Sanskritisation (linguistics) explained

Sanskritisation is the process of introducing features from Sanskrit, such as vocabulary and grammar, into other languages.[1] It is sometimes associated with the "Hinduisation" of a linguistic community, or less commonly, with introducing a more upper-caste status into a community.[2] Many languages throughout South Asia and Southeast Asia were greatly influenced by Sanskrit (or its descendant languages, the Prakrits and modern-day Indo-Aryan languages) historically.[3] [4] [5]

Sanskritisation often stands in opposition to the Persianisation or Englishisation of a language within South Asia,[6] [7] as occurs with the Hindustani language, which in its Sanskritised, Persianised, and English-influenced registers becomes Hindi, Urdu, and Hinglish respectively.[8] [9] [10] Support for Sanskritisation in South Asia runs highest among Hindu nationalists.[11]

Sanskritization of the names of people and places is also commonplace in India.[12] [13]

History

Modern era

See also: Hindi–Urdu controversy. During the medieval era, the Indian languages had taken in a lot of Perso-Arabic influences as a result of Muslim invasions, particularly in the northwestern subcontinent;[14] colonial-era education policies, religious nationalism, and the influence of some of the more Sanskritised Indian languages played a role in Hindus and Muslims increasingly separating in terms of their linguistic influences,[15] with Hindus tending towards the usage of Sanskrit words and the Sanskrit-associated Devanagari script for writing Hindi.[16] [17]

Since the 1947 Partition of India, the Indian government, which at one point considered making Sanskrit the national language, instead has sought to further Sanskritise Hindi,[18] considering it to be easier for Indians to learn,[19] and as a way of distancing Hindi from the Urdu spoken in the newly formed country of Pakistan.[20] Sanskrit has been used to form new words to describe modern concepts and technologies in several South Asian languages by forming calques based on English words.[21] [22] In addition, Sanskrit words that have been nativised into other languages have been mixed with words from other language families, such as the Dravidian languages, to form new words.[23]

Cultural debates have emerged over how much Sanskrit should appear in Hindi and how acceptable Persian and English influences should be,[24] [25] with Hindu nationalists favouring Sanskritised Hindi,[26] opposing Urdu in part because it is a Muslim-associated language,[27] and some boycotting the Hindi-language Bollywood film industry for featuring too much Urdu and English in its movies.[28] [29]

See also

De-sanskritisation

Notes and References

  1. Ramaswamy . Sumathi . 1999 . Sanskrit for the Nation . Modern Asian Studies . en . 33 . 2 . 339–381 . 10.1017/S0026749X99003273 . 145240374 . 1469-8099.
  2. Punnoose, Reenu, and Muhammed Haneefa. "Problematising Hindi as the'Self'and English as the'Other'." Economic & Political Weekly 53.7 (2018).
  3. Chakraborty, Shibashis. "The Role of Specific Grammar for Interpretation in Sanskrit". Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Science, 9 (2) (2021): 107-187.
  4. Book: Burrow, Thomas . The Sanskrit Language . 2001 . Motilal Banarsidass Publ. . 978-81-208-1767-8 . en.
  5. Bronkhorst . Johannes . 2010-01-01 . The spread of Sanskrit . From Turfan to Ajanta. Festschrift for Dieter Schlingloff on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday.
  6. Book: Bolton . Kingsley . World Englishes: Critical Concepts in Linguistics . Kachru . Braj B. . 2006 . Taylor & Francis . 978-0-415-31507-4 . en.
  7. Book: Calabrese . Rita . Variation and Change in Postcolonial Contexts . Chambers . J. K. . Leitner . Gerhard . 2015-10-13 . Cambridge Scholars Publishing . 978-1-4438-8493-8 . en.
  8. Tull . Herman . 2011 . Language in South Asia. Edited by Braj B. Kachru, Yamuna Kachru, and S. N. Sridhar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. xxiv, 608 pp. $120.99 (cloth); $50.00 (paper). . The Journal of Asian Studies . 70 . 1 . 279–280 . 10.1017/s002191181000361x . 163424137 . 0021-9118.
  9. Kachru . Yamuna . 2006 . Mixers lyricing in Hinglish: blending and fusion in Indian pop culture . World Englishes . en . 25 . 2 . 223–233 . 10.1111/j.0083-2919.2006.00461.x . 0883-2919.
  10. Kachru . Braj B. . 1994 . Englishization and contact linguistics . World Englishes . en . 13 . 2 . 135–154 . 10.1111/j.1467-971X.1994.tb00303.x . 0883-2919.
  11. Book: Fishman . Joshua A. . Handbook of Language & Ethnic Identity . García . Ofelia . 2010 . Oxford University Press . 978-0-19-539245-6 . en.
  12. Staal . J. F. . 1963 . Sanskrit and Sanskritization . The Journal of Asian Studies . 22 . 3 . 261–275 . 10.2307/2050186 . 2050186 . 0021-9118.
  13. Shah . A.M. . 2005 . Sanskritisation Revisited . Sociological Bulletin . 54 . 2 . 238–249 . 23620499 . 0038-0229.
  14. Book: Kachru . Braj B. . Language in South Asia . Kachru . Yamuna . Sridhar . S. N. . 2008-03-27 . Cambridge University Press . 978-1-139-46550-2 . en.
  15. Book: Bhatia, Tej K. . A History of the Hindi Grammatical Tradition: Hindi-Hindustani Grammar, Grammarrians, History and Problems . 1987 . BRILL . 978-90-04-07924-3 . en.
  16. Rai . Alok . 1995 . Making a Difference: Hindi, 1880-1930 . Annual of Urdu Studies . en-US.
  17. Ganpat Teli, M.Phil. "Revisiting the Making of Hindi as a ‘National’ Language", M.Phil.
  18. Book: Ludden, David . Contesting the Nation: Religion, Community, and the Politics of Democracy in India . 1996 . University of Pennsylvania Press . 978-0-8122-1585-4 . en.
  19. McCartney, Patrick. "The sanitising power of spoken Sanskrit". Himāl South Asian (2014).
  20. Nijhawan . Shobna . 2018-07-03 . Defining the Indefinable: Delimiting Hindi . South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies . en . 41 . 3 . 702–704 . 10.1080/00856401.2018.1489763 . 149573096 . 0085-6401.
  21. Hock . Hans Henrich . 1992 . A note on English and modern Sanskrit . World Englishes . en . 11 . 2–3 . 163–171 . 10.1111/j.1467-971X.1992.tb00061.x . 0883-2919.
  22. D'Souza . Jean . 1987 . English in India's language modernization . World Englishes . en . 6 . 1 . 63–70 . 10.1111/j.1467-971X.1987.tb00177.x . 0883-2919.
  23. Crowd-sourced Technical Texts can help Revitalise Indian Languages . ResearchGate.
  24. Web site: India's War on Urdu . 2023-10-29 . thediplomat.com . en-US.
  25. Yamuna Kachru. "Corpus planning for modernization: Sanskritization and Englishization of Hindi". Studies in the Linguistic Sciences, Vol. 19, No. 1, Spring 1989, pages 153-164
  26. Sau . Ranjit . 1999 . From Sanskritisation to Hindi-Isation and Hindu-Isation: The 13th Lok Sabha . Economic and Political Weekly . 34 . 42/43 . 2979–2983 . 4408522 . 0012-9976.
  27. Web site: 2022-05-16 . The curious case of Urdu . 2023-10-29 . Frontline . en.
  28. Web site: Is the Hindu Nationalist 'Boycott Bollywood' Campaign Impacting the Box Office? . 2023-10-27 . thediplomat.com . en-US.
  29. News: The siege of Bollywood . The Economist . 2023-10-27 . 0013-0613.

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