Originally posted by: FlauntPessimism
Hindi or Sanskrit had the sound "h" so that is not needed
And did Mizo or Munda have any name for the entire country?? No they didn't they had a very limited area called so
And Bharat is a word spoken everywhere it's a Sanskrit word not Hindi and Sanskrit has influenced not only North Indian but also South Indian words
Bhāratavarsha was first mentioned in the Hathigumpha inscription of Kharavela from 1st century AD, and he defines its boundaries in that inscription. Forgot to add that it is a Prakrit and not Sanskrit inscription. Wikipedia should have a decent translation. You should really check it out.
(For the reference, Vedas were composed around 2000- 1900 BC, and Sangam literature was composed in 4th-3rd century BC to 3rd century CE. Ashoka came a little later than Sangam but centuries earlier than Kharvela).
And since Hathigumpha inscription is in Bhubaneshwar, we should change the name of our republic to "Bhāratavarsha" and make Bhubaneshwar our honourary second capital like Mumbai is our financial capital for the sake of abosolute decolonisation.
Irrelevant to the discussion, but sound change doesn't imply that that phonemes are deleted entirely from a language. It implies that sound change happens within certain environments.
No Sanskrit speakers, before the Britishers came, would say hafta instead of saptah because that was just illogical to them.
Like Hindi speakers wouldn't say राम षे instead of राम से just because Sanskrit phonology demands the consonant र be followed by ष and ण instead of श/स and न. Ekta wouldn't make her ML be named रमण भल्ला instead of रमन भल्ला and Bengalis wouldn't pronounce ष/स but all of them should. Because Sanskrit is devavani and mispronouncing Sanskrit words is sin. And since we cannot change what was before the Britishers, we should change the Hindi language for purity's sake.
PS. You should really check out whether "Bharat" is a common lexical word in Mizo, Ao, Urdu, Bodo, Santali (all scheduled languages of the Bharatiya constitution) when you say that it is a word spoken everywhere. Mizo, the last time I checked, didn't have a bh (भ) sound/consonant. It is the official language of Mizoram. All government work in Mizoram is done in a language that doesn't have the Bha sound in Bhāratavarsha. That would be fun. Ah, even Bodo, an official language of Assam, doesn'r have that sound in its phonemic inventory.
But I am fully in favour of people altering their mother-tongues to be able to refer to their own country. So Bhāratavarsha for the win even if it is not a common word in these linguistic groups.
Just out of curiousity, if you find how Sanskrit has influenced Ao, Mizo, Misi, Bodo etc languages scheduled in the Indian constitution, please send me references? It'd be a wonderful read. Sanskrit is such a divine language. I love it.
Edited by Blueeeee - 2 years ago