in reply to Re^4: The Germanic language form
in thread The Germanic language form

Aha, but I never said Sanskrit originated in India, did I!

I studied your link and find (so far) as follows: The more recent hypothesis A) that the Indo-European civilisation began in Kurgistan 7000 years ago instead of in India, irrespecive of whether that civilisation spoke Sanskrit or not at whatever period in history offers neither support nor counter-argument to the hypothesis B) that Sanskrit is the origin of English and so A irrelevant to B.

To put it another way Sanskrit is indeed the classical language of India, the objections you raise (or should I say link to) are only relevant to whether or not it originated in India but are not relevant to whether or not Sanskrit is the origin of English.

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^M Free your mind!

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Re^6: The Germanic language form
by Not_a_Number (Prior) on Jun 01, 2007 at 13:31 UTC

    I'm sorry, but I just don't understand how you think that this justifies your original statement 'It all started with as sanskrit'.

    As the topic so obviously fascinates you, however, might I suggest some further reading? (You will probably find these books to be rather better researched that Baron Bragg's TV series :)

    The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World by J. P. Mallory and D. Q. Adams ISBN 0199296685

    Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction by James Clackson ISBN 0521653673

[reply]
      And sorry too but I still don't understand why you still think the origin of the indo-european civilisation not being India but is geographically or otherwise Kurgish is a reasonable counter argument to the statement that English originated from Sanskrit - or what else is your argument then? That Sanskrit has been spoken in India since before English began is not in dispute by the way? Or is it?

      I am not disputing your references, I am disputing what you understand by them.

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      ^M Free your mind!

[reply]

        I think if you said "proto-indo-european" or PIE then youd avoid debate. Afaiui Sanskrit stems from the same original speech, P.I.E., that European languages stem from. But that doesnt mean that European languages stem from Sanskrit anymore than modern English stems from modern Deutsch (Hochdeutsch or more properly Standarddeutsch). Rather English and Deutsch have a common origin.

        OT: I recall that one of the tools for dating divergance of various languages includes determining what words they use for certain key words, such as "cotter-pin", and "ocean", and that other words are used to show that our languages stem from a common ancestor, like "fart". (Which reminds me of how I always get a chuckle on the highways here in Germany when I see the signs marked "Ausfahrt", while I know they mean 'exit' I cant help but think 'out fart' and the mental image of a bunch of drivers doing their best to lay a stinker when they see the sign just makes me crack up.)

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        $world=~s/war/peace/g

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