> The word Sanskrit means completed, refined,
perfected. Sum (Complete) + krt (created). Virtually every Sanskrit >student
in India learns the traditional story that Sanskrit was created and then refined
over many generations
>(traditionally more than a thousand years) until it was considered
complete and perfect. The original crude language >from
which Sanskrit was derived could be Prakrit.
Alpana:
You are right. The
above statement is taken from one of the websites you referred. The above
statement seems to explain it better. The
original crude language from which Sanskrit was derived could be Prakrit. Our modern Indian languages also are derived from this original crude lanugae called Prakit. So from the
same original crude Prakit language one branch(es) became our modern Indian
languages and the other branch became more refined and structured and became
Sanskrit.
Now if we keep our conception to
this, everything would seem clear. But the problem is sometimes some scholars
would throw the word Sanskrit even to the poriginal Prakit and thrhow
statements that all our languages are actually derived from Sanskrit. That is
when people get confused. But once we know the basics, it should be
clear.
At least that is how I undertstand.
Thanks for the sites. Those are great.
Barua
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 3:55
PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] Asom or Oxom,
phonetically speaking
Barua: Thanks for your note.
I might have to get back to you later if these simple sites are not
convincing. In simple words, Sanskrit was too hard for the commoners, so they
had to use some 'aprabhramsha'(?) - words in simpler form were created
which in turn became 'Prakrits' - meaning actual words instead of them
being abstract. But the origin of these still came from Sanskrit.
There is a new school of philosophy comprised of different
researcheres, who believe that the 'Prakrits' are as original as
Sanskrit, to which like many traditional thinkers (who have provided enough
evidences), I don't apparently :) belong.
Please refere to this web site:
http://www.fact-index.com/s/sa/sanskrit.html, where it says "Sanskrit is
also the ancestor of the prakrit languages of India."
Also this: http://www.fact-index.com/p/pr/prakrit.html., -
it says: "We might say that the Prakrits are to Sanskrit as Vulgar Latin and
the Romance
languages are to Classical Latin."
From: "Rajen Barua" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Rajen
Barua" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,"Alpana B. Sarangapani"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> CC:
<assam@assamnet.org>,<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject:
Re: [Assam] Asom or Oxom, phonetically speaking Date: Fri, 10
Mar 2006 09:52:33 -0600
Alpana:
I hope you
could see and clarify the point I was making. Modern Indian languages did
not come through Sanskrit. These came through the Pakrits. Sanskrit remained
fixed in time as a written language because people stopped speaking it on
the street. It is only in modern times that these Indian languages are
using Sanskrit as a rich source of old words which were retained by
Sanskrit. Thus when I say Sanskrit is a dead language I did not say that in
a derogatory sense. A language is called dead, ie not living, when nobody
claim that language as a mother tongue. No mother speaks in Sanskrit to her
child today. That is it. Otherwise, yes, there is a huge literature in
Sanskrit not to speak of huge Hindu scriptures (which is however in Vedic
Sanskrit language). I have also heard there some Sanskrit speaking
clubs. I wrote this because I got the impression that you may
be thinking I am writing against the Sanskrit language itself. That is
far from it. I love Sanskrit. I think you have seen the following tribute to
the Sanskrit language by Sir William Jones:
"The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of 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
not 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 the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the
same origin with the Sanskrit; and the old Persian might be added to the
same family..."
But my point is let not this
beautiful language try to change our simple Assamese language from the top
because that will create a huge gap what people are speaking on the street
and what is being written by the scholars. A language should develop and
flow from and by the people on the street. If Assamese are to loose the X
sound tomorrow, let the people on the street loose it, but not because some
Sanskrit lover Assamese scholars are Sanskritising the Assamese
language from the top. Xongkordev was a great Sanskrit scholar, but he
chose to write in Assamese-Brojawoli and he did it without any influence
from Sanskrit. Probaly you know that he was the first to use the word
OXOM in the Kirton.
That is my point.
Barua
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 1:19
PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] Asom or Oxom,
phonetically speaking
>They had to
come through Sanskrit (panini's grammar
600-650 B.C.).
Alpana:
No. This is not correct.
Please read that chart again. The Sanskrit (Panini's grammar 600-650BC) is
actually shown as a dead end. The languages are actually coming from the
other branch (where Sanskrit is not there) the old Prakits : Sauraseni,
Prachya etc and ultimately Magdhi, Rajasthani, etc.
Please read the chart
again again and you will see what I am saying. Even than if you have
question, I can clarify.
Thanks for the
site.
Barua
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006
11:21 AM
Subject: Re: [Assam] Asom or Oxom,
phonetically speaking
>history of the Indian
languages carefully. It is tricky. Sanskrit, by definition, is a dead
>language, which means it ended in itself. As such none of the Indian
>regional languages are derived from Sanskrit. None.
Assamese, Bengali, Oriya and all >the Indo-Aryan languages in India
are derived from different Pakrit languages like
http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/B_0137.HTM
Please see the chart in the
above web site.
You can say the Indo-Aryan
languages came from the Ancient
Prakrit (800 B.C., Old/spoken
Indo-Aryan) languages, yes. But they did not come
directly from there. They were NOT Assamese
or Bengali then or the other modern Indian languages that we have
now. They had to come through Sanskrit
(panini's grammar 600-650 B.C.).
Sanskrit is from 600/650 B.C.
and the ancient Prakrit (old spoken Indo-Aryan) is from 800 B.C., which
is also dead and from which Sanskrit itself came from. They
themselves are dead but their descendents are the modern
languages.
So the argument:
>language, which means it
ended in itself. As such none of the Indian >regional languages
are derived from Sanskrit. None. Assamese, Bengali, Oriya and
does not hold any water. One
can say Sanskrit itself came from the ancient Prakrit languages
(old/spoken Indo-Aryan). But to become the modern Indo-Aryan languages
like Assamese, Bengali, Oriya, etc. they had to come through
the stages of which Sanskrit was a main one.
Latin has become a
dead language, but isn't it a fact that the modern Indo-European
languages are descended from it??
Both Latin and Sanskrit are
dead languages but are still alive in new forms.
Disclaimer: >From a non-
expert (on languages, in this case) who trys to dig up
and put forward vaild arguments against something that sounds outrageous
sometimes, but is always open to accept counterarguments.
:-)
From: "Rajen Barua" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Ram
Sarangapani" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> CC:
[EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
assam@assamnet.org Subject: Re: [Assam] Asom or Oxom,
phonetically speaking Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 12:46:06
-0600
Ram:
Thanks for the site. It
is great.
Regarding Assamese and
other languages coming from Sanskrit, please read the history of the
Indian languages carefully. It is tricky. Sanskrit, by definition, is
a dead language, which means it ended in itself. As such none of the
Indian regional languages are derived from Sanskrit. None.
Assamese, Bengali, Oriya and all the Indo-Aryan languages in India are
derived from different Pakrit languages like Magadhi, Sauraseni, etc.
Now these Pakrit languages are derived from some Vedic and pre Vedic
languages. Sanskrit itself was one language which was derived from
some pre Vedic language. However, Panini standardized Sanskrit and
made many changes phonetically (we lost X sound) and
grammatically. However due to Panini's strict rules, Sanskrit
remained as a fixed written language, fixed in time forever. That is
why it is called a dead language.
From above, it should be
very clear that Sanskrit cannot be the mother language on any of the
Indo Aryan languages: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Marthi etc.
Sanskrit can be strictly speaking a cousin language.
But if a dead language
can have power, it is Sanskrit which have been influencing the Indians
greatly. Many educated Indians (I mean scholars) make the
mistake again and again. How many times you will hear Indians stating
that all Indian languages are derived from Sanskrit etc. Technically
this is not correct. Please. Sanskrit is dead.
If we consider, Panini's
time (6th/7th century BC, Panini was from Afghanistan-Kandahar) to be
the time of Sanskrit the way we see it today, Assamese language is
much older than that. Historically it is my argument that the Assamese
XO sound was there in Assamese since 3000 BC when Narakaxur
(contemporary to Rama and Sita) established the first Aryan-Axur
kingdom in Pragjyotishpur. (Otherwise historically it
cannot get into Assamese later). If you read Kaliram
Medhi, Dimbeswar Neog and others, you will find that Assamese language
has still retained, besides the XO sound many characterisc of old
Indo-European language like Persian etc which were lost in Sanskrit
and others. With all these data, one can in fact make a
convincing argument that Assamese is older than Sanskrit, a point made
by Medhi and Neog. Assamese still has many pre Vedic words which were
lost in Sanskrit.
(When you read Banikanta
Kakaoty, please read with caution. Being a student of Dr Suniti Kumar
Chatterjee, he did not contradict anything of his master. Compared to
him, I think Neog, Medhi and Bharali are much more original Assamese
scholars.)
The bottom line is, even
Bani Kanta Kanoty has never stated that Assamese originated from
Sanskrit. If he did, read his wording again, because he cannot mean
that. But if you find any reference, I would like to see, and would
appreciate if you would forward these.
As you can see, in Assam
there is hardly any scholars left today. Have you seen any leadership
role being played by Oxom Xahityo Xobha? The one genuine scholar
left in Assam, Dr Golok Ch Goswami is probably so frustrated that he
decided not to speak in such mundane latters. But what I am saying, he
supports me specially regarding the X sound and the use of W for W-kar
in Roman script.
Another point is that
Assamese has only one O and one Ah.
Hindi and Sanskrit have A=Horso Ah, then
AA=Dirgho Ah. So when they write A, the sound
is always short Ah like U=Up. Assamese say
Onil, in Hindi they say Anil with
Ah. All the Assamese names like Anjana, Ajanta,
Archana, Anil etc, in Assamese we pronounce with
O. But the same words are pronounced with
Ah by the mainland Indians in Hindi, Sanskrit.
That is why when we write Asom, an Assamese might
pronounce Osom, but Hindi and Sanskrit will
pronounce Usom. See the spelling of the word
Dalda in Hindi. It is written as
Dolda but pronounced as
Dalda.
All these are happening
because (litikai) Assamese are trying to follow the Hindi,
Sanskrit group blindly without real that Assamese language is a much
more simpler language like Pail, and that it has its separate
originality and beauty.
We need to retain the
lost originality of the Assamese language. We need to stand up and
say, we no longer follow you mainland India blindly. We have our
originality which we need to retain.
Anyhow these
are is my points. I hope I am not confusing
you.
Rajen
Barua.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006
11:39 AM
Subject: Re: [Assam] Asom or
Oxom, phonetically speaking
Hi Barua,
I am glad the Statesman publised your article. It is quite
informative and one can lear a lot. But reading the papers and
letters to the editor, one gets the inpression, ASOM is here to stay
and the GOA is backing it up.
While browsing, I did come across several references to
Assamese as derivative of Sanskrit (you of course do not agree with
this). Some of the sources refered to Bani Kanta Kakati, Hemkox etc.
I can send you some of these if I come across them. I don't
know how authentic they are.
BTW: Here is a link that may interest you and others regarding
the "voiceless
velar fricative "
The link is very interesting and refers to Assamese also.
Interestingly, it seems the English language sometimes also uses the
voiceless velar
fricative.
Here is the
link.
Hope it is useful to
you.
--Ram
On 3/7/06, Rajen Barua <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Thanks.
The Statesman,
Kolkata has already published it. A friend from
Kolkata sent it to me.
We will have to keep
on fighting.
"Amar Oxom"
Editor Dr Nagen Saikia, Ex Oxom Xahityo Xobha President, is
preparing to publish my article in Assamese and contunue the
debate.
I think this is an
issue for Assamese lifeline.
Many have not seen it
as such yet.
Let us
see.
Thanks for your
support.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, March 07,
2006 9:04 AM
Subject: Re: [Assam] Asom
or Oxom, phonetically speaking
Good note Rajen. Hope they publish it.
c
At 8:33 AM -0600 3/7/06, Rajen Barua wrote:
Letters
to the editor
THE
STATESMAN, KOLKATA 4 March 2006
Asom
or Oxom, phonetically speaking
Sir, I am
writing this letter with reference to a decision by the Assam
government to change the name of the state to Asom. This is a
wrong decision for certain reasons. Asom is a Sanskritised
spelling and not an Assamese spelling. The proper Assamese
spelling in the Roman script should be Oxom. The Assamese
gutteral kh sound is a well-recognised velar fricative, and is
also found among other languages including Greek and Russian.
The International Phonetic Association has designated the
Greek letter, 'X', for this Assamese sound. This sound is not
represented by the letter, 'S', as written in the word Asom.
As such it is 'X' and not 'S' that should be used. Again, the
first letter should be 'O' and not 'A'. The letter 'A' is
used in Sanskrit and Hindi where they have two 'A's. In
Assamese we have only one 'A'. The correct vowel for the
Assamese pronunciation should be 'O'. The Assam government by
taking a decision to use the Sanskritised form of spelling
Asom instead of Oxom is trying to kill the proper Assamese
ethnic sound 'XO'. This will be a great letdown for the entire
Assamese people, and we request the Assam government not to
meddle with the Assamese language. If it has to change the
name, it should adopt the correct spelling, i.e. Oxom.
Yours, etc., Rajen Barua, Katy (Texas), USA, 4
March.
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