speech and language

[Bijoy Misra]

Dear friends,

We had the Panini and Grammar symposium two weeks ago,  Eight papers

were presented and critical discussions followed.  The videos of the meeting

are being prepared and will be posted. Since my depth and training in Sanskrit

is through self-study, I learn by hearing others and making my own analysis.

One point came up through the discussion is about India's discovery of

speech different from the language.  A language is noted by its auditory perception

while speech is our internal neural formation, converting a thought to an expression.

Speech is an attribute of human being as a species while language is a gross 

muscular manipulation.  Panini derived his rules from the uttered sounds शब्द,

The philosophers then established that each  वर्ण was connected to an immutable

अक्षर.   A वर्ण may distort itself through different human frames in utterance but the 

अक्षर is frozen through its neural arrangement.  An अक्षर is a channel for the human

being to the universe how the latter maps itself in human being.  The sensory 

registration of the universe in the brain can be assumed to be lossless though our

बुद्धि of which अक्षर.is a tool.  Each अक्षर converts to a वर्ण, and the वर्ण s are manipulated

to create speech.   The external acoustic perception of वर्ण is called language. 

I would love to hear further analysis.

Best regards,

Bijoy Misra

[Nagaraj Paturi]

Dear Prof. Bijoy Misra,

Since you say that you learned 'about India's discovery of speech different from the language' from others who have a training in Sanskrit , can you please share the two different Sanskrit words for your two different English words 'speech' and 'language' that you heard? 

It is true that what you describe as  " what is noted by its auditory perception"  and  " our internal neural formation, converting a thought to an expression " are distinguished in the model of 'four stages of articulation' in the Paninian Linguistic Theory as articulated in Vakyapadiyam,  " what is noted by its auditory perception" is called Vaikharee form/stage of Vaak which is the fourth among the four and what you call "  " our internal neural formation, converting a thought to an expression " comes close to what is called as Pas'yantee form/stage of Vaak.which is the second among the four. Paraa and Madhyamaa are the first and the third forms / stages. So, there are in fact two more forms/stages that are part of the total four that are distinguished from each other. 

Since both 'speech' and ' language' are English words, they seem not to be able to communicate these nuances correctly. 

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Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad, Telangana-500044

 

 

 

[Bijoy Misra]

Dear Prof Paturi,

Thank you for asking.  I would say वाक् and भाषा.  वाक् is innate, an ability to comprehend and communicate.  It's a property of the human species.

 वाक् is analog.  वाक् is segmented into अक्षर s in the human brain through built in neural structures.  Like   वाक् , अक्षर s are universal and natural.

We can track   अक्षर s through experiments on comprehension, but have not been attempted.  वाक् and अक्षर exist through the fluids and electrical

field in the body.  They make the signature of life in the body.  

भाषा is local and individual.  भाषा operates through वर्ण, a physiological characteristic for the humans.  वर्ण s are air vibration objects generated through

the muscles. वर्ण s are identified by the grammarians from the human utterances and have been compiled by Panini..  Human utterances   भाषा can

be two-fold.  It can be completely natural in the meditative state which we assign are the Vedic utterances and it can be local intentional utterances.  

We assume that the Vedic utterances are caused by transforming  अक्षर to  वर्ण.  Most likely  वाक् organizes itself in the brain as  वाक्य, which is a

tool of comprehension.  The comprehension of an object in its state of existence leads to a  वाक्य .  Expression of  वाक्य is  भाषा.

These are some of the elements of the brain model I am building.  The effort is to create science out of the empirical concepts.  There is massive

literature on   वाक् in Indian philosophy.  I try to capture the essence through a limited reading as I am able to. I view   अक्षर as a cosmological

element to help comprehension in humans as a natural part of evolution. 

Best regards,

Bijoy Misra                

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[Bijoy Misra]

Continuing from before:

The Sanskrit word for comprehension is बोध, an action of बुद्धि . The other part of बुद्धि is perception, प्रत्यय.

These are innate, human and universal.  बोध has no speech, it is silent.  बोध has no self, a tree is comprehended

as a "tree" by all.  It is rendered through the अक्षर s.  This is the original tranquil शं state for the human being.

बोध mapping is natural, cosmic; there is no metabolism; one doesn't need to cognize the object, all objects are

equi-partitioned in field strength in the bran, are equal in perception.

Inequality of objects comes through the development of स्वर, which is the manifested form of  वाक् in the human

frame.  स्वर is the cosmological mapping tool, that helps us express our  प्रत्यय.  All living organisms have their own

 स्वर.   स्वर expresses itself as वर्ण, which is possibly the transformation of अक्षर, the component of प्रत्यय .

To crystallize our प्रत्यय to वाक्य is an individual effort and is done through our self and imagination.  Some of

the वाक्य s can have universal significance.  Speech is due to faculty of imagination, कल्प.  

Besides the faculties of बोध and कल्प, we are endowed with a third faculty स्मृति.  Here we don't comprehend

or imagine.  We use our memory to map the present.  It is purely linguistic and tries to complete the neural

circuit with extrapolations and assumption.  It possibly happens when the self fully drives the brain and 

our decision making becomes intentional.  स्मृति creates a hierarchy and reduced human creativity and freedom. 

I am coding these thinking that i understand.  We have to experiment our own brain for clarity and understanding.

People who could read these two postings may comment from their own experience and viewpoint.

Best regards,

Bijoy Misra    

 

[BVK Sastry (G-S-Pop)]

Namaste

 

I agree :< We have to experiment our own brain for clarity and understanding.>

 

2.  The difficulty:  < A वर्ण may distort itself through different human frames in utterance but the अक्षर is frozen through its neural arrangement.    >

The data- stock ( Spoken and Web –scripted) are carrying  loads of <  वर्ण distortions>, coming from < social human frames in utterance>.

With AI generated data-volumes flooding out, it is becoming increasingly difficult to filter through  < वर्ण>  Panini Human frames in utterance, anchored to Shiva sutras.

 

Thinking and  Working !

 

Regards

BVK Sastry

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[Bijoy Misra]

Dear Dr BVK and friends,

What I see is that we can be deflected from the "natural" state to a "linguistic" state 

The linguistic state is driven by the "self" and the utterance gets distorted.

Only when our brain is clean (no anxiety), the uttered syllable can be close to

the cosmic syllable.  In order for this to happen the entire brain gets occupied

with the utterance of the syllable.  In this situation the syllable becomes the 

cognitive element of the universe.

I had mentioned about वाक्य utterance, emotion and anxiety are mapped in वाक्य.

These traits are local.  We interpret the utterance by cleaning up as we hear.

The ability of this cleaning up is our language potency.  We develop the skill 

through cultural upbringing.  

The brain has the ability to facilitate creating a network to adjust to one's functioning.

This probably happens in one or two generations.  This is accelerated by training,

coaching and tutoring.  These processes stress imitation rather than natural expression.

One can see how imitation leads to anxiety.  I am struggling to understand this part

of the human brain.  Imitation has to be replaced by self-revelation, thus comes yoga.

Hope many would experiment to probe the cosmology of their brains. .

Best regards,

Bijoy Misra

  

  

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[keyur joshi]

Namaskar

वर्ण  as manifest अक्षर is indeed a fascinating way to look at Sanskrit on particular and languages in general.

I share your views and enjoyed reading it.

You may find this an interesting read - 

https://keyur1277.github.io/Keyur-Commentary/Understanding-%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A3

Pranam

Keyur Joshi

On Sun, May 24, 2026 at 9:52 PM Bijoy Misra <misra...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Bijoy Misra]

Dear Sri Keyur,

You have tried, please make it readable.  There are too many "I"s, making it unreadable.

What "I" think is an opinion.  We have to argue it with ourselves or friends to get

refinement.  Staying with "I" is too narrow. Possibly you have a social audience.,

which could be producing other/alternate "I's.

On the scientific side, please reject thinking वर्ण as auditory or vibrational.  It is a 

cosmological neural entity for human beings, it is built into each human brain.  

As I said before, we can think of  अक्षर s as channels through which the universe 

expresses itself.  A subset of the अक्षर s is received by the humans to give us our 

perception of the universe.  The transformation of अक्षर in the brain is  वर्ण, which 

is local.  Our speech organs could be too gross for uttering all  वर्ण s, but we are 

happy to create a good literary model as Panini has provided.   

I will be happy to reread your model if you may rewrite it with a modest tone

and an analytic temperament.  Please check that your hypothesis stands on

existing knowledge and acceptable empirical observations. 

Best regards,

Bijoy Misra

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[BVK Sastry (G-S-Pop)]

Namaste Keyur Joshi

 

1. It is good to see your interest and engagement in exploring  < वर्ण  as manifest अक्षर>  as a < fascinating way to look at Sanskrit on particular>  and < languages in general>.  

Panini- Patanjali Yoga-Samskrutham (Gita ) tradition has ‘tools- models- goals’  needed for this ‘science- exploration, if Goals are ‘Human Wellness’ beyond ‘Board room Corporate Benefit’.  

 

You are making some pointers to a common starting point in Panini- Yoga science tradition.

But you branch out from there to unchartered pathways, as noted in your web page.

What you are pointing is most likely to get carried and quoted ‘out of context’ and bounce back  to deliver ‘self inflicted damages’ in understanding Samskrutham (Tradition)  or Science (Modern) !  

 

My interest here is  only in placing on record some key issues that need attention . 

This is not making any negative comment or critique of your work pl. If there is any unintentional hurt, pl. excuse.   

 

Let me explain this, taking recourse to your posts at the link:  https://keyur1277.github.io/Keyur-Commentary/Era   [ May 18, 2026 post] .

 

2. Your reading , supported by the snippet from your Github web page, connecting Varna basis to all Human languages in general, Samskrutham in particular is a right axiom.  

 

 

But where it goes haywire is your wrap-around  of TIME LINE, Extended meaning interpretations and derived conclusions !

‘ERA’- is One example, ref. above page.

 

‘Era’ is not Samskruth equivalent of ‘Yuga- SAmvatsara – Ahoratra- Kaala- Chakra’.

The foundational concept and model-measure of ‘KAALA’ (Time-cycle / Chronos)  in language context and cosmology context is different.

 

The use of the term ( even when scripted in Devanagari) does not take away the foundational defect of mapping the Gregorian year model to ‘Samvatsara- Kaala Chakra’ in Samskruth tradition.

 

The ‘meaning of ‘era’ in anglicised language eco system and social usage, is placed below :

 

An era is a distinct, long period of history marked by a particular feature, character, event, or prominent figure.

Depending on the context, the word can have a few different specific meanings:  The Victorian Era: The period of British history during Queen Victoria's reign; The Digital Era: The current age dominated by internet and computer technology; "End of an era": A common phrase used when a major, defining phase or public figure's career comes to a close.; "fitness era" (focused on health); "villain era" (prioritising boundaries over pleasing others), or "travel era" ; Geology: A massive division of Earth's history e.g., the Mesozoic Era, which was the age of the dinosaurs).

 

 

 

3.  And where does such explanation take us, beyond ‘Historic Pride’ – ‘We had it’  before ‘They said it that we have it’ !  

 

And opens the question/s: ‘If we are so confident we had all that ‘embedded in the inheritance’, why are we not able to ‘Reconstruct it’?

         Is our understanding aligned to what the text taught (?) us as method, system, application goals ?  Why is not National Scholars –

         Researchers- Technologists- Educators- Policy makers priority ?

 

Or     We are hesitant, not confident, doubtful, afraid to ‘Deliver Claimed  benefits of tradition’;

and  Ready to wait and serve others with  ‘money-motives’ to do it for us?  Give it to us and ‘Bless it’ to rule over our ‘Pride of Languages?’

 

Why are we, globally  investing our time- energy- resources to  make a paradigm shift, a ‘force fit’ of ‘Language- Conversation’ to  ‘Numeric Computation’ Processing’- framework ? using a ‘ Representation- Tokenization- Vectored embedding’ ?

Why struggle  to < Mechanize > Natural  <Human Cognition and Conversation>  using a  < ‘ Notation Processing Driven Computational framework’ ?, which is currently  anchored to ‘preferred ‘language model and alphabet character-set’ ? Push visual Writing system analysis over oral language system? ’

 

     As on date, there is neither a ‘Technology’ that ‘ Transforms Water to Wine’  or ‘Water to oil for a burning lamp’? which is talked about in  

     ‘language resources of civilizations, religions and yoga-sciences’!

 

     As on date, there is no ‘Yoga Sutra-Technology’ to ‘make’  a ‘Human to Hanuman’ , which empowers to jump- fly-cross ocean beyond a

     ‘Superman’ show! Defying laws of gravity, binding us to mother earth.

     And we do have pride in Yoga Sutra of Patanjali in Samskrutham, speaking of ‘Siddhi: का॒याका॒श॒योः स॒म्ब॒न्धसं॒य॒माल्ल॒घुतूल-स॒मा॒प॒त्तेश्चाका॑शग॒म॒नम् ॥ ३.४२॥   

     Have we decoded the Patanjali Yoga –sutra with and without ‘Swaras’ (?) -  This accented Patanjali Yoga sutra document can be accessed at

      link       https://sanskritdocuments.org/doc_yoga/yogasuutra.html

 

    The ‘ideation snippets’ like <  वर्ण  as manifest अक्षर>  as a < fascinating way to look at Sanskrit on particular>  and < languages in general> are most likely to be picked up at inappropriate ends to ‘ Model Sanskrit’ using  representation techniques like  ‘tokenisation, word embedding, Global Vector model of Varna’s’ and the like.

 

Why is this a fearful  outcome of this trending ( unless one really invests to build  Panini – Language Appropriate Computer running on ‘Shiva Sutra – Technicality ( and NOT on Grekko –Latin/ ROMAN / English ALPHAS -? ?  If ‘Varna- Aksharas ’ are net- capture structures  ( Jaala) which are used to ‘Catch Fish’ ( artha-grahana), then they are dispensable wastes after ‘catching the fish’.  This is wisdom from a chinese philosophy snippet :  ‘ Nets are for fish; Once you get the fish, you can forget the net. Words are for meaning; Once you get the meaning, you can forget the words’. If you can forget words, then ‘Varna- Akshara’ systems can also be discarded !  in preference to ‘Numeric symbols and  emoji-notations’.

 

This famous quote, was said by Zhuangzi (also written as Chuang Tzu), an influential ancient Chinese Daoist philosopher who lived around the 4th century BCE. The passage comes from the 26th chapter of his eponymous text, The Book of Chuang Tzu, in a section titled "External Things".

The Full Quote Depending on the translation from classical Chinese, reads with a witty concluding punch line: "The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish, you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a word with him?" The Meaning Behind the Quote Tools vs. Goals: Zhuangzi uses the fish trap and rabbit snare as metaphors for language. They are merely tools used to capture something valuable.  In Daoism, the ultimate truth or essence of life (the Dao) cannot be fully captured or locked down by rigid labels and definitions. He warns against getting so caught up in debating definitions, grammar, or literal phrasing that you miss the deeper understanding or emotional truth the words were trying to convey.

 

In artificial intelligence (AI), Zhuangzi’s philosophy perfectly mirrors to how Large Language Models (LLMs) process concepts, as well as the core challenges in AI Alignment and Semantic Communication. When an AI system deliberates, it literally "forgets the words" to extract, compute, and align with the underlying meaning.  | Zhuangzi's Metaphor - AI Equivalence | 

| The Fish | The human intent, core prompt, or abstract concept. |

| The Net | Literal text, tokenized strings, or specific syntax. |

|"Forgetting the Net" | Converting text into high-dimensional geometric embeddings to understand context over exact phrasing.

 

When you type a prompt into an LLM, the model does not store or process your actual words (like "fish" or "net"). Instead, it immediately converts them into mathematical coordinates called vector embeddings.

 

* The "Net" Discards: The literal syntax, grammar, and vocabulary of your input are stripped away.

* The "Meaning" Remains: The AI maps the concept into a multi-dimensional semantic space. In this geometry, the words "king - man + woman" mathematically equal "queen." The model maps the relationship and intent, effectively "forgetting" the exact words to capture the pure concept. 

 

The AI Trending exploring 'Samskrutham'- and Languages in general  is  one of several modes to  ' Control Language Through Technology'  for which AI engineers use techniques like RLHF (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback) to teach models to look past literal commands. The goal is to build AI that understands human intent and values well enough to bypass flawed phrasing. 

And your quest is vectored in this direction.

 

Regards

BVK Sastry

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[Jai LS]

Namaste Sastryji,

Forgive me for intruding into a conversation where I was not previously involved. But some of the things you have written about have brought forth my interest in following up on them. Specifically regarding the "era"-kaala (dis)equivalence, am I correct in understanding that despite the efforts in linguistic modelling of concepts such as kaala, the cosmological significance of the word runs the risk of being lost (like the net after fishing)? And secondly, is it possible that in the extract from Zhuangzi: "Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a word with him?" he may be emphasising that "words" (metaphorically understood by me as bhaaṣaa) is incapable of a true grasp of "having a word" (metaphorically understood by me as vaartaa)? I await your valuable insights on this, Sastryji. 

Thank you and best regards,

सु. जयः

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