After hours of breaking my head over deciphering mathematical modeling of scientific experiments, I *had* to take the much needed break. A quick stroll through the journal section of our library- viewing the beauty of the vibrant bloom of spring through the large windows- did that. Or I thought it did. The word "ariviyal" printed on a journal cover attracted me. Tamil? Here? I started reading the journal. And a break did I get. It was a recent issue of Science magazine, dedicated to language and its evolution. The stories were interesting. As many as 144 modern languages have a common root language, which linguists call PIE (Proto-Indo-European). One group says that it split into component languages 6000 years ago in a place which is now Ukraine, while another says it happened 10000 years ago in (modern) Central Turkey. But a look into the tree they have drawn, and an extended version with the text, showed me where Tamil stood in the tree. The traceable origin starts with a superfamily called Nostratic. Some well-known modern languages and their roots are given here ( > indicates evolution of language):
Nostratic > Proto-Indo-European> Baltoslavic> Slavic> East Slavic> Russian Nostratic > Proto-Indo-European> Baltoslavic> Slavic> South Slavic> Bulgarian Nostratic > Proto-Indo-European> Baltoslavic> Slavic> West Slavic> Polish Nostratic > Proto-Indo-European> Baltoslavic> Slavic> West Slavic> Czech
Nostratic > Proto-Indo-European> Germanic> East Germanic> Gothic Nostratic > Proto-Indo-European> Germanic> North Germanic> Danish Nostratic > Proto-Indo-European> Germanic> North Germanic> Swedish Nostratic > Proto-Indo-European> Germanic> North Germanic> Old Norse> Norwegian
Nostratic > Proto-Indo-European> Germanic> West Germanic> Old English> Middle English> Modern English Nostratic > Proto-Indo-European> Germanic> West Germanic> Old Dutch> Dutch Nostratic > Proto-Indo-European> Germanic> West Germanic> Old Dutch> Afrikaans Nostratic > Proto-Indo-European> Germanic> West Germanic> Old High German> Middle High German> High German
Nostratic > Proto-Indo-European> Celtic> Insular> Goidelic> Old Irish> Irish Gaelic Nostratic > Proto-Indo-European> Celtic> Insular> Goidelic> Old Irish> Scottish Gaelic
The article covers only PIE, the root for English. Not much info on dravidian and Chinese languages. Another article, on the future of language, showed a projected plot of steep decrease in English and Spanish speakers (by 2050) and a steep rise in Arabic, Hindi/Urdu and Tamil/Bengali/Malay speakers. Chinese will hold position on top, as it does now. Oh, speaking of projected plots- I should be getting back to my statistics! C ya, Thilak
''Great minds think alike fools seldom differ'' Are we great minds or fools..I dont know but I was thinking about the same thing today....
Speaking of Language trees Tamil actually is one of the five classical languages along with Greek,Latin, Chinese , and Persian
Sanskrit is not one of them
Sanskrit is the mother of all european languages from German to english
Tamil is the stem of the Dravidia tree which gave rise to tamil,malayalam,thulu,kannada and Telegu...
There are ukranian doctors in UK who can recite the atharvana and yajr veda like purananuru and kural... and they say that people speak about these as ancient heros and songs so there may be truth in the fact aryans moved fromAsia minor and moved south pushing the erstwhile dravidians of the indus valley to the southern lands....
I dont disagree with the fact that english will loose its value with the other languages gaining importance but will tamil figure there ...maybe yes thanks to the tamil aarvam of our eelam freinds