| Vedic Sanskrit | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Iron Age India | |
| Language extinction: | evolved into Classical Sanskrit by the 6th century BC | |
| Language family: | Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Vedic Sanskrit |
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| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | – | |
| ISO 639-3: | – | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. The Iron Age in the Indian subcontinent succeeds the Late Harappan (Cemetery H culture also known as the last phase of the Indus Valley Tradition According to some definitions an extinct language is a Language which no longer has any speakers, whereas a dead language is a language which is no longer spoken Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical The 6th century BC started the first day of 600 BC and ended the last day of 501 BC. List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages The Indo-Aryan languages (within the context of Indo-European studies also Indic) are a branch of the Indo-European language family ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's | ||
Vedic Sanskrit is an ancient Indian language, the language of the Vedas, the oldest shruti texts of Hinduism. "Veda" redirects here For other uses see Veda (disambiguation. If you are looking for the singer see Shruti Haasan. For other meanings see Śruti (disambiguation. Hinduism is a religious tradition that originated in the Indian subcontinent. It is an archaic form of Sanskrit, an early descendant of Proto-Indo-Iranian. Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical Proto-Indo-Iranian, is the reconstructed Proto-language of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European. It is closely related to Avestan, the oldest preserved Iranian language. Avestan is an Eastern Old Iranian language that was used to compose the sacred hymns and canon of the Zoroastrian Avesta. The Iranian languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family and its subfamily Indo-Iranian. Vedic Sanskrit is the oldest attested language of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family. The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages
From ca. 600 BC, in the classical period of Iron Age Ancient India, Vedic Sanskrit gave way to Classical Sanskrit as defined by the grammar of Pāṇini. The Iron Age in the Indian subcontinent succeeds the Late Harappan (Cemetery H culture also known as the last phase of the Indus Valley Tradition Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical Pāṇini ( IAST: Pāṇini Dēvanāgarī: sa पाणिनि a Patronymic meaning "descendant of {{IAST|Paṇi}} " was an ancient
Contents |
History
Five chronologically distinct strata can be identified within the Vedic language (Witzel 1989).
- Ṛgvedic. The Ṛgveda retains many common Indo-Iranian elements, both in language and in content, that are not present in any other Vedic texts. The Rigveda ( Sanskrit sa ऋग्वेद ṛgveda, a compound of ṛc "praise verse" and veda "knowledge" Its creation must have taken place over several centuries, and apart from the youngest books (1 and 10), it must have been essentially complete by around 1200 BC.
- Mantra language. This period includes both the mantra and prose language of the Atharvaveda (Paippalada and Shaunakiya), the Rigveda Khilani, the Samaveda Samhita (containing some 75 mantras not in the Rigveda), and the mantras of the Yajurveda. The Atharvaveda ( Sanskrit: अथर्ववेद atharvaveda, a Tatpurusha compound of {{IAST|atharvan}}, an ancient Rishi The Khilani are a collection of 98 " Apocryphal " hymns of the Rigveda, recorded in the Bāṣkala, but not in the Śākala Shakha The Samaveda ( Sanskrit: सामवेद sāmaveda, from sāman "melody" + veda "knowledge") is third (in the usual The Yajurveda ( Sanskrit यजुर्वेदः, a Tatpurusha compound of yajus "sacrificial formula' + veda These texts are largely derived from the Rigveda, but have undergone certain changes, both by linguistic change and by reinterpretation. Conspicuous changes include change of viśva "all" to sarva, and the spread of kuru- (for Rigvedic kṛno-) as the present tense form of the verb kar- "make, do". This period corresponds to the early Iron Age in north-western India (iron is first mentioned in the Atharvaveda), and to the kingdom of the Kurus, dating from about the 12th century BC. This article is about the archaeological period known as the Iron Age for the mythological Iron Age see Ages of Man. Kuru ( Sanskrit: कुरु was the name of an Indo-Aryan tribe and their kingdom in the Vedic civilization of India, and later a
- Samhita prose (roughly 1100 BC to 800 BC). This period marks the beginning collection and codification of a Vedic canon. An important linguistic change is the complete loss of the injunctive and of the modi of the aorist. The injunctive mood was a mood in Sanskrit characterized by secondary endings but no augment, and usually looked like an augmentless Aorist or Imperfect The commentary part of the Black Yajurveda (MS, KS) belongs to this period. The Yajurveda ( Sanskrit यजुर्वेदः, a Tatpurusha compound of yajus "sacrificial formula' + veda
- Brahmana prose (roughly 900 BC to 600 BC). The Brahmanas proper of the four Vedas belong to this period, as well as the Aranyakas (Āraṇyakas) oldest of the Upanishads (BAU, ChU, JUB). The Brāhmaṇa s ( Devanagari: sa ब्राह्मणं are part of the Hindu śruti literature The Upanishads ( Devanagari: उपनिषद् IAST: upaniṣad also spelled "Upanisad" are Hindu scriptures that constitute the core teachings The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upanishad ( Sanskrit: बृहदारण्यक उपनिषद् is one of the older "primary" ( Mukhya The Chandogya Upanishad is one of the "primary" ( Mukhya) Upanishads Together with the Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana and the Brihadaranyaka The Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana (JUB is a Vedic text associated with the Jaiminiya Shakha of the Samaveda.
- Sutra language. This is the last stratum of vedic Sanskrit leading up to 500 BC, comprising the bulk of the Shrauta and Grhya Sutras, and some Upanishads (E. Kalpa is one of the six disciplines of Vedanga, treating Ritual. Kalpa is one of the six disciplines of Vedanga, treating Ritual. The Upanishads ( Devanagari: उपनिषद् IAST: upaniṣad also spelled "Upanisad" are Hindu scriptures that constitute the core teachings g. KathU, MaitrU. The Maitrayaniya (Maitrāyaṇīya or Maitri Upanishad belongs to the Maitri or Maitrayaniya branch of the Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda though some texts assign it to the Sāmaveda Younger Upanishads are post-Vedic).
Around 500 BC, cultural, political and linguistic factors all contribute to the end of the Vedic period. The codification of Vedic ritual reached its peak, and counter movements such as the Vedanta and early Buddhism emerged, using the vernacular Pali, a Prakrit dialect, rather than Sanskrit for their texts. Vedanta ( Devanagari: sa वेदान्त Vedānta) is a spiritual tradition explained in the Upanishads that is concerned with the Self-realisation Buddhism is a family of beliefs and practices Pali ( ISO 15919 / ALA-LC: Pāḷi is a Middle Indo-Aryan language or Prakrit of India. Prakrit (also transliterated as Pracrit) ( Sanskrit: prākṛta प्राकृत (from pra-kṛti प्रकृति according to one Darius I of Persia invaded the Indus valley and the political center of the Indo-Aryan kingdoms shifted eastward, to the Gangetic plain. Darius I the Great (c 549 BC&ndash486 BC 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 Dārayavahuš: "Possessing goodness" Having ascended to power amidst controversy and bloodshed The Indo-Gangetic Plain also known as the Northern plains and the North Indian River Plain is a large and fertile plain encompassing most of northern and eastern India, Around this time (5th century BC), Panini fixes the grammar of Classical Sanskrit. The 5th century BC started the first day of 500 BC and ended the last day of 401 BC. Pāṇini ( IAST: Pāṇini Dēvanāgarī: sa पाणिनि a Patronymic meaning "descendant of {{IAST|Paṇi}} " was an ancient
Phonology
- This section treats the distinguishing features of Vedic Sanskrit - see Classical Sanskrit for a general account. Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical
Sound changes between Proto-Indo-Iranian and Vedic Sanskrit include loss of the voiced sibilant z.
Vedic Sanskrit had a bilabial fricative [ɸ], called upadhmānīya, and a velar fricative [x], called jihvamuliya. The voiceless bilabial fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet These are both allophones of visarga: upadhmaniya occurs before p and ph, jihvamuliya before k and kh. Visarga ( visarga) is a Sanskrit word meaning "sending forth discharge" Vedic also had a retroflex l for retroflex l, an intervocalic allophone of ḍ, represented in Devanagari with the separate symbol ळ and transliterated as ḷ or ḷh. In order to disambiguate vocalic l from retroflex l, ISO 15919 transliterates vocalic l with a ring below the letter, l̥. ISO 15919 Transliteration of Devanagari and related Indic scripts into Latin characters is an international standard for the Transliteration of Indic scripts to the (Vocalic r is then also represented with a ring, r̥, for consistency and to disambiguate it additionally from the retroflex ṛ and ṛh of some modern Indian languages. )
Vedic Sanskrit had a pitch accent. Pitch accent is a linguistic term of convenience for a variety of restricted tone systems that use variations in pitch to give prominence to a Syllable Since a small number of words in the late pronunciation of Vedic carry the so-called "independent svarita" on a short vowel, one can argue that late Vedic was marginally a tonal language. The Pitch accent of Vedic Sanskrit, or Vedic accent for brevity is traditionally divided by Sanskrit grammarians into three qualities udātta Tone is the use of pitch in Language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is to distinguish or inflect words Note however that in the metrically restored versions of the Rig Veda almost all of the syllables carrying an independent svarita must revert to a sequence of two syllables, the first of which carries an udātta and the second a (so called) dependent svarita. The Rigveda ( Sanskrit sa ऋग्वेद ṛgveda, a compound of ṛc "praise verse" and veda "knowledge" The Pitch accent of Vedic Sanskrit, or Vedic accent for brevity is traditionally divided by Sanskrit grammarians into three qualities udātta The Pitch accent of Vedic Sanskrit, or Vedic accent for brevity is traditionally divided by Sanskrit grammarians into three qualities udātta The Pitch accent of Vedic Sanskrit, or Vedic accent for brevity is traditionally divided by Sanskrit grammarians into three qualities udātta Early Vedic was thus definitely not a tonal language but a pitch accent language. See Vedic accent. The Pitch accent of Vedic Sanskrit, or Vedic accent for brevity is traditionally divided by Sanskrit grammarians into three qualities udātta
Pāṇini gives accent rules for the spoken language of his (post-Vedic) time, though there is no extant post-Vedic text with accents. Pāṇini ( IAST: Pāṇini Dēvanāgarī: sa पाणिनि a Patronymic meaning "descendant of {{IAST|Paṇi}} " was an ancient
The pluti vowels (trimoraic vowels) were on the verge of becoming phonological during middle Vedic, but disappeared again. Pluti is the term for overlong vowels in Sanskrit. Pluti vowels are usually noted with a numeral "3" (indicating length of three morae) ā3 ī3 ū3 ṛぃ Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in Phonology that determines Syllable weight (which in turn determines stress
Principal Differences
Vedic Sanskrit differs from Classical Sanskrit to an extent comparable to the difference between Homeric Greek and Classical Greek. Tiwari ([1955] 2005) lists the following principal differences between the two:
- Vedic Sanskrit had a voiceless bilabial fricative (/ɸ/, called upadhmānīya) and a voiceless velar fricative (/x/, called jihvāmūlīya)—which used to occur when the breath visarga (अः) appeared before voiceless labial and velar consonants respectively. The voiceless bilabial fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The voiceless velar fricative, informally known as the hard ch, is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the Both of them were lost in Classical Sanskrit to give way to the simple visarga.
- Vedic Sanskrit had a retroflex lateral approximant (/ɭ/) (ळ) as well as its aspirated counterpart /ɭʰ/ (ळ्ह), which were lost in Classical Sanskrit, to be replaced with the corresponding plosives /ɖ/ (ड) and /ɖʱ/ (ढ). The retroflex lateral approximant is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet (Varies by region; vedic pronunciations are still in common use in some regions, e. g. southern India, including Maharashtra. )
- The pronunciations of syllabic /ɻ̩/ (ऋ), /l̩/ (लृ) and their long counterparts no longer retained their pure pronunciations, but had started to be pronounced as short and long /ɻi/ (रि) and /li/ (ल्रि).
- The vowels e (ए) and o (ओ) were actually realized in Vedic Sanskrit as diphthongs /ai/ and /au/, but they became pure monophthongs /eː/ and /oː/ in Classical Sanskrit. In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with A monophthong ( Greek μονόφθογγος "monophthongos" = single note) is a "pure" Vowel sound one whose articulation at
- The vowels ai (ऐ) and au (औ) were actually realized in Vedic Sanskrit as hiatus /aːi/ (आइ) and /aːu/ (आउ), but they became diphthongs /ai/ (अइ) and /au/ (अउ) in Classical Sanskrit. In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with
- The Prātishākhyas claim that the dental consonants were articulated from the root of the teeth (dantamūlīya), but they became pure dentals later. This included the /r/, which later became retroflex.
- Vedic Sanskrit had a pitch accent which could even change the meaning of the words, and was still in use in Panini's time, as we can infer by his use of devices to indicate its position. The Pitch accent of Vedic Sanskrit, or Vedic accent for brevity is traditionally divided by Sanskrit grammarians into three qualities udātta At some latter time, this was replaced by a stress accent limited to the second to fourth syllables from the end.
- Vedic Sanskrit often allowed two like vowels to come together without merger during Sandhi. Sandhi ( Sanskrit saṃdhi sa संधि "joining" is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at Morpheme
Grammar
Vedic had a subjunctive absent in Panini's grammar and generally believed to have disappeared by then at least in common sentence constructions. Vedic Sanskrit grammar is the oldest attested full case and tense system Grammar of a language from the Indo-European language family. In Grammar, the subjunctive mood (sometimes referred to as the conjunctive mood) is a Verb mood that exists in many languages Pāṇini ( IAST: Pāṇini Dēvanāgarī: sa पाणिनि a Patronymic meaning "descendant of {{IAST|Paṇi}} " was an ancient All tenses could be conjugated in the subjunctive and optative moods, in contrast to Classical Sanskrit, with no subjunctive and only a present optative. The optative mood is a Grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope (However, the old first-person subjunctive forms were used to complete the Classical Sanskrit imperative. ) The three synthetic past tenses (imperfect, perfect and aorist) were still clearly distinguished semantically in (at least the earliest) Vedic. A synthetic language, in Linguistic typology, is a Language with a high Morpheme -per- word ratio The imperfect tense, in the classical grammar of several Indo-European languages, denotes a Past tense with an Imperfective aspect. The perfect aspect is variously considered either an aspect or tense which calls a listener's attention to the consequences generated by an action rather than the A fifth mood, the injunctive, also existed. The injunctive mood was a mood in Sanskrit characterized by secondary endings but no augment, and usually looked like an augmentless Aorist or Imperfect
Long-i stems differentiate the Devi inflection and the Vrkis inflection, a difference lost in Classical Sanskrit. In Vedic Sanskrit, the Devī and Vṛkīs inflections are two types of inflection of feminine ī -stems In Vedic Sanskrit, the Devī and Vṛkīs inflections are two types of inflection of feminine ī -stems
- The subjunctive mood of Vedic Sanskrit was also lost in Classical Sanskrit. In Grammar, the subjunctive mood (sometimes referred to as the conjunctive mood) is a Verb mood that exists in many languages Also, there was no fixed rule about the use of various tenses (luṇ, laṇ and liṭ).
- There were more than 12 ways of forming infinitives in Vedic Sanskrit, of which Classical Sanskrit retained only one form. In Grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages
- Nominal declinations and verbal conjugation also changed pronunciation, although the spelling was mostly retained in Classical Sanskrit. E. g. , along with the Classical Sanskrit's declension of deva as devaḥ—devau—devāḥ, Vedic Sanskrit additionally allowed the forms devaḥ—devā—devāsaḥ. Similarly Vedic Sanskrit has declined forms such as asme, tve, yuṣme, tvā, etc. for the 1st and 2nd person pronouns, not found in Classical Sanskrit. The obvious reason is the attempt of Classical Sanskrit to regularize and standardize its grammar, which simultaneously led to a purge of Old Proto-Indo-European forms.
- To emphasize that Proto-Indo-European and its immediate daughters were essentially end-inflected languages, both Proto-Indo-European and Vedic Sanskrit had independent prefix-morphemes. Such prefixes (especially for verbs) could come anywhere in the sentence, but in Classical Sanskrit, it became mandatory to attach them immediately before the verb. There was a similar development from Homeric Greek to Classical Greek: see tmesis. Tmesis (from Ancient Greek grc τμῆσις tmēsis, "a cutting" temnō, "I cut" is a linguistic phenomenon or
See also
Notes
References
- Ernst Wilhelm Oskar Windisch, Berthold Delbrück, Die altindische Wortfolge aus dem Catapathabrahmana [1]
- A. The main principle of Vedic meter is measurement by the number of syllables The Vedic Period (or Vedic Age) is the period in the History of India during which the Vedas, the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism, were being A Vedic Word Concordance ( Sanskrit: Vaidika-Padānukrama-Koṣa) is a multi-volume concordance of the corpus of Vedic Sanskrit texts A. Macdonell, Vedic Grammar (1910)
- A. A: Macdonnell, Vedic Grammar for Students
- Bruno Lindner, Altindische Nominalbildung: Nach den S̆amhitas dargestellt (1878) [2]
- Michael Witzel, Tracing the Vedic dialects in Dialectes dans les litteratures Indo-Aryennes ed. Michael Witzel (born July 18, 1943 at Schwiebus, Germany now Poland is Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University, United Caillat, Paris, 1989, 97–265. Prof Dr Colette Caillat (1921–2007 was a French professor of Sanskrit and Comparative grammar.
External links
- index of Vedic texts (TITUS)
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