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| ڪتاب جو نالو | SINDHI LANGUAGE |
|---|---|
| ليکڪ | Siraj |
| سنڌيڪار / ترتيب | Dr. Amjad Siraj |
| ڇپائيندڙ | سنڌي ٻوليءَ جو بااختيار ادارو |
| ISBN | 978-969-625-082-1 |
| قيمت | 300 روپيا |
| ڪتاب ڊائونلوڊ ڪريو | (1689) PDF E-Pub |
| انگ اکر | 31 August 2018 تي اپلوڊ ڪيو ويو | 164877 ڀيرا پڙهيو ويو |
How Did Man Learn to Speak?
Before writing anything about Sindhi language, it is necessory that some very basic things are studied that would help in understanding the accepted principles of Linguistics, which are the primary criteria to judge a language. Despite a lot of recent advances in science, all the linguistic experts unanimously believe that it is impossible to be sure about how, when and where did the human language start. Whatever knowledge we have about language is the outcome of the study of languages in the written form, and on the basis of this, certain theories have come about regarding the speech of humans. Languages are the pride of cultures and civilizations—and it is a natural weakness of humans that every one tries to prove the splendour and stature of his nation by means of its language. At times, nationalism is the driving force and at others religious consideration is at play. A Swedish expert on Linguistics in the 17th Century claimed that God spoke in Swedish language when He created this universe; Adam spoke Danish and Satan spoke French. Muslims generally believe that Arabic will be the medium on the day of reckoning and that destiny of all humans is inscribed in Arabic!! While the Hindus think that Sanskrit was the language of all the deities in addition to Brahma and Ishwar!! In a conference of Turkish linguists in 1934, a unanimous resolution was passed that Turkish was the mother of all languages, and all the main words of all the languages have come from Turkish word Ghonis which means “the sun”, as the sun was the first thing that influenced and attracted human beings!! Every nation has tried to consider its own language, especially its holy writings, as the most ancient and natural language. (1)
These were religious beliefs and rational mind has always been at war against religious conservatism. Now let us explore some theories about the evolution of languages. Some of these theories are such that they could be termed semi-scientific. Amongst them was one postulated by Darwin, the renowned scientist. According to him, the basis of language is the mouth pantomime where the vocal cords subconsciously mimicked the movements and signs of hands and feet. When man started giving hand signals for any given cause, the vocal cords too mimicked the different changes of hand signals and in this process, they produced sounds; these got a meaning with the passage of millions of years.
Many such concepts are common among most linguists but almost every expert concedes to the fact that there was nothing to prove them. These concepts are doubtful and have been given weird and funny names. According to the ‘Ding Dong’ theory there is an unusual relationship between sounds and the meaning. So like many unusual things, this theory too has no place in a scientific and research based subject!
According to the ‘Pooh Pooh’ theory, language arose from meaningless sounds emanating from human emotions like surprise, rage, fear, joy etc. There are two more similar theories: “U-hee-hoo” and “Sing Song”, according to which it arose from meaningless sounds produced during manual labour. Another theory called ‘TaTa’ is based on the Darwinian theory of verbal mimicking of body parts. (2)
A 20th Century scholar Sturtevant has forwarded a strange theory, which though hard to understand, seems to have some truth in it. He says that human emotions and thoughts appear subconsciously and are automatically expressed as visual signs, signals, bodily gestures or some sort of an accompanying sound---and so the conscious and intentional ways of expression—(and speaking is one of them) must have evolved as a means of verbal duplication of physical motion. Those who are aware of the gimmicks of words used by politicians and religious priests, in their speeches, would recognise the superfluous truth in this theory! (3)
Most of the scholars agree upon a theory of natural sounds but it is difficult to find evidence for that. I personally consider this theory to be relatively true and although evidence of which cannot be found in other languages, there is plenty of evidence of this theory in Sindhi language---and many words of Sindhi language give credence to this theory. According to this theory, when man in his evolution was associated with natural occurrences in his life such as in caves, he learnt a lot from nature. Man learnt to light fire from his observation of natural events like lightening and sparks due to friction between trees. There were countless sounds present in nature. Mimicking these sounds, man started producing his own sounds and gave them appropriately matching meanings that corresponded to the sounds occurring in nature. So much so that he learned new sounds and new words from the animals and birds of the forests. In this way man must have taken hundreds of years to express his feelings. Here one has to keep in mind that with the growth of human life and in accordance with natural sounds of that region, basic languages must have been formed and since they had a common and similar ground, therefore they would necessarily possess quite a few similarities.
-Lebiniz, in the beginning of 18th century, was the first person who proposed a theory that human languages did not arise from some preserved sources, but came from some earlier “spoken” form of “language”. A similar theory was proposed in the 20the century by an Italian linguistic expert named Trombetti; who in his argument says that the mention of the story of the “Tower of Babylon” in the Bible can be considered a hint to the concept that the basis of all languages is common. (4)
Historically there were some experiments by confining newborn babies to a place where they had no exposure to the outside world, in order to see whether they invent a language or feel an urge to use a language for conversation. The first such experiment was conducted by the Egyptian King Psammetichos and the second was conducted by King Frederick of Sicily in 1200 AD. The third experiment was conducted by King James IV of Scotland somewhere around 1500 AD. At about the same time Emperor Akbar of India also went through with this sort of an experiment. But since in those times reliable and useful scientific facilities were not available, nothing could be proved from these experiments.
There have been occasions in recent times when small children have been brought up along with wolves, dogs and monkeys without any human contact but even their examples have not contributed much in the line of understanding the origin of languages.
From all these theories and opinions one can definitely infer that perhaps all the human languages originated from one principal language. Some of these were used by nations that were completely isolated from the rest of the world and died with these peoples. They are called “fossilized” languages. Other languages were spoken by nations that travelled and relocated due to trade and commerce, also causing the languages to change with additions of newer idioms etc. There are two theories about such distinction between languages: According to the first, the principal language is like the stem or trunk of a tree and other languages are like its branches; the second, called the “wave theory”, is based on the idea of ripples that arise when a pebble is thrown onto the surface of water; in the same way the changes in human culture produce a wave of new languages.
Most of the scholars are eager to find one common language to be the primary source of other languages. Such a desire has not borne fruit, since with the passage of time the languages change their form and because of paucity of historically written material it becomes very difficult to say how a language looked like 5000 or 10,000 years ago. It is due to the discovery of some historic material about some languages that we have been able to study the ancient versions of some similar ancient languages, otherwise there are hundreds of languages about which it is impossible to say how they were like 2-3 hundred years ago.
Despite all this, the efforts of scholars have resulted in getting precious information. Finding a sort of a basic similarity between English, Irish, Russian, Spanish, Greek, Albanian, Armenian and French languages; made them hint that all these languages are offshoots of an original single language i.e. they have a common basic source. On the other hand, a similar unity is seen in Arabic, Hebrew, Abyssinian and among ancient languages of Babylon, Assyria, Phoenicia and Cartage; on the basis of which they are thought to have one parent language. Finnish, Hungarian, Turkish and Asian Russian form a distinct group that has been proven to be related to Indo-European languages. Chinese, Burmese, Thai and Tibetian languages form another group; likewise the Dravidian languages of South India i.e. Tamil, Telagu, Kannar, Malayalam, Munda and Brahivi in Sindh and Balochistan etc. belong to one group. Malay- Palmietia languages form yet another distinct group. Japanese and Korean languages belong to another separate group. Likewise African languages are also from a group of Bantu etc. Languages of Red Indians of USA (American Indians) also form a distinct group. All of these are separate groups of languages which had their own distinct parent language in some pre-historic ancient era.
The Sindhi language is considered to belong to Indo-European group of languages (German scholars call it Indo- Germanic group). This group got this name from the fact that it includes majority of languages from North India to Europe. Most of these Indo-European group of languages have a common initial sound in words used for numbers from 1 to 10, family relations and many other basic words. The position that Sindhi has in this group will be argued in detail at a later stage.
Some smaller groups of Indo-European languages have also been formed based on their geographical proximity, the examples of which are as under:
All these languages are collectively called Indo-European languages. A few years back they were called Indo-Aryan languages, but since the myth of an Aryan race is under doubt now, they are broadly called Indo-European instead of Indo-Aryan. The myth about the Aryans being the principal nation is discussed in another chapter.
These languages have been grouped together basically due to the fact that they are related to each other in a lot of ways. The study on the basis of which languages are termed as belonging to a group or a certain origin, is called Comparative Linguisties. It is necessary to briefly summarize this comparative method.
Whenever a group of people speaking the same language is divided into further groups due to certain reasons, their language also starts taking different forms and slowly and gradually these forms develop into separate entities and individual languages. And when a few families of a tribe or a nation relocate or travel to settle in a distant area or some other part of the world, their language is influenced by the language of their new home. Similarly if members of some other group come to live within their region, then it also causes languages to change a lot. And when the linguistic experts compare these new changes and the syntax in order to know the origin, such a study is called Comparative Grammar. Making use of this method, an attempt is made to construct some basic peculiarities of the language spoken by the original and undivided chief tribe which are then compared with the newly evolved languages.
There are three important considerations in comparative grammar. The first important aspect is “word similarity”- that the two related languages would possess quite a few similarly identifiable words is quite acceptable. The comparison of languages of the Romance group (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Latin) does not mean the exact similarity or uniformity of the words. These similarities also result from mutual borrowing of words among languages (e.g. similar words in Arabic and Sindhi.) The proof of internal relationship and kinship of languages becomes very strong when the similar words that are common in both the languages should not have come from each other or lent from a third language. Amongst these words certain grammatical elements are the main representatives of this principle, for example personal pronouns (1st, 2nd or 3rd person) and verbs that depict common daily life actions like ‘coming’ and ‘going’, ‘borrowing’ and ‘returning’, ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’, ‘living’ and ‘dying’ etc; adjectives that are common in usage e.g. good or bad, big or small, scarce or plenty, high or deep; and nouns that occur in nature like earth, sun, moon, dog, cat, water, sand, fire etc; the names of different body parts—eye, ear, nose, mouth, leg, arm etc; and names of relatives like mother, father, brother, sister, aunt , uncle etc. But if the number of common words in two languages is very small and especially when these words are related to culture or religion (for example) then one can confidently say that one language has simply borrowed that word from the other language. In this context the example of Sindhi and Arabic language is typical. Such exchanges are not significant as most languages of the world have done so.
The second sign of grammatical comparison is the peculiar similarity of syntax of different languages. The stability or form of a noun, verb and pronoun in a sentence, the distribution of different tenses of a verb, the usage of prepositions and conjunctions, adverbs and similar other grammatical elements are found to follow a common basic principle thereby showing a meaningful similarity between languages. All these points prove that these languages are closely related with each other.
The third indication or sign is the consistent difference between words of same meanings. The usage of words of the dialects of Sindhi and Sanskrit show a similarity, but at the same time it shows a consistent difference as well. Similar difference is found in the Romance languages. There are other things too that one has to keep in mind, for example the collective cultural background of different groups of languages provide ample proof of a common single origin of languages.
Because of the uniformity found among languages, an attempt was made to find a reason for this kind of uniformity and it entailed scientific, social and national issues and it was also based on knowledge and wisdom. In India, the study of Sanskrit had been going on for thousands of years and books of such a high standard had been written about its grammar, that those authors are remembered fondly and with respect by European scholars. Pannini (400BC) is known as the greatest grammarian and is called the father of grammatical sciences. The knowledge of Sanskrit language and its close relation with Greek, Latin and German languages etc, created a renewed interest in European linguists. The Germans wanted to prove their nation as the most superior nation in the world, and it took such a dangerous ethnic turn that led to the holocaust against the Jews. Such was the scale of atrocities and murders that one gets goose pimples even reading about them. In the initial phases of this movement, Germans used Sanskrit as a weapon and created a myth about a superior race of Aryans who, according to them, had moved from the West to the East. and settled there. Germans had attempted to liken themselves with “Sherman” or “Sharma” (superior caste names in India); and put forward the theory that from an ethnic point of view, Aryans were the most superior race; and since they were the direct descendents of Aryans, they had the divine right to rule the world. This was just like the caste system in the Hindu religion where Brahmans and Khatris were considered superior while Sudras were given an inferior status in the society! In a similar way the Germans were busy trying to become the superior race while considering the rest of the world inferior as Sudras. One has to concede here that they disguised their ulterior motives in a very subtle way. And since most of the European countries and India lagged behind in knowledge in comparison to the Germans, it took a long time to uncover the dangerous but cunningly disguised movement.
On the other hand, nationalism and freedom movements in India were getting stronger and the British were worried about their own survival in their “Raj”. Indian scholars sang songs in praise of their rich cultural heritage and language, thereby providing fuel to the fire of nationalist movement. Prominent among them were Baal Ganga DharTilak, Sachanand, Aravind Ghosh and others and their books provided the natives a renewed passion and awareness. To weaken this movement the British encouraged their scholars to write books that supported the German views. This gave such a turn to the nationalist movement of Indian scholars, that the books that were written with a purpose to provoke nationalist thoughts became controversial. The majority of Indian population consisted of farmers and labourers and the Indian scholars confused them by telling them about religion, caste system and the complexes that arise from such a system thereby strengthening the cause of the British Raj.
The knowledge about languages during these movements increased but the very basis of such knowledge was wrong and tailored; in a nutshell, it meant that an alien race called “Aryans”, who were originally from Europe, Central Asia or North Asia, having rich and civilized culture had moved to and occupied India. And having done that they introduced Sanskrit and promoted a new civilized form of culture.
Since this racist culture was rife in Europe, at that time everybody was trying to trace the Aryan origin in their territory. In fact the fictitious nature of this theory became only too obvious from this quarrel of opinions; some traced the origin of the Aryans to be on the banks of Rhine lake in Germany, others thought that the Aryans were natives of Siberia, some tried to prove that Aryans belonged to Finland; while some started concocting theories of their origin in Central Asia, Turkey or Asia Minor. Our own Indian experts stated that they were from Merro Parbat and the North Pole. Amongst all this, the European experts finally came out with a theory that the Aryans had originally come from the North of Europe and so the Aryans were called the Nordic race. And that in ancient times, they had migrated southwards spreading throughout Europe.
The progress in the study of anthropology negated these concepts from time to time. The finding of records of Hittite and Turkic languages reignited the argument that Aryans were actually from Asia because these most ancient languages were from 1500-1700 BC and they provided the closest example of Indo-European languages. But there were some experts who tried to solve this mystery on scientific grounds. Making use of Anthropology, Biology and Linguistics they proved that the theory of the Aryan race was fictitious and an absurd invention of the German scholars. We will study this in detail in the chapter on Sindhi civilization as the current chapter only deals with the origin of different languages. Postponing this argument about the Aryans, we now come to the important point that there is some sort of uniformity amongst various languages. It can easily be inferred from the study of these languages that there was once one main or principal language, that is now called Indo-European language. The daughter languages of such a principal and most ancient language are Sanskrit, Hittite, Avestan, Turkic, Greek and Latin in that order. Having studied all these languages and having collected some common and similar peculiarities, European scholars have tried to invent an artificial form of Indo-European. i.e. the original or principal language. Stertewant has preferred to call it Proto-Indo-European instead of Indo-European but since the latter is an easier name, we will call it as such.
In addition to this, another argument relates to the status of Sanskrit. It is said about Sanskrit or Vedic Sanskrit that the most ancient of Vedas- the Riga Veda was created, at the most, in the year 1500 BC. It too was based on the concept of Aryans being foreign invaders. On the basis of semi-historic material, astronomy and other topics found in the Vedas, the local scholars have tried to prove that they (Vedas) are at least 5000 years old. But the European scholars negated this exaggeration of Indian magnificence. Now when the record of Hittite language has been found, it shows that it is around (3700 years old) and quite a few names in it are derived from Vedic Sanskrit. On the basis of linguistic differences between Sanskrit and Hittite, it was thought that the Vedic Sanskrit was, if not more, at least 500 years older than Hittite. The similarities and differences in the two languages may be due to the fact that they had a common origin. And since there are so many fictitious things about the so called Indo-European language which can not be justified at all, so the parameters of its stature and the extent of its antiquity can not be fixed.
It is believed that the speakers of this Indo-European language got dispersed and divided into groups by changing places all the time and every group acquired a varied form of language, but their basic unity remained intact. From the specific signs in these languages the extent of deviation from the Indo-European language could not be gauged, alongwith the reasons for it.
Phonetically and grammatically Vedic Sanskrit is closer to the Indo- European language. Whether the Vedic Sanskrit was present in ancient India or it had come from somewhere else cannot be ascertained but up to 400BC there is no authentic record available to say anything about these changes. Around 400 BC Pannini gave Sanskrit a grammar thereby providing it with pronunciations, principles and limitations of its structure; after that Sanskrit was spoken or written according to Pannini’s grammar, with the result that the limitations of grammar gave a peculiar form to the Sanskrit language. Since languages cannot be stopped from changing themselves, despite Pannini’s grammar, Sanskrit started changing because of local influences. But the scholars of those days kept writing books according to the principles laid down by Pannini which gave rise to the language called classical Sanskrit.
The spoken language kept changing, and with the passage of time the two forms amalgamated with each other. So much so that there are certain plays where the Rajas, ministers and Brahmins speak in Pannini’s Sanskrit while the soldiers, slaves, merchants and other common folk speak in different forms of spoken language or prakrits.(5) This progress of Prakrits continued for a long time and in different territories where they changed gradually to become local languages. On this basis, Indian languages have been divided into five eras:
Experts opine that the present Prakrit languages should be considered originating from non-grammatical language rather than from classical or grammatical Sanskrit(6). The detailed study of these Prakrits will also result in the same conclusions. The grammarians have examined the words of these Prakrits in the following three forms:
The detail about Apabhramasas given by HemChander(8) is as under:
HemChander and other grammarians made this classification of languages keeping in view the territorial basis and by looking at the words of Sanskrit and Prakrits. Although such a classification has very weak ground in linguistic terms but even then the direction of speculation was on correct lines.
We will now examine in the light of all these theories, which group does Sindhi belong to and what are the reasons to consider it in that group. Keeping aside the opinions that have been put across about Sindhi--- from Apabhramasas to Arabic to Semitic attributes – let us see what the peculiarities of Sindhi are, which languages have a close relation with it and which languages have only a superficial relationship with Sindhi.
References:
