Sanskrit connections to English | World History | Khan Academy

• In the 18th century, you start to have significant interaction between the English and the Indians, especially in the East Indian Company. And as part of that, you start to have Western scholars start to really study Sanskrit and the Vedas. As they do these, it starts to really open up their mind not just to the roots of Sanskrit but also many of the Western languages, including English itself.

So, this is a quote in 1786 by the English philologist, someone who studies written languages, especially from historical sources, Sir William Jones. He wrote, “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 the verbs and in the forms of grammar than could not possibly have been produced by accident…” Let me underline that. “…than could not possibly have been produced by accident.”

So he says there’s a lot of commonality between the Sanskrit and Latin and Greek, and it’s a strong affinity, a strong connectedness that could not have been produced by accident. So strong indeed, that no philologer could examine all three without believing them to have sprung from some common source. Let me underline that. “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.”

And so when they started to study the Vedas and look at the Sanskrit, they started to realize, well maybe all of these languages are connected. And now modern-day philologists believe this very strongly the more they have studied it. Based on the connections and the grammar, and even the vocabulary and the word structure themselves, they now theorize that a parent language of Sanskrit, Latin, and the Germanic languages, and the Celtic languages recall a language today called Proto-Indo-European, which is a lost language.

But we think that Sanskrit is one of the oldest… is one of the oldest evidences that we have of that Proto-Indo-European language. Sanskrit, as of course the parent language, has evolved in different parts of India to languages like Hindi, Bengali, and Punjabi. Latin, which is also a dead language now, has evolved into languages like Spanish, Italian, and French. And English, which is considered a Germanic language structurally, but has significant influence from Latin and French, they all come from that same Proto-Indo-European root.

And just to get an appreciation for why these philologists believe this, and this is something when I first saw it, really blew my mind a little bit. I’ll show you some connections between Sanskrit words, and those of you who might be Hindi, Bengali, or Punjabi speakers, or any of these North Indian languages in India, will see the connection to Sanskrit. But what’s amazing is how these words are connected to Latin and many of the languages derived from Latin. Some of your Persian speakers might recognize some commonalities, and most importantly, the language that we are speaking right now, how to relate it to English.

And here is just a sample of some Sanskrit words that have an eerie resemblance to both English and, in some cases, Latin words. Or many cases, Latin words. I’ve just given Latin in a few of them. So, the Sanskrit “matr,” well, in English we have “mother,” and in Latin we have “mater.” And we also from Latin in English via Latin, we have words like “maternity” and “maternal,” all referring to the same idea of motherhood.

And this general trend, this “t” sound, “matr” or “mater” becoming more of a “tha” sound in English and the Germanic languages is a trend you’ll see over and over again. In Sanskrit you have “pithr,” in Latin you have “pater,” and by way of Latin in modern English we have words like “paternity” and “paternal.” But going through the Germanic languages, you have once again that “tha” sound becoming more of a “tha” sound.

And you also see this pattern as you go from this Proto-Indo-European, this theoretical language, and especially if you think about relative to Sanskrit, that you have the sound going from a “pa” to a “fa” as you go to the Germanic languages. So, “pithr” becomes, you could say it “father.” And other words. “Na” in Sanskrit…and those of you who speak Hindi or Bengali would recognize that of course, and in English, it is “no.”

“Gau,” which is still, it’s a Hindi word for cow, in English it’s “cow.” “Gau,” “cow.” “Naama,” “name.” In Latin, “nomen.” “Dwar,” “door.” This one I thought was really interesting. I didn’t know this until I started looking it up a little bit. “Anamika” is Sanskrit, and it means “anonymous.” “Kaal,” which is referring to time in Sanskrit, and in modern Sanskrit drive languages like Hindi and Bengali, it’s referring to references in time; tomorrow, yesterday. And in English, you have “calendar.”

“Naas,” and in something like, in modern languages in the sub-continent and you have “naas,” and in English, you have “nose.” “Loc” in...in English you have the prefix “loc,” as in “location” or “locate.” And then this is of course a very nice one, Sanskrit “lubh,” which means “desire,” well, in English we have the word “love.”

And this is just a sample; I encourage you to look it up more, you’ll be amazed by the connections between Sanskrit and English. And now I'm going to show you what I think is one of the coolest because it isn’t just a linguistic connection, but it is also a, I guess you could say, spiritual connection. And this is the names for the sky god from several different traditions.

So in the Vedas, they make reference to a god, “Dyauspithr,” and it’s literally referring to “Dyaus,” referring to sky. And we already talked about “Pithr” being the word for father. So it’s referring to this idea of sky father. And some of you might be getting goosebumps now when you see where this is going.

Well, in Greek, we have a very similar word; instead of “Dyaus,” we have “Zeus,” and those are very similar words. The spelling might be different, but the way it comes out of your mouth is very similar. “Dyaus,” “Dyaus,” “Zeus.” Instead of “Pithr,” you have “Pater,” once again you have sky, you have sky father, sky father right over here.

And this is another connection that blew my mind. It wasn’t obvious when I first saw it, but “Jupiter” from Latin, the Roman god, you could use “Jupiter.” This is once again instead of “Zeus,” you have “Dyau,” and instead of “Pater” you have “Pitr.” So, instead of “Dyauspitr” you have “Jupiter.” “Dyauspitr,” “Jupiter.” These are very very similar words even though the spelling seems different, the way it comes out of your mouth is very very very very very close.

And this is further evidence for the closeness between Sanskrit, between Greek, and between Latin. So once again, we have sky father. And this of course an image of… well it’s hard to tell whether that’s Jupiter or Zeus. I believe that is a picture of Jupiter. And what’s also interesting is the Vedas cite “Dyauspitr” as the father of Indra. Who’s considered the King of the gods. One of the most significant, if not the most significant god in Hinduism.

And Indra is now in, especially in the Vedas, and this is the most spoken about god in the Vedas, has many of the qualities that we now in Greek and Roman traditions associate with Zeus and Jupiter. Indra is a sky god, throws bolts of lightning. Actually eerie similarity with the Nordic god of Thor. Where Nordic people were also Indo-European people. Where Indra throws a hammer and he defeats these monsters. And all of these things, very similar to Thor.

So hopefully these… You know when I first learned this, it just kind of made me realize how connected the world is, and it started to make me start to look for patterns where I hadn’t seen them before. And it really shows how these civilizations that seemed very unconnected might have, and probably we do believe emerged and (mumbles) emerged from the same place.

Modern philologists and historians believe that this Proto-Indo-European might have been spoken by people in the Caucasus. The word Caucasian is referring really to these people from that Caucasus area there, but we don’t know for sure. And we believe that they migrated out. And so when we talk about the Germanic tribes going into Northern Europe.

The Celtic tribes going into, I guess you could say North, South, Central Europe. You could talk about the Italic, the Latin tribes, you could talk about the Greek tribes, and you could also talk about the Indo-Aryan tribes which eventually would settle into Persia and into Northern India. These we believe are all connected.