University of Algiers 2 Module: Linguistic theories

Faculty of foreign languages and Literature 2nd Year

Department of English Dr L.Merzougui

Indian tradition: the discovery of Sanskrit

From Vedic times (the period in the history of India during which the Vedas, the oldest
sacred texts of Hinduism, were being composed.), India has given a prominent place for
language studies.
It is well known that Ancient Indian grammarians and first and foremost, Pāṇini, followed by
numerous commentators, have provided a fascinating description of the structure of
Sanskrit, anticipating many achievements of modern linguistics, only rediscovered as late as
in the twentieth century.
The fact that Sanskrit was codified in Panini's grammar in non-metrical sutras (a rule in
Sanskrit literature) in perhaps 500 BCE, Though modern linguistics as developed and
practised in the west since the early nineteenth century is inextricably linked both to the
`discovery' of Sanskrit by the British scholar William Jones in the late 18th century (1785).
Moreover, the discovery of Sanskrit grammar by European scholars revolutionized the study
of the grammar of European languages in the 18th century. Sir William Jones (1746–1794
CE) was one of the first scholars to notice the deep similarity between Greek, Avestan (the
language of the Parsis) and Sanskrit, and proposed that these languages originated from the
same ancestor. After this, Sanskrit was mentioned in relation to practically all modern
European languages in the family of ‘Indo-European’ languages, and there is no literature in
any other ancient European language, which is comparable to the extent of antiquity or
Vedic literature.

Characteristics of Indian linguistics: Indian language showed a great superiority to its

counterpart of western traditional grammar; this tackles two main aspects:
Phonetics: Sanskrit's sound system is much better than most modern languages (such as
English), and its excellent quality sings the prose songs written in this language too.
Morphology: Many sages organized the grammar of Sanskrit, and their endeavours were
concluded in Rishi Panini’s masterpiece ta Ashtadhayi (about 450 BC), a small grammar book
containing fewer than 4000 pithy rules.