Ukraine and Russia are in the news for the wrong reasons—involved in a wasteful war, provoked by attempts to expand NATO borders. Ukraine has been made a pawn in the hands of western powers, the fate that often befall their allies. But the subject for this brief note is not the war but the story involving a region that contributed so much for the development of so many languages and cultures and its significance to Sri Lanka with regard to the development of Sinhala language.
In ancient times (2000 BCE), much of the Ukraine region was covered by the Eurasian Steppes, also called the Great Steppes, which, by the wa,y formed the background to the novella “The Steppes” by the great Russian novelist Anton Chekov, which was a grassland and shrubland that covered a vast area in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, extending for 8000 km from Hungary, in the west, through Ukraine, southern Russia, to Mongolia, in the east. This ecosystem was fertile ground for cultural development, during this period, and several tribal confederations, and states, had emerged in this region. Some of the important cultures, relevant to this discussion, developed in this region: Eurasian Steppe Sintashta culture (2200–1800 BCE) and the subsequent Central Asian Andronovo culture (2000–400 BCE) (ref. Reich D et al 2009,). Sintashta spoke a Proto-Indo-Aryan language.
Indo-Aryan Languages, which were the origin of Sanskrit, Pali and later Hindi, and also Sinhala, belonged to the larger family of Indo-European languages. Indo-European languages developed around 6,500 years ago in the Eurasian steppe, specifically the region of the Caucasus. All Indo-European languages have descended from a single prehistoric language, linguistically reconstructed as Proto-Indo-European, spoken sometime during the Neolithic or early Bronze Age (c. 3300 – c. 1200 BC). The geographical location where it was spoken, the Proto-Indo-European homeland, is the Pontic–Caspian steppe in what is now Ukraine and Southern Russia, (Mallory, J. P. 2006). This theory is known as the Steppe Hypothesis or Kuragan theory. With advances in DNA genome mapping, the Kurgan theory is today considered to have been proved beyond doubt (Shinde, et al., 2019).
The Steppes
A major migration took place at the beginning of the Bronze Age 2000 – 700 BCE) from the Eurasian Steppes (D. W. Anthony, 2010). The aridization of the Steppe region may have led people to migrate to other fertile areas. Migration of peoples from this area took place westward into Europe and also in a southeastern direction into the Indian subcontinent. This was also the origin of development of Indo-European languages with a common ancestry. A genetic and linguistic mix would have happened due to migration of people from Steppe bringing Indo-European languages and people of Iranian ancestry bringing Iranian language elements leading to the development of Indo-Aryan languages which forms a major branch of Indo-European languages.
The migrating groups had a significant advantage due to technologies like horse domestication, the wheel, and a more complex language, which helped them establish their culture and languages across new territories.
Migrations led to Proto-Indo-European diversification into distinct linguistic groups, including the ancestor of European languages and the ancestor of Indo-Aryan languages in India. Migration of peoples from this area may have had an impact on the development of Indo-Aryan culture and also Vedic tradition in India.
This language family, comprising around 445 languages spoken by nearly half the world’s population, is organised into branches like Germanic, Romance, Slavic, and Indo-Iranian, all linked by shared vocabulary and grammatical structures, despite their vast geographic distribution across Europe and Asia. The Proto-Indo-Iranian languages, from which the Indo-Aryan languages developed, are identified with the Sintashta culture (2100–1800 BCE), and the Andronovo culture, mentioned above, which flourished in 1800–1400 BCE in the Great Steppes.
Eastern migration of people from the Eurasian Steppe Sintashta culture (2200 – 1800 BCE) and the subsequent Central Asian Andronovo culture (2000 – 400 BCE) and also the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (2250 – 1700 BCE), resulted in major changes in the demography of the Northern parts of the Indian subcontinent. Sintashta people spoke a Proto-Indo-Aryan language. These migrants when they arrived in the Indian subcontinent had settled first in the regions of Kabul River valley and in Panjab and they may have undertaken the task of developing the Vēdic culture and the family of Indo-Aryan languages. The latter, also called Indic languages, is a major subgroup of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family (Allentoft, 2015).
Steppes
Modern Indo-Aryan languages, which include Sinhalese, descend from Old Indo-Aryan languages, such as early Vēdic Sanskrit, through Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Prakrits). The largest such languages, in terms of first-speakers, are Hindi– Urdu (c. 329 million), Bengali (242 million), Punjabi (about 120 million), Marathi (112 million), Gujarati (60 million), Rajasthani (58 million), Bhojpuri (51 million), Odia (35 million), Maithili (about 34 million), Sindhi (25 million), Nepali (16 million), Assamese (15 million), Chhattisgarhi (18 million), Sinhala (17 million), and Romani (c. 3.5 million). A 2005 estimate placed the total number of native speakers of the Indo-Aryan languages at nearly 900 million people. These languages are mainly spoken in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives. (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica).
These migrations led to a significant population turnover and replacement not only in the Indian subcontinent but also in Northern and Western Europe, with the steppe populations bringing their language to the region. Modern European languages that descended from Indo-European include the Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian), the Germanic languages (English, German, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian), the Slavic languages (Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech), Greek (Hellenic branch), Albanian, Celtic languages (Irish, Welsh, Breton), and Baltic languages (Latvian, Lithuanian).
An explanation is required regarding the Dravidian languages that existed before the arrival of Indo-European languages in the Indian subcontinent. There is some evidence, though not conclusive, that proto-Dravidian was spoken in the Indus Valley civilisation, and this civilisation was built by Dravidians (Sakthi Sri, Subhikksha, 2023). With the decline of the Indus Valley culture, due to a long drought, and arrival of Āryans in the later period, Dravidians may have migrated to the South. Indus Valley Civilization is believed to have been built not by people who came there from outside but by the indigenous people. Similarly, the Dravidian languages were not brought from outside but had developed indigenously though some scholars say there were at least contributions from Southern Iranian farming communities. Dravidian place names along the Arabian Sea Coast and Dravidian grammatical influence in the Indo-Aryan languages, namely Maruthi, Gujarat, Marwari and Sindhi, suggest that Dravidian languages were spoken more widely across the Indian subcontinent before the spread of the Indo-Aryan languages. Further Dravidian languages cannot easily be connected to any other language family and they could well be indigenous to India (Steven RF 2004, Devendra K, 2004).
These fonts of culture, languages, art, architecture and other beautiful things, which were created by humans, are being destroyed by their vile nature. Ruins in Iraq, Syria, and other parts of the Middle East, which was the font of human civilization, stand testimony to this fact. One hopes a similar fate will not befall the present descendants of the Great Steppes culture.
by N. A. de S. Amaratunga 
from The Island https://ift.tt/FMg0O8D
No comments:
Post a Comment