Telugu (Indian) Roots Far-East Asian Languages
sudheer...@my-dejanews.com
Asia left a permanent mark in the languages of these countries. It is not
well known that for a time Sanskrit had become the lingua franca of many
South-east asian countries. Even the Indian Brahmi script was used in
Malaysia and some other parts of South-east Asia. This Brahmi was that which
was used in southern India around 800 to 1000 A.D.
The Javanese Kawi script has been developed from the Pallava script from which
Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada scripts have also evolved. Even a cursory
glance would show the resemblance between the scripts used in Thailand, Laos,
Cambodia, etc., with the scripts of today's South Indian Languages.
There are also a considerable number of Indian words in use in the languages
of Southeast Asia. For instance in the Malayasian (Malayan) language there
are the following words have been derived from Sanskrit; Bhoomiputra i.e.son
of the soil, Shurga i.e. heaven which in Sanskrit is Swarga; bangsi i.e.
flute, dhobi i.e. washerman, geni i.e. fire (agni in Sanskrit), etc.
In Burma also there are many Indian words. For instance the river Irawaddy
(Iravati in Sanskrit)is derived from the original Sanskrit term Iravati, the
word Burma is itself a corruption of the Sanskrit term Brahmadesh (land of
Brahma), In Thailand we have place names like Aranyaprathet which sounds
quite In dian and is a corruption of the term Aranyapradesh meaning a
forested area in Sanskrit. The names of the cities viz. Singapore and Kuala
Lumpur end with the term 'pur' which means city in Sanskrit. Even first names
of individuals in these countries are derived form Sanskrit roots. Instances
of such names are Sukarno derived form Sanskrit Sukarna, Suharto derived form
the Sanskrit Suharta, Bhumibol from Sanskrit Bhumibala, Thanom Kittikachoron
from Krittikacharan, and so on.
In fact in Malaysia the official title of honour given to persons of national
importance is 'Tan Sri' Tan means big, and Sri is derived from the Sanskrit
word Shri which roughly means 'Sir'. In Indonesia the official language is
called 'Bahasha Indonesia', the word Bahasha is derived from the Sanskrit
word Bhasha which means language.
The Indonesian Airways is named Garuda which means an eagle both in the
Indonesian Language and in Sanskrit. There can be innumerable such instances.
This goes to establish beyond doubt the contribution of India to the languages
of these countries. This apart, through the medium of trade India has
contributed to the lexicon of Greek, Arabic, Persian and even the English
language.
More info on this is given at the illustrated non-profit site:
http://india.CoolAtlanta.com/GreatPages/sudheer/finearts.html
Sudheer Birodkar
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sudheer...@my-dejanews.com
Tabalji
There were some very interesting points raised. But this random jumping back
and forth between Telugu, and other Elamo-Dravidian languages and Sanskrit
(Indo-European) makes me wonder how well things have been thought out. You
have some very good points but please slow down and sort things out.
David Courtney