Everyone who studies ancient languages gets used to being asked why anyone would go into such an obscure field. The answers will vary from person to person, as everyone has their own story to explain how they got interested. In my case, a number of complex factors have led to my undertaking a PhD in Indo-European Studies at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). The term ‘Indo-European’ is not familiar to everyone, but it simply refers to the language family to which many of the best-known Indian and European languages belong, including Sanskrit (and Gujarati, Hindi and related languages), English, the European classical languages Greek and Latin (together with French and the other Romance languages descended from Latin) and many others. All of these are descended from a language known as Proto-Indo-European. Proto-Indo-European was never written down, but we can reconstruct many details about it from its descendants.
Like many people, I came to Indo-European Studies by way of European classical antiquity, which I studied for my BA at Oxford. I had always loved and felt I had an aptitude for language-learning, which I found uniquely stimulating, so I was thrilled when I found that I could attend lectures on the relationship between Latin and Greek. Often the lecturer would show us how very different-looking words, in distantly related languages, were originally the same, although the connection was disguised by changes in the individual languages’ sound systems. Alongside the Latin and Greek words, we would look at the corresponding words in Sanskrit, the oldest of the great Indo-European classical languages, and the one with the largest literature.
After finishing my BA, I was keen to do graduate studies and knew the time had come for me to concentrate on historical linguistics. I chose to stay at Oxford for an MPhil in General Linguistics and Comparative Philology, in the course of which I had the opportunity to learn Sanskrit properly at last. Both as a linguist and as someone who has always been proud of being half-Gujarati, I was excited about being able to read Sanskrit texts, including parts of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita. Soon I was learning about the language of the Vedas, especially the Rigveda, which, apart from its spiritual significance, is particularly important for Indo-European studies, since it dates from a period of such remote antiquity.
I now knew that I wanted to pursue an academic career. It was soon time to decide what I wanted to do my doctorate in. Having fallen in love with Sanskrit, I decided to make applications to universities where my interest in the history of that language would be nurtured, like UCLA, where I am fortunate enough to work with Stephanie Jamison, a renowned scholar of Vedic and the co-producer of the most up-to-date complete translation of the Rigveda into English.
Making the move to LA was a huge decision for me, as a home-loving Brit who had never seen the New World or left the UK for more than two weeks at a time. Despite being excited about the opportunities in store, I was apprehensive and expected to feel very homesick, as indeed I did during the first couple of months. Between the difficulty of making my British accent understood and the astonishing number of tiny differences between UK and US English, I was acutely conscious of the fact that I was in a foreign country. Fortunately, though, the professors and my fellow-students were all so kind that I soon started to enjoy the sensation of being in one of the best places in the world to work on my subject.
One of the reasons why higher education in the US justly enjoys such a high reputation is the structure of American PhDs. Whereas in Britain a doctorate can be completed in a mere three years, this speed comes at the cost of having to focus narrowly on a single project. Currently in my first year at UCLA, I can expect to remain there for another five years or so. I plan to write a dissertation on the Atharvaveda, but despite my fascination with Sanskrit, I don’t think of myself as a Sanskritist. I have an in-depth knowledge of Greek and Latin, but I no longer think of myself as a classicist. Although I have a graduate degree in linguistics, linguistics per se is not my main interest, but rather the stories of languages’ changes through time. My course, with its greater length, allows me to indulge all of these interests: I can keep up my Latin and Greek by attending classes in the Classics Department while simultaneously pursuing my Indic studies with Stephanie. Moreover, I expect to learn useful methodological skills and receive training in important professional skills, all while living amidst the exquisite beauty of California. The road that’s brought me here has been a winding one, but I don’t regret a single turn.
(Anahita Hoose, a British citizen studying Vedic as an international student in Los Angeles, shares her experiences).
