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biriyani_lover t1_j0sopnf wrote

Reply to comment by atre324 in Ancient Grammatical Puzzle That Has Baffled Scientists for 2,500 Years Solved by Cambridge University Student by Superb_Boss289

Lotta indian languages have their roots in Sanskrit and thus share a common vocab and some rules

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kittylkitty t1_j0t7u70 wrote

Thai / Laos / Burmese too

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Fiyanggu t1_j0tjtoy wrote

Their written script is based off of Sanskrit, but those languages themselves don't derive from Sanskrit.

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Terpomo11 t1_j0tn77r wrote

What do you mean by saying their written script is based on Sanskrit?

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KhyberPass49 t1_j0tocnb wrote

Like Mongolian is written in Cyrillic but is not related to any Slavic language

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kindred_asura t1_j0tqant wrote

never heard of that, that's crazy.

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Iwantmyflag t1_j0tsf9v wrote

More like pretty common. The Alphabet you are using right now was originally developed for Phoenician, a Semitic language, adapted by the Greeks for Greek, not related. Also adapted to Etruscan, not related. From there adapted to Latin, not related to either of those and then once more to English, which is related to Latin but not that closely. Cyrillic is an adaptation of the Greek variant for Slavic languages and of course also not related to Phoenician.

And let's not even talk about cuneiform.

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Vaelos t1_j0u40rv wrote

What about cuneiform? 🤔

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SaiyaJedi t1_j0uihdn wrote

It was later adopted by the Akkadians, whose language was not related to Sumerian.

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Iwantmyflag t1_j0wzug6 wrote

That's only the beginning. Over about 3000 years Sumerian cuneiform was used (at least) by the Sumerians of course, a language not related to any other as far as we can tell. Then Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, those 3 are semitic languages.

Also used for Elamite, another contemporary language not related to anything.

Hittite, an indoeuropean language. Again completely different from all the others.

Urartian, which I can't recall right now what it is related to but it's not semitic

and finally, heavily adapted, Old Persian, another indoeuropean language.

And it's not trivial to just use Cuneiform for a different language as the "letters" don't fit the sounds. For example it's a pain to map cuneiform symbols to Hittite sounds and uncertainties remain in transcribing and translating the texts.

What's more, we can only read, translate and even to an extent speak those millenia old languages because the writing was used so long and was still used for languages where we have modern descendants and/or texts in different scripts and alphabets like the Rosetta stone or the Darius inscriptions.

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crostrom t1_j0ujnv8 wrote

This is reading like a Monty Python skit

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Iwantmyflag t1_j0x37ef wrote

Over about 3000 years Sumerian cuneiform was used (at least)

  • by the Sumerians of course, a language not related to any other as far as we can tell.

  • Then Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, those 3 are semitic languages.

  • Also used for Elamite, another contemporary language not related to anything.

Hittite, an indoeuropean language. Again completely different from all the others.

Urartian, which I can't recall right now what it is related to but it's not semitic

and finally, heavily adapted, Old Persian, another indoeuropean language.

Also Eblaite, Hurrian, Luwian which are related to the ones already mentioned and a few more where we have very little texts remaining.

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Allidoischill420 t1_j0uqnxb wrote

How do you gain knowledge on language like you have

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Iwantmyflag t1_j0wwnio wrote

Well...you start with Latin and ancient Greek in school, then you study linguistics and history with a focus on old languages. And you keep reading and reading whenever you come across something you don't understand. It also helps to be curious.

There's probably easier ways today like just reading Wikipedia. Not everyone has to suffer through deciphering Hittite cuneiform ;)

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Terpomo11 t1_j0ttnm9 wrote

But Sanskrit is a language, not a writing system. It can be written in multiple writing systems.

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Emotional-Top-8284 t1_j0tai5e wrote

I do not believe that these languages are descended from Sanskrit, though they may share vocabulary. Sanskrit is an indo-European language, and Thai/Laos /Burmese are not.

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BBFA369 t1_j0tyfm7 wrote

They likely are - the whole region was heavily influenced by Hindu / Buddhist cultures. further south, Malay has a lot of lingual overlaps with Sanskrit for instance

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McDodley t1_j0uhswz wrote

Not sure exactly what you mean, but you may be mistaking cultural influence for linear descent. Malay, Thai, Lao, Burmese are members of three different language families: Austronesian (Malay), Tai-Kadai (Thai, Lao) and Sino-Tibetan (Burmese). Sanskrit is a member of an entirely different one (Indo-European). There is a lot of borrowed vocabulary from Sanskrit in Malay, Thai, Lao and Burmese, but their grammars all work extremely differently from Sanskrit.

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BBFA369 t1_j0vvk4q wrote

Ah I think you’re right. I don’t speak those languages so I have no idea how their grammar works but it’s really fascinating that you can borrow vocab between languages that way.

TIL, thanks for sharing!

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