Unfortunately many of my books are packed at the moment. Later on tonight I'll see what I can dig up.
Where did Sanskrit originate? Is it still spoken?
Stephen
Mountain View, California
Dear Stephen:
The Sanskrit language first emerged around 2,000 to 1,000 B.C.E. (before the common era). It's one of the oldest languages still in existence, and linguists have grouped it with the Indo-European languages, such as French, German, and English, which may share a common ancestor language. It isn't entirely clear where Sankrit originated, but it probably came from the Indus Valley, in what is now Pakistan and northwestern India.
Since its beginning, Sanskrit has been used primarily by people in the upper classes of society. Educated, high-ranking men and religious scholars spoke and wrote Sanskrit, while most people used other languages (some of which may have developed from Sanskrit). The Vedas, the oldest sacred writings of Hinduism, were written in an early form of Sanskrit, now called Vedic Sanskrit.
Sometime between the seventh and fourth centuries B.C.E., the grammarian Panini standardized the language into a new form, referred to as Classical Sanskrit -- this is the Sanskrit still used today. In addition to the Vedas, many religious works, influential Indian poetry and drama, and early scientific and mathematic documents were originally written in Sanskrit.
In India today, Sanskrit is still a language of higher education and is not commonly spoken, much like classical Latin and Greek in European societies. Sanskrit is one of the 18 official languages of India, even though less than 50,000 people spoke it as of India's 1991 census. In comparison, the most common language, Hindi, is spoken by 30% of India's population of over one billion people.
India's Department of Education promotes the study of Sanskrit in schools throughout the country. Some scholars believe that every Indian language is related to Sanskrit, so learning Sanskrit can be an important background for further education. But Sanskrit has its detractors who say that it's an elitist, archaic language.
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