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On 2 February 1786 the British judge Sir William Jones told the Asiatic Society in Calcutta that Sanskrit, Greek and Latin were too alike in verb roots and grammar for chance, and must share a common source that perhaps no longer existed. His talk is often seen as the start of comparative linguistics.

Calcutta, 1786

LanguageHistory

The story behind the card

Jones was a judge on the Supreme Court in Calcutta, then the centre of British rule in India. He learned Sanskrit so that he would not have to depend on the pandits, the Hindu legal scholars who advised the court, and in 1784 he founded the Asiatic Society to study Asia's languages and history. His famous sentence says no scholar could examine the three languages 'without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.' Others, such as the French Jesuit Gaston-Laurent Coeurdoux in 1767, had noticed the link before him. The name 'Indo-European' came later, in 1813, from the English scholar Thomas Young.

Türkçe oku
İngiliz yargıç Sir William Jones, 2 Şubat 1786'da Kalküta'daki Asya Cemiyeti'nde Sanskritçe, Yunanca ve Latincenin rastlantı olamayacak kadar benzediğini söyledi: Fiil kökleri ve dil bilgisi, belki artık var olmayan ortak bir kaynağa işaret ediyordu. Konuşma çoğu zaman karşılaştırmalı dilbilimin başlangıcı sayılır.
Kalküta, 1786

Jones, o sırada İngiliz yönetiminin Hindistan'daki merkezi olan Kalküta'da Yüksek Mahkeme yargıcıydı. Mahkemeye danışmanlık yapan Hindu hukuk bilginlerine, yani panditlere bağımlı kalmamak için Sanskritçe öğrendi; 1784'te de Asya'nın dillerini ve tarihini incelemek için Asya Cemiyeti'ni kurdu. Ünlü cümlesine göre bu üç dili inceleyen hiçbir bilgin, onların “belki artık var olmayan ortak bir kaynaktan doğduğuna” inanmadan edemezdi. Bu bağı ondan önce fark edenler de vardı; örneğin Fransız Cizvit rahip Gaston-Laurent Coeurdoux 1767'de benzer bir gözlem yapmıştı. “Hint-Avrupa” adını ise 1813'te İngiliz bilgin Thomas Young verdi.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Indo-European languages
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