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From: alderson@netcom11.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Subject: Re: sanskrit
In-Reply-To: menglund@mum.edu's message of Wed, 20 Nov 1996 11:04:07 +0000
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Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 02:54:13 GMT
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In article <3292E5A7.5F9B@mum.edu> menglund@mum.edu writes:

>What's the relationship of sanskrit to other languages?

Sanskrit is a member of the Indo-European family of languages, which is to say,
much of the grammar and vocabulary can be related by simple rules to those of
the other languages in the family.

The family comprises Celtic, Germanic, Italic, Hellenic, Armenian, Albanian,
Balto-Slavic, Tokharian, Indo-Iranian, and Anatolian.

>Origin of all languages?

Are you asking if Sanskrit is the origin of all languages?  In that case, the
answer is "No."  Or are you asking what the origin of all languages is?  That
is unknown, but was around 200,000 years ago, while Sanskrit dates from about
3200 years ago (far too late to be the origni of all languages).
-- 
Rich Alderson   You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
                of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
                logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
                know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
                as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
                what not.
                                                --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@netcom.com                               _The Notion Club Papers_
