The subject of today’s discussion is derivation, emanation and distortion. Sound is the subtlest of the five inferences – sound, touch, form, taste and smell. In the New Testament it is said: “In the beginning was the word.” In the Veda it is also said – shabdabrahma. Prańavátmakaḿ brahma. In the distant past people imitated the different sounds they heard, and with their help they tried to express the ideas that arose in their minds. They expressed certain ideas with the help of sounds that they had discovered which maintained parallelism with those ideas. In the beginning this expression was limited to verbal roots. Gradually they created various words by adding prefixes before these verbal roots and suffixes after them. Verbs are used as verbal nouns and adverbs even in those languages which do not have a developed grammar, for example, Rám caeche [Ram is going]. This is verbal language. From this people have created Rám cal rahá hae [Ram is going – Hindi] or Rám calii rahal-a che. I have heard people in the Himalayan mountain regions say Rám calu dashá. It is clear that the original verb form changes and is used as substantives and modifiers.

This expression created from external sounds changes with the changes in time, place and person. In other words, linguistic distortion is dependent upon temporal, spatial and personal changes. Now let us see how linguistic distortion occurs as a result of these changes.

An uneducated person does not speak in the same way that an educated person does with their refined language. For example, an educated person says cikitsá [medical treatment], mahotsav [great festival], etc., but an uneducated person will say cikicchá, mocchav, and so on. Practical experience shows that in areas with greater numbers of educated people the use of their refined language influences the colloquial language. The reverse is also true. In areas with a greater proportion of uneducated people, the colloquial language of the many also influences the educated language of the few. Thus the mocchav of the common people’s language also becomes part of the spoken language of the educated people. At one time there was a greater number of educated Brahman scholars in Vikrampur Pargana and the nearby Mymensing and Tripura districts. Hence there was a much greater use of Sanskrit-borrowed words in the spoken language of the people there. I have even heard little-educated women there call dai [curd] dadhi.

While the people of Calcutta say bábu kort́e sákśyi dite gechen [Our boss has gone to testify in court], I have heard the people of Vikrampur say sákśya instead. While listening to the conversations of the educated pandits the common people get influenced and this increases the use of these kinds of Sanskrit words. The Prákrta ajja comes from the Sanskrit adya. From this comes the Demi-Prákrta ájja; the old Bengali áji; the medieval Bengali áji, áij; and the modern Bengali áj. In medieval Maethilii it was also áji, áij, and in modern Maethilii áij or ái. I have seen this word adya, which has undergone so much distortion, used both in writing and in speaking in certain highly educated areas of Chittagong District.

Language becomes distorted by keeping pace with the changes in time. It should be pointed out that this distortion occurs according to the changes in pronunciation among the uneducated and little-educated people.⁽¹⁾ Subsequently, if this distortion does not deviate much from the original language, that is, if there is only a slight distortion, then we do not assign any new name to this distorted form of the language. However when, with the passage of time, the distorted form of the language becomes far removed from the original form then we give it a new name. In other words, it is newly titled or named. For example, if we say ahammi garaham jacchámi for ahaḿ grhaḿ gacchámi [I go home] then we do not consider it a form of a new language. We call it a prákrta form of Sanskrit. If we go one stage further and say ahammi garahe jacchái then we say that it is a Demi-Prákrta form of Sanskrit in an effort to maintain contact with Sanskrit. However if we then say áhmi gharae jácchai then we no longer entitle it Sanskrit – it is an old form of Bengali. We do not say that it is a distorted form of Sanskrit although actually it is a distorted form of Sanskrit. In the following stage, when we say ámi ghare (gharke) jácchi, then we say: “This is my mother tongue, Bengali. I don’t know Sanskrit-Panskrit, nor do I understand it either. I don’t have anything to do with that language. It is the language of the Brahman pandits.”

Now let us return to the topic. What is derivation? Earlier we said that people created many new words by adding prefixes before the original verbs and suffixes after them. The verbal root of the word “derivation” is “rive”. The prefix “de” is added to this “rive”; that is, it ultimately becomes “de – rivate + ion”.

Sound arises from nature. Human beings try to express in a manner similar to the sounds they hear and through which they get ideas. For example, woodpeckers do t́hak t́hak [sound of striking wood] when they rap wood. People do not like it when this sound strikes their ears and they express this unpleasant feeling through the medium of the word t́hak t́hak. When household utensils or pots and pans fall down they create a jhanjhan sound. The word jhanjhan expresses this idea. Similarly, if something breaks it makes a maŕmaŕ sound. One does not like it so the expression of this feeling of dislike takes place through the word jhanjhan. The wife of a certain gentleman that I knew was quite ill-mannered. One winter evening I saw this gentleman sitting quietly at the foot of a tree. I asked him: “Why are you sitting under this tree on a winter evening? You’ll freeze.” He replied: “You know, my young friend, if I go in the house I’ll hear only khankhan jhanhan. It’s a lot more peaceful out here.”

When a freshly washed and starched loom-woven dhoti is opened before being put on it creates a kind of paŕpaŕ sound. But once the dhoti has been fully opened that paŕpaŕ sound merges into the void. So if someone gets afraid or becomes panicky and flees in a hurry we say ár lokt́á d́ánŕáy, – dekhle ná, keman paŕpaŕiye pálálo! [He’s no longer there – didn’t you see how he vanished into thin air?].

When something is rolling [gaŕiye jáy] it creates a gaŕgaŕ [rumble, rattle] sound by pushing against the earth as a result of its struggle against inertia. The phrase gaŕiye jáoyá [to roll] that we use in Bengali comes from this word gaŕgaŕ. I have heard people say that the Jaganath’s chariot wheels are gaŕgaŕanti.

If something is stuck to something else then it is no longer able to move about. When someone is really afraid then they become unable to move. In that condition it is as if they were stuck to the ground or to a bed or to some other thing. We say cheletá bhaye sint́iye rayeche [the boy is paralysed with fear].

Through excessive crying one loses the capacity to cry. Just before losing that capacity the sound konk-konk-konk comes out of the mouth. If a boy’s weeping suddenly stops after excessive crying we say chelet́a kende konkiye geche [the boy has cried himself out].

When greedy people at a wake sit before their banana leaf [used as a plate] to eat they rub the leaf with their hand once, then they rub it again after licking their hand with their tongue. When the air underneath their palm comes in contact with the smoothness of the banana leaf it creates a kind of hávháv sound. We call this kind of greedy eating hávŕe hávŕe kháoyá. After the meal we call the greedy person over and ask them: Hyánre, kii rakam dai hávŕali? [“Hey, how much curd did you gobble up?”].

There are some fish – cyáḿ, cyáḿŕá, ciḿŕi, etc. – that make a cyán cyán sound with their mouth from time to time. The words cyáḿ, cyáḿŕá, ciḿŕi, etc. come from the sound cyán cyán. When young boys cannot maintain control over their lips and say garbled words in front of their elders, their elders get annoyed and say já já, cyáḿŕámi karte habe ná [come now, don’t act like a cyáḿŕá].

Cámcikite cimt́i kát́e ciḿŕi mácher cyáḿŕá khoká
Bádáy base baḿshii bájáy baḿshabeŕer baunku boká

[The titmouse pinches like the young ones of shrimps or prawns;
the dullard Banku from Bansbeŕe is playing the bamboo flute
sitting in the woods.]

In ancient times in the different kinds of rites and incantations of black Tantra, especially in those rites where the performer believed that results would be obtained quickly by force of the mantras, the sound phat́ was added to the end of those mantras (hriiḿ-kriiḿ-phat́). This has been carried over and today we still say lokt́á baŕa phat́phat́ karche [he is really babbling on]. We say tor phat́phat́áni thámá [stop your talkativeness].

The pot has been filled with rice and the rice is cooking. In this situation the bubbling [phot́á] water makes a special kind of sound. If a lot of water is poured off or if the pot is taken down then that sound stops. Hence if someone is continually indulging in tall-talks and does not want to accept someone else’s logic then we say lokt́ár phut́áni [phut́uni] dekhcis [will you look at that person’s bragging].⁽²⁾

All these words come from external sounds. Those who wear wooden sandals when they walk make a t́hak t́hak sound with their feet (Brahmans, barbers, etc.). They are called t́hakkara in Sanskrit (t́hakkar in Gujarati, t́hákre in Marathi, t́hákur in eastern India).

When a swift horse runs its hooves make a turtur sound. That which makes a turtur sound as it moves is called turaga or turauṋga or turauṋgama (that is, “horse”). That animal which makes a kurkur sound as it runs is called kuraga or kurauṋga or kurauṋgama (that is, “deer”). In this way human beings have created many word forms and verb forms to express their mental ideas. This process of word formation is called “acoustic derivation” and the original verbal roots in all the world’s languages were created in this way.

The first word forms in all the world’s languages were the original verbal roots. By adding prefixes and suffixes many different words were derived. Among the established languages of the world, mainly four can be considered as the root languages. They are Vedic, Latin, Hebrew and old Chinese. If one examines the derivation of the vocabulary of these languages one will find that their method or process is identical. Only Vedic among these four did not have a grammar because it was a dynamic, living language. At the time when it was a spoken language people had not yet been able to invent written script. A living language never remains bound by the hard and fast rules and fetters of grammar. It should be mentioned here that grammar derives its form from the special characteristics of a language. A language does not depend on grammar to function.

The journey of the Vedic language began approximately fifteen thousand years ago and it attained its full development about ten thousand years ago. In other words, it walked its road for about five thousand years. In very ancient times the pace of language was very slow so Vedic needed five thousand years of dedicated vocal effort to attain its maturity. This five thousand year period is not short in terms of linguistic distortion [evolution to a new language]. A language normally lasts about one thousand years. Hence in modern times five new languages could have evolved in this five thousand years. Still, by examining the different mańd́alas [chapters] of the Vedas I have seen that the language of the oldest part is not the same as that of the last part. In other words, although it goes by the same name, Vedic, with the passage of time it became noticeably different.

As an example, let us take the Bengali language. The old form of Bengali took birth about twelve hundred years ago or a little before that. The old Bengali language lasted up until about eight hundred years ago. You could say that it lasted much less than one thousand years, but this is not the case. When we say that old Bengali was created about twelve hundred years ago it has to be understood that old Bengali literature dates back to at least twelve hundred years ago. Old Bengali certainly evolved some time before that, although we do not have any examples of it in our hands.

We take the oldest time of the Vedic language to be approximately fifteen thousand years ago, but is this to say that the people did not have a language before then? Of course they did. Mankind appeared on this planet approximately one million years ago. So when human beings appeared on earth they certainly brought language with them. The newborn children of those days certainly learned language from their mothers. We do not, however, have in our hands any examples of the language that existed up until fifteen thousand years ago because the Vedas had not yet been created. And since the Vedas had not been created there was no reason to commit that language to memory in the service of spirituality. But while it is true that the people did not commit that pre-Vedic era language to memory for spiritual purposes, did this mean that they did not have an oral tradition of folk songs, doggerels and lullabies? I would guess that they did and that that language was certainly passed on orally. However since there was no strong motivation for committing it to memory, they abandoned the folk songs, doggerels, lullabies, etc. of the old language when it became transformed through natural linguistic distortion and composed new unwritten songs and doggerels in the new language. In Bengali also, none of the songs and doggerels commonly sung by the people are more than seven or eight hundred years old. The old language has become incomprehensible nowadays so the women-folk had stopped, have stopped and are stopping singing them.

Indeed, why go back so far! You will not hear anyone singing the songs composed seventy or eighty years ago though they were once popular favourites. In these cases the language has not become old but the progressive people have rejected the things of yesteryear.

Not only folk songs, doggerels and lullabies, but all types of literature only survive if they possess a richness of idea or feeling. People kept the Vedic language alive orally because it had this imaginative richness. Although Vedic had attained maturity, it did not have a written form because the alphabet or written script had not yet been invented. Old Vedic’s only oral book was the Veda. It has survived till today because it had some relationship with dharma, however what is understood by “dharma” now and what was understood by it during the Vedic era is not exactly the same thing. The intellectuals of those days used to express their realizations for the welfare of the people (although they were not literate they were certainly intellectuals in terms of erudition and wealth of imagination). These intellectuals used to be known as rśi during the Vedic era. Rśi means “cultured person”. The word rśi comes from the verbal root r. For this reason those who accepted the Vedic doctrine in those days used to call themselves followers of the Vedic or Árśa doctrine (the word árśa comes from the word rśi).

Clearly, the word “Hindu” did not exist during that era. Hindu is a Farsi word whose fundamental meaning is “Indus River-basin” or the community of people living in the nearby areas. All of them, regardless of what religion they followed, were Hindus. In other words, the word hindu is a completely geographical word. Those whom we call “Hindu” today are indeed Hindus in the geographical sense. In terms of religion they are followers of the Árśa doctrine. However since nowadays the word “Hindu” is used instead of “Árśa” those who are called Hindu today are Hindus both in the geographical sense and in the religious sense. But those who belong to the various other so-called sects in India are Hindus in the geographical sense but not in the religious sense. They have their own religions.

When Latin attained its full maturity, people in Western Europe learned to write to a limited extent. The people of that era wrote on papyrus leaves (the original homeland of papyrus was Egypt).⁽³⁾ It is the westernmost branch of the Vedic language so there are many traces of Vedic in Latin. Many of the rules of Latin are similar to those of Vedic. Many verbal roots have found a place in Latin; the prefixes and suffixes are also in accordance with Vedic. This close relationship between the two languages is especially noticeable when it comes to their vocabularies. Latin’s style of pronunciation is also not far removed from Vedic. Hence if a Vedic vocabulary list is added to Latin a new dictionary will be created. For example, we are familiar with the Latin adjectives of the words frater, mater and pater such as “fraternity”, “maternity”, “paternity”, and so forth. The Vedic suffix śńik also exists in Latin. For example, “dynamic”, “static”, “economic”; várśik [“yearly” in Bengali], arthanaetik [economic], etc.

I was just speaking about papyrus. The people of Egypt started writing on the leaves of the papyrus tree that grew in the desert lands of that country. The words pápire, pápires, “paper”, etc. come from the word pa-pirása [papyrus]. Depending on the availability in the different countries of the world, the practice was introduced of writing on birch leaves in some places, palm leaves in others, etc. The Sanskrit name for Egypt is Mishradesha, that is, that country which is a kind of mixture between oriental and occidental.⁽⁴⁾ The old name for Egypt in the Arabic-Hebrew family languages was Mishra.

Egypt is a country of deserts so some of the people there used to wander from place to place. There used to be a conception among the people of Europe that perhaps all of Egypt’s people used to wander from place to place. In the Arabic language they were called beduin [Bedouin] and in English “Egyptian”. Later on, this “Egyptian” underwent distortion and became “gypsy”. Gypsies are called “Yáyávara” in Sanskrit; in Bengali they are called “Vede”.

So we were talking about the word pá-pirása. Although the original homeland of papyrus was Egypt it was the Greeks who first discovered it. The word pá-pirás is also originally an old Greek word. With the appearance of European civilization they came in contact with papyrus. There are a good number of Latin manuscripts written on papyrus scattered about in different places in modern-day Europe and Central Asia. The Catholic church service used to be held exclusively in Latin. At the beginning it was written on papyrus leaves. Even the English word “paper” comes from the word pá-pirás. The pronunciation of “papyrus” is pá-pirás. The correct pronunciation of “paper” is pepár. If paper is read over and over again its meaning becomes “pepper” (its pronunciation will be pep-ár). Papyrus leaves were used in the church long after the invention of paper.

In olden times the people of central Asia used to write on sheepskins and goatskins with ferrous sulphate (hiirákaśa from which comes kaśer káli [tannin ink]). Examples of the Bráhmii script written on sheepskins and goatskins are still discovered from time to time in the caves of central Asia (the Sanskrit language was first written in this script). It can be inferred from this that for some time after the discovery of written script many people, albeit not all, were still cave-dwellers. Even today there are a few literate people of India and the central orient that live in caves. Thus it is not inconceivable that writings might be found in their caves on birch leaves or palm leaves (tálpatra – the proper Sanskrit pronunciation is tálrapatra) or on modern paper.

It has already been mentioned that the English word “paper” comes from the word “papyrus”. We call it kágaj in Bengali. In Sanskrit it is called lekhya patra. The word kágaj, however, is not a pure Bengali word. The old Arabic for it is kágad and in Farsi this became either kágaj or kágad. It is the same in Urdu, but in Bengali we only say kágaj, not kágad.

There are many foreign words like kágaj that are commonly used in Bengali, for example, jámá [any upper-body garment] (Farsi), shirt (English), cádar [shawl] (Farsi), kámiz [shirt] (Farsi), bláuz (English), phatuyá [jacket] (Hindustani), kort́ (English), kurttá [a type of shirt] (Urdu; the type of garment we call paiṋjábii in Bengali is called “Bengali kurttá” in north India), pasham [wool] (Farsi; úrńá in Sanskrit; un in Urdu-Hindi), resham (Farsi; ciináḿshuka in Sanskrit; silik in Arabic; “silk” in English), mejáj [temperament] (Farsi), reoyáj [custom] (Farsi), ketá [piece] (Turkish), háoyá [air] (Turkish), cámac [spoon] (Turkish), rekávi [plate] (Turkish), peyálá [cup] (Farsi), piric [saucer] (Farsi), pardá [purdah] (Farsi), pardánasiina [living behind the purdah] (Farsi), khusi [happiness] (Farsi), roj [daily] (Farsi), jamin [land] (Farsi), áshmán [sky] (Farsi), paresán [trouble] (Farsi), hayrán [fatigued] (Farsi), jutá [shoe] (Farsi; páduká in Sanskrit), t́opi [cap] (Farsi; t́upii in Bengali), jaŕii [herbs] (Farsi), but́i [embroidery] (Farsi), kalká [ornamental design] (Farsi), mej or “table” (Farsi), cáku [knife] (Farsi; churi or curiká in Sanskrit), doyát [ink-pot] (Farsi), kalam [pen] (Farsi), átá [custard-apple] (Portuguese), cávi [key] (Portuguese), jánálá [window] (Portuguese), dárwájá [door] (Farsi), jin [saddle] (Farsi, meaning a horse’s saddle), jin [a type of spirit] (Arabic), jindá (Farsi, meaning “living”), jinis [thing] (Farsi), ciz [thing] (Farsi), acár [pickle] (Portuguese, for example “mango pickle”; in Sanskrit ácára means “conduct”), máiri [oath] (Portuguese), kadam (Farsi, meaning “leg”), pharmáis [requisition] (Farsi), meherváni [mercy] (Farsi), ijájat (Farsi), imárat [building] (Farsi), paket́ (English), turup [trump] (Farsi), pánt́ (Farsi, a measure of wine), páunrut́i [leavened bread] (Portuguese), biskut́ (English), jilipi [kind of sweet-meat] (Farsi), khájá [a kind of sweet-meat] (Farsi),⁽⁵⁾ sipáhii [sepoy] (Farsi), bádsháh [emperor] (Farsi), naváb [nawab] (Farsi), shekh [sheik] (Arabic), álláh [God] (Arabic), khudá [God] (Farsi), sharif [noble] (Arabic), sharáphat [gentleness] (Arabic with Farsi suffix), mulákat [meeting] (Farsi), tavákat (Farsi), takalluf [hardship] (Farsi), jaungii [military] (Farsi), kámán [canon] (Farsi), vanduk [musket] (Farsi), vakil [lawyer] (Farsi), vakálatnámá [signing over power of attorney] (Farsi), vaziir [minister of state] (Farsi; ujir in Bengali), vajárat (Farsi), phazal (Arabic), kálám, that is, “order” (Arabic), káste [scythe] (Farsi), pág, págŕi [turban] (Farsi), muŕet́há (Hindustani), pá-jámá [slacks, pyjamas] (Farsi, páyjámá in Bengali), pákháná [latrine] (Farsi; páykháná in Bengali), gosal, gosalkháná [bath] (Farsi), bávurci [Islamic cook] (Farsi), bávurcikháná [kitchen] (Farsi), dastar, dasttar [custom], dasttarkháná [dining hall] (Farsi), surmá [kohl] (Farsi), dhúpadáni [incense holder], pikdáni [spittle basin] (dáni is a Farsi word), poktá [experienced] (Farsi; in Bengali we say páká-poktá. The word páká [ripe, mature] comes from the Sanskrit word pakva), majbut [strong] (Farsi), várándá [verandah] (Portuguese), dálán, dardálán [corridor] (Farsi), haraph [letter] (Farsi), dam [breath] (Farsi), darkár [need] (Farsi), jorkadam [rapid stride] (Farsi), daráj [spacious] (Farsi), bandvasta [arrangement] (Farsi), darájdasta [open-handed] (Farsi), dastakhat [signature] (Farsi), ádamsumárii [census] (Farsi), royedát [award] (Farsi), and so on.

Hebrew is a near contemporary of Latin. It is a Semitic language, that is, it is between an Aryan and non-Aryan language. The Semitic lands stretched from eastern Europe to western Asia, that is, from Turkey in the north to Eritrea in the south (ancient Abissinia, modern-day north Ethiopia). The crown jewel of this Semitic land was the Hebrew language. In subsequent times Hebrew divided into two branches. One was medieval Hebrew and the other was old Arabic. We do not, however, have a modern Hebrew language developed from medieval Hebrew because for certain reasons those whose mother tongue was medieval Hebrew abandoned their homeland and scattered to various parts of the globe. Due to this, their original mother tongue disappeared. Those ancestors of theirs who returned to this Semitic land have resuscitated medieval Hebrew and put it to use in their everyday activities. They have also brought back to life the Semitic script of that era. In addition, they have made significant strides towards the creation of a new literature. I was very happy to see these efforts to create a new literature when I was in Israel.

They are using the old Hebrew script. As with the language, the script is also Semitic. Arabic and Hebrew scripts belong to the same family, just as the two languages do. Moreover, the old Greek script and the ancient Roman script used to be used for Latin, which is indicative of the connection between them. One of the differences is that the old Greek and old Roman scripts are read from left to right and the Semitic scripts are read from right to left. There is also a similarity in the names of the letters. One says áliph and another says alpha. One says be and another says beta. Arabic script has diphthongs. In this system the diphthongs are written by joining the head of one letter to the tail of the other. Although this system remained in old Roman script it is not found in modern Roman script.

So I was talking about the Arabic language. Arabic is a moderately developed language. Nowadays several states, especially Iraq and Egypt, are making full-fledged attempts to create a new Arabic literature. In Egypt one sees the clear influence of French literature over Arabic literature. Egypt was under French influence for quite some time. After that the British influence increased and as a result it benefited from the literature-building work of both English and French. Although Iraq did not get this opportunity it is moving ahead rapidly.

Farsi is written nowadays in a changed and expanded version of Arabic script. In other words, it has increased the number of letters according to its needs. Old Farsi, however, was not written in Arabic script. This has only taken place in the last one thousand years. Prior to that Farsi was written in the Bráhmii and Kharośt́hii scripts. Farsi is not a Semitic language. It is an Aryan language and a distorted form of the southern branch of Vedic. Some of the Indian languages belong to Vedic’s southeastern branch and distortion just as Latin is Vedic’s western branch and distortion. Medieval Farsi was a developed language and its literature achieved significant development. While modern Farsi literature has also moved forward on the path of development its speed is comparatively less than that of medieval Farsi.

There is some Negro influence and some Aryan influence in the Semitic countries but Vedic influence is negligible though it cannot be altogether discounted. The Old Testament was first written in Hebrew. Later it was translated into Latin.

Chinese pictorial script is quite ancient. When I was in China I saw a five thousand year-old cave painting in the government museum there. There is quite a bit of difference between the pictorial script in use in China today and the ancient pictorial script. Those cave pictures are the forefathers of the modern Chinese pictorial script; that is, those cave pictures developed into the modern Chinese script. The speciality of the Chinese script is that ideas are depicted in the lines of a drawing and these drawings are arranged as needed. If written records are taken as the measuring-rod of ascertaining the age of a civilization then the Chinese civilization is the oldest. Its civilization is nearly six thousand years old. However the Vedic civilization is older still. The Vedic civilization began around fifteen thousand years ago but its written records date back only five thousand years. As with the Vedic, Hebrew and Arabic languages, the determination of the derivation of the Chinese language’s vocabulary presents no great difficulty. Still in this regard Chinese follows a special rule, a systaltic order.

In all languages the joining together of prefixes, root verbs and suffixes affords an opportunity for the determination of the derivation of words. For example, to signify já cale caleche [that which has been moving] the suffix kvip is added to the verbal root gam to make jagat – one whose nature is movement. If the suffix śńik is added to the word jagat it makes jágatika [pertaining to the world]. If the suffix tá is added to that in taddhitártha then it makes jágatikatá [worldliness]. This subject will be discussed in greater depth later on.

Footnotes

(1) The word prákrta is used for those whom we call prákrta janagań, or janasádhárańa in Sanskrit or máss (masse). It is also customarily written “masse” in English. If the final “e” is not written in French then the pronunciation changes. So the Prákrta language means “that which is not the language of the educated or erudite people, but rather exclusively the colloquial language of the masses”.

(2) It comes from the Sanskrit word sphot́a or sphut́ana. Páncphoŕan [seasonings] comes from paiṋcasphut́ana.

(3) There is a collection of papyrus leaves in the author’s museum with line drawings and ancient script. Those who are eager to see them are welcome to do so.

(4) Mishra means “mixed” in Sanskrit. Desha means “country”. – Trans.

(5) Gajá, however, is a Sanskrit-derived word. The original word is go-jihvá, that is, “long like a cow’s tongue”. In Bengali we say jive gajá [jiva means “tongue”] however that is a redundancy because gajá means “like a tongue”. So if we say jive gajá it means “that which is like a tongue which is like a cow’s tongue”.