Tatsama ( sa, तत्सम , lit. 'same as that') are

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because ...

s in modern

Indo-Aryan languages The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, P ...

like Assamese,

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

, Marathi,

Nepali Nepali or Nepalese may refer to : Concerning Nepal * Anything of, from, or related to Nepal * Nepali people, citizens of Nepal * Nepali language, an Indo-Aryan language found in Nepal, the current official national language and a language spoken ...

Odia Odia, also spelled Oriya or Odiya, may refer to: * Odia people in Odisha, India * Odia language, an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family * Odia alphabet, a writing system used for the Odia languag ...

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...

, and Sinhala and in

Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant im ...

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...

and

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode ...

. They generally belong to a higher and more erudite

register Register or registration may refer to: Arts entertainment, and media Music * Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc. * ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller * Registration (organ), th ...

than common

word A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no conse ...

s, many of which are (in modern Indo-Aryan languages) directly inherited from Old Indo-Aryan (

tadbhava (Sanskrit: तद्भव, , lit. "arising from that") is the Sanskrit word for one of three etymological classes defined by native grammarians of Middle Indo-Aryan languages, alongside tatsama and deśi words. at pp. 67-69. A "tadbhava" is a w ...

). The tatsama register can be compared to the use of loan words of Greek or Latin origin in English (e.g. ''hubris'').

Bengali

The origin of tatsamas ( bn, তৎসম, tôtsômô) in

is traced to 10th century

Brahmin Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests ( purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers ( ...

poets, who felt that the colloquial language was not suitable for their expressive needs. Another wave of tatsama vocabulary entered the then Bengali language by Sanskrit scholars teaching at

Fort William College Fort William College (also known as the College of Fort William) was an academy of oriental studies and a centre of learning, founded on 18 August 1800 by Lord Wellesley, then Governor-General of British India, located within the Fort William co ...

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

at the start of the 19th century. The textbooks used in these courses paved the way for more tatsama words entering common usage. Bengali's lexicon is now about 40% tatsama (with about 58%

vocabulary inherited from Old Indo-Aryan via the Prakrit languages such as Apabhramsha and Avahaṭṭha). Writers such as

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...

Michael Madhusudan Dutt Michael Madhusudan Dutt ((Bengali: মাইকেল মধুসূদন দত্ত); (25 January 1824 – 29 June 1873) was a Bengali poet and playwright. He is considered one of the pioneers of Bengali literature. Early life Dutt ...

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar CIE ( bn, ঈশ্বর চন্দ্র বিদ্যাসাগর; 26 September 1820 – 29 July 1891), born Ishwar Chandra Bandyopadhyay, was an Indian educator and social reformer of the nineteenth century ...

, and

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (also Chattopadhayay) CIE (26 or 27 June 1838 – 8 April 1894) was an Indian novelist, poet, Essayist and journalist. Staff writer"Bankim Chandra: The First Prominent Bengali Novelist" ''The Daily Star'', 30 June 201 ...

introduced a large number of tatsamas into Bengali.

Odia

Early

dictionaries such as Gitabhidhana (17th Century), Sabda Tattva Abhidhana (1916), Purnachandra Odia Bhashakosha (1931) and Promoda Abhidan (1942) list Sanskrit Tatsama vocabulary. They are derived from Sanskrit verbal roots with the addition of suffixes and known in Odia as "tatsama krudanta".

Malayalam

has many tatsama words, which are used in written and spoken language depending on registerand dialect. For example: * Abhimanam- Pride * Abhyasam- Practice * Vidhya- Education * Vishudham- Holy * Vishwasam- Believe * Swasam- Breath * Vichaaram- Thought * Bodham- Sense * Shatru- Enemy * Rakshakan- Saviour * Akasham- Sky * Svargam- Heaven * Pustakam- Book * Swapanam- Dream * Premam - Love * Ullasam- Merriment * Sareeram- Body * Daivam- God

Sinhala

The way the tatsama entered the

Sinhala language Sinhala ( ; , ''siṁhala'', ), sometimes called Sinhalese (), is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken by the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka, who make up the largest ethnic group on the island, numbering about 16 million. Sinhala is also s ...

is comparable to what is found in Bengali language: they are scholarly borrowings of Sanskrit or

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of '' Theravāda'' Buddh ...

terms. Tatsama in Sinhala can be identified by their ending exclusively in ''-ya'' or ''-va'', whereas native Sinhala words tend to show a greater array of endings. Many

scientific Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

concepts make use of tatsama, for instance ''grahaņaya'' 'eclipse', but they are also found for more everyday concepts.

Telugu

Sanskrit influenced the

Telugu language Telugu (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken by Telugu people predominantly living in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where it is also the official language. It is the most widely spoken ...

for about 500 years. During 1000-1100 AD, Nannaya's Telugu in Mahabharata, Telugu in several inscriptions, Telugu in poetry reestablished its roots and dominated over the royal language, Sanskrit. Telugu absorbed the Tatsamas from Sanskrit. Metrical poetry in Telugu ('Chandassu') uses meters such as Utpalamala, Champakamala, Mattebham, Sardoola, Sragdhara, Bhujangaprayata etc.. which are pure Sanskrit meters. Telugu has many tatsama words, known as ''prakriti''. The equivalent colloquial words are called ''vikrutis'', meaning "distorted". ''Prakriti'' are used only as a medium of instruction in educational institutions, offices etc. Today, spoken Telugu contains both ''prakruthi'' and ''vikruthi'' words. For example: * Bhōjanam (food) is prakriti and bōnam is vikruti. * Vidya (education) is prakriti and viddhe is vikriti. * Rākshasi (female demon) is prakriti and rākāsi/rakkasi is vikriti. * Drishti (sight) is prakriti and dishti is vikriti. * Shūnya (zero) is prakriti and sunnā is vikriti.

References

{{Sinhala language Lists of loanwords Sanskrit words and phrases Etymology