Is "Sanskrit" Dravidian ?

Samar Abbas abbas at IOPB.RES.IN
Thu Jun 10 09:56:21 UTC 1999


Is the word "Sanskrit" itself of Dravidian etymology ?

The word "samskrutam" has the suffix -am, indicating a Dravidian origin of
the word. Is it possible to trace a Dravidian origin for the prefix
samskr- ? Perhaps, Shimoga (Kann. place), Shanmugam (Tam. name), Shan
(Burmic) are the sources.

Since 30-50 % of the words of Sanskrit are of Dravidian etymology anyway,
it would not be surprising if the word `Sanskrit' itself was of Dravidian
origin.

Has any work been done on this kind of etymology ?

Samar





More information about the INDOLOGY mailing list