3 Review(s)

Everything in this paper is presented using a figure-it-out- for-yourself approach, and naturally, anyone who refutes one part of this hypothesis, would contradict himself elsewhere. That would eliminate all pseudo-scientific approaches quickly and easily. We also revisit age-old controversies about the relationship between Sanskrit and the Prakrits after taking into account the views of some other scholars and examine how this can be explained from our model. Our assessment: current theories explaining the origin of IA languages are gross over-simplifications and need a rethink. We therefore, propose a completely new model as a replacement for the classical theory explaining the origin of IA languages. We propose that IA languages were derivatives of the languages spoken in the Indus and were only heavily transformed by Sanskrit. Thus, this issue is studied as an evolving interplay between two language groups: Sanskrit spread in a part of India, died out as a spoken language, and became a liturgical language, and popular as a lingua franca of the elite. Sanskrit then re-influenced the languages of the region, in a process that continues to this day even after disappeared as a spoken language. Much more importantly, this paper argues that progress in Indology can come not from the decipherment of the Indus script, though small groups of scholars may still study this script if required, but from India-specific research strategies.