Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

1To develop a scientific rationale of Indo-European language systems (IELS) based on

Cognitive etymological and geo-spatial mapping techniques assimilating inputs from cultural, ethnographic and folk-anthropological semantic dimensions [based on an assumption that an initial formation of proto-Sanskrit or remotely ancient Sanskrit led to a subsequent evolution of Eurasian language systems] Computational linguistics study of Sanskrit (based on the framework) in the context of IELS

Since the discovery of different Indo-European languages ranging from the Indo-Iranian, the east Asian Tocharian, the east European Slavonic and Armenian, the south European archaic Proto Greeks or Hittites and later Greek and Romance (Italic), the north European Germanic, Baltic and Celtic and the Anatolian Hittite, the scholars of language systems have faced major linguistic and cultural controversies in confirming the direction of linkages and dissemination. Some major questions have emerged:

1. Which is the mother stock from where the people of Europe and Asia have descended? Or, is there a widely spread universal bed within which later evolutions are embedded?

2. Do most of the modern European languages derive their source from a single Indo-European origin?

3.Given any answers to the two above questions, how can the role of the early language carriers are historically accommodated to explain language migration?

Current researches have stationed the search among the first settled farmers of Anatolia, which is the archaic bed of Asiatic Greeks or Proto-Greeks called the Hittites, who are mentioned in the Book of Genesis, the Old Testament; the earliest Egyptian literature; and their roots bear a convincing degree of geo-archaeological overlaps with Indus Valley civilization based findings. As a probable period, a period as early as 7000 B.C is identified and that the whole family of new languages probably evolved from that point in history.
Against this Anatolian foundation, there is another argument of a Proto-Sanskrit being the mother of Indo-European Language systems, where scholars have talked about a universal bed of language systems, whose evolution has different geographic epicenters based on different research findings. However, till date, a holistic input-based research has not been conducted.
Hence, there is a need to identify the essential array of inputs to probe in depth into the bed of IELS within which other language systems are probably embedded. The outputs will ensure a linguistic and philological foundation of the earliest literature of the world, the Vedas and a further basis to cross-cultural studies facilitating language translations based on IEL system outputs.
Principal Investigator (s)
Partha Pratim Chakrabarti, Joy Sen

Co-PIs
V. N. Giri, Pallab Dasgupta, Sudeshna Sarkar, Pawan Goyel, Haimanti Banerjee; Anirban Dasgupta

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2To explore Varna-mala (Garland of Letters) in the anthropomorphic and anthropo-centric psycho-somatic system of Tantra and consequently develop an algorithm of words and systems that constitutes:

a. Hidden biological and neuro-physiological connections forming a basis to human evolution and

b. Cognitive mechanisms (memory-projection, articulation, pronunciation, registration, mapping, recognition) that may be the basis of behavioral studies

In the Indian system of philology and epistemic research on language systems the total number of the petals of circuits (as evident in the inner tantric framework of yoga) incidentally is the letter of the Sanskrit alphabet that recourses the stream of communication and language systems. Seminal works by Sir John Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon) and Swami Vivekananda (entitled Raj Yoga) are living testimonies.
The contemplation based on this inner (hidden biological and neurological systems) framework or the micro world is incidentally also related to the macro correspondences that an individual has with the environment including the collective living. The assumed science is that the kinetic aspect of the life principle (Bios or Vayu) or Shakti within is considered; its creative ideation and manifestation in the evolved macrocosm is registered; and in the human body it is engrafted in the smallest possible scale, which is a matter of both empirical and non-empirical research. The exploration will be based on a specific research of the response-stimulus functions as evident from:

• An initial phonological exploration of the language systems as evident in the varnamala

• A further analyses of interconnected systems of response variables are evident from a) gross environment-behavior studies through a qualitative response model mechanism and b) a subtler study conducted through sensitive instruments as available today

• Developing algorithms of words and systems that may constitute hidden biological and neuro-physiological connections, which are possibly responsible for human evolution and cognitive mechanisms

Principal Investigator (s)
Partha Pratim Chakrabarti, Joy Sen

Co-PIs
Priyadarshi Patnaik, Arun Chakraborty, Pawan Goyel, Haimnati Banerjee, Anirban Dasgupta