The Power of Creating New Words

As I have mentioned before a perfect language must also have the capacity to grow, to meet the demands of completely new experiences. The speaker of the language should be able to create new words to suit his needs and at the same time the listener should be able to understand him. From this point of view Sanskrit is extremely elaborate and sophisticated. Sanskrit has the ability to create new words and any amount of words to meet the coming Age. It has got a beautiful system of formation of words by combining a root-sound with a suffix and prefix. Let me give you one example of creating a new word.

Imagine, you have not seen a camera before. You do not know what it is. It is placed before you, and you are told that this is camera. You are seeing the object for the first time, and hearing the word camera for the first time. Can the word camera help you know about it? Remember the word camera has not yet been included in any dictionary. What I am trying to say you is that in languages other than Sanskrit the words are created arbitrarily, the meanings are imposed on the words. But in Sanskrit one can create words without any arbitrariness. Here the words are self-explanatory. You can get at least some idea about an object just by concentrating on the word by which the object is named. Now as for an example let us create a word for camera in Sanskrit. When we need to create a new word for an object what we need to take care is the nature of the object, its function, its different features etc. Now what does a camera do? The main feature of the camera is to take pictures, to seize forms. In Sanskrit the root-sound ‘grah’ is used to denote ‘to seize’ or ‘to capture’. The one who (or that which) seizes or captures can be expressed by the word ‘graahin’ or ‘graahaka’ derived from the root ‘grah’. The word ‘ruupa’ in Sanskrit is used in the sense of form or image or picture. Now we can combine both the words ruupa and graahin or graahaka to and make it ruupagraahin or ruupagraahaka to mean something which seizes or captures forms or images. And this word can be used for camera. For any Indian, at least, the word ruupagraahin or ruupagraahaka is more direct and simple and self-explanatory than camera. Similarly one can create the word shabdagraahin or shabdagraahaka for a sound receiver. Is it not interesting? Sanskrit in this manner has a powerful system of creating new words.

Take for example another root-sound, let us say ‘kri’ which means ‘to do’. From this one monosyllabic root-sound one can derive hundreds and thousands words, and the root-experience ‘to do or make or to put into action’ helps to understand the meanings of all the thousands of words created from this root-sound. Say for example one can get the word ‘kartri’ meaning ‘a doer’ by adding the suffix ‘tri’, ‘karana’ meaning ‘doing’ or ‘an instrument which does’ by adding the suffix ‘ana’, ‘kaarya’ meaning ‘a thing to be done’ by adding the suffix ‘ya’, ‘kartavya’ meaning ‘that which must or should be done’ by adding the suffix ‘tavya’, and so on and so forth.

The above are just a few stray examples of the way the words are created in Sanskrit but they have far reaching implications. The first implication is that from a single root, by adding various suffixes, we can create a large number of nouns with various shades of meanings. Further, instead of adding only suffixes to a single root, if we successively add a number of prefixes and suffixes to the verb-roots or nouns, we can have an even greater number of nouns and verbs, with just the precise nuances and meanings we wish to convey. We have therefore not only a very large vocabulary but also the possibility of creating new words in a very natural manner for all possible situations, actions and objects. And, what is more important, it is possible for any one with a basic knowledge of Sanskrit to follow and understand these new words.

Most languages use the process of adding prefixes and suffixes to create new words. But often it is not a conscious process, not sufficiently natural and sometimes even a bit arbitrary. Nor is it a normal part of the use of the language. On the other hand, in Sanskrit it is a very conscious and powerful tool in the hands of the speaker or the writer. The way words unfold from their seed forms is remarkable. When the root creates a word, the sound undergoes certain transformative principles to keep it resonating to its optimum. Hence, cit ‘to be aware’ becomes the resonant cetaami, ‘I am aware’, and cetanam, ‘awareness’. The root-sound budh, ‘to know or understand’, becomes bodhaami, ‘I know or understand’, and bodhanam ‘knowing or understanding or being awake’. These relationships operate with mathematical precision throughout the language, and it becomes extraordinarily powerful and structured, and easy to learn.