Why is Sanskrit so famous?

The Sanskrit language is an Indo-Aryan classical language of South Asia belonging to the Indo-European language branch. Sanskrit rose to existence in South Asia when it’s predecessor languages dispersed in the late Bronze Age, from the northwest region. Sanskrit is a revered language sacred to Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism religions. 

Classical Hindu philosophy is written in the Sanskrit language. It was the language that connected ancient and medieval South Asia to the world. It became a religious, cultural language used by the political elites when Hindu and Buddhist culture spread into Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia. Sanskrit thus had a lasting impact, particularly in its formal and learned words, on language in Southeast Asia, South-East Asia and East Asia.

Sanskrit is thought to be one of the oldest languages in the world still existing with its recorded history dating from 3,500 years.

Sanskrit is one of the most unequivocal languages around which advanced computers could be well suited, according to NASA scientist Rick Briggs. The same phrase can be interpreted in many different ways in every other language. The context, the way you speak and the linguistic meaning of the body all lead to the same meaning in Sanskrit and not otherwise. Not only is Sanskrit phonetically but also in all other aspects, the most accurate language. The Sanskrit language uses 49 sounds from five different areas of the mouth which enable phonetic precision. In any word, it is surprising that every Sanskrit letter always has an accurate sound.

Sanskrit is believed to be the mother of all languages in the world, with nearly (97%) of all languages influenced by it either directly or indirectly. Sanskrit as a language is extremely rich and advanced with a vocabulary that remains unmatched to date. For each word with a specific meaning, Sanskrit has the largest number of synonyms. Water can be said through 70 different words in Sanskrit for which English has only one!

A total of 17 countries, including the US, have Sanskrit-based universities, whose sole purpose is research about the Sanskrit language. NASA also has a separate special department to research the Sanskrit language.

 

Sanskrit stands for a number of old varieties of Indo-Aryan languages. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit, found in the Rig Veda. Rig Veda is a collection of 1028 hymns that were believed to be composed by the migrating Indo-Aryan tribes travelling from Afghanistan via Northern Pakistan to Northern India between 1500 and 1200 BCE.  In addition, ancient Dravidian influenced phonology in Sanskrit and its syntactic, Vedic Sanskrit’s interaction with the existing languages of the Subcontinent lead to absorption of the names of the newly discovered plants and animals. Moreover, Sanskrit phonology and syntax were influenced by ancient Dravidian languages. The Sanskrit language also refers more closely to the refined, standardised grammatical form of classical Sanskrit, which was evolved in the middle of the 1st millennium BC and was codified in the great; comprehensive ancient grammar the Ashtadhyayi(meaning the Eight Chapters) composed by Pāṇini. Learn more about Sankrit at Multibhashi!