Indian Languages and their Ancestors— It’s not just Sanskrit (part 1)

Languages can share their ancestors, making them related to each other. The easiest example would be Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese. All of them descended from Latin, and as a result share notable similarities in their grammar, but especially their vocabulary. This idea, though, can actually be applied way beyond just Western Europe. Take northern India, where languages like Hindi and Bengali are related to each other in almost the same way as are French and Spanish — in this case, they both come from Sanskrit. The analogies between the situation with Latin and with Sanskrit are surprisingly compelling: both were scientific languages that were specifically maintained by an upper class as a literary language, while the spoken form that was used by most people changed over time. Classical Latin became Vulgar Latin, and Sanskrit became Prakrit. From there, different regions took these spoken languages and changed them further, keeping the o <a href="https://medium.com/@reetamb/indian-languages-and-their-ancestors-its-not-just-sanskrit-da1df04d3a89">Visit Now</a>