India is no more the land of Panini and Vararuchi. It has been a downhill trend for us since Sharada Devi decided to leave Kashmir, and Macaulay abolished our education system. Unfortunately, today’s generation mistakes film stars to be scholars in language and literature. Here Shri. Amitabh Bachchan is seen giving Bollywood Gyan
Dharm ≠ Dharma
Karm ≠ Karma
He claims that the words Dharma and Karma came about during the colonial period. The fact is Dharma and Dharm are both apabhransha-ShabdaH of (धर्म:) DharmaH in Sanskrit. Karm and Karma are Karma (कर्म) in Sanskrit. The Dharm version is used in North India, and the Dharma version is used in Sothern languages. The south Indian versions of these words entered the English dictionary as the English landed in Madras first and spread to the North later.
In fact, Karma and Dharma are closer to the Sanskrit version than Dharm and Karm, which came about because of the loss of the last vowel, possibly influenced by Arabic after the invasion of the Muslims who held Arabic and Persian at a higher esteem than Sanskrit. So, if Shri, Amitabh Bachchan wants to sound Indian with his pronunciation, he would do better using the South India versions (which is not the British version) than the version formed based on foreign influence in the Northern belt languages.
Please share widely before Sri. Bacchan’s popularity is mistaken for his scholarship in the field of Bhasha. Hopefully, this message reaches him as well.
Wishing Sri. Bachchan and his family a speedy recovery from the COVID-19 bug.
DISCLAIMER: The author is solely responsible for the views expressed in this article. The author carries the responsibility for citing and/or licensing of images utilized within the text.