SRI AUROBINDO: ARCHIVES AND RESEARCH

Volume 2, 1978

The Origins of Aryan Speech

It is the same idea of discernment, discretion or explanation, allotting things to their place, showing, teaching - the family of special significances which have since had so important and brilliant a history.

Once again what is the upshot of this substantially exhaustive statement of the significances in Sanskrit of the di family? Once again the result never varies. It is precisely the same. It is as if this particular family in Sanskrit, at any rate, were insistent on proving the theory with which we started, on declaring themselves all one family, with the same spirit, the same temperament, the same intellectual equipment, the same physical features. Absolutely, we have arrived at hardly a single new significance and none which can be isolated from the rest of the family.

We turn to the du roots. We start with du, to burn, torment, afflict, give pain, be pained; also to go or move. Then there is dūna, pained, burned, agitated (the essential idea in all emotional senses in this family, good or bad); duþkh, to pain, afflict, distress and duþkha, pain, grief, trouble, difficulty, unpleasant, difficult, uneasy, with its derivatives; duói, a small tortoise (duli also means tortoise);duõóuka, dishonest, fraudulent, bad-hearted; dundama (probably from root óam, cf. óamaru), dundubhi, dundu, dundubha, a drum; dundumā, the sound of a drum; dudh, to kill, hurt, injure, propel, with its derivatives; dur, a particle prefix with the sense of hard, bad; durv, to hurt or kill; duvas, active (cf. dakù, devanam,δράσσω[drassō]; dul, to toss up, swing; duù, to corrupt, spoil, destroy; 'to censure, annul; to be bad, impure, sinful, and its derivatives (cf. daa, a fault or defect); dūùikā, a paint brush (cf. dih, to smear), rheum of the eyes; dūùya, meaning corruptible, pus, or poison, but also cotton, a garment, a tent, -the common root sense to cover suddenly turning up in this unexpected quarter as if to point out the entire identity of these families; duh, to milk or squeeze out (here we have the original sense of violent pressure, to yield or grant, to enjoy; to hurt, pain, distress) and its derivatives (cf. also dogdhɼ and doùaka, both meaning a calf); dū, to afflict, be in pain; dūrvā, kuśa grass (cf. darbha); dūra, far, distant (cut off, separated); dūśyam, a tent; and finally dūta, a

messenger, which must derive from the sense of impelling, sending, we have already found in this family. We have also do, to cut, divide, mow, reap; dora, a rope; doùas, doùā,  night, darkness (to cover, hide); dos,   doùā , doùan, the arm, forearm, the side of a figure (probably, to cover, contain, embrace); doha.... Once more, we receive nothing but confirmation of our theory.

There are, finally, two connected families, connected, as we might say, by marriage with the seed sounds y and v. In the first we have dyu, to encounter, attack; dyu, day, sky, brightness, heaven,sharpness, fire, with a number of kindred words, dyauþ, dyumat,dyumān etc. ; dyut, to shine, elucidate, express, with its derivatives; dyūta, gambling, play, battle; dyūna, sportive, sorry; dyai, to disfigure, despise (cf. div, to make sport of, squander, make light of). In the second we have dvi, two (to separate) and its derivatives; dvandva, a couple, strife, dual, fortress (to strengthen), secret (to hide); dvār, dvāra, door, gate, aperture; dviù, to hate, dislike (cf. druh etc.), with its derivatives; dvīpa, shelter, protection, refuge, an island (to divide, cut off, separate), a division of the world, continent; dvīpin, a tiger, leopard (to tear, rend); dvɼ, to cover, hinder (obstruct), disregard, misappropriate (cf. dasyu, a robber). Again, an absolute confirmation.

We have completed our survey of this great D clan of Aryan words, as far as the Sanskrit language holds them and introduces them to us in its classical form. No one, I think, can regard this evidence without being driven inevitably to the conclusion that here we have no chance aggregation of words, no language formed by chance or arbitrarily, but a physico-mental growth as organic, as clearly related in its members, species, families, sub-families as any particular species of physical fixina and flora. The words claim each other for kinsmen at every step. Not a single family, not one small group fails to bring forwards its claim, its documents, its oral evidence. All stand together, shoulder to shoulder, as closely as any Highland clan or savage tribe. The most opposite meanings meet in a single word, but always there is the evidence borne by the rest of the family to their common origin not only in body but in spirit, not only in physical sound form, but in mental sense origin and development. The proof is complete.

messenger, which must derive from the sense of impelling, sending, we have already found in this family. We have also do, to cut, divide, mow, reap; dora, a rope; doùas, doùā,  night, darkness (to cover, hide); dos,   doùā , doùan, the arm, forearm, the side of a figure (probably, to cover, contain, embrace); doha.... Once more, we receive nothing but confirmation of our theory.

There are, finally, two connected families, connected, as we might say, by marriage with the seed sounds y and v. In the first we have dyu, to encounter, attack; dyu, day, sky, brightness, heaven,sharpness, fire, with a number of kindred words, dyauþ, dyumat,dyumān etc. ; dyut, to shine, elucidate, express, with its derivatives; dyūta, gambling, play, battle; dyūna, sportive, sorry; dyai, to disfigure, despise (cf. div, to make sport of, squander, make light of). In the second we have dvi, two (to separate) and its derivatives; dvandva, a couple, strife, dual, fortress (to strengthen), secret (to hide); dvār, dvāra, door, gate, aperture; dviù, to hate, dislike (cf. druh etc.), with its derivatives; dvīpa, shelter, protection, refuge, an island (to divide, cut off, separate), a division of the world, continent; dvīpin, a tiger, leopard (to tear, rend); dvɼ, to cover, hinder (obstruct), disregard, misappropriate (cf. dasyu, a robber). Again, an absolute confirmation.

We have completed our survey of this great D clan of Aryan words, as far as the Sanskrit language holds them and introduces them to us in its classical form. No one, I think, can regard this evidence without being driven inevitably to the conclusion that here we have no chance aggregation of words, no language formed by chance or arbitrarily, but a physico-mental growth as organic, as clearly related in its members, species, families, sub-families as any particular species of physical fixina and flora. The words claim each other for kinsmen at every step. Not a single family, not one small group fails to bring forwards its claim, its documents, its oral evidence. All stand together, shoulder to shoulder, as closely as any Highland clan or savage tribe. The most opposite meanings meet in a single word, but always there is the evidence borne by the rest of the family to their common origin not only in body but in spirit, not only in physical sound form, but in mental sense origin and development. The proof is complete.

We have then a single great family with a common store of sense-property which each uses according to his needs. We have a number of meanings all going back to a few radical significances. What are those significances? First, forceful, effective or violent division or separation; second, swift, oppressive, overbearing motion; third, heavy pressure or oppression; fourth, violent, oppressive or strongly agitated or simply emphatic emotion; fifth, strong, heavy sound; sixth, strong, overpowering scent; seventh, strong or swift action; eighth, strong, brilliant or oppressive heat or light; ninth, close, solid and heavy contact or cohesion. I have stated them at random, but I think a little reflection will show us that these nine fundamental ideas resolve themselves into the single idea of a heavy, decisive pressure, sometimes the idea of weight, sometimes the idea of decision predominating, applied to the fundamental experiences which would recommend themselves to the newly awakened and virgin observation of mankind; viz. sound, contact or touch, (form), light, (taste), smell, motion and. action, sensation objective and subjective. From the da family form and taste seem to be absent; either they have lost it or never applied themselves to these provinces of human observatidn. But we cannot yet say this precisely; for we have the word deha, body, the Greek δέμας [demas], shape, body; δέμүω [demō], to build. It is obvious also that words expressive of taste must necessarily be fewer and more limited than the words expressing sound or touch. It is possible that words of form and taste were drawn by a figure from other primary senses and were not in themselves a primary application of the original mind-impressions to the terms of intellectual appreciation. We shall have to examine languages more widely before this question can be decided. Another idea that hardly appears in this clan is that of human speech itself as distinguished from sound in general.

I, therefore, add an additional hypothesis to those I have already formulated, viz. that the original guņa or mind-mpression created naturally and automatically by the seed sound (in this case the consonantal sound d), was applied primarily to the simple categories of sense observation, contact, sound, light, motion and action, including speech, sensation, and perhaps taste and form. It is no more than a hypothesis at present; for other sound families wilt have to be examined before this hypothesis can be either established or dismissed as untenable. I put it forward here for the sake of completeness.

It is not necessary to suppose that this perception of mental or sensational sound values, of the particular impression on mind-sensation of a particular inarticulate sound defining and separating itself on the human tongue or even its systematic application to the categories of sense observation was willed, conscious or intellectually reasoned out in the men who first framed their utterance into the vocables of Aryan speech. Nature, whatsoever Nature may be, guides the unconscious tree and flower, the unreasoning insect and animal to self-expression, to self-organisation, to self-evolution, and the result exceeds the best efforts of the deliberate human intellect. Why should she not have done the same for human speech? Instead of saying that men applied the guņa of the particular sound to the sensations they wished to express, let us say that as in plant and tree and animal the sound itself, by the force of Nature, by the law of its own activity, svadhām anu, ɼtū§ranu, "according to its own self-arrangement in the straight line of the truth of things inherent in it," and helped by the half conscious responsive awakening mind, applied itself in the service of mind to the various classes of sense         observation which his awakening mentality demanded. I do not say this is the final and complete truth of the matter. But it is the only part or aspect of the truth of it at all consonant with our present way of approaching Nature as a blind force working in matter out of un-conscious through half conscious into fully conscious action. It is the only theory which, provided it can establish itself, deserves, as it seems to me, to be called in the modem sense, rational and scientific; for it takes its stand on the two natural movements which constitute speech, the physical movements of articulation and the mental movements, partly sensational, partly discriminatory which attend the physical movements. And it seeks to establish itself by reducing the relation between these two motions to classified order and ascertained rule.

CHAPTER III

               We have not, however, approached even yet the last step of our theory. For as there are families of words, families of root-sounds, families of simple sounds, so also are there families of seed sounds. These families are known to all grammarians and in Sanskrit they have been distinguished with a faithful and peculiar care and related to those parts of the organ of speech which play the decisive part in their articulation; but their relations to seem never to have been studied. The seed sound D belongs to the group called dentals, which consists in Sanskrit of the hard t, the soft d, the aspirates th and dh and the dento-nasal n - for every consonant group except the liquids, the sibilants and the isolated aspirate h is composed of these five members, the hard consonant leading, the soft following, each attended by it's corresponding aspirate and a nasal bringing up the rear. Sanskrit has three sibilants and even these it attributes to the complete groups; s to the dental, ś to the palatal and ù to the cerebral family. The question then arises, are these groups only related in sound? or are they related also in guņa and therefore in signification tendency. If there is any soundness ,in the theory I have been advancing, then as we have found the word-families united in a single root-family with a single paternal root (as, dal, dah, dabh etc.), these root-families united through the paternal root in a single primitive root-family, phratria or brotherhood (as the da family) with one paternal simple root, and these primitive brotherhoods united through their paternal root (da, di, du, dɼ) in a single clan with one paternal seed sound (d), so also we ought to find kindred clans united through their ruling-sound into a single tribe based on the kinship of the paternal seed sounds. The sound d being closely related to the sound dh, must hold a similar guņa and therefore carry with it similar intellectual significances, and, though they may coincide in a less degree, t, th and even perhaps n, though this is more doubtful, ought to be not far in guņa  and sense from the d and dh word-clans. We must now proceed to examine the facts and perceive how the theory fares in this last and final test.

We will take first the aspirated soft dental dh. In the last chapter I have taken the reader very much at random through the wordjungle, pointing out as we went, how the different trees fell into groups all belonging to families of one-species. In this chapter, the theory having once been found, springing up of itself as we progressed, we can afford to proceed with more order and method; we can collect our specimens and present them ready assorted for examination and even speak with greater confidence about the precise nature of their connections.

The commonest sense of the d roots, a significance which we found so pervasive that we were first inclined to take it as the root significance, - was the idea of violent dividing or rending3 pressure, destruction, especially in the senses "to hurt, kill, injure, destroy; to afflict, distress, give pain; to burst open, cleave, split; to deceive, cheat, etc." Do we find the same senses or the same tendency in the dh family? We find dhrāó, to divide, split or pluck (flowers); we find dhvāņksa, a carpenter; but we do not find any other words with the precise idea of splitting or breaking open or cutting - a deficiency of some importance for the proper appreciation of the guņa  of the seed sound dh. On the other hand the sense of hurting, injuring, killing, giving pain, is sufficiently common. We have dhakk, to destroy, annihilate; dhanus (dhanu), a bow or an archer; (note dharma also occurs in this sense, but this does not prove that the idea of bow is "the thing held", for dhɼ has other senses, "to drink, to flow", and its secondary roots mean to hurt, kill, injure), dhçù and its derivatives, to hurt, injure, offend, outrage, attack, violate; dhāñī, lattacking, assaulting; dhū, to treat roughly, injure; dhur, distress or affliction; dhurv and dhrūv, to hurt, injure, kill; dhūr, to hurt, kill; dhūrta, dhattūra, dhustura, the white thorn-apple (with its in toxicating and stupefying drug); dhūlaka, poison; dhorita, injuring, hurting, striking; dhru and dhvɼ, to kill; dhvams and its derivatives, to perish, fall, sink; also to scatter or sprinkle. We find dhikù, to be harassed, weary; dhyāma, soiled or unclean (spoiled, withered); dhrākh, to be dry or arid; dhūka and dhava, a rogue or cheat; dhipsu, deceptive; and dhī,dhīti , to disregard, disrespect. We find the simple sense of heavy or strong pressure in dhāv and its derivotives, to rub, brighten, polish; and in dhvɼ, to bend, which we have already had with the sense of killing. This harvest is not so plentiful, and that has its significance, but neither is it entirely scanty. We may notice also the sense of giving in dhartram, a sacrifice; dhāyu, liberal, and dhenu, a gift, present; but we must also notice that the impression here seems rather to be that of placing than of distributing.

But then we observe that the sense of pressure so scanty otherwise gives more liberal results in two special senses, two particular kinds of strong and insistent pressure, - to shake or agitate and to blow. We have dhū, and dhu with many derivatives meaning to strike, agitate, shake off, blow away, to kindle or excite and, directly from the sense of pushing, to resist or oppose; we have dhūnana, dhfūka and dhavāņaka in the sense of wind; dhūli, the driven dust or ground powder and derivative  senses of smoke, fog, incense etc. in dhûpa, dhûma and their derivatives, - dhûma  meaning also eructation and dhûp, to obscure or eclipse; dham, to blow, with its derivates and, connecting these roots with the sense of hurting or giving pain, we have dhamana, cruel. A certain idea of action, labour or effort appears vaguely as in the d family, in dhmā, to manufacture and dhūma, a place prepared for building (cf. Greek іδρύω [hidruō],4 I build), but as in the da family, the sense does not prominently emerge. We seem to have also the sense of covering, cutting off, in dhārā, night (also meaning edge) and perhaps dhvāntam, darkness. But dhvāntam may also come from the idea of thickness, crassness more proper to this family. Here again we find a difference between dh and d.

Another class of meanings which we noticed in the da family ,were those which expressed some kind of motion and we perceived that a swift, overpowering pressure of motion was the original idea in that family. In the dha clan also there are a number of words conveying directly or indirectly the idea of motion. As we have dru, to run, there, so here we have dhāv, to run, glide, charge, to flow, to give milk, to wash. We have dhunayati, flows; dhuni and dhena, meaning river; dhena and dhīra, the ocean; dhārā, meaning a stream, current, shower, the pace of a horse, a wheel (cf. dalbha etc.); dhūma, a meteor; dhor, to run or trot (of a horse), with its derivatives; dhorani, series, tradition; dhārā, tradition, fame or rumour, line, series (but here the idea of continuing may be the source); dharuņa, water; dhras, to toss up; dhūr, dhvaj, dhrā, dhru, all in the sense of going or moving; dhraj, to go or move; dhraji, a gliding, persistent motion; dhrāji, impulse, storm or wind. It is evident that herethere is a great stress not on the force of the motion, though this sometimes emerges, but on its persistence.                   (Incomplete)

Aryan Origins

THE ELEMENTARY ROOTS OF LANGUAGE

The  elementary roots of language are in sound the vowel or semivowel roots, and in sense those which convey the fundamental idea of being, burdened with the cognate and immediately resultant ideas of the substance that pervades and the motion that bridges the space and time through which being expresses itself, in which it exists and relates its different points to each other. These ideas inherent in knowledge would in a primitive race work themselves out dimly, by a slow process, from the initial expression of immediate feelings, experiences, sensations and needs. But the speakers of the Aryan language were not, according to my theory, entirely primitive and undeveloped. They developed language from the essential force of the sounds they used with some sort of philosophical harmony and rational order. They to some extent arranged language in its development instead of merely allowing it to develop fortuitously its own arrangement.

The elementary vowel roots which concern us, are the roots a(ā), i (ī), u (ū) and ç(é), the semi-vowel roots the V and Y families. The modified vowels e and o are in the Aryan languages secondary sounds conjunct of a and i, a and u. The diphthongs ai and au with  their Greek variations ei and ou are tertiary modifications of e and o. Another conjunct vowel Iŗ is a survival of a more ancient order of things in which I and r no less than v and y were considered as semivowels or rather as either vowel or consonant according to usage. R as a vowel has survived in the vowel ŗ , l as a separate vowel has perished, but its sernivowel value survives in the metrical peculiarity of the Latin tongue of which a faint trace survives in Sanskrit, by which l and r in a conjunct consonant may or may not, at will, effect the quantity of the preceding syllable.

I shall consider first the vowel roots. They are four in number, a, i, u and ŗ , and all four of them indicate primarily the idea of being, existence in some elementary aspect or modification suggested by the innate quality or guņa of the sound denoting it. A in its short form indicates being in its simplicity without any farther idea of

modification or quality, mere or initial being, creative of space; i an intense state of existence, being narrowed, forceful and insistent, tending to a goal, seeking to occupy space; u a wide, extended but not diffused state of existence, being medial and firmly occupant of space; ŗ a vibrant state of existence, pulsing in space, being

active about a point, within a limit. The lengthened forms of these vowels add only a greater intensity to the meaning of the original forms, but the lengthening of the a modifies more profoundly. It brings in the sense of space already created and occupied by the diffusion of the simple state of being - a diffused or pervasive state of existence. These significances are, I suggest, eternally native to these sounds and consciously or unconsciously determined the use of them in language by Aryan speakers. To follow these developments and modifications it is necessary to take these roots one by one in themselves and in their derivatives.

               From the persistent evidence of the Sanskrit language it is clear that to the initial idea of existence the Aryans attached, as fundamental circumstances of being, the farther ideas of motion, contact, sound, form and action and there are few root-families in which there are not the six substantial ideas which form the starting-point of all farther development of use and significance.

Neither the root a itself nor its lengthened form ā occurs as an actual verb in any of the acknowledged Aryan languages, but in the Tamil we find the root ā (akiradu as it is described in the Tamil system) in the sense to be and a number of derivative significations. The verbals formed from this verb, āka and āna, are utilised in the language to give a vague adjectival sense to the words to which they are attached or to modify a, previous adjectival signification.     ( Incomplete)