principal language of religion, literature, and philosophy in
India for many centuries.
Possibly the most important Prakrit language was Pali,
the language of the earliest version of the Buddhist scriptures.
Th ese scriptures were fi rst preserved in the region of mod-
ern-day Sri Lanka, where Buddhism was established by mis-
sionaries of the emperor Ashoka (r. ca. 269–232 b.c.e.). Other
Prakrits, like Magadhi, are found in subsequent ancient In-
dian history, down to the dynasty of the Guptas (ca. 240–550
c.e.). From the early Brahmi writing system Sanskrit gram-
marians created the Devanagari syllabary (a list of characters
representing syllables), which thenceforth was used to write
Sanskrit and is still used to write modern languages such as
Hindi. It is the basis of the development of many later writing
systems in India and Southeast Asia.
Because of the similarities of Sanskrit to classical Greek
and Latin, in 1786 the British linguist Sir William Jones pro-
posed that the three languages had arisen from a common
source. Th ese languages are now viewed as members of the
Indo-European family of languages. Jones’s proposal was the
beginning of what in the 19th century was called philology
and is now historical linguistics, the study of the history and
development of languages.
Th e Indo-European languages of India were closely re-
lated to ancient Persian and Avestan in Iran, and the group of
Indian and Iranian languages is called “Indo-Aryan.” Iranian
languages also extended far into central Asia by way of the
highway of grassland that stretches from Hungary to Mon-
golia, the Steppes. Indeed, both Iranian and Indo-Aryan lan-
guages appear to have arisen in the Steppes, perhaps earlier
than 2000 b.c.e. Recent fi nds of well-preserved mummies in
central Asia may belong to these peoples. In the Ukraine at
the western end of the Steppes the Scythians spoke an Ira-
nian language, though we know about it only from words
preserved by Greek writers. At the eastern end of the Steppes
lived an earlier Indo-European speaking group, called the
Yuezhi by the Chinese. Th is was apparently the group that
later left Buddhist texts in Xinjiang, whose language is now
called “Tocharian.” Th is group appears to be the one known
as the Kushans, who invaded India and ruled in the north
of the country from about 20 b.c.e. to the fourth century c.e.
In central Asia we fi nd speakers of Altaic languages, but
t he ea rliest ev idence of a n A lta ic la ng uage is Turk ish f rom t he
fi ft h or sixth centuries c.e. Prior to that we have the confl ict of
the Chinese of the former Han Dynasty (202 b.c.e.–220 c.e.)
with a people they called the Xiongnu. Th ere is considerable
uncertainty about the language or languages of the Xiongnu.
Th ere is at least the presumption that they were principally
or entirely Altaic speakers, along with some proto-Turkish
or proto-Mongolian language, but this is largely speculative.
Equally speculative is whether the Xiongnu were actually the
Huns who later turned up in India and Europe. Still, there is
l it t le ev idence even about t he la ng uage of t he Hu ns i n Eu rope,
where their most famous leader, Attila (“Little Father”), car-
ried a name from Gothic, a Germanic language. Th ere is also
ground for skepticism about the identifi cation of the Xiongnu
with the Huns, since many centuries elapsed between Chi-
nese accounts of t he former a nd accounts f rom Rome or India
about the latter. Either way, we are faced mostly with a mys-
tery about these ancient peoples from central Asia.
Some linguists question whether the Altaic languages
even constitute a proper family. Others not only accept the
kinship of the Altaic languages but also include Korean and
Japanese in the family. Otherwise, it is not obvious whether
Korean and Japanese are related to any other language or even
to each other. In ancient history there is no evidence of the
Japanese language. Th e Korean states of Silla, Paekche, and
Koguryo began under the cultural infl uence of the Chinese in
the period of the Han Dynasty, but in the early days Koreans
mainly wrote Chinese rather than their own language, and
the use of Chinese characters tended to conceal the nature of
the Korean language even when it was being written. Th e lan-
guages of Korea and Vietnam in the ancient period (and later
Japanese) were strongly infl uenced by Chinese, borrowing
the system of Chinese characters and much of the vocabulary
that went with the characters. Phonetic systems to write those
languages, as with the hangul system for Korean, would not
come until long aft er the ancient period.
It is generally but not universally agreed that Chinese
belongs to the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. Th e Tibeto-
Bu r m a n s u bg roup i s re l at i ve ly d i s t i nc t f rom t he Si n it ic , or C h i-
nese, subgroup. Although there appears to be much common
vocabulary across the family, there are otherwise few affi nities
that linguists normally like to see uniting language families.
In this family, evidence is found only of Chinese in ancient
times. We know it mainly as the written language, from the
Shang Dynasty (1500–1045 b.c.e.) forward. Chinese literature
(history, philosophy, and so on) reached its full fl owering dur-
ing the Spring and Autumn Period (722–481 b.c.e.).Jade disc of ancient times, later inscribed with a poem by the Qianlong
emperor, from China (ca. 1500–1050 b.c.e.) (© Th e Trustees of the
British Museum)614 language: Asia and the Pacific