Indian Aesthetics

The Natya Shastra is an ancient Indian treatise on the performing arts, encompassing theatre, dance and music. It was written during the period between 200 BCE and 200 CE in classical India and is traditionally attributed to the Sage Bharata.

The earliest work of Indian aesthetics is Bharata’s “Natya Shastra.”  It consists of a few instructions to the actors about present plays.  In course of discussion, Bharatha remarks that the aim of presenting a play is to evoke Rasa.  Rasa is generally regarded as the cornerstone of Indian aesthetics, and according to Bharata, is the product of the combination of the Vibhavas, Anubhavas, and Vyabhicharibhavas.  It talks of artistically influencing the perspective of the audience by a performer/artist.

Vibhava, anubhava and vyabhichari bhava in combination with one another evokes / arouses / infuses the supreme delight which we call rasa or the aesthetic experience in the spectator.

Bharata's Natya Shastra mentions the 'Rasa Sutra' that forms the foundation of Indian Dramaturgy; a one line statement on the elements of arousing the aesthetic experience in the audience. One of the shortest, yet, the most convincing and complete formulation for evoking an emotional response in the spectator.

Bharata devotes the sixth chapter of his classical work Natya Shastra, to an in depth analysis of the concept of Rasa. It is in this chapter that we find the famous 'Rasa Sutra.' The awareness of the emotions has to be elicited in the minds of the spectator for them to relish it. The Rasa Sutra summarizes the factors in art construction that leads to relishing of the Rasa.

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 The word Rasa is derived from the root 'rasah' meaning sap or juice, taste, flavour, relish. The extract of a fruit is referred to as 'rasa,' which itself is the essence of it, the ultimate flavour of it. Bharata succinctly encapsulates the theory of Rasa in his most famous formula-like Rasa sutra thus:

Vibhava-anubhava-vyabhichari-samyogad rasa nispattih

Ø  Vibhavas (വിഭാവ) are the objective conditions producing an emotion.

·         Alambana vibhava – the characters with respect to whom the emotion is aroused.

o   Asraya

o   Vishaya

·         Uddipana (ഉദ്ദിപന) vibhava – the circumstances that inspire the emotion.

Ø  Anubhavas (അനുഭാവ) are the psycho-physical manifestation which a particular emotion makes upon characters.

Vyabhichari bhavas – (sanchari (സഞ്ചാരി) bhavas) are the various fleeting or temporary emotions which lie upon the dormant emotion.

Vibhava literally means the determinant, the cause or the 'karana.'  Alambana Vibhava refers to the main stimulating cause whereas Uddipana Vibhava refers to excitants that support the main stimulating factors in evoking an emotion.

Anubhava refers to the impact or the consequents of a determinant. This is the physical or the outward manifestation. The function of anubhava is to apprehend the emotion or the prevailing permanent psychological state i.e. Sthayi (സ്ഥായി) bhava.

Vyabhichari Bhava are transitory emotions and are also known as Sanchari Bhava. These transitory states help the permanent psychological states to mature into Rasa or the aesthetic delight in the spectator.

Thus, vibhava and anubhava have a cause and effect relationship. Vyabhichari or the transitory states of mind is again an impact due to some specific cause. The difference between anubhava and vyabhichari bhava is that the former is a physical reaction whereas the latter is a mental reaction or a psychological state.

A step further comes the result i.e. the awareness of the emotion in the minds of the spectator which Bharata calls Rasa Nispattih.

Even if we have all these factors of art construction in place, still we may be short of making the audience delighted. How we use these elements in art creation is the deciding factor for the success of a piece of artwork. Firstly, the artiste while using his / her imaginative or creative prowess to bring certain emotions into existence in the spectator has to follow the laws of causation in order to make the work of art realistic and convincing. Secondly, the artiste has to maintain the right proportion and harmonious expression of these construction factors for stirring emotion that will lead to aesthetic delight.

Bharata classifies the Rasa under eight categories (ashtarasa) and gives the corresponding Bhava which gives rise to the rasa. These are known as Sthayi Bhava or pervading stable emotion. They are rati(love), hasa(mirth), shoka(grief), krodha(anger), utsaha(heroism), bhaya(fear), jugupsa(disgust), and vismaya(wonder). The corresponding eight Rasa are sringara(amorous), hasya(humorous), karuna(pathetic), raudra(furious), vira(valorous), bhayanaka(horrific), bibhatsa(repugnant), and adbhuta(wondrous).

There are three types of Bhava, namely, Sthayi (eight types), Vyabhichari (thirty three), and Satvika (eight), totaling to forty-nine. The Satvika bhava are the physical manifestation of intense emotion. They are sthamba(petrification), sveda(perspiration), romancha(horripilation), svarabheda(voice change), vepathu(trembling), vaivarnya(facial colour change), asru(weeping), and pralaya(fainting). It is an amazing analysis of human emotions put in a nutshell !

Vibhava is the cause (karana), the main stimulating cause being termed as alambana vibhava (the determinant), and, the environmental factors that are additional causes termed as uddipana vibhava (excitant). Anubhava is the consequent physical reaction through action, word and facial expression that follows (anu), as the impact of the vibhava. The thirty-three vyabhichari bhava (also referred to as sanchari bhava in some editions), are transitory, fleeting emotions based on psychological states of the mind. Several such emotions follow one after the other, one replacing the other, strengthening the sthayi bhava at each stage, till finally the sthayibhava is established and there is 'Rasanubhava'. "Just as in music a procession of notes in certain combinations reveals a characteristic melodic whole or raga, similarly it seems that the representation of bhavas reveals rasa as an aesthetic whole.

Abhinava Gupta, the 11^th century aesthetician wrote an interpretation to Bharata’s natya shastra.  The discussion was based on two words Samyoga (conjunction) and rasa-nispatti (manifestation of rasa).  Rasa is based on the psychological theory that our personality is constituted of a few primary emotions which lie deep in the subconscious or unconscious level of our being.  These primary emotions are the amorous, the ludicrous, the pathetic, the heroic, the passionate, the fearful, the nauseating, and the wondrous.

Other aesthetic psychologists have in later times added to them the peaceful/intellectual, the devotional/filial.  These emotions are there in all, and so these are called the dominant emotions or sthayi bhavas.

Each emotion in its manifestation shows a composition of diverse sentiments which produce the appearance of a permanent flame.  The flames of diverse sentiments give expression to the permanent emotion.  No emotion is called Rasa unless it is aesthetically excited.  Rasa is an emotion excited by artistic circumstance.

In Sadharanikarana, the commentary of Abhinava Gupta on Rasa Theory, he points out that in the actual aesthetic experience, the mind of the spectator is liberated from the obstacles caused by the ego.  Thus transported from the realm of the personal and egoistic to that of the general and universal, we are capable of experiencing Nirvana or blissfulness.  In the aesthetic process, we are transported to a trans-personal level.  This is a process of de-individualization or universalization.  The Indian Aestheticians consider this process as Sadharanikarana.  Here one may draw a parallel with catharsis, as described by Aristole.

Samkuka explains the enlightenment of aesthetic emotion through Bhavakatva and Bhojakatva.  A proper aesthetic creation generates in us a new spiritual enlightenment which gives us enjoyment.

Bhavakatva is the power of universalization (sadharanikaran) by virtue of which vibhavas, sthayi bhavas, etc. lose their individuality in people who are endowed with imaginations.

Bhojakatva is the quality that is responsible for the enjoyment of this generalized sthayi bhava by the spectator

In Kavya Kautuka, the work of Bhatta Tauta on Rasa, says that a dramatic presentation is not a mere physical occurrence.  In witnessing a play, we forget the actual perceptual experience of the individuals on the stage.  The protagonist stands midway between the pure ‘actuality’ and the pure ‘ideality.’  This, together with all the scenic association and music produces an experience which vibrates with exhilaration.  The past impressions, memories, associations, etc. becomes connected with the present experience.  As a result, a new experience is created and this provides new types of pleasures and pains.  This is technically known as rasasvadana, camatkara, and carvana.

Universalization of poetic art (alaukika/camatcara) – On the stage, the actor who plays the role of Rama appears to the audience the Rama of Valmiki’s poetic imagination.  In this state, the previous experience existing in the mind of the audience as impressions work up independently in association with the suggestion of dramatic performance.  These roused impressions produce new joys and new pains.  This is called universalization of poetic art.

Universalization of poetic art is of two kinds.  First, the aesthetic composition presents before our minds an aesthetic situation and an emotion, free from its local character.  Secondly, the expression of this artistic enlightenment has a universal character in its manifestation in different minds.  In the next stage this presented whole, becomes mingled with various types of subconscious and unconscious feelings which are lying dormant in the minds of various people.  It is therefore called transcendental, i.e. alaukika or camatkara.

The work camatakara is used in different senses;

1.       To denote the special aesthetic attitude of the mind produced by the co-mingling of the universal artisitic situation and the stirred up emotion-motive complexes.

2.       To denote the aesthetic pleasure arising out of it.

3.       To denote the bodily manifestation of such an enjoyment.

4.       To denote the special mental function by which the whole thing is enjoyed.

Dhvani – Anandvardhana (in Dhvanyaloka) extends the scope of rasa to poetry by combining rasa with his Dhvani theory.  Dhvani and rasa are not conflicting concepts.  While dhvani is the technique of expression, rasa stands for the ultimate effect of poetry.

Anandavardhana (820–890) was the author of Dhvanyaloka, a work articulating the philosophy of "aesthetic suggestion". The philosopher Abhinavagupta wrote an important commentary on it.

Anandavardhana is credited with creating the dhvani theory. He wrote of dhvani (meaning sound, or resonance) in regard to the "soul of poetry. "When the poet writes," said Anandavardhana, "he creates a resonant field of emotions." To understand the poetry, the reader or hearer must be on the same "wavelength." The method requires sensitivity on the parts of the writer and the reader.

The literal meaning of Dhvani is 'reverberation' or 'suggestion'. This is an aesthetic concept that occupies an important place in Indian poetic theory, hence in Sanskrit theatre. Anandavardhana in ninth century was the first exponent of the Dhvani school of literary criticism, further elaborated by Abhinavagupta in 950-1025, whose Locana or 'Eye' is a commentary on Anandavardhana's Dhvanyaloka or 'Light on Dhvani'.

According to Dhvani theory, the content of a good poem may be divided in two parts. One is directly expressed through the power of denotation of the words, and may include the meaning hinted at by their power of connotation or lakshana. The other, taken to be the soul of poetry, is the unexpressed or suggested meaning i.e. vyangya, i.e. 'revealed', or dhvani, sometimes linked with the denotative and connotative meanings of the words.

Tradition delineates three types of dhvani. When the expressive words offer their direct meaning and, in turn, suggest some other, charming, matter (vastu) or idea, it is called vastudhvani. For instance, 'the sun has set' may mean to a peasant that it is time to stop tilling the field, whereas for a housewife it may suggest, 'It is time to cook the food.' When in addition to the expressed meaning, some striking and embellished meaning is suggested, it becomes alamkara (ornamental) dhvani, understood as different from the expressed figure of speech. And when a poet, by carefully choosing his words, makes them convey far more than their bare meanings and so induces a whole series of emotions it creates rasadidhvani.

The theory of Dhvani in the field of rhetorics and asthetics being put forward by Ānandavardhana through his monumental work Dhvanyāloka, is a contribution of Sanskrit to the universal poetic asthetic studies. The theme of Indian interpretation of asthetics inherited through the Nāṭyaśāstra of Bharata till many authentic works got established in different centuries by different authors. Ānandavardhana is one of such authors who wanted to establish the theory of asthetics called the rasa theory by following the unchallenged Bharata definition of: vibhāvānubhāvavybhicārisamyogād rasaniṣpattiḥ to analyze the works of Valmīki and Vyāsa etc.

 Ānandavardhana says:

dhvaneḥ svarūpaṃ sakalasatkavikāvyopaniṣadbhūtam

atiramaṇīyam aṇīyasībhirapi cirantanakāvyalakṣaṇavidhāyināṃ

buddhibhir anunmīlitapūrvam,

atha ca rāmāyaṇamahābhārataprabhṛtini

lakṣye sarvatra prasiddhavyavahāraṃ

lakṣayatāṃ sahṛdayānām

ānando manasi labhatāṃ pratiṣṭhāmiti prakāśyate.

(For the nature of this dhvani which is the secret of all good poets' poetry, which despite its extraordinary beauty has not been opened to view by the subtle minds of the ancient makers of definition of the poetry, which moreover, is clearly seen to be at work in such great poems as the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata will here be revealed so that the bliss in the heart of sensitive readers on their noticing it in the object of their attention, amy take firm hold in their hearts.).

 

Indo European Languages

A stunning result of linguistic research in the 19th century was the recognition that some languages show correspondences of form that cannot be due to chance convergences, to borrowing among the languages involved, or to universal characteristics of human language, and that such correspondences therefore can only be the result of the languages in question having sprung from a common source language in the past. Such languages are said to be “related” (more specifically, “genetically related”, though “genetic” here does not have any connection to the term referring to a biological genetic relationship) and to belong to a “language family”. It can therefore be convenient to model such linguistic genetic relationships via a “family tree”, showing the genealogy of the languages claimed to be related.

Many such language families can be recognized, and the languages within each exhibit striking formal correspondences — in their phonology, morphology, overall structure, and vocabulary — that link them together.  One of the earliest language families to be recognized, and thus the most thoroughly investigated of all to date, is the one that Greek belongs to, the one known as the Indo-European language family. The source language, generally called “Proto-Indo-European”,was spoken some 6,500 years ago (see the article by J. P. Mallory) and has given rise to several hundred languages, in ten major branches.

1. The Major Branches of Indo-European

The ten major branches of the Indo-European family are listed here roughly in the order of their location east-to-west at the point of their first attestation, with an indication of the oldest representative languages in each and their earliest attestation (generally literary in nature).

1.1.    Tocharian. Two closely related languages, generally referred to simply as TOCHARIAN A and TOCHARIAN B, make up this easternmost branch of Indo-European. Though extinct by the 10th century AD, these languages were discovered in documents dating from the 6th to 8th centuries AD that were found in the Central Asian region of Chinese Turkestan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

1.2.    Indo-Iranian. This branch, consisting now of hundreds of modern languages found mainly in South Asia, is represented by two large sub-groups, IRANIAN and INDIC (also known as INDO-ARYAN), both with important ancient testimony. The earliest-attested Iranian languages are OLD PERSIAN, known from rock-cut inscriptions of the Achaemenid kings in the 6th to 4th centuries BC, and AVESTAN, the sacred language of Zoroastrianism, known from orally transmitted texts from at least as early as the 7th century BC. On the Indic side, the major representative is SANSKRIT, which in its most archaic form, known as Vedic, is the language of the orally transmitted sacred Hindu texts the Vedas, the oldest being the Rig Veda, conventionally dated to about 1200 BC. A vast literature in the highly archaic Vedic Sanskrit and in the somewhat later Classical Sanskrit, dating from the 6^th century, including detailed native grammatical treatises, make this language especially important for Indo-European studies.

1.3.    Armenian. Though showing considerable dialect diversity, this branch is represented essentially by a single language, ARMENIAN, spoken now mainly in the Armenian Republic and in eastern Turkey, and attested from the 5th century AD through Bible translations into what is referred to as Classical Armenian.

1.4.    Anatolian. Several of the ancient languages of Anatolia, in what is now Turkey, came to light in the early 20th century in cuneiform archives discovered at Bo azköy, east of Ankara, and were soon recognized as Indo-European languages. Though the oldest of these is PALAIC, an extinct language even in the 18th century BC, the best represented by far is HITTITE, attested from the 17th century BC up through the 13th century BC. Also important are LUVIAN, contemporaneous with Hittite but spoken into the first millennium BC, and LYCIAN and LYDIAN, both attested from as early as the 5th century BC. All of the Indo-European Anatolian languages were extinct by late Hellenistic times.

1.5.    Greek. Like Armenian, GREEK is essentially a single language throughout its long history, yet constitutes a separate and distinct branch of Indo-European, though it too has considerable dialect diversity at all points in its history. Greek is attested first in Linear B texts from (perhaps) as early as 1400 BC, with the later Homeric texts showing considerable archaism as well.

1.6.    Albanian. Attested quite late, only from the 15th century AD, ALBANIAN, in its two major dialects Geg and Tosk, is a separate branch of the Indo-European family. Its prehistory is most unclear, though some connection with an ancient language of the Balkans, possibly Illyrian or Thracian, is often assumed.

1.7.    Balto-Slavic. This branch consists of two well-represented subgroups, the BALTIC languages and the SLAVIC languages. Grouping them together into a single branch is somewhat controversial but is generally accepted and is justified by some significant innovations they share, particularly in the accentual realm. The oldest attested representative of Baltic is the now-extinct OLD PRUSSIAN, attested from the 14th century AD, but the most substantial documentation for Baltic comes from LITHUANIAN and LATVIAN, both attested from the 16th century and still spoken today. The Slavic languages are attested from the 9^th century AD, with the earliest text being a Bible translation prepared, at the invitation of the ruler of Moravia, by Cyril and Methodius of Thessalonica writing in a southern Slavic dialect now referred to as OLD CHURCH SLAVONIC.

1.8.    Germanic. Three subgroups with important older representation make up the GERMANIC branch of Indo-European. The earliest attested Germanic is found in the socalled “Runic” inscriptions from as early as the 2nd century AD, though the evidence is sparse compared to the rich literary material of later centuries. Earliest among this richer documentation is GOTHIC, the sole (and now-extinct) representative of East Germanic, attested first through a 4th century AD Bible translation. West Germanic is represented by OLD ENGLISH, attested from the 7th century AD, and by OLD HIGH GERMAN, attested from the 8th century. North Germanic is attested earliest in OLD NORSE, from the 12th century. Italic. Along with Anatolian, Indo-Iranian, and Greek, the other branch of Indo-European with substantial attestation from before the common era is ITALIC, covering many of the languages spoken in ancient Italy. The primary representative of this branch is LATIN, attested first in the 6th century BC through short inscriptions with much more extensive documentation coming in the 3rd century BC and later (and note Latin’s modern offshoots, the so-called “Romance” languages). Other Italic languages include FALISCAN, OSCAN, and UMBRIAN, all somewhat spottily attested and rendered extinct in ancient times by the spread of (Roman) Latin.

1.10.      Celtic. The westernmost branch of Indo-European at the time of its first attestation is the group of CELTIC languages. Although Celtic languages were spoken over much of the western European continent in ancient times, with traces attested in GAULISH and CELTIBERIAN inscriptions from as early as the 3rd century BC, the main representatives of this branch are found in the British Isles. The most important Celtic language for Indo- European studies is OLD IRISH, attested in short inscriptions from the 4th and 5th centuries AD and in extensive literary documents from the 8th century; WELSH, too, is important, attested also from the 8th century.

Home and history of Indo-European linguistics

In the 16th century, European visitors to the Indian Subcontinent began to suggest similarities between Indo-Aryan, Iranian, and European languages. In 1583, Thomas Stephens, an English Jesuit missionary in Goa, in a letter to his brother that was not published until the 20th century, noted similarities between Indian languages, specifically Sanskrit, and Greek and Latin.

Another account to mention the ancient language Sanskrit came from Filippo Sassetti (born in Florence in 1540), a merchant who travelled to the Indian subcontinent. Writing in 1585, he noted some word similarities between Sanskrit and Italian (these included devaḥ/dio "God", sarpaḥ/serpe "serpent", sapta/sette "seven", aṣṭa/otto "eight", nava/nove "nine").However, neither Stephens's nor Sassetti's observations led to further scholarly inquiry.

In 1647, Dutch linguist and scholar Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn noted the similarity among Indo-European languages, and supposed that they derived from a primitive common language he called Scythian. He included in his hypothesis Dutch, Albanian, Greek, Latin, Persian, and German, later adding Slavic, Celtic, and Baltic languages. However, Van Boxhorn's suggestions did not become widely known and did not stimulate further research.

The Ottoman Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi, who visited Vienna in 1665–1666 as part of a diplomatic mission, noted a few similarities between words in German and Persian. Gaston Coeurdoux and others made observations of the same type. Coeurdoux made a thorough comparison of Sanskrit, Latin and Greek conjugations in the late 1760s to suggest a relationship between them. Similarly, Mikhail Lomonosov compared different language groups of the world including Slavic, Baltic ("Kurlandic"), Iranian ("Medic"), Finnish, Chinese, "Hottentot", and others. He emphatically expressed the antiquity of the linguistic stages accessible to comparative method in the drafts for his Russian Grammar (published 1755).

The hypothesis reappeared in 1786 when Sir William Jones first lectured on the striking similarities between three of the oldest languages known in his time: Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, to which he tentatively added Gothic, Celtic, and Persian, though his classification contained some inaccuracies and omissions.

It was Thomas Young who in 1813 first used the term Indo-European, which became the standard scientific term through the work of Franz Bopp, whose systematic comparison of these and other old languages supported the hypothesis. A synonym for "Indo-European" is Indo-Germanic (Idg. or IdG.), which defines the family by indicating its southeasternmost and northwesternmost branches. In most languages this term is dated or less common, whereas in German it is still the standard scientific term. Advocates of Indo-Germanic often claim that "Indo-European" is misleading because many historic and several living European languages (the unrelated Uralic languages, as well as several others, are also spoken in Europe) do not belong to this family. Advocates of Indo-European counter that Indo-Germanic is misleading because many of the European languages included are not in fact Germanic.

Franz Bopp's Comparative Grammar, which appeared between 1833 and 1852, is the beginning of Indo-European studies as an academic discipline. The classical phase of Indo-European comparative linguistics leads from this work to August Schleicher's 1861 Compendium and up to Karl Brugmann's Grundriss, published in the 1880s. Brugmann's junggrammatische reevaluation of the field and Ferdinand de Saussure's development of the laryngeal theory may be considered the beginning of "modern" Indo-European studies. The generation of Indo-Europeanists active in the last third of the 20th century (such as Calvert Watkins, Jochem Schindler and Helmut Rix) developed a better understanding of morphology and, in the wake of Kuryłowicz's 1956 Apophonie, understanding of the ablaut.

 

Characteristics of IE languages:

The IE language family is extensive in time and space. The earliest attested IE language, Hittite, is attested nearly 4,000 years ago, written on claytablets in cuneiform script in central Anatolia from the early second millennium BC.We have extensive textual remains, including native-speaker accounts of three more IE languages from 2,000 years ago: Ancient Greek, Latin and Sanskrit. Also from the beginning of the Christian Era we have much more limited corpora of many more IE languages. The stock of recorded IE languages further increases as we move forward in time. In 2003, over 2.5 billion people spoke an IE language as their first language, and there were at least seventy codified varieties, each spoken by a million or more native speakers. Four hundred years ago nearly all speakers of IE lived in Europe, Iran, Turkey, Western Asia and the Indian subcontinent, but migrations have nowspread speakers to every part of theworld. The wealth of historical material makes IE the best-documented language family in the world.

Linguistics was born from the study of the superfamily of Indo-European languages (about half of the world's population has an Indo-European language as mother tongue). During the last two centuries, the linguists have rebuilt the vocabulary and syntax of the Indo-European protolanguage. Early investigations located its origin in Europe. Those investigations indicated migratory routes by which the daughter tongues would have developed till they grouped in two well defined branches: Eastern and Western.

Latest investigations indicate that the protolanguage was born in the Eastern region of Anatolia over 6000 years ago. They also indicate that some daughter tongues were differentiating through migrations which took them firstly to the East and then to the West. The linguists try to find any grammatical, syntactic, lexical and pronunciation correspondences between the known languages in order to rebuild their immediate preceding ones, and at last, the original language. Living languages can be directly comparable to each other; in turn, dead ones that have survived in their written form can generally be articulated through inference, by relying on internal linguistic data. However, dead languages that were never written can be only rebuilt by comparing their descendants, and by tracing back, with one's attention being paid to the laws ruling the phonological changes (this is very important because the sounds are more stable than the meanings as time goes by).

Early studies dealt with languages well known by the European linguists: those ones pertaining to Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic and Slavic families (since the sixteenth century, the European travelers had detected the similarity among the aforesaid languages and the "Aryan" ones from the far India).

In 1786, William Jones proposed that they all could share a common ancestor. This was called "Indo-European Hypothesis". To reconstruct the Indo-European language, early linguists relied on a law called Lautverschiebung (or "the change of sound"), enunciated by Jacob Grim in 1822. That law postulated that the consonantal groups would substitute one another regularly and predictably, in the course of time.

The rules of that law were utilized to rebuild an Indo-European vocabulary which could reveal how Indo-European-speaking people lived. The words of that vocabulary described landscapes and climates located in Europe by the linguists, on the region ranging from the Alps up to the Baltic and North seas. Nowadays, the latest data locate the probable origin for the Indo-European language in the Western zone of Asia. The archaelogical and linguistic investigations carried out so far included about a dozen of ancient languages (situated on the region ranging from Turkey up to far countries such as Tocharia --in the Turkestan--).