The Sanskrit Language (1786 discourse)
E901587
The Sanskrit Language (1786 discourse) is Sir William Jones’s landmark 1786 address to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, in which he famously argued for a common origin of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and other languages, helping to found the field of comparative linguistics and Indo-European studies.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Sanskrit Language (1786 discourse) canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T11031616 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Sanskrit Language (1786 discourse) Context triple: [William Jones (philologist), notableWork, The Sanskrit Language (1786 discourse)]
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A.
Bhartṛhari’s school of sphoṭa theory
Bhartṛhari’s school of sphoṭa theory is a classical Indian linguistic-philosophical tradition that holds that meaning is grasped through an indivisible, holistic burst of language rather than through discrete words or sounds.
-
B.
Treatise on the Origin of Language
Treatise on the Origin of Language is an influential 18th-century philosophical work that explores the natural, cultural, and historical origins of human language.
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C.
Translations of the Upanishads
Translations of the Upanishads is an early 19th-century English rendering of key Hindu philosophical texts that helped introduce Upanishadic thought to Western and modern Indian intellectual circles.
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D.
Prolegomena to the First Two Tibetan Grammatical Treatises
Prolegomena to the First Two Tibetan Grammatical Treatises is a scholarly work by linguist Roy Andrew Miller that provides critical analysis and contextual introduction to the earliest known Tibetan grammatical texts.
-
E.
Of the Origin and Progress of Language
Of the Origin and Progress of Language is an 18th-century multi-volume work by Scottish judge and philosopher James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, exploring the natural origins, development, and structure of human language within a broader theory of human nature and society.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Sanskrit Language (1786 discourse) Target entity description: The Sanskrit Language (1786 discourse) is Sir William Jones’s landmark 1786 address to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, in which he famously argued for a common origin of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and other languages, helping to found the field of comparative linguistics and Indo-European studies.
-
A.
Bhartṛhari’s school of sphoṭa theory
Bhartṛhari’s school of sphoṭa theory is a classical Indian linguistic-philosophical tradition that holds that meaning is grasped through an indivisible, holistic burst of language rather than through discrete words or sounds.
-
B.
Treatise on the Origin of Language
Treatise on the Origin of Language is an influential 18th-century philosophical work that explores the natural, cultural, and historical origins of human language.
-
C.
Translations of the Upanishads
Translations of the Upanishads is an early 19th-century English rendering of key Hindu philosophical texts that helped introduce Upanishadic thought to Western and modern Indian intellectual circles.
-
D.
Prolegomena to the First Two Tibetan Grammatical Treatises
Prolegomena to the First Two Tibetan Grammatical Treatises is a scholarly work by linguist Roy Andrew Miller that provides critical analysis and contextual introduction to the earliest known Tibetan grammatical texts.
-
E.
Of the Origin and Progress of Language
Of the Origin and Progress of Language is an 18th-century multi-volume work by Scottish judge and philosopher James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, exploring the natural origins, development, and structure of human language within a broader theory of human nature and society.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
academic lecture
ⓘ
historical document ⓘ scholarly discourse ⓘ |
| alsoKnownAs |
Jones’s 1786 discourse on the Sanskrit language
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Sir William Jones’s 1786 address to the Asiatic Society of Bengal NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| audience | members of the Asiatic Society of Bengal ⓘ |
| author | Sir William Jones NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryAtTimeOfDelivery | British India GENERATED ⓘ |
| date | 1786 ⓘ |
| deliveredAt | Asiatic Society of Bengal NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| deliveredBy | Sir William Jones NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| discipline |
linguistics
ⓘ
philology ⓘ |
| fieldFounded |
Indo-European studies
ⓘ
comparative linguistics ⓘ |
| genre | learned society address ⓘ |
| historicalSignificance |
early formulation of the Indo-European language family hypothesis
ⓘ
landmark in the study of language relationships ⓘ |
| impact |
helped establish the comparative method in linguistics
ⓘ
stimulated European interest in Sanskrit studies ⓘ |
| influencedField |
Indology
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
linguistics ⓘ philology ⓘ |
| keyIdea |
systematic comparison of vocabulary and grammar across languages
ⓘ
use of linguistic evidence to infer common ancestry of languages ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| location | Calcutta NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| mainClaim |
Sanskrit is related to Gothic and Celtic
ⓘ
Sanskrit is related to Old Persian NERFINISHED ⓘ Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin have a common origin ⓘ |
| mentionsLanguage |
Celtic
ⓘ
Gothic NERFINISHED ⓘ Greek ⓘ Latin NERFINISHED ⓘ Old Persian NERFINISHED ⓘ Sanskrit NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| period | 18th century ⓘ |
| regionOfFocus | South Asia NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
Indo-European language family
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
historical-comparative method ⓘ language genealogy ⓘ |
| subject |
Indo-European languages
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Sanskrit language NERFINISHED ⓘ comparative linguistics ⓘ historical linguistics ⓘ |
| yearOfDelivery | 1786 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Sanskrit Language (1786 discourse) Description of subject: The Sanskrit Language (1786 discourse) is Sir William Jones’s landmark 1786 address to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, in which he famously argued for a common origin of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and other languages, helping to found the field of comparative linguistics and Indo-European studies.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.