Lecture: Ancient Indian Linguistics: its role in the making of, and the future of, modern linguistics

One of ancient India’s most significant claims to intellectual fame is its highly sophisticated tradition of linguistics.The most famous exponent of ancient Indian linguistics is the Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini, c. 500–300BCE, but important and innovative linguistic insights continued to arise throughout the history of the tradition to at least the seventeenth century, and not just in the tradition of vyākaraṇa (grammar), but also in adjacent fields such as mīmāṃsā (Vedic exegesis) and nyāya (logic). Considered from a modern perspective, the ancient Indian tradition of linguistics was considerably more advanced than any other ancient tradition of linguistics; it was also more advanced than Western linguistics until at least the end of the nineteenth century, and indeed many of the major advances of Western linguistic thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries can be directly traced to the influence of ancient Indian linguistics on Western linguists, such as Franz Bopp, Ferdinand de Saussure and Leonard Bloomfield.

From 2020 to 2026 Prof John Lowe has been leading a major European Research Council project investigating ancient Indian linguistics’ influence on, and ongoing potential for, the development of modern linguistics. In this talk, Prof Lowe will discuss some of the major insights of the ancient Indian linguistic tradition, and trace their influence on modern linguistics. He will also explore why linguistics developed to such heights in ancient India, in comparison with other ancient cultures, and discuss the ongoing potential for modern linguistics to learn from the ancient Indian tradition.