India was the
motherland of our race and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages.The
spread of Indian culture to Central Asia and South-east Asia left a
permanent mark in the languages of these countries. It is not well known
that for a time Sanskrit had become the lingua franca of many South-east
Asian countries. Even the Indian Brahmi script was used in Malaysia and
some other parts of South-east Asia. This Brahmi was that which was used
in southern India around 800 to 1000 A.D.
The Javanese Kawi
script has been developed from the Pallava script from which Tamil,
Malayalam, Telgu and Kannada scripts have also evolved. Even a cursory
glance would show the resemblance between the scripts used in Thailand,
Laos, Cambodia, etc., with the scripts of today's South Indian
Languages.
There are also a
considerable number of Indian words in use in the languages of Southeast
Asia. For instance in the Malayasian (Malayan) language there are the
following words have been derived from Sanskrit; Bhoomiputra i.e.son of
the soil, Shurga i.e. heaven which in Sanskrit is Swarga; bangsi i.e.
flute, dhobi i.e. washerman, geni i.e. fire (agni in Sanskrit), etc
In different
parts of India, different languages are spoken. Most of the languages of
India belong to two families, Aryan and Dravidian. Languages spoken in
the five states of south India belong to the Dravidian family and most
of the languages spoken in the north are of Aryan family. The general
script of the Aryan languages is different from the general script of
Dravidian languages. The Indians also distinguish between the general
north Indian accent and general south Indian accent. Along with these
two main language families, there are other languages from the Sini -
Mongoloid family spoken in east India.The languages spoken in present
India, evolved in different phases of Indian history. In the earlier
stage of Indian history other languages were spoken. The holy books of
different religions that developed in ancient India are written in
different languages. The holy books of Hinduism were written Sanskrit.
The holy books of Buddhism were written in Pali. The holy books of
Jainism were written in Ardhamaghadi. These three languages aren’t
spoken fluently in India today, but Sanskrit is recognized as one of the
official languages of India. The modern Aryan languages are considered
to have evolved from Sanskrit. The evolvement of south Indian languages
isn’t clear. Many believe that before the arrival of the Aryans,
Dravidian languages were spoken over all India. Some of the tribes of
north India speak (or spoke in the near past) in dialects similar to
Dravidian languages. Among the present Dravidian languages of south
India, Tamil language had exerted its greatest influence on other
Dravidian languages.
