Era

Era (इरा)

Language develop`ment is classified into the following Eras

1. नृत Era - Communication by gestures: Brain circuitry for communicating thru movements exists since 50-55 crore years as seen in ¹crab dance for dominance. Meaning of movements/gestures (नृत) is derived from the inherent neural circuitry of the brain. Communicator acts out of intuition and the audience understands with intuition. No learning or teaching is required.

2. वर्ण era - When sound replaces नृत for communication - वर्ण era starts. It is about ²40.7 crore year old. वर्ण are class of sounds that derive their meanings from neural circuitry of brain. वर्ण are Specie specefic because the anatomy and brain circuitry are different for different species. But withi a specie, वर्ण tends to have same meaning, across all languages.
   ³ Human languages show high degree of corelation between sound and meaning. It is so because languages are built on top of Human-वर्ण. And वर्ण have meanings hard-wired in brain circuitry and vocal anatomy.
   Unlike the meanings of words, meaning of वर्ण does not change. Hence vरन are called अक्षर/शाश्वत. To understand why वर्ण meanings do not change, read ऋऌक्. Meaning of वर्ण is not defined/created by any individual and in this sense, they are called अ-पौरुषेय.
   Only literature available from this era, to best of my knowledge, is शिव सूत्र. Meaning of these वर्ण are not intutive to us as our brains circuits are overloaded with overuse of language. And by their very nature, if not understood intuitively, वर्ण can not be comprehendeded fully⁴ using words. Because words consist of वर्ण too.
   Sub Era of वर्ण समास: वर्ण are combined in समास to have a composite meaning. Some research have shown ⁵Pan, Birds, ⁶Monkeys, ⁷suricates, ⁸Whales are also able to do वर्ण समास. We can safely conclude that ⁹Hominini had ability to speak and understand वर्ण समास. We have a large corpus of literature preserved from this era. unlike वर्ण, a वर्ण समास can be explained by other वर्ण समास. At least one dictionary explaining a set of important वर्ण समास explained using other वर्ण समास is preserved in form of धातु पाठ. To best of my knowledge, literature from this era that we have includes - धातु, उप सर्ग, प्रत्यय, निपात, ऊण आदी गण. We may find many others but these are certainly वर्ण समास from early Hominini period. I also believe these are preserved with extremely high fidelity. Original sounds are preserved even after the anatomical ability to pronounce these sounds was ¹⁰lost.

3. धातु Era. धातु Era is basically वर्ण समास Era after habitual bipedalism - i.e. Homo/Hominina. I am considering this to be different because this is where Homo-वर्ण are crystalized after anatomiccal changes triggerred by bipedalism. Temporal length of वर्ण reduced and seperation of oral and pharyngeal cavities changed their shape. This resulted in clear distiction between अ इ and उ which would not have been possible without oral cavity angular to pharyngeal cavity. Also nasals were more distinct compared to what sapiens can pronounce. It was possible to pronounce ऋ and ऌ without tongue trouching mouth.
   But the distinction between क्रिया and पद has not yet evolved during धातु era. Same वर्ण समास works as noun as well as verb. This is the time after संज्ञा revolution and before डुकृञ् revolution. This period is from the emergence of Homo/Homininae till the stone tool (डुकृञ्) era. ( about ¹¹33 lakh years ago)
   Homo, for anatomical–neural reasons, evolved very short sound units (Homo-वर्ण). These units are temporally compact and therefore more information-dense, occupying less working memory. This vacated ¹²working memory allowing multiple वर्ण to be co-present, enabling more complex वर्ण-समास and allowing संज्ञा to fit in place of वर्ण.
   धातु Era starts from ~60/70 lakh years ago and ends with डुकृञ् Revolution around 33 lakh years ago.

4. डुकृञ् Epoch. This period is when the verb and noun distinction has emerged but not crystallised. This is the time period between the Stone tool (डुकृञ्) era and the तिङ् Era. Language does not have concepts of वचन, पुरुष, लिंग, काल. This is time period from the Stone Tools Era to Seafaring Era (¹³10-15 lakh years ago).
   Education as Institutionalized practice had ¹⁴started in this era. Education was combination of speech and action. That is the reason शिव सूत्र got preserved. Without their corresponding नृत counterparts they have become un-intelligeable. But concept that शिव सूत्र have descended from नृत has survived.
   I am trying to decipher meanings of वर्ण. Tentative meanings are given at शिव सूत्र Once meanings of वर्ण are understood with certainty, we can find meanings of वर्ण समास and understand what those sounds actually meant. this site is an effort in that direction. Part of evolution and history described below is from partial decipher.

5. तिङ् Era. Seafaring starts. concept of verb and noun crystalizes. Concepts of वचन, पुरुष, काल emerge. तिङ् प्रत्यय crystalize. This period coincides with sea faring. about 10-15 lakh lakh years ago. All तिङ्प्र त्यय refer to seafaring or related activiies when we read them based on their constituent वर्ण समास.
   This is Era where institutionalised education for language and other life skills expanded. This is the reason we have धातु पाठ and सूत्र पाठ preserved. We do not have the original form of धातु पाठ and सूत्र पाठ, we do not have ability to pronounce all Erectus sounds, but we have very high fidality material because it was institutionalized and deified by the time Sapiens inherited it. This institutionalizatoin and deification helped preserving this knowledge when catestrophe of Bølling-Allerød & Younger Dryas occurred.

6. पूर्व संस्कृत Era - Language has evolved as संस्कृत we know thru पाणिनी. This period starts when तिङ् are crystalized (H Erectus) and the era ends with Younger Dryas. Bølling-Allerød &Younger Dryas caused massive migration. This we will call the first wave of migration. Foot printns of this migration is reason plenty of languages across globe have roots in संस्कृत.
   Erectus had survived many such events but for Sapiens, this was the first and Sapiens took a different turn and developed agriculture.
   Core of वेदांग (not वेदान्त, that is different) literature descends from this period and predates वेद as we know it. This is पूर्वानुपूर्व /उत्तरोंत्तर descended teaching materials from पूर्व संस्कृत Era. There are changes done but core has non-Sapiens foot print, at least in व्याकरण and शिक्षा.

7. वैदिक or उत्तर संस्कृत Era - This era starts from Bølling-Allerød & Younger Dryas (12 k years ago) and ends when the drying of सरस्वती is complete (1500 BC). This era has development of agriculture, pottery and city life. This era is what we see in Sarasvati Civilization (erroneously called Harappa/Indus)
   From linguistic point of view, the Evolution of संस्कृत language is complete by this time.

8. Churn Era - This period starts when the drying of सरस्वती starts and ends when migration post drying of सरस्वती is complete, and Bronze Age civilisations across the world have collapsed as a result. We will call this the second wave of migration. This Era as seperate Era is important because this is the period when enormous efforts are done to preserve literature. वेद got preserved because institutions were created and arrangements were done to preserve this in impending catestrophe of drying सरस्वती.

9. Classical संस्कृत Era. This era starts after the eastern and western migration, subsequent to the drying of सरस्वती is complete and सारस्वत have settled elsewhere, especially in the Gangetic plains. नाग are pushed east and north. इंद्र is defeated by कृष्ण. संस्कृत evolves into different languages while the form extant at time of drying of Sarasvati is preserved as is by generations and generations of devoting entire life to preserve that knowledge in form of वेद and वेदांग.
   Because there has been tradition, going back to what feels like infinity, to preserve literature verbatim even if it becomes unintelligeable, we have शिव सूत्र that i believe is 33 lakh year old, सूत्र and धातु पाठ that are, imho, 10-33 lakh year old.
   This phase continues to date.

Footnotes

1. Fiddler Crabs of the World by Jocelyn Crane ↩

2. Jorgewich-Cohen and others https://www.sci.news/biology/acoustic-communication-11333.html ↩

3. Sound–meaning association biases evidenced across thousands of languages by Damian Blasi https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1605782113 ↩

4. I will try to explain meanings of वर्ण as i have understood/ deciphered in other parts of this work and we will see why it is not easy task. Understanding वर्ण ↩

5. Versatile use of chimpanzee call combinations promotes meaning expansion by Cederic Girard-Buttoz and others
   https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adq2879 ↩

6. Campbell’s monkeys concatenate vocalizations into context-specific call sequences by Karim Outtara and others https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0908118106 and Formal Monkey Linguistics : The Debate. and Extensive compositionality in the vocal system of bonobos by Berthet, Surbeck & Townsend, 2025 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adv1170 ↩

7. The acoustic structure of suricates’ alarm calls varies with predator type and the level of response urgency by M B Manser, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1088882/ ↩

8. works of Payne & McVay ↩

9. We can exted this back to Great Apes if compositionality can be proved in Gorillas. All other extant Great Apes have compositionality (ability to make वर्ण समास) - Humans, Chimps, Bonobo, Orangutang. ↩

10. I amtalking about ऋ and ऌ as स्वर and all म-कार being mixed up at times. I also believe not everything is preserved because I interpret “स्मृताः” in पाणिनीयशिक्षा 4as “others are विस्मृता.” But what is preserved has been preserved over a few lakhs of years. An unimaginable feat for spoken sound. and i am grateful to all generations who spent their live working as memory bank for this. Without succumbing to temptation to “correct” what had become unintelligeable. ↩

11. 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana
    by Sonia Harmand and others https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14464 ↩

12. The phonological loop as a language learning device By A Baddeley and others. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9450375/ ↩

13. Hominins on Sulawesi during the Early Pleistocene by B Hakim and others. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09348-6 ↩

14. We have ऌ present in शिव सूत्र, and there are two distinct ह. This indicates that they predate sapiens. Also we do not have concept of ह्रस्व दीर्घ प्लुत in शिव सूत्र. This means शिव सूत्र predate तिङ् and seafaring, acivity from which concept of ह्रस्व(shore) दीर्घ(deep) प्लुत (afloat) and their technical name मात्रा emerged. This makes शिव सूत्र in pre- तिङ् era. ↩