On The Classification Of Indic Languages

Language, as part of human expression, may be viewed in analogy with genetic expression. Evolution of language is a result of complex temporal and spatial processes where, if one could aggregate the processes, one may speak in terms of parent traits and the resultant descendent traits. Insights from the theory of non-linear dynamics indicate that the multitude of interactions amongst speakers would lead to the formation of just a few languages. Strongly interacting systems of very many components, like assemblies of neurons or human speakers, have only a few stable interaction states, called attractors, associated with their behaviour,1and these, for speakers, are the various languages. In evolving systems, the nature of these stable states will also change. This is how isolated languages can be seen to change. But more significant than this process is the change due to interaction with other languages. With this background it is clear that a correct view of language evolution is within the framework of other interacting languages. But for about one and a half centuries, language evolution has been studied using models inspired by early, mechanistic physics. Like a physical system that evolves due to radiation and other incident forces, languages were taken to change spontaneously. The spread of languages was explained by another mechanistic metaphor, namely, that of transfer of populations and invasions. This led to models of language families. The German philologist August Schleicher pioneered the tree approach in the 1860’s which assumes that when populations are isolated their speech get increasingly differentiated until they become distinct languages; this assumption allows one to set