Linguistics in Ancient India

India is a country of diversities. Along with the many cultures, peoples, and communities that have found a home here and shaped the nation, so are their languages intertwined with the past and present. The story of a nation is linked with its history, and we may get to know a lot from material remains of the past, but linguistic history is an equally important factor that can be traced to understand the origins of a community and where it is headed. Similarly for India the most widely believed theory about the communities that inhabited it is the Invading “Aryans” or the Raiders from the North who defeated the Dravidians occupied what is North India now, the latter being forced to evacuate to the South. Except now we know that the tribes were not called Aryans, it was the language that they spoke which was of the Indo-European family. And it was these people who were responsible for the Rig Vedic texts, and the language that they use is similar to the even more ancient text called Zend Avesta.