(
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominalization, nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cul ...
: तद्भव, , lit. "arising from that") is the
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominalization, nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cul ...
word for one of three etymological classes defined by native grammarians of
Middle Indo-Aryan languages
The Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Middle Indic languages, sometimes conflated with the Prakrits, which are a stage of Middle Indic) are a historical group of languages of the Indo-Aryan family. They are the descendants of Old Indo-Aryan (OIA; ...
, alongside
tatsama and
deśi words.
[ at pp. 67-69.] A "tadbhava" is a word with an
Indo-Aryan origin (and thus related to
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominalization, nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cul ...
) but which has evolved through language change in the
Middle Indo-Aryan
The Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Middle Indic languages, sometimes conflated with the Prakrits, which are a stage of Middle Indic) are a historical group of languages of the Indo-Aryan family. They are the descendants of Old Indo-Aryan (OIA; ...
stage and eventually inherited into a modern Indo-Aryan language. In this sense, tadbhavas can be considered the native (inherited) vocabulary of modern Indo-Aryan languages.
Tadbhavas are distinguished from
tatsamas, a term applied to words borrowed from Classical Sanskrit after the development of the Middle Indo-Aryan languages; tatsamas thus retain their Sanskrit form (at least in the orthographic form). This can be compared to the use of borrowed Classical Latin vocabulary in modern Romance languages. Both tadbhavas and tatsamas are also distinguished from deśi ("local") words, a term applied to words that have a non-Indo-Aryan source, typically Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, or Tibeto-Burman.
[ at pp. 67-69.] In the modern context, the terms "tadbhava" and "tatsama" are applied to Sanskrit loanwords not only in
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, Pa ...
, but also in
Dravidian,
Munda and other South Asian languages.
[ at p. 272.]
Tadbhavas in Indo-Aryan languages
Modern Indo-Aryan languages have two classes of words inherited from Sanskrit. The first covers words that have come to the languages from
Old Indo-Aryan
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, ...
through Prakrit and Apabhraṃśa; they are the inherited tadbhava words and show an unbroken chain of language evolution from Old Indo-Aryan to the modern form. A second class of Sanskrit-derived words in modern Indo-Aryan languages covers words that have their origin in
Classical Sanskrit and were originally borrowed into Prakrit or Apabhraṃśa as
tatsamas but, over the course of time, changed in form to fit the phonology of the recipient language. Such words are often called ardhatatsamas or semi-tatsamas by modern linguists.
These stand apart from the tatsamas, which have the same Devanagari spelling in both Sanskrit and the modern language.
Tadbhava, tatsama and semi-tatsama forms derived from the same Indo-Aryan root sometimes co-exist in modern Indo-Aryan languages. For example, the reflexes of in
Bengali include Sanskrit borrowings in tatsama and semi-tatsama form , in addition to the inherited tadbhava form .
Similarly, Sanskrit exists in modern
Hindi
Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of North India, northern, Central India, centr ...
as a semi-tatsama and an inherited tadbhava form (via Prakrit ) in addition to the pure tatsama .
In such cases, the use of tatsama forms in place of equivalent tadbhava or native forms is often seen by speakers of a language as a marker of a more chaste or literary form of the language, as opposed to a more rustic or colloquial form.
[ at p. 766.][ at p. 390.] Often, however, a word exists only in one of the three possible forms, that is only as a tadbhava, tatsama or semi-tatsama, or it has different meanings in different forms. For example, reflexes of the Old Indo-Aryan word exists in Hindi both as a tatsama and as a tadbhava. However, the tatsama word means "heart", as in Sanskrit, but the tadbhava means "courage".
Tadbhavas in the Odia language
Odia words are divided into native words (), those borrowed from Sanskrit () and those adapted with little modification from Sanskrit (). The 17th-century dictionary ''Gitabhidhana'' by
Upendra Bhanja
''Kabi Samrata'' Upendra Bhanja () was a 17th-century Odia poet-composer of classical Odissi music.Mansingha, Mayadhar: ''History of Oriya Literature'': Publisher, Sahitya Akademi, Delhi He is most known for his Odissi songs and kabyas written i ...
, ''Sabda Tattva
Abhidhana'' (1916) by Gopinath Nanda and ''Purnachandra Oriya Bhashakosha'' (1931) by GC Praharaj with 185,000 Words, ''Promoda Abhidan'' (1942) with 150,000 words by PC Deb and ''Damodara Mishar'' classified the Odia words as deśi, tatsama or tadbhava.
The Odia words are derived from Odia verbal roots, which are derived from Sanskrit verbal roots. The Odia words are called Tatabhaba Krudanta words. For example, ''kandana'' is derived from Odia ''dhatu kanda'', which is derived from Sanskrit ''kranda dhatu''.
Tadbhavas in other South Asian languages
In the context of Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, and Tibeto-Burman languages of South Asia, the terms "tatsama" and "tadbhava" are used to describe words which have been borrowed from Sanskrit either unmodified ("tatsama") or modified ("tadbhava"). Tadbhava as used in relation to these languages, therefore, corresponds more accurately with the categories of tatsama and semi-tatsama used in relation to the vocabulary of modern Indo-Aryan languages. All
Dravidian languages
The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant i ...
contain a proportion of tadbhava and tatsama words, possibly exceeding over half of the vocabulary of literary
Kannada
Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...
and
Telugu
Telugu may refer to:
* Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India
*Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India
* Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language
** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode
S ...
, with
Malayalam
Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...
being among the most in common with Sanskrit and
Tamil having less Sanskrit when than the other three.
See also
*
Indo-Aryan loanwords in Tamil
The Tamil language has absorbed many Indo-Aryan, Prakrit, Pali and Sanskrit loanwords ever since the early 1st millennium CE, when the Sangam period Chola kingdoms became influenced by spread of Jainism, Buddhism and early Hinduism.
M ...
References
{{reflist
Linguistic history of India
Etymology
Sanskrit words and phrases