Indian languages—known as Bharatiya Bhashas within the ideological framework of the Central authorities—are typically understood to belong to 4 (or six, if the Andaman languages are included) distinct language households unfold throughout the subcontinent. In recent times, the federal government of India has sought to change this near-universal understanding. In response to the proposed various framework, these languages belong to a single linguistic household christened Bharatiya Bhasha Parivar for “Indian language household”. The 2 books underneath overview are an try and prop up the choice idea with “tutorial” arguments.

The Central authorities established the Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti (Committee on Indian Languages) underneath the Ministry of Schooling in November 2021. Its Chairperson is the Sanskrit promoter Chamu Krishna Shastri, a long-time head of Samskrita Bharati, which is predicated in Delhi on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s premises on Deen Dayal Marg. The Samiti revealed two books in October 2025 by the Nationwide E book Belief of India, aiming to current an alternate framework for Indian languages in tutorial phrases. The contributors to the books embrace professors from the disciplines of linguistics, cultural anthropology, archaeology, genetics, and historical past.

The titles of the 2 books are Bharatiya Bhasha Parivar: A New Framework in Linguistics (373 pages) and Collected Research on Bharatiya Bhasha Parivar: Views and Horizons (343 pages). The primary ebook presents arguments from the above disciplines in help of the thought of a single Indian language household. Though the authors of the 5 disciplinary sections of the ebook should not individually named, 12 students are acknowledged for collectively writing and modifying them; there are 42 extra contributors who provided suggestions. The second ebook accommodates 32 analysis papers authored by particular person students, who wrote them both particularly for the amount or first offered them at a seminar on the topic. Most papers on this ebook describe similarities within the grammars of Indian languages; the remaining discover how these similarities facilitate preparation of synthetic intelligence instruments to work with Indian languages, translation from and into them and educating them.

Many linguists cited within the two books, together with this reviewer, have certainly written about grammatical similarities amongst Indian languages. Nevertheless, the ebook reverses the explanations these linguists supply for the similarities. It presents convergence—which linguists perceive as the end result of historic interplay between languages—as a set of traits inherent in them from their very origin.

This overview critiques this view promoted as a brand new framework for “new linguistics”. The essential observations on this essay are restricted to what’s known as the framework and the idea on which it stands. One may—and may—produce detailed critiques, self-discipline by self-discipline, of the proof the 2 books current in help of the idea. One finds the identical proof of similarity being interpreted in another way throughout the chapters of the second ebook, which deserves a separate overview.

It’s a frequent saying that historical past is written by the victors. The victors should not solely those that win wars, but additionally those that win elections, who assemble various histories to legitimise their energy. The aim of the 2 books is to jot down an alternate historical past of Indian languages. The following stage of this venture, in all probability, is to include this various historical past into faculty textbooks.

Historian Romila Thapar[1] has noticed that when Indian historical past analysis moved within the trendy interval from Indology to the social sciences, the self-discipline underwent a decisive flip in direction of scientific strategies. These books, in distinction, try and return language historical past to the sooner place of utilizing beliefs and mythologies; additionally they search to take this revisionist historical past to coming generations of scholars in India and overseas. Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti gives monetary help for seminars in universities to legitimise the choice linguistic historical past. The purpose of the current critique is to show how this various historical past departs from scientific reasoning, and in doing so, how the 2 books draw training into political trajectory.

The choice historical past accepts many broadly accepted details: India’s multilingualism, the existence of distinct languages, the presence of 4 language households, and the similarities between them. But it surely proposes a unique explanatory framework for these details and weaves these explanations—calling them “civilisational reminiscence”—into political views. The foundational claims of it are these: diversification of Indian languages is superficial; they can’t be remoted from the Sanskrit from the Vedic interval onward; all languages of India possess an inherent Indian “spirit”. From this angle, differentiating Indian languages from each other is manifestation of ignorance about India, which Westerners have. Linguistic relationship between Indian languages, subsequently, just isn’t structural however natural arising from inside languages, as an embryo grows.

Sanskrit as ‘god mom’

Sanskrit is posited because the supply of this natural unity. Whereas avoiding the linguistically discredited declare that Sanskrit is the genetic mom of Indian languages, this framework as an alternative advances the notion of Sanskrit as a “god mom.” Ideas equivalent to Indian spirit and psychological essence—ideas that can not be mapped on to linguistic options— go into developing the brand new linguistics.

To maintain the arguments for the brand new framework, historic occasions, and details universally verified and accepted in linguistics and within the associated disciplines should be rejected. Amongst these rejections is the classification of languages into well-founded households: IndoAryan, Dravidian, AustroAsiatic (together with Munda and Khmer languages), and SinoTibetan (together with the Thai/Tai department).[2] Linguistics determines genetic relationships between languages by figuring out systematic sound correspondences ruled by basic guidelines. These guidelines, like mathematical formulation, admit no exceptions; exceptions, if any, will need to have an evidence. To reject this scientific methodology and to decide on as an alternative to outline a language household based mostly on cultural traits expressed within the language code is to maneuver past linguistics, and past science. Whereas linguistic options could be recognized and described systematically, figuring out shared cultural traits is commonly subjective; disagreement amongst students is frequent.

In figuring out shared cultural parts in Indian languages, Sanskritic tradition is taken to be the reference level. One incessantly cited instance within the first ebook is the idea of puruṣārtha—dharma (righteousness), artha (energy), kāma (pleasure), and moksha (liberation from bonds)—which is claimed to look in all Indian languages and their literatures. Cultural concepts present in epics such because the Mahabharata and the Ramayana are additionally handled as proof of cultural unity amongst Indian languages. Such examples might show cultural connections, however they don’t set up linguistic relationships. At most, they can be utilized to argue that Indian languages belong to a shared cultural universe, however not that they represent a single language household. It might be onerous to think about that students proposing this new linguistics within the two books are unaware of this elementary distinction.

The only real linguistic characteristic cited within the first ebook to help the declare of a single Indian language household is the normal grammatical classification of vocabulary into tatsama, tadbhava, and grāmya phrases. In Telugu grammar, grāmya phrases are people who present no formal connection to Sanskrit. Tatsama phrases carefully resemble Sanskrit types of phrases. When such phrases are of Dravidian origin traditionally, it should be famous that the similarity with Sanskrit is unintentional. Tadbhava phrases are Sanskrit or Prakrit types which have been modified to evolve to Dravidian phonological sample. Linguistics demonstrates that Sanskrit phrases entered Dravidian languages, simply because it demonstrates that Dravidian and Munda phrases entered Sanskrit.

Linguistics additionally gives a way to show these details. It might want to present that tatsama phrases in Dravidian language didn’t exist in ProtoDravidian and that the supply of tadbhava types didn’t exist in ProtoIndoEuropean for Sanskrit to inherit them. Cultural contact explains lexical borrowing; genetic relationship explains lexical cognates. The brand new idea doesn’t preserve this distinction.

Past these linguistic arguments, the primary ebook additionally advances a political motive to reject the established historic language households. Sir William Jones found in 1786 the connection between Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek, which made him place Sanskrit within the IndoEuropean household. Francis Ellis in 1816 recognized the connection between Tamil and different South Indian languages and argued that they had been distinct from Sanskrit.

Robert Caldwell, in 1856, discovered comparable relationship with some languages past South India and established the Dravidian language household by systematic linguistic correspondences. In subsequent intervals, different European and American students together with Indian students recognized the remaining language households. The brand new linguistic framework argues that these students divided the unified one Indian language household into 4 households both to serve colonial political pursuits or as a result of they didn’t understand the deeper non secular unity of India. This political argument characterises colonial linguistics as a “divide and rule” technique; the brand new linguistic idea is even claimed to be a type of postcolonial research.

Languages and geography

A associated accusation made by the proponents of the brand new idea is that colonial students linked language households to ethnic or racial classes, equivalent to Aryan and Dravidian. The brand new idea asserts the existence of a single Indian ethnicity or race, a declare disputed in anthropological science. Geneticists do be aware that ethnic divisions amongst Indian populations can’t be sharply demonstrated by genomic variation, owing to lengthy histories of intermixing. On the identical time, they don’t declare that there was one genetic pool of Indians traditionally or pre-historically. The above statement of geneticists parallels linguistic accounts of language contact and mixing and this truth doesn’t warrant the declare of a single linguistic origin for all languages of India.[3]

The brand new framework acknowledges that Indian languages belong to 4 separate households, however it denies that this separation is predicated on linguistic variations. As a substitute, it argues they’re merely geographical manifestations of a single, authentic language. Indo-Aryan Marathi (from Maharashtri Prakrit) in western India, Dravidian Telugu and Tamil in southern India, Dravidian Gondi in Madhya Pradesh, Indo-Aryan Bhili in Rajasthan, Austro-Asiatic Santali in West Bengal, and Tibeto-Burman Bodo in Assam are all mentioned to be native geographical manifestations of the identical language.

At first, it’s claimed, there existed a single Bharatiya Bhasha, identifiable with Sanskrit, which later diversified in response to the areas its audio system inhabited. From a linguistic scientific perspective, language change is predominantly pushed by audio system, not by geography except by contact. As a language is realized anew by every technology and is utilized in multilingual settings with different languages by bilingualism, incremental adjustments happen; they accumulate and produce main linguistic adjustments.

Languages belonging to the 4 households are spoken not solely in India but additionally in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Vietnam, and some different locations in Asia. If geography alone had been to find out linguistic affinity, one must lengthen the boundaries of India throughout a lot of Asia and describe all these languages as modified types of Bharatiya Bhasha. This expansive area is probably the Akhand Bharat the proponents of the brand new linguistic idea imagine in, although they don’t point out it!

One other idea rejected by the brand new framework is the Aryan invasion/migration speculation. Denying this idea requires rejecting Jones’ historic account of Sanskrit. The brand new framework prefers to view Sanskrit because the indigenous language of people that have lived in India since antiquity. This grants Sanskrit the standing of a language of the soil; when this soil is considered sacred, Sanskrit acquires sanctity as properly. By the sanctity of the Vedas composed in it, Sanskrit is linked to different languages as they’re claimed to be spiritually linked with it; Sanskrit origin is sought to underpin the grammatical techniques of all of the languages of the Indian soil. The primary ebook repeatedly insists that there was no rupture within the linguistic historical past of India and that Sanskrit continued to have its presence uninterrupted on a regular basis.

The rejection of Aryan migration is prolonged even additional, to additionally reject the scientific consensus that Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa 70,000–100,000 years in the past. As a substitute, the primary ebook claims that human evolution occurred not solely in Africa but additionally on Indian soil, grounding the origin of homo sapiens in India additionally. The proof cited consists largely of legendary epochs described within the Puranas. Archaeological discovering of oval stone instrument (Acheulean) from Athirampakkam in Tamil Nadu, attributed to Homo erectus, is generalised to be true of entire of India and thus evolution of Homo sapiens in India is sought to be justified.

Though Darwinian evolution just isn’t explicitly denied by sayings that Aryan had been created by god, the assertion that human evolution occurred in India not directly reinforces the thought of India because the sacred land of Aryans. This declare of human origin in India is among the pillars of the brand new framework.

Since Murray Barnson Emeneau’s formulation of India as a linguistic space in 1956, linguists have supported the areal foundation of Indian languages by their analysis. The brand new linguistics attracts on the identical knowledge to say it as proof for a single Indian language household. It doesn’t make a distinction between the vertical change for structural causes and the horizontal change by contact with one other language.

Historic linguistics explains grammatical unity present in languages in a multilingual space because of sustained contact in multilingual settings. To offer an instance, analysis on Indo-Aryan Saurashtra in Tamil Nadu, for instance, exhibits that, whereas its vocabulary displays IndoAryan cultural parts, its grammar carefully aligns with Tamil. Such convergence has the sensible impact of facilitating switching between language in a single dialog. The brand new linguistics turns this reasoning the wrong way up and claims that the unity of all grammars is a truth at their origin and the noticed variations are secondary developments. This inversion contradicts the established understanding that variations converge into unity over time, not the reverse. The Indian language scene exhibits the emergence of unity from variety and never variety from unity. In different phrases, linguistic variety converges into unity and linguistic unity doesn’t flip into variety.

Analysis on linguistic convergence reveals the course of linguistic change, based mostly on the sociolinguistic relationships between language communities. The brand new linguistics causally relates linguistic variety with geographical variety. It doesn’t converse of the political relation between the linguistic communities and so doesn’t make any point out of directionality of linguistic change. For this idea, the change is unidirectional from Sanskrit to others as a result of Sanskrit is the Ur language and has non secular superiority.

To prioritise cultural ideas over linguistic construction as proof of linguistic unity falls exterior linguistics. Even inside cultural research, one should specify which cultural concepts account for unity; invoking Vedic affect alone just isn’t sufficient. Excluding a historic change in languages from any linguistic rationalization is unscientific. It’s eradicating language historical past from the area of science. Languages work together and alter within the mind; they don’t reside within the soul and stay fixed.

A rangoli emerges from connecting dots; dots don’t come up from the rangoli. To assert in any other case is to invert the historical past of Indian languages. The reversal exists within the new linguistic idea as a result of it’s constructed by political ideology. Scientific conclusions are rejected on ideological grounds; selective analysis findings are offered to legitimise ideological rejections as scientific. Political ideology is the methodological core of the framework of latest linguistics.

Footnotes:

1. Thapar, Romila (2002): “Introduction”, Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300, Berkeley: College of California Press, pp. xvii.
2. Abbi, Anvita (2022): “Uniformity just isn’t Unity: A Probe into Linguistic Variety of India”, Language and Language Educating, Subject No 22.
3. Arora, Aryaman, Adam Farris, Samopriya Basu, and Suresh Kolichala (2022): “Computational historic linguistics and language variety in South Asia”, Proceedings of the sixtieth Annual Assembly of the Affiliation for Computational Linguistics, Quantity 1: Lengthy Papers, pp. 1396–1409, Eire: Dublin, Affiliation for Computational Linguistics.

[E. Annamalai is former director, Central Institute of Indian Languages and also a former visiting professor of Tamil, University of Chicago. Courtesy: Frontline magazine, a fortnightly English language magazine published by The Hindu Group of publications headquartered in Chennai, India.]