frequencies

[Oliver Hellwig]

Recently, I performed a study on the etymological composition of post-
Vedic texts, which was based on a large electronic corpus. The rates of 
Dravidian and Austro-Asiatic words change dramatically and statistically 
highly significant from the epics until the 15th century which makes it 
even possible to date texts (at least approximately) if you only know the 
rates of Dravidian words etc. contained in them. 
I think such results clearly support the assumption that Sanskrit was not 
a dead, holy, or completely codified language, but showed traces of a 
regular linguistic development. However, many more (statistical) studies 
need to be conducted until we will be able to understand the linguistic 
development of later Sanskrit.

Best, Oliver