Sanskritisation (linguistics)

For the sociological process in which lower-caste people imitate upper-caste customs, see Sanskritisation (sociology).
Manipravalam, a heavily Sanskritised style of Tamil, written in Tamil script.

Sanskritisation is the process of introducing features from Sanskrit, such as vocabulary and grammar, into other languages.[1] It is sometimes associated with the "Hinduisation" of a linguistic community, or less commonly, with introducing a more upper-caste status into a community.[2][3] Many languages throughout South Asia and Southeast Asia were greatly influenced by Sanskrit (or its descendant languages, the Prakrits and modern-day Indo-Aryan languages) historically.[4][5][6]

Sanskritisation often stands in opposition to the Persianisation or Englishisation of a language within South Asia,[7][8] as occurs with the Hindustani language, which in its Sanskritised, Persianised, and English-influenced registers becomes Hindi, Urdu, and Hinglish/Urdish respectively.[9][10][11][12] Support for Sanskritisation in South Asia runs highest among Hindu nationalists.[13]

Sanskritization of the names of people and places is also commonplace in India.[14][15][16]

  1. ^ Ramaswamy, Sumathi (1999). "Sanskrit for the Nation". Modern Asian Studies. 33 (2): 339–381. doi:10.1017/S0026749X99003273. ISSN 1469-8099. S2CID 145240374.
  2. ^ "Hindi/Urdu/Hindustani in the Metropolises: Visual (and Other) Impressions", Defining the Indefinable: Delimiting Hindi, Peter Lang, 2014, doi:10.3726/978-3-653-03566-7/18, ISBN 9783631647745, retrieved 2023-10-29
  3. ^ Punnoose, Reenu, and Muhammed Haneefa. "Problematising Hindi as the'Self'and English as the'Other'." Economic & Political Weekly 53.7 (2018).
  4. ^ Chakraborty, Shibashis. "The Role of Specific Grammar for Interpretation in Sanskrit". Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Science, 9 (2) (2021): 107-187.
  5. ^ Burrow, Thomas (2001). The Sanskrit Language. Motilal Banarsidass Publ. ISBN 978-81-208-1767-8.
  6. ^ Bronkhorst, Johannes (2010-01-01). "The spread of Sanskrit". From Turfan to Ajanta. Festschrift for Dieter Schlingloff on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday.
  7. ^ Bolton, Kingsley; Kachru, Braj B. (2006). World Englishes: Critical Concepts in Linguistics. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-415-31507-4.
  8. ^ Calabrese, Rita; Chambers, J. K.; Leitner, Gerhard (2015-10-13). Variation and Change in Postcolonial Contexts. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4438-8493-8.
  9. ^ Coleman, Julie (10 January 2014). Global English Slang: Methodologies and Perspectives. Routledge. p. 130. ISBN 978-1-317-93476-9. Within India, however, other regional forms exist, all denoting a mixing of English with indigenous languages. Bonglish (derived from the slang term Bong 'a Bengali') or Benglish refers to 'a mixture of Bengali and English', Gunglish or Gujlish 'Gujarati + English', Kanglish 'Kannada + English', Manglish 'Malayalam + English', Marlish 'Marathi + English', Tamlish or Tanglish 'Tamil + English' and Urdish 'Urdu + English'. These terms are found in texts on regional variations of Indian English, usually in complaint-tradition discussions of failing standards of language purity.
  10. ^ Tull, Herman (2011). "Language in South Asia. Edited by Braj B. Kachru, Yamuna Kachru, and S. N. Sridhar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. xxiv, 608 pp. $120.99 (cloth); $50.00 (paper)". The Journal of Asian Studies. 70 (1): 279–280. doi:10.1017/s002191181000361x. ISSN 0021-9118. S2CID 163424137.
  11. ^ Kachru, Yamuna (2006). "Mixers lyricing in Hinglish: blending and fusion in Indian pop culture". World Englishes. 25 (2): 223–233. doi:10.1111/j.0083-2919.2006.00461.x. ISSN 0883-2919.
  12. ^ Kachru, Braj B. (1994). "Englishization and contact linguistics". World Englishes. 13 (2): 135–154. doi:10.1111/j.1467-971X.1994.tb00303.x. ISSN 0883-2919.
  13. ^ Fishman, Joshua A.; García, Ofelia (2010). Handbook of Language & Ethnic Identity. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-539245-6.
  14. ^ Staal, J. F. (1963). "Sanskrit and Sanskritization". The Journal of Asian Studies. 22 (3): 261–275. doi:10.2307/2050186. ISSN 0021-9118. JSTOR 2050186.
  15. ^ Shah, A.M. (2005). "Sanskritisation Revisited". Sociological Bulletin. 54 (2): 238–249. ISSN 0038-0229. JSTOR 23620499.
  16. ^ Kapur, Anu (2019), "Sanskritization of place names", Mapping Place Names of India, Routledge India, pp. 78–87, doi:10.4324/9780429057687-4, ISBN 978-0-429-05768-7, retrieved 2023-10-30