| The Linguistic Bond |
| "The Parallels between the Languages of India and Europe" |
| The bond between the various languages has been the subject of a long-winding debate between historians, scholars, politicians and nations for over two centuries. This article seeks to explain the inherent controversies of the currently prominent linguistic theory and the reasoning behind the formation of this theory. |
| Historians and linguistic etymologists have long debated over the origins and the veracity of the predominant languages of the world. Eminent scholars and experts have staked and ruined their reputations and their lives over the question of the existence between the links between the major languages spoken by the people in Europe and Asia. The ramification of this question is obviously of massive implications as this issue concerns the history of, and possibly the inter-relationships between, a sizeable proportion of the population of a long-warring and divided world. |
| One of the most controversial and long-contested "branches" of modern languages directly concerns the people of India. This branch of languages links the languages of the Indian people and those of modern-day Europe. This branch of languages describes and links the histories and lives of over three billion people over the two oldest inhabited continents on Earth. The implications of this inter-relationship has been denied and championed by nascent nationalists and supremacists over centuries as, if viewed by matters of convenience, it defends, and allegedly, upholds the imperialist ambitions of Europe. This branch is labeled the Indo-European branch of languages. |
| The Summer Institute of Linguistics, a scientific organization focused on the study of languages, states that over 443 languages and dialects spoken by people over Europe and Asia belong to this super-family of languages. This institution postulates this hypothesis partly on a line of thought that was upheld between the 19th and the early 20th century presently labeled the Proto-Indo-European society. Based on the controversial Kurgan hypothesis (that derives its name from that of ceremonial burial mounds across the steppes of Asia), the PIE theory stated that Asia was conquered and peopled with migratory tribes from Europe, it enforced notions of nationalistic romanticism and colonial racism, perhaps best illustrated by Rudyard Kipling's infamous defense of European imperialism as a "white man's burden". |
| However, the existence of a linguistic connection, however tenuous, between European and Indian languages is undeniably present. A unifying classification exists in the articulation of the consonant - a feature present in virtually every language spoken by Man over the ages. The distinction between different sub-branches of the Indo-European linguistic family occurs primarily at the treatment of the velar rows of consonants. The velar consonant is articulated by the action of the back part of the tongue against the soft palate at the roof of the mouth. The two divisions of linguistics born out of the treatment of the velars are the Satem (consisting of the Indo-Iranian, Baltic and Slavic groups, among others) and the Centum (consisting of the Italic, Celtic, Germanic and Greek groups, among others) groups. The primary difference between these groups is that the Satum group has ceased to distinguish between velars produced at the different parts of the mouth, while the Centum group still maintains a clear distinction between the palato-velar and the plain consonants. |
| However, the existence of languages that belong to neither group is undeniable. This fact often stands as a counterfoil to any supremacist intonations the myth of the Proto-Indo-European theory propagated. Therefore, while the Indo-European division of languages is not entirely valid, the existence of the consonant link between the major languages of Asia and Europe is undeniable. |
| The Indo-European super-family has one major group of languages that traces the evolution of a number of languages that are significant in the Indian context. This group is collectively called the Indo-Iranian group and includes Sanskrit, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Maithili, Marathi, Oriya, Pali, Punjabi, Sindhi, Urdu and Kashmiri, among other languages throughout Asia of people native to the southern part of the Urals and the lands to the east and south of the Caspian Sea. |
| Hence, while the veracity of the Proto-Indo-European hypothesis is still in question, the findings of researchers who worked under the assumptions of this theory have revealed the linguistic bridges that span and conjoin the peoples of Europe and Asia. |
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