Development of Indian languages

A fundamental presentation of the principles of enriching Hindi and other Indian languages with modern terminology for law and administration, industry and humanities and plethora of natural sciences. The common grammatical systems of Sanskrit, Greek and Latin make Indian terminological systems as extensive and expressive as the European. The first chapter begins with the role of language in the making of a nation. The fourth discusses the common vocabulary of NIA languages. India's linguistic creativity began with the translation of the Constitution to ensure perfect legal accuracy. Related problems and solutions are discussed in several chapters. The terminologies of French, German, Russian, Japanese and Chinese are studied to show that they have "their own" words. The systems of nomenclature in chemistry, mineralogy, biology and other sciences are explained. The efforts of state governments to introduce Hindi or other regional languages are detailed. Extensive notes on word formation, Indian scripts and printing machines, problems of European nomenclatures vis-a-vis modern transformations, evolution of European terms over four centuries (the word pathology appeared in 1611), and scores of other facets of linguistic development are discussed. It is a sourcebook for the principles of linguistic enrichment of India in the herculean efforts of Prof. RaghuVira called the Dr. Johnson of India by the Manchester Guardian.

Prof. Lokesh Chandra is currently the Director of the International Academy of Indian Culture which is a premier research institution for Asian cultures. He was the President of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). He is a well-known historian and a renowned scholar of Tibetan, Mongolian and Sino-Japanese Buddhism. He has also served as a member of the Indian Parliament. In 2006 he was recognized with India's Padma Bhushan award.

He is the son of the world-renowned scholar of Oriental Studies and Linguistics Prof. RaghuVira. He was born in 1927, obtained his Master's degree in 1947 from the Punjab University at Lahore, and followed it with a Doctorate in Literature and Philosophy from the State University of Utrecht (Netherlands) in 1950. Starting with an understanding of the most ancient of India's spiritual expression enshrined in the Vedic tradition, he has moved on to the interlocution between India, Tibet, Mongolia, China, Korea, Japan, South East Asia, and the Indo-European languages. He has studied over twenty languages of the world. He has to his credit 610 works and text editions.

**Contents and Sample Pages**