanujan and Madhva. Not to mention the Bhagavatapurana, which very quickly became probably the most important religious text in India! I wouldn't say Tamilians rejected sanskrit... they just kept the two seperate. There aren't very many tamilian words itself in sanskrit (mina meaning fish is the only one I can think of), but there are proto-dravidian loan words in Sanskrit.
        valarauko 6y ago
        Most of the people in that list were likely not Tamilian - Shankara was likely Malayali, Kumarila & Dharmakirti are just as likely to have been from Assam, and Madhva was Tuluva. What about the Bhagavatapurana is Tamil?
        bodhiandpysics1 6y ago
        It literally quotes the Azhvars... you're right about Malva, that was a mistake. I don't agree with a possible assamese origin of either Kumarila or Dharmakirti, and see no reason to doubt Taranatha, and in the 9th century, the distinction between Malayali and Tamil is academic.
    - msaharia 6y ago
      Assamese is NOT a dialect of Bengali. It is older than Bengali and infact the first non-Sanskrit language to which Ramayana was translated to. The Assamese script itself is in a continuous development since 5th century. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umachal_rock_inscription https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umachal_rock_inscription
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  "The situation is a lot more nuanced than that."
- kevinpet 6y ago
  "it's slightly different" confuses the issue. It seems easy to say, "actually, no, India has multiple unrelated language groups as different from each other as English is from Hindi, and I don't just mean in isolated villages"
- fromaj 6y ago
  I usually explain it as being similar to the differences in languages across Europe. If you take portuguese at one end and russian at the other and start tracing across countries, you'll notice certain similarities and patterns but also encounter a lot of unique character especially in some areas. Spanish and portuguese people might be able to understand a little of each other like tamil and malayalam speakers and so on.

True. This may sound obvious to you, but I am not so sure about its obviousness in general in the West. A lot of western-educated people have asked me “So Hindi is the main language, and there are a lot of different dialects throughout the country, right?” – and I have no idea where to begin explaining that it's nothing like that, so I go with the time-tested “Well, it's slightly different...”

vram22 6y ago
> and I have no idea where to begin explaining that it's nothing like that (I have studied Sanskrit and Hindi in school for multiple years, and can understand a good amount of Marathi and Tamil.) You can say this - I think it is true, not quite verified (partly heard from older relatives, partly deduction based on observing similarities in the mentioned languages' vocabularies): Sanskrit came first - thousands of years ago. It is the language of the Vedas, 4 of India's most ancient scriptures. Many northern (including east and west) Indian languages are similar to Sanskrit and likely are descendants of it. Hindi, Gujarati, Marwari, Punjabi, Bengali, Oriya (not sure, but it sounds some like Bengali), Marathi, are some of these. Languages of Indian states further east than Bengal, called the North Eastern states, like Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, etc. may not show a lot of Sanskrit influence because they may have Oriental influence instead, such as from SE Asia, China, etc. Except Assamese may have some Sanskrit influence, also not sure of Manipuri. And of the southern states in the peninsula, Tamil has the least Sanskrit influence and is also said to be very ancient. The other three, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu, have some Sanskrit influence. Caveat: I am not a language expert.
- bodhiandpysics1 6y ago
  Bengali is very much a descendent of Sanskrit. Assamese (and Oriya) is essentially a somewhat distant dialect of Bengali. Most languages of Asia that aren't part of the Chinese world (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and modern Vietnamese) have tons of Sanskrit or Pali (or both) in them. Tamil has lots of sanskrit in it (good examples are naka meaning finger nail, singa meaning lion, ampala from ambara meaning sky) it just has less than other dravidian languages, presumbaly because of its much older literary tradition. Literaly Malayalam looks literary Tamil, with all the words converted to Sanskrit. It's kind of funny!
  - guruparan18 6y ago
    And Tamil have long tradition of resisting Sanskirt influence. With elaborate grammar rules dictating if you must use loan words when, where and how to use them. It is more true for literary setting and never true for day-today speaking. Also, Tamil words also made into Sanskrit, don't know what it means. Languages are basically for interchanging ideas. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    - bodhiandpysics1 6y ago
      I mean... Tamilians sort of dominated of dominated Sanskrit literature in 7th-10th centuries. Dandin, Kumarila, Shankara, Dharmakirti, Ramanujan and Madhva. Not to mention the Bhagavatapurana, which very quickly became probably the most important religious text in India! I wouldn't say Tamilians rejected sanskrit... they just kept the two seperate. There aren't very many tamilian words itself in sanskrit (mina meaning fish is the only one I can think of), but there are proto-dravidian loan words in Sanskrit.
      - valarauko 6y ago
        Most of the people in that list were likely not Tamilian - Shankara was likely Malayali, Kumarila & Dharmakirti are just as likely to have been from Assam, and Madhva was Tuluva. What about the Bhagavatapurana is Tamil?
        bodhiandpysics1 6y ago
        It literally quotes the Azhvars... you're right about Malva, that was a mistake. I don't agree with a possible assamese origin of either Kumarila or Dharmakirti, and see no reason to doubt Taranatha, and in the 9th century, the distinction between Malayali and Tamil is academic.
  - msaharia 6y ago
    Assamese is NOT a dialect of Bengali. It is older than Bengali and infact the first non-Sanskrit language to which Ramayana was translated to. The Assamese script itself is in a continuous development since 5th century. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umachal_rock_inscription https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umachal_rock_inscription
srtjstjsj 6y ago
"The situation is a lot more nuanced than that."
kevinpet 6y ago
"it's slightly different" confuses the issue. It seems easy to say, "actually, no, India has multiple unrelated language groups as different from each other as English is from Hindi, and I don't just mean in isolated villages"
fromaj 6y ago
I usually explain it as being similar to the differences in languages across Europe. If you take portuguese at one end and russian at the other and start tracing across countries, you'll notice certain similarities and patterns but also encounter a lot of unique character especially in some areas. Spanish and portuguese people might be able to understand a little of each other like tamil and malayalam speakers and so on.