Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c8.14

v1.c8.14

It may be noted that ancient Indian scholars used to attach great importance to the study of their language and exploring new knowledge on linguistics. Their script belonged to the category of alphabetic writing (phonetic script) and for this reason, they focussed a great deal of attention on the study of speech sounds. Their books on grammar appeared in the pre-Christian era and they had also developed and arranged their alphabets based on certain scientific study and analysis. But unlike India, the Chinese in ancient times did not pay much attention to grammar or pronunciation though they had also conducted useful research on scriptography (study of scripts). Hence, work on Chinese grammar began relatively later. However, with the spread of Buddhism to China, the Indian linguistic scholars helped to promote the study of Chinese linguistics by the Chinese and there was a great impact, particularly in the area study of Chinese phonology, grammar and lexicography.