07 Mar 2015
Approximately three billion people around the world speak languages that are part of the Indo-European family. Languages such as Hindi, Russian, Spanish and English, along with ancient Greek and Roman, are all related. Researchers universally agree on the connection between these languages, but debate has raged for centuries regarding the original language of them all.
The DNA research discloses the movement of people rather than the origin of language, however, the two are intrinsically connected. The huge study by the University of Adelaide has been carried out in partnership with researchers at the Harvard Medical School.
“This new study is the biggest of its kind so far and has helped to improve our understanding of the linguistic impact of Stone Age migration…using genome-scale data from more than 90 ancient European people, ranging from 3000-8000 years old, we were able to trace these people’s origins,” said Dr Wolfgang Haak of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) at the University of Adelaide.
A ‘Eureka moment’
Genetic profiling has previously revealed overwhelming similarities between Stone Age populations spread from Turkey to Europe. Co-author of the study, Professor Alan Cooper of The ACAD has concluded that people in these regions must have the same ancestral origins.
However, the most surprising development in the latest research, and one described by the researchers as a “Eureka moment” was the discovery of a third ancestry component migrating from Russia sometime later than 4500 years ago. The evidence tallies with that of linguists who have proposed a more recent spread of Indo-European languages.
An alternative – Sanskrit as the original language
Another theory is that the original language is already well-known but researchers are investigating the result rather than the cause? Could that language be Sanskrit? After all, a huge number of languages are comprised of Sanskrit derivatives or littered with an overwhelming number of Sanskrit words. Yet scientists still hope to find an alternative so-called precursor to Indo-European languages that is found nowhere in ancient script or oral tradition.
The Sanskrit language alphabet is comprised of 50 sounds and letters, and 11,000 word roots. In comparison with English, which has approximately 500,000 words, Sanskrit has 1700 root verbs, 80 suffixes and prefixes and 20 declensions which are used in roughly 74,000,000 words. In fact, an infinite number of Sanskrit words can be constructed by using grammatical processes. Many scholars during the past two hundred years have declared that the intricate and ancient Sanskrit language is the linguistic precursor and not simply part of a separate evolution of language.
Former Professor of Asian Civilisation at the Australian National University, A.L. Basham, sheds further light in his book, The Wonder That Was India.
“One of Ancient India’s greatest achievements is her remarkable alphabet, commencing with the vowels and followed by the consonants, all classified very scientifically according to their mode of production, in sharp contrast to the haphazard and inadequate Roman alphabet, which has developed organically for three millennia,” Professor Basham wrote.
When understood in this way, there can only be one of two conclusions – either people who spoke Sanskrit disseminated the language to all corners of the world, or Sanskrit was once the main language all over the world and traces linger on in modern languages all around the planet.
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