what language ? - Page 2

Originally posted by: ananyacool

Sanskrit and Prakrit (vernacular or diluted form of sanskrit) were spoken at the times of Ramayan.

When Hanuman meets Mata Sita at Ashok vatika ,he wonders what language he should use to communicate with Sitaji , he doubts that if he spoke in Sanskrit she would doubt him that he had been sent by Ravan, since Ravan was a qualified intellectual and he prominently spoke sanskrit. So Hanuman speaks in prakrit Maithil language which people spoke at Mithila ,the maternal home of Sitaji.

Again as different people spoke Sanskrit ,it ended up in being spoken in different accents so even Sanskrit sounded different when spoken in various accents and it gave rise to other languages or at least heavily inspired other languages.

Originally posted by: Vibhishna

Thanks for the information, Ananya. I never knew that Prakriti was a vernacular form of Sanskrit. I thought it was a daughter language of Sanskrit.

Any information on Devanagiri?

Originally posted by: Rajnish_Kumar

thanks 4 information ananya😛, My mother tongue is Maithil which i love to speak.
As far as I know Sanskrit was not a common language though it was formal language limited to literate people. The common folks used other regional languages. But hindi was surely not at that time. Hindi is more recent origin.

Originally posted by: ananyacool

Devnagari is referred more often when writing as a script. Ususally it was termed as the language of gods, but god here does not necessarily mean gods in heaven. In ancient era a highly educated person, a rich person , a king or one who held high positions are referred as 'Dev'. Commonly these people spoke a refined language which is Sanskrit. Devnagari and Nagari are synonyms.

Devanagari is used for writing Hindi, Sanskrit, Marathi, Nepali, bhojpuri...etc

(I am a bit busy today, will write more when I am free...)

Most welcome Chandnii, Lalitha, Vibs, Rajnish, Aradhana....

With the further progress of kali-yuga, these prakrita dialects spread more and more, up to the grade of dominating the original pure language. Finally, they were adopted even by the educated circles. The sages and scholars of that time became alarmed. Together with its language, they foresaw the dying-out of the root of Vedic culture. Thus, they invested enormous time and effort to design a standardized grammar, with the aim of preserving the devanagari language in its original purity. Although unnecessary before, this measure seemed to be the only means of counteracting the increasing cultural, intellectual and spiritual decay of the society.

The most successful, hence most prominent amongst these grammarians was Panini. His grammar, surpassing all others in tightness and precision, became the standard and remained so undisputedly until today. Panini was able to joint the original devanagari language into an exact framework of rules, thus preserving it for the posterity. Since his time, this language is called Sanskrit, "joined together, refined".

Thus, according to the Vedic version Sanskrit is not the result of the prakrita languages; rather, they in opposite have developed from the original Sanskrit language, called Devanagari"

Thanks for the language lessons, everyone, particularly Ananya. I thought during the Treta yuga timeframe, everyone spoke Sanskrit, didn't they? In fact, didn't the use of Sanskrit go down only after the end of the Dwapar yuga?

Also, all the languages we have today - Hindi, Maithili, Nepali, Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi, et al - when did they earliest come into being? Was it in Kalyug, or before? Within Kalyug, when - during the Mauryas? Guptas? Kushans? When?

Originally posted by: ananyacool

You speak Maithil! Its a very sweet language 😊

Yup Sanskrit was not spoken by all . Even the Ramayan of Valmiki was only for the elite and comman man had no access to it.