All you need to know about the history of Sanskrit

Sanskrit is a language which originated during the Aryan invasion in India. It is also called Devanagari, the language of Gods. But it has some significant differences with all other languages.

Sanskrit as a language

Any language generally begins its journey as a spoken language. And at a later time it took the form of writing. Historically we see the same thing in all rational languages. Every language emerges as a written language in need of preservation and expansion from being used as a spoken language.

But this is not the case with Sanskrit language. Sanskrit was never a spoken language. Historically, no people in the entire Indian subcontinent ever spoke Sanskrit before the Aryan invasion. Sanskrit was first manifested as a written language.

History and evolution

Aryans, when they came to India, used to have no developed language, neither spoken nor written. They came here and learnt native languages. But, they always had the intention to show themselves as superior to the natives. Hence they felt the necessity of their own language that can show their superiority over others. Hence, during the evolution of Pali, Prakrit towards Hindustani, the Aryan intelligent people developed Sanskrit as a language using traces from Pali, Prakrit, Hindustani compiling with their own form of accent. Significantly, there is no such evolution of Sanskrit.

Written form of Sanskrit

Sanskrit fonts are not so different from Hindi. There are very few letters which are different from Hindi, and those are close to Prakrit. Sanskrit has its own grammar, own style of construction. Almost all the Hindu literature and Vaidik texts were written in Sanskrit language. Apart from these, there is almost no other piece of literature written in Sanskrit. Now, to spread the Sanskrit language, a few texts have been written for academic purposes.

Why is it called Artificial language

If a language is prevalent as a spoken language, i.e. if a people has a history of speaking a language and from there adopted that language in written form, then it can be called a natural language. But if a language does not exist as a spoken language, and is established as a written language and is purposely propagated to establish the superiority of a particular race, then it is better to call it an artificial language. Because Sanskrit is not even in verbal practice among the Aryans.