Similarity between the Slav group of languages and Sanskrit

[Arvind_Kolhatkar]

Dear Group,

Ever since I acquired some knowledge of the Russian language several
years ago I have been struck with the remarkable similarities that I
noticed between it and Sanskrit. I know that this is not a new
discovery. Similarities between Sanskrit and ancient Persian on the
one hand and European and Slavic languages in the other have been
noted and studied for the last two hundred years by old scholars like
Bopp till the present day. Beyond this basic fact I do not know much
about this subject. Also, I have no acquaintance with the disciplines
of Linguistics or Philology beyond the level of normal general
knowledge. I hope that someone with expertise in these disciplines
will clarify the issue.

I give below several examples of such similarities between Sanskrit
and modern Russian. I have no knowledge of the older Russian
language. To my layman’s mind these similarities appear to go deeper
that those observed vis-à-vis other European languages. I have to ask
knowledgeable persons in this Group to judge whether my impression is
right or wrong. If it is worthy of further consideration, I have some
more questions to ask, which possibly may have already been noticed
and answered.

Before saying more let me give a list of similarities that I have
spotted. The list has the original Russian words in the Cyrillic
script, their pronunciation rendered into Devnagari by me as I hear
those words and lastly, in round brackets, their Sanskrit
equivalents. (The sign ‘ь’ is the soft sign in Cyrillic, indicating
that the consonant preceding it is to be pronounced in a ‘soft’
manner. It has no equivalent in the Roman or Devnagari scripts and I
have left it as it is in the Devnagari too.)

когда कग्दा (कदा), тогда तग्दा (तदा), куда कुदा (कुत्र), туда तुदा
(तत्र), всегда व्सिग्दा (सर्वदा).

пить पीतь (पा-पिबति), плавать प्लावातь (प्लु-प्लावते), видеть बीद्येतь
(विद्-वेत्ति), давать दावातь (दा्-ददाति,) падать पादातь (पत्-पतति),
жить ज्झीतь (जीव्-जीवति), умирать उमिरातь (मृ-म्रियते), слушать
स्लूषातь (श्रु-शृणोति), нести न्येस्ती (नी्-नयति).
день द्येनь (दिन), ночь नोचь (नक्त), небо न्येबऽ (नभस्), свет स्व्येत
(श्वेत), огочь अगोनь (अग्नि), дым दिम (धूम), вода वदा (उदक ), мёдь
म्योदь (मधु), мясо म्यासऽ (मांस), мать मातь (मातृ), брать ब्रातь
(भ्रातृ), сестра सिस्त्रा (स्वसृ), око अको (अक्षि), горло गोर्लऽ (गल),
волк वोल्क (वृक). (The Russian word for ‘bear’ is медведь मिदव्येदь ,
‘one who knows the honey’.)

один अदिन (एक), два द्वा (द्वि), три त्रि (त्रि), четыре चितीर्य
(चतुर्), пять प्यातь (पञ्च), шесть श्येस्तь (षट्), десят द्येस्यातь
(दश), сто स्तो (शत).

етот एतोत् (एतत्), тот तोत् (तत्), оба ओबा (उभ).

Prefixes пра при пере प्रा प्रि प्येऱ्ये (प्र परि) Prefix с स् (स in
the sense of ‘with’).

There are two other interesting things that I may mention here. The
suffix тво त्व is employed to convert a noun or an adjective into its
corresponding abstract noun, exactly as in Sanskrit. Thus муж मूझ्ह
is ‘man’ or ‘husband’, мужество मूझ्हेस्त्व is ‘manliness’ or
‘courage’, государ गसुदार is ‘master’ or ‘ruler’, государство
गसुदार्स्त्व is ‘government’, человек चिलोव्येक is ‘human being’,
челобечество चिलोव्येचेस्त्व is ‘mankind’. (The well-known word
‘Muzhik’ ‘Russian peasant’ derives from муж मूझ्ह.)

The Russian use of numerals is in its own category. Counting 2, 3 or
4 of anything is associated with the singular number of the genitive
case but from and beyond 5 of anything is associated with the plural
number of the genitive case. Thus один рубль अदिन रूब्ल् one ruble,
два рубля द्वा रुब्ल्या two of ruble, три рубля त्रि रुब्ल्या three
of ruble, цетыре рубля चितीर्य रुब्ल्या four of ruble but пять
рублей प्यातь रुब्ल्येइ five of rubles and so on. Thus, when the
Russian language (rather, its predecessor language whatever it was)
was being formed, numerals up to four were on the side of ‘a few’,
indicated by the singular genitive case and five and beyond were
‘many’. This may perhaps be a fossil of the stage when the primitive
man could separately comprehend the first four numbers but anything
more than 4 was incomprehensible and therefore treated as ‘many’. In
Sanskrit too we have the singular, the dual and the plural numbers.
This could perhaps be the fossil of the stage when the primitive man
could separately comprehend 1 and 2 but anything beyond was ‘many.
This mimics the Russian.

If you have persevered into reading this thus far, I now pose the
questions that I have. These are:

1) Is the similarity between these two languages of the same type as
with other languages like Latin and Greek or is it closer and
deeper?
2) If the similarity is closer and deeper, does it indicate that the
groups of primitive people who formed the predecessor languages were
living in closer proximity and/or for a longer period than others
groups that broke away?
3) Almost all words cited above are of such a type that they would be
among the early ones to be conceived in the creation of a language.
Would this factor have any bearing upon the supposed proximity of
those primitive groups?
4) It is quite like that some scholar has noticed these questions and
given answers to them. St. Petersburg in Tsarist Russia was an
important center of Sanskrit scholarship and a Russian Indologist or
linguist might already have studied it. If so, I would like a
direction towards that work.

Thank you for your indulgence in reading this rigmarole.

Arvind Kolhatkar, Toronto, December 17, 2010.
arvindkolhatkar.blogspot.com

[Vasu Srinivasan]

Having studied in Russia, I have always believed Sanskrita and Russian have been related. As you mentioned there are lot of Russian verb roots that can be traced to Sanskrita. There is an active group (nagari@googlegroups) that discusses such stuff. You can join that and post questions there too. Also the group maintains an extensive list of Sanskrita and Russian related words. There is also a pdf that goes very deep into the similarities between the two.

The Russian script is Cyrillic, but the core language itself, I feel is a lot closer to Sanskrita than Latin or Greek, though later it has come under heavy influence of Latin and English. Several modern words are direct transliterations of English with a Russian sounding ending though a proper noun/verb could be made for each of them using Russian roots itself.

When I was in the early stages of learning Russian, I used to translate some yoga aasana names for my Russian friends/teachers and they were able to easily make out the meaning, and in a few cases just correctly guess the meaning based on root similarity.

Apart from the words you mentioned, well at the very fundamental level there is root "bhU" in Sanskrita and "bits" in Russian.

On personal front, I have noticed that while speaking, I have inadvertently used Russian words in place of Sanskrit words and vice versa and then realized they were different.

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Regards,
Vasu Srinivasan

[Yury Panikov]

Dear Arvind, Please check out this book:

Indu Lekha - Cognate words in Sanskrit and Russian (2007)


Here is download link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?xoji5osce08bcw2

If you need any advices on Russian, or other examples from vast list of similarities between Slavic and Sanskrit I can help you on that.



Regards,
Yury

2010/12/17 Vasu Srinivasan <vas...@gmail.com>

[hn bhat]

Thanks for the topic raised and answered efficiently. I also had noticed the similarities between the ;words and also with grammar too in agreement of genders and verbs and agents/nouns.  My instructor of Russian used to say the grammar of Russian is the most difficult one to acquire and then I answered if it is not so, please pardon me. I was able to easily follow and understand grammar and replied that it may not be so than Sanskrit grammar. I had at that time even translated to and from Sanskrit at random.

It was long ago in 1980s and I lost touch at all as I could not pursue the study of the course continuously. I will be glad to go through the sites provided in the above posts and have a happy reading and reminiscence of any Russian words remnants in my memory.

Thanks for the group and Arvind Kolhatkar and those replied him.

--
Dr. Hari Narayana Bhat B.R.
EFEO,
PONDICHERRY

[Vasu Srinivasan]

Yes thats the pdf I was mentioning. Thanks Yuri for posting that link.

[Arvind_Kolhatkar]

Vasu and Yuri,

Thanks for your responses and offers of help. I shall revert to you
for them when required.

I have downloaded the monograph for which Yuri sent the link. It
tells us that there indeed is a great similarity between the Slavic
group of languages on the one hand and Sanskrit/ancient Persian on the
other. However, nothing much is known about the ancient history of
the peoples speaking Slavic languages and there is a complete absence
of any archaeological,anthropological and literary evidence showing
any connection between these two groups of peoples. Therefore, the
question why there is such remarkable similarity cannot be answered,
at least for now, beyond the obvious conclusion that at some time in
the distant past they lived together or were close neighbors. I am
satisfied with that and one ghost has been put to rest for me.

I wonder whether an expert can create a mathematical formula to work
out a coefficient of closeness between two connected languages as a
function of time. I suppose if this can be done, the coefficient will
let us measure the elapsed time before today since the two peoples
moved away from each other.

Arvind Kolhatkar, Toronto, December 18, 2010.

[Yury Panikov]

Arvind,

I think that for you would be interesting to look at some currently forgotten research by Bal Gangadhar Tilak.

There some other recent interesting archaeological evidences(in Russian).

For mathematical modelling I assume would be better to take Vedic Sanskrit, as it has more cognitives in roots and morphology due to research of Tatyana Elizarenkova.


Regards,
Yury

2010/12/18 Arvind_Kolhatkar <kolhat...@gmail.com>

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[Arvind_Kolhatkar]

Yuri,

Long back I had attempted to read Tilak's 'Arctic Home in the Vedas'
as also his other related book 'Orion'. Both went over my head as
they require a good knowledge of Astronomy, both current and old
Hindu, also called 'JyotiHshaastra'. Tilak and Max Mullar were in
correspondence.

I may perhaps mention that prior to Gandhi's emergence as the leader
of India, Tilak was the most eminent Indian political leader. Among
the several things done by him was the founding of the newspaper
'Kesari' in Poona (Pune), starting, to give the masses a sense of
unity, the annual public festival of Ganeshotsav - which unfortunately
appears to have got out of hand and taken proportions Tilak would
never have imagined or approved -, commemorating the 17th century hero
Shivaji, with the same purpose in mind, and writing scholarly books
like The Arctic Home, Orion and (in Marathi) Geetaarahasya, a
commentary on Geeta. The last one was written by him while he was
undergoing imprisonment of 6 years for sedition at Mandalay in Burma.

He was also one of the founders in 1885 of the Deccan Education
Society and the famous Fergusson College of Poona (of which I am a
proud alumnus). Both institutions are still flourishing.

The masses respected him so much that he was given the honorific title
'Lokmaanya',by the masses by which he is now more commonly known, like
Mahatma Gandhi being called by Indians as Mahatmaji. He died on
August 01, 1920 and was cremated by special permission at the
Chowpatty Beach in Bombay. His statue erected on that spot is one of
the landmarks of today's Bombay.

[Iz Zi]

Excellent!!! Finally I have found very interesting forum about subject which is very interesting for me.

Thank you Jury for those links, I uploaded already, and will read it in the evening. It is indeed huge similarity between sanskrit and slavic languages - some words are almost the same with russian, while others are exactly the same with serbian, and similar to polish , slovenian, slovac, and so on, ( so many slavic langueages exist, that I dont gona mention all of them).

Here you are another link too:

 

http://www.freebsd.nfo.sk/hinduism/sanskrit.htm

 

Greeting to everybody.

[I.Z.]

Hello,

 Thank you for your email, I've just seen it, just came back from holiday, so nice to discover to have email about this subject from you ,and thx for offfering your help with Russian examples. Really is pity, that I almost forgot Russian, maybe I should start do speak to someone in Russian, maybe I would remind it a bit at least. Will you be able to write to me in russian some sort of short messages? In cyrylic, can be about Sanskrit. I have'nt got cyrilic keyboard, but I have got some link to it, I mean, on that page I have to click in to small keyboards on the screan, and later copy it to the document, email, and so on.it is weird for me writing russian without cyrilic.

 

Z uwazjenijem

Izabela

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