lloydmeta (@beachape.com)

Panini wrote the first recorded systematic formal study of #grammar in the world in ~5th to 6th century BC. www.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/sa... A day late here in Japan for #AsianHeritageMonth but hopefully still ok for *some* parts of the world :p #india

loading . . .

Origins of Linguistics. Origins of Linguistics. Though Europeans from the Greeks onward had ideas about language, there was no systematical theory that we would call a 'theory of language' (i.e. 'linguistics') before Europeans 'discovered' what Indian grammarians had written about language. Linguistics as a western discipline therefore has its roots in ancient India, in the study and preservation of sacred texts. The grammarian Panini wrote a description of Sanskrit in about 1500 B.C. which is still unexcelled. In other parts of India, local grammarians copied the Sanskritic tradition, such as Tolkaapiyanaar, whose grammar of Tamil, the Tolkaappiyam, which was composed in the early centuries CE. https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/sars238/intro/discovery.html