WEBVTT

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- In the 18th century you start to have

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significant interaction between

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the English and the Indians,

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especially in the East Indian Company.

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And as part of that,

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you start to have Western scholars start

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to really study Sanskrit and the Vedas.

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And as they do these,

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it starts to really open up their mind

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not just to the roots of Sanskrit

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but also many of the Western languages

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including English itself.

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So, this is a quote in 1786

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by the English philologist,

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someone who studies written languages

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especially from historical sources,

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Sir William Jones.

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He wrote, “The Sanskrit language,

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whatever be its antiquity,

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is of wonderful structure.

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More perfect than the Greek,

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more copious than the Latin,

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and more exquisitely refine than either,

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yet bearing to both of
them a stronger affinity

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both in the roots of the verbs

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and in the forms of grammar,

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than could not possibly have
been produced by accident...”

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Let me underline that.

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“…than could not possibly have
been produced by accident.”

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So he says there’s a lot of commonality

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between the Sanskrit and Latin and Greek,

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and it’s a strong affinity,

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a strong connectedness

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that could not have produced by accident.

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So strong indeed,

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that no philologer could examine all three

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without believing them to have sprung

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from some common source."

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Let me underline that.

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“Without believing them to have sprung

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from some common source which,

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perhaps no longer exists;

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there is a similar reason
though not quit so forcible

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for supposing that both
the Gothic and the Celtic,

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though blended with a very different idiom

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had the same origin with the Sanskrit;

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and the old Persian might be
added to the same family.”

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And so when they started
to study the Vedas

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and look at the Sanskrit,

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they started to realize

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well maybe all of these
languages are connected.

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And now modern day philologists

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believe this very strongly
the more they have studied it.

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Based on the connections and the grammar

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and even the vocabulary and
the word structure themselves,

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they now theorize that a parent language

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of Sanskrit, Latin,

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and the Germanic languages

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and the Celtic languages

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recall a language today
called Proto-Indo–European,

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which is a lost language.

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But we think that Sanskrit
is one of the oldest…

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Is one of the oldest
evidences that we have

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of that Proto-Indo-European Language.

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Sanskrit as of course the parent language

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has evolved in different parts of Indian

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to languages like Hindi,
Bengali, and Punjabi.

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Latin, which is also a dead language now,

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has evolved into languages like

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Spanish, Italian, and French.

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And English

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which is considered a Germanic
language structurally,

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but has significant influence
from Latin and French,

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they all come from that same
Proto-Indo-European root.

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And just to get an appreciation

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for why these philologist believe this,

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and this is something when I first saw it,

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really blew my mind a little bit.

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I’ll show you some connections
between Sanskrit words,

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and those of you who might be

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Hindi, Bengali or Punjabi speakers,

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or any of these North
Indian languages in India,

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will see the connection to Sanskrit.

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But what’s amazing is

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how these words are connected to Latin

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and many of the languages
derived from Latin.

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Some of your Persian speakers

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might recognize some,

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some commonalities

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and, most importantly,

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the language that we
are speaking right now,

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how to relate it to English.

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And here is just a sample
of some Sanskrit words

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that have an eerie resemblance

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to both English and in
some cases Latin words.

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Or many cases Latin words.

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I’ve just given Latin in a few of them.

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So the Sanskrit matr,

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well in English we have mother

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and in Latin we have mater.

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And we also from Latin
in English via Latin,

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we have words like maternity and maternal

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all referring to the
same idea of motherhood.

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And this general trend,

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this t sound, matr or mater

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becoming of more of a tha sound in English

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and the Germanic languages

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is a trend you’ll see over and over again.

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In Sanskrit you have pithr,

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in Latin you have pater,

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and by way of Latin in modern English

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we have words like paternity and paternal.

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But going through the Germanic languages

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you have once again that tha sound

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becoming more of a tha sound.

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And you also see this
pattern as you go from

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this Proto-Indo-European,

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this theoretical language,

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and especially if you think
about relative to Sanskrit,

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that you have the sound going from

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a pa to a fa as you go to
the Germanic languages.

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So pithr becomes, you
could say it farther.

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And other words.

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Na in Sanskrit…and those of you who speak

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Hindi or Bengali would
recognize that of course,

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and in English it is no.

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Gau which is still,

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it’s a Hindi word for cow,

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in English it’s cow.

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Gau , cow.

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Naama,name.

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In Latin nomen.

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Dwar, door.

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This one I thought was really interesting.

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I didn’t know this until I started

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looking it up a little bit.

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Anamika is Sanskrit,
and it means anonymous.

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Kaal, which is referring
to time in Sanskrit

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and in modern Sanskrit drive languages

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like Hindi and Bengali

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it’s referring to references in time;

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tomorrow, yesterday.

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And in English you have calendar.

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Naas and in something like,

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in modern languages in the
sub-continent and you have naas,

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and in English you have nose.

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Loc in...in English

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you have the prefix loc,

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as in location or locate.

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And then this is of
course a very nice one,

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Sanskrit lubh, which means desire,

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well in English we have the word love.

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And this is just a sample,

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I encourage you to look it up more,

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you’ll be amazed by the connections

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between Sanskrit and English.

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And now I'm going to show you

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what I think is one of the coolest,

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because it isn’t just a
linguistic connection,

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but it is also a,

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I guess you could say
spiritual connection.

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And this is the names

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for the sky god from
several different traditions

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So in the Vedas they
make reference to a god,

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Dyauspithr, and it’s
literally referring to

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Dyaus,

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referring to sky.

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And we already talked about Pithr

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been the word for father.

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So it’s referring to
this idea of sky father.

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And some of you might be
getting goosebumps now

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when you see where this is going.

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Well, in Greek we have
a very similar word,

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instead of Dyaus we have Zeus

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and those are very similar words.

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The spelling might be different,

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but with the way it
comes out of your mouth

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is very similar.

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Dyaus, Dyaus,

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Zeus,

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instead of Pithr you have Pater,

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once again you have sky,

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you have sky father,

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sky father right over here.

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And this is another connection

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that blew my mind.

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It wasn’t obvious when I first saw it,

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but Jupiter from Latin,

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the Roman god,

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you could use Jupiter.

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This is once again instead
of Zeus you have Dyau,

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instead of Pater you have Pitr.

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So, instead of Dyauspitr you have Jupiter.

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Dyauspitr, Jupiter.

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These are very very similar words

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even though the spelling seems different,

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the way it comes out of your mouth

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is very very very very very close.

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And this is further
evidence for the closeness

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between Sanskrit, between Greek,

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and between Latin.

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So once again, we have sky father.

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And this of course an image of…

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well it’s hard to tell whether
that’s Jupiter or Zeus.

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I believe that is a picture of Jupiter.

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And what’s also interesting is,

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the Vedas sight

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Dyauspitr

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as the father of Indra.

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Who’s considered the King of the gods.

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One of the most significant,

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if not the most significant
god in Hinduism.

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And Indra is now in,

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especially in the Vedas,

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and this is the most spoken
about god in the Vedas,

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Has many of the of the qualities

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that we now in Greek and Roman traditions

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associate with Zeus and Jupiter.

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Indra is a sky god,

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throws bolts of lightning.

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Actually eerie similarity
with the Nordic god of Thor.

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Where Nordic people were
also Indo-European people.

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Where Indra he throws a hammer

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and he defeats these monsters.

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And all of these things,
very similar to Thor.

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So hopefully these…

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You know when I first learn this,

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it just kind of made me realize
how connected the world is,

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and it started to make me
start to look for patterns

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where I hadn’t seen them before.

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And it really shows
how these civilizations

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that seemed very unconnected

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might have,

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and probably we do believe

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emerged and (mumbles)

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emerged from the same place.

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Modern philologists and historian

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believe that this Proto-Indo-European

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might have been spoken by
people in the Caucuses.

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The word Caucasian is referring
really to these people

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from that Caucuses area there,

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but we don’t know for sure.

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And we believe that they migrated out.

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And so when we talk
about the Germanic tribes

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going into Northern Europe.

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The Celtic tribes going into,

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I guess you could say
North South Central Europe.

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You could talk about the Italic,

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the Latin tribes,

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you could talk about the Greek tribes,

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and you could also talk about the In…

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you could also talk
about Indo-Aryan tribes

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which eventually would settle into Persia

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and into Northern India.

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These we believe are all connected.