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.

And 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 refine 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 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 quit 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 Indian

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 philologist 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,

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 of 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 farther.

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

been 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 with 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,

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 sight

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 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 he 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 learn 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 historian

believe that this Proto-Indo-European

might have been spoken by
people in the Caucuses.

The word Caucasian is referring
really to these people

from that Caucuses 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 In…

you could also talk
about Indo-Aryan tribes

which eventually would settle into Persia

and into Northern India.

These we believe are all connected.