LINGUISTIC PRE-HISTORY OF
INDIA
THROUGH
ARCHAEOLOGICAL ROUTE
Prof. V.T.Chellam
Historian and Environmentalist
Kanyakumari
The
general belief is that Sanskrit was the earliest language of India. The claim by some sections
of Tamil world is that is as old as Sanskrit. Both these views are
born from unhistorical generalization. Therefore both views are erroneous.
W.W. Wilson of Asiatic School of Bengal,
after 1784, in the absence of archaeological evidences, long before the
discovery of Indus Valley Civilization, riding on medieval mythology of Vedic School
which had a safe placement in historical vacuum, declared that Sanskrit was the
earliest and oldest language of India. In 1787, during the third anniversary of
Asiatic School, William Jones the first European Judge in India, and the first
President of Asiatic School of Bengal, using his excellent knowledge of
European languages, erroneously thinking that all Indians except Indo-Aryans
were barbarians, imagined and formulated the famous Indo-European family of
languages. Both these theories had powerful and long lasting influence on
linguistic pre-history of India though born through unhistorical process
without the backing of archaeology.
……..Contd.
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