Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit was an ancient language of the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European languages. It is attested in the Vedas, texts compiled over the period of the mid-2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE. It was orally preserved, predating the advent of Brahmi script
Extensive ancient literature in the Vedic Sanskrit language has survived into the modern era, and this has been a major source of information for reconstructing Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Indo-Iranian history. Quite early in the pre-historic era, Sanskrit separated from the Avestan language, an Eastern Iranian language. The exact century of separation is unknown, but this separation of Sanskrit and Avestan occurred certainly before 1800 BCE. The Avestan language developed in ancient Persia, was the language of Zoroastrianism, but was a dead language in the Sasanian period. Vedic Sanskrit developed independently in ancient India, evolved into classical Sanskrit after the grammar and linguistic treatise of Pāṇini and later into many related Indian subcontinent languages in which are found the voluminous ancient and medieval literature of Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism.
History
Prehistoric derivation
The separation of proto-Indo-Iranian language into Avestan and Vedic Sanskrit is estimated, on linguistic grounds, to have occurred around or before 1800 BCE. The date of composition of the oldest hymns of the Rigveda is vague at best, generally estimated to roughly 1500 BCE. Both Asko Parpola and J. P. Mallory place the locus of the division of Indo-Aryan from Iranian in the Bronze Age culture of the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex. Parpola elaborates the model and has "Proto-Rigvedic" Indo-Aryans intrude the BMAC around 1700 BCE. He assumes early Indo-Aryan presence in the Late Harappan horizon from about 1900 BCE, and "Proto-Rigvedic" intrusion to the Punjab as corresponding to the Gandhara grave culture from about 1700 BCE. According to this model, Rigvedic within the larger Indo-Aryan group is the direct ancestor of the Dardic languages.The early Vedic Sanskrit language was far less homogenous, and it evolved over time into a more structured and homogeneous language. The language in the early Upanishads of Hinduism and the late Vedic literature approaches Classical Sanskrit, states Gombrich. The formalization of the late Vedic Sanskrit language into the Classical Sanskrit form is credited to, along with Patanjali's Mahabhasya and Katyayana's commentary that preceded Patanjali's work.
Chronology
According to Michael Witzel, five chronologically distinct strata can be identified within the Vedic language:- Rigvedic - Many words in the Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda have cognates or direct correspondences with the ancient Avestan language, but these do not appear in post-Rigvedic Indian texts. The Rigveda must have been essentially complete by around the 12th century BCE. The pre-1200 BCE layers mark a gradual change in Vedic Sanskrit, but there is disappearance of these archaic correspondences and linguistics in the post-Rigvedic period.
- Mantra language - This period includes both the mantra and prose language of the Atharvaveda, the Rigveda Khilani, the Samaveda Samhita, and the mantras of the Yajurveda. These texts are largely derived from the Rigveda, but have undergone certain changes, both by linguistic change and by reinterpretation. For example, the more ancient injunctive verb system is no longer in use.
- Samhita prose - An important linguistic change is the disappearance of the injunctive, subjunctive, optative, imperative. New innovation in Vedic Sanskrit appear such as the development of periphrastic aorist forms. This must have occurred before the time of Pāṇini because Panini makes a list of those from northwestern region of India who knew these older rules of Vedic Sanskrit.
- Brahmana prose - In this layer of Vedic literature, the archaic Vedic Sanskrit verb system has been abandoned, and a prototype of pre-Panini Vedic Sanskrit structure emerges. The Yajñagāthās texts provide a probable link between Vedic Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit and languages of the Epics. Complex meters such as Anuṣṭubh and rules of Sanskrit prosody had been or were being innovated by this time, but parts of the Brahmana layers show the language is still close to Vedic Sanskrit.
- Sutra language - This is the last stratum of Vedic literature, comprising the bulk of the Śrautasūtras and Gṛhyasūtras and some Upanishads such as the Katha Upanishad and Maitrayaniya Upanishad.
Phonology
- Vedic had a voiceless bilabial fricative and a voiceless velar fricative —which used to occur as allophones of visarga appeared before voiceless labial and velar consonants respectively. Both of them were lost in Classical Sanskrit to give way to the simple visarga. Upadhmānīya occurs before ' and ', jihvāmūlīya before ' and '.
- Vedic had a retroflex lateral approximant as well as its breathy-voiced counterpart , which were lost in Classical Sanskrit, to be replaced with the corresponding plosives and . before the loss of voiced sibilants, which occurred after the split of Proto-Indo-Iranian.
- The pronunciations of syllabic and and their long counterparts and no longer retained their pure pronunciations, but had started to be pronounced as short and long and during the decline of Sanskrit. It partly varies by region like in southern India, including Maharashtra, people will pronounce ऋ as ru and ऌ as lru, this is pronounced according to Taittiriya Pratishakya of the Taittiriya Shakha or branch of the Yajur Veda. Virtually no region pronounces as would in vedic Sanskrit generally. Only while reciting Vedas is it normally heard. But if the Pratishakhya, i.e. the pronunciation manual, mandates it otherwise, the latter is followed.
- The vowels e and o were actually realized in Vedic as diphthongs and, but they became pure monophthongs and in Classical Sanskrit, such as ' > '.
- The vowels ai and au were actually realized in Vedic as long diphthongs and , but they became short diphthongs and in Classical Sanskrit, such as ' > '.
- The Prātishākhyas claim that the "dental" consonants were articulated from the root of the teeth, but they became pure dentals later. This included, which later became a retroflex consonant.
- Vedic had a pitch accent which could even change the meaning of the words, and was still in use in Pāṇini's time, as we can infer by his use of devices to indicate its position. At some latter time, this was replaced by a stress accent limited to the second to fourth syllables from the end. Today, the pitch accent can be heard only in the traditional Vedic chantings.
- The pluti vowels were on the verge of becoming phonemicized during middle Vedic, but disappeared again.
- Vedic often allowed two like vowels to come together in hiatus without merger during sandhi, possibly through a laryngeal /H/, such as ' ~ ' > .
Grammar