THE SANSKRIT CONNECTION - RIVER MINNESOTA

The unexpected linguistic parallels between the Dakota and Lakota languages and Sanskrit are both fascinating and thought-provoking. Despite the geographical distance separating India and North America, these connections invite us to explore shared cultural heritage and ancient migrations. Rather than allowing scepticism to prevail, a thorough investigation reveals hidden threads that bind languages across continents. As we delve deeper, we uncover echoes of Sanskrit in Native American names, river designations, and everyday expressions. These linguistic bridges remind us that language transcends borders, connecting humanity through time and space.

The state of Minnesota is named after the Minnesota River. In the Dakota language, spoken by the Native Americans of the Sioux tribe, 'mni' is the word for 'water'. Minnesota translates as 'clouded Water'. It is said that the Native Americans demonstrated the meaning of Minnesota to the European Immigrants by adding milk to water. One may therefore equate the word 'sota' with 'cloudiness'. The Dakota online dictionary translates 'sota' as 'smoke'. We may now turn towards Sanskrit to discover any likenesses.

A cognate of 'mni' in the Sanskrit language is 'mih' (मिह्), which has the meaning of 'downpour of water, fog or mist'. One of the words for 'smoke' in Sanskrit is 'stari' (स्तरी), which is cognate of 'sota'. Hence, we find that Minnesota may be explained by Sanskrit 'mih' and 'stari', and we arrive at the meaning 'foggy downpour of water', or 'cloudy mist' or 'misty water', which is pretty much the meaning of this Native American name in Dakota. There are other examples, such as the Dakota 'magazu' for 'rain'. which is similar to 'megha', Sanskrit for 'cloud'. The Dakota word for cloud is 'mahpiya', which has the Sanskrit 'mih' or rain in its prefix.

The connectedness of Native American names to Sanskrit is affirmed by certain other observations. For example, one of the Dakota words for river is 'wakpa'. This word appears to be a distortion of the Sanskrit 'vahana', meaning 'flowing'. We see an example of that in the Dakota name for River Poplar of Minnesota, which is Wahcinca, where 'vahana' appears in its truncated form as the prefix 'wah'.

At this point, one may justifiably dismiss all of this as a coincidence. However, a variation of the Sanskrit 'vahana' appears in many river names attributed to other Native American Languages. For example, the Lenape name of the River Schuylkill of Pennsylvania is Ganshowahane, which means 'falling or roaring waters' in Lenape. Schuylkill is also known as Tulpehane (Turtle River), in Lenape. In both of these names, the suffixes 'wahane' and 'ehane' are probable variations of 'vahane', i.e, the Sanskrit 'vahana'.

If one may, for a minute, make an assumption that Native American languages have a source in Sanskrit, some interesting observations come up. It is believed that the Native Americans crossed over into America from Asia via the Bering Strait. One of the languages spoken in the Asian end of the Bering Strait is Russian. One would logically arrive at the conclusion that if a Sanskritic people migrated from Asia via Russia and the Bering Strait into the Americas, they would carry with them traces of all these languages.

So, let us take the example of the Russian word for 'water spring'. Its Russian translation will be 'vodny istocnik'. In Dakota, 'water spring' translates as 'mni ohdoka'. Let's examine these words, their meanings at the time of their origin, and the shift of meaning from one language to the other, in this example from Russian to Dakota. In the word 'vodny istocnik', 'vodny' is Russian for water. In Dakota, the word changes from 'vodny' to 'ohdoka', and from 'water' takes on the meaning of 'source of water' or 'water hole', hence 'mnk ohdoka'.

At the root of all of these names, however, is Sanskrit, the mother of all languages. 'Odaka' (ओदक) means 'watery' and takes a different form in Russian. Another Sanskrit words that come into play here is 'srota' (स्रोत), which means 'source'. In Russian, 'srota' becomes 'stocknik', in Dakota it becomes 'sota'.

With this in mind, one may revisit the name Minnesota at this point. The second syllable in the name Minnesota 'Sota' could be a distortion of Srota (स्रोत), which means 'ocean' or 'stream'. 'Srota' also refers to the 'source of a water body'. Another cognate of ' Sota' in the context of water is Sarit (सरित्). Sarit or Sarita is a versatile word which means,' stream, ocean or river'. The root word 'mi' (मी) means 'flowing' or 'moving'. The Sanskrit root 'mIm' (मीम्) also has the meaning of move and expands into the 'mimati' (मीमति), which means 'moving. We see the name Sarita as the name of a river in British Columbia.

River Sarita, Vancouver Island, British Columbia

We see other glaring similarities in words such as 'jyoyanpa', the Dakota word for light, similar to Sanskrit 'jyoti' (ज्योत्). The word for 'union' is 'yuwitaya', which is the same as the Sanskrit 'yukta' (युक्त). The word for box is 'koka'. The source of 'koka' seems to be Sanskrit 'kosha' (कोष), which distorts in Hindi to 'khoka', similar to the Dalota 'koka'.

In the Lakota language, 'wowicake' is honesty, truthfulness, sincerity, etc. This is exactly the same as 'viveka' (विवेक ) in Sanskrit. In Lakota, 'cante' is 'heart'; in Sanskrit, kanta (कान्त) means 'beloved' or 'beautiful'. Yet the source of the Lakota word 'cante' seems to lie in the Sanskrit hridya with the same meaning. Lakota 'cante ' is pronounced as 'chahn-day' and seems to be a cognate of hriday. 

These similarities are not easily explainable. In ancient times, people embarked on migrations and emigrations across the globe in search of better lives—much as they do today. These movements formed waves that flowed not only in one direction but in all directions. Theories that assume a unidirectional flow of people from one land to another often lead to erroneous conclusions. Instead, recognising the multidirectional nature of historical migrations provides a more accurate understanding of our shared human journey.