Sanskrit is the genetic mother of all human languages.
the verdict
REFUTED
the evidence says no
refutedsupported
the weight of evidence
0 sources for · 2 against
AS REPORTEDno primary record reached; this is what the reporting says
Reference works and linguistic explanations clarify that the notion of Sanskrit serving as the genetic mother of all human languages is a persistent misconception refuted by philological consensus.
The first person to indicate very briefly the existence of the Indo-European family, though he gave it no distinctive name, was Sir William Jones in his address to the Bengal Oriental Society in 1786. Being a skilled linguist, he recognized that Sanskrit must be of the same origin as Greek, Latin, Teutonic (Germanic) and possibly Celtic (Asiatic Researches, i. p. 422; Works of Sir W. Jones, i. p. 26, London, 1799). Unfortunately Sir William Jones’s views as to the relationship of the languages were not adopted for many years by later investigators. He had said quite definitely, “No philologer could examine them all three (Sanskrit, Greek and Latin) without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which perhaps no longer exists.” Friedrich Schlegel, who learnt Sanskrit from Alexander Hamilton in Paris nearly twenty years later, started the view that Sanskrit, instead of being the sister, was the mother of the other languages, a mistake which, though long since refuted in all philological works, has been most persistent. Curiously enough the history of the names given to the family is obscure.
# Is Sanskrit really the mother of all languages?
- Tags: historical-linguistics, indo-european, sanskrit, origin-of-language, indo-aryan
- Score: 26
- Views: 33,270
- Answers: 3
- Asked by: Jvlnarasimharao (1,248 rep)
- Asked on: Sep 4, 2019
- Last active: Nov 8, 2019
- License: CC BY-SA 4.0
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## Question
Hindus believe that "Sanskrit is the mother of all Languages".
It is a fact that Sanskrit has enriched most Indian Languages including the Dravidian Languages such as Telugu, as Latin enriched some languages like English.
Since Hinduism is believed by some people to be the oldest recorded religion in the world and Sanskrit was the language of the people those days, do linguists agree that Sanskrit is the mother of all languages, or do they consider it a myth?
Do you think that there must be a common language for our ancestors who might have spoken a language though it might not have been Sanskrit?
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## Accepted Answer — Score: 75
- By: Draconis (74,806 rep)
- Answered on: Sep 4, 2019
## No, it is not.
First and foremost, there are many languages recorded long before the advent of Sanskrit, and many religions recorded long before the advent of Hinduism. The oldest
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