Sanskritization: A New Model of Language Development 

By David Frawley (From the Rig Veda and the History of India, Aditya Prakshan 2001)
Note article on Archaeology-on-line.net with articles by other authors on the same topics of linguistic issues of the Vedas.

The Current Indo-European Model: The Migration of the Proto-Indo-Europeans

The primary model used today for explaining the close relationships that exist between Indo-European languages is a migration theory. It proposes a Proto-Indo-European people who spread their language by a process of migration from an original primitive homeland. According to this view, as the Indo-European people moved in different directions, their language changed in predictable ways that can be traced back to their parent tongue, native culture and original environment.

The Proto-Indo-Europeans are usually defined racially as a European ethnic type, though not all scholars accept that they were of one race only. Their homeland-which is the subject of much debate-is placed in various regions including Eastern Europe, Anatolia, Central Asia and Western China, in short, at almost every point in the Indo-European world. From there, a migration is proposed over a period some centuries, if not millennia, to the parts of the world from India to Ireland where Indo-European languages came to be spoken by the first millennium BCE. The beginning of these migrations is proposed from as early as 7000-4000 BCE, reaching areas like India in 1500 BCE and Ireland as late as 500 BCE.

These migrating Indo-Europeans are often popularly called Aryans. However, we should recognize that this term does not reflect the original Sanskrit meaning of Arya, which has no racial or linguistic connotation but simply means noble or refined. These so-called Aryans were said to have taken their language with them, which explains the connections between Indo-European tongues like how the trunk of a tree creates various branches. The theory proposes that Indo-European languages share a substratum of common terms that reflect the conditions of their original homeland. Linguists have endeavored to recreate the original Indo-European language (PIE or Proto-Indo-European) spoken there. They find common words that indicate a homeland in a northern region of birch trees and salmon, far from any ocean. While it is impossible verify such a language, even dictionaries of it have been created as if it were a real language that was spoken once.

We can call this a "migration model" of language, with the migrants at a later time militant invaders, bringing their language with them and imposing it on existing populations.

Flaws of the Existing Model

However, this migration model suffers from many flaws, of which I will mention the main ones.

Of course, many problems arise from the different opinions about the timing or place of these migrations. The original homeland is proposed for diverse places throughout the Indo-European world many thousands of miles apart. The inability to find anything like a single homeland naturally makes the entire theory questionable. The date of the proposed migrations from it are also a matter of much debate and vary by centuries, if not millennia. How linguists can be certain about a language but not about its time, place, or origin certainly casts doubts on the theory. This means that the theory, though popular, is vague in many respects and that its details are either not clear or are unconfirmed.

The attempts to connect Proto-Indo-European with a single race or ethnic group is particularly problematical given the spread of such languages through diverse ethnic groups by the first millennium BCE, particularly owing to the ethnic diversity of eastern Europe and Central Asia that are the main proposed homelands. However, I would like to raise more fundamental objections about the theory, including its linguistic basis.

First, in the primitive state of civilization, the rule is one of language diversity not of language uniformity, with languages changing quickly from region to region, often over short distances. For some examples, the languages of the Native Americans and Native Africans are quite diverse and change every few miles. This is particularly true of nomadic peoples. Such Proto-Indo-Europeans would not have been different. Their language would have changed every few miles and could not have had the consistency required of it to endure even at its place of origin.

Second, in the primitive state of language, languages change quickly over time as well, lacking a sophisticated culture or written traditions to sustain it. This process of time change would be faster for primitive groups that are migrating, whose travel exposes them to new cultural and environmental influences that require changes of vocabulary and which brings them into contact with other language groups. How such a Proto-Indo-European language could have maintained its continuity through the long time and vast migrations required is hard to explain.