Sanskrit linguistics

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Discussions on the prehistory of India turn frequently to Sanskrit

linguistics. Could we apply the law of Natural philosophy to languages?

I came across an interesting article in the book,"Introduction to

Computer Applications for non-science students (BASIC)", Author-William

Ralph Bennett.Pub:Prentice-Hall, 1976. Here it is---"Associating entropy

with the degree of statistical disorder, the thermodynamic systems tend

to proceed from states of lower probability to states of higher

probability. There are some qualitative reasons why we might also expect

languages to obey the same law in some sense. The fact that large number

of people use them introduces the statistical element. If a language is

developed initially by a small number of persons at one point on the

globe, it seems inevitable that structure of the language will become

less ordered as it diffuses throughtout the world.The condensed (and

therefore specialized)meanings originally given to symbols by the creator

of the language will tend to be broadened and require more additional

description through common usage. In other words, it seems likely that

there will be a tendency for the minimum average number of bits per

message required to convey meaning in normal use of the language to

increase with time. One linguistic tendency is observed where the more

concise declensions of single words are replaced by sequences of words.

This process generally makes language easier to learn and use but also

results in requiring more bits per message on the average.The redundancy

of the language tends to go up".

I know that the origin of human language is lost in the fog of the

ancient history of the world. The highly inflectional Hittite is attested

since 1600 BCE (max., 1900) and Greek since 1200 BCE (perhaps 1400 BCE).

The earliest Rigvedic Sanskrit is also inflectional.

Now my question-Could an inflectional language evolve from monosyllabic

language naturally without conscious human efforts? If yes, are there

examples from the known history of 2500 years, that such linguistic

change is occurring somewhere on the globe? How is it possible for

agglutinative language to become inflectional? If Tamil is agglutinative,

is it on its way to become inflectional? Choosing inflections (as they

are in Sanskrit) is not a simple process which could evolve by itself?

My observation is that highly inflectional languages are breaking down to

non inflectional languages consistent with the description by Mr.Bennett.

Then what was the need of the primitive Hittites and pastoral Vedic

Aryans to use the inflectional languages? Did they make it purposely

inflectional for the sake of fun? There must be the reason. I am puzzled

and I putting forward this question to the competent linguists of this

forum to enlighten me on this issue.Thanks.N.R.Joshi

 

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