Should I learn Sanskrit or Korean?
Korean is one of the world’s oldest living languages, and its origins are as obscure as the origin of the Korean people. Nineteenth-Century Western scholars proposed a number of theories that linked the Korean language with Ural-Altaic, Japanese, Chinese, Tibetan, Dravidian Ainu, Indo-European and other languages. Linguistically, Korean is unrelated to Chinese and is similar to, but distinct from Japanese. Early historical records indicate that at the dawn of the Christian era, two groups of languages were spoken in Manchuria and on the Korean Peninsula: the Northern or Puyo group and the southern or Han group. The modern Korean writing system, hangul, was devised in 1443 during the reign of King Sejong, perhaps the greatest monarch of the Yi Dynasty (1392-1910). Before hangul, other Korean scripts used a complex system of Chinese characters to represent the sounds of Korean. But because of the differences between Chinese and Korean, Chinese characters could not adequately denote Korean speech. Further, only the elite could afford the time necessary to study Chinese, so King Sejong (1397-1450) commissioned the invention of a phonetic script both more efficient and more accessible to the common people.
Sanskrit is an ancient and classical language of India in which every first book of the world Rigveda was compiled. Sanskrit language must have evolved to its expressive capability prior to that. It is presumed that the language used in Vedas was prevalent in the form of different dialects. It was to some extent different from the present Sanskrit. It is termed Vedic Sanskrit. Each Veda had its book of grammar known as Pratishakhya. The Pratishakhyas explained the forms of the words and other grammatical points. Later, so many schools of grammar developed. Sanskrit has been the source of later languages and literature in India. Pali and Prakrit were first to develop from Sanskrit. Pali was taken as a means for the exposition of Buddhistic ideas and Prakrit was used for the spread of Jain doctrines. Most of the Buddhistic literature is written in Pali and that of the Jain cult in Prakrit. A vast amount of Buddhistic and Jain literature was also written in Sanskrit simultaneously. Prakrit language had different shades in different parts of India. Hindi, the official language of India, is developed from Sauraseni Apabhramsa. It is said that all the modern Indian languages used in the north part of India are evolved from Sanskrit and the other Modern Indian Languages of South India. The South Indian MILs are well enriched and nourished by the Sanskrit language.
