In this page I am going to narrate the story of a change which may seem to be too obvious a priory but difficult to get it derive correctly instead. This is not only about how words evolve in course of time with regard to its form but focus is on how people conceptualize social relations differently through time and words, as the bearer of social import not only change form but also location in order to accommodate the changing world.
Now imagine in what way this very word Pandit ‘learned’ could be related to the obvious caste marking surname (Brahmins) Pandey. When we look at these two words the very first thing which comes in our mind is their utter similarity in terms of form. However the problem is how to discover the middle stages which pandit might have undergone before appearing in the form of pandey.
PROBABLE DERIVATION
Pandit > panditeya > pandey
Stage one:
In Sanskrit it is possible that the word Pandit ‘learned’ became panditeya ‘descendants of pandit’
Till this period this word was used as epithet to be attached to the left of the proper names (this word is still used as an epithet especially with the name of artists like pt. Bhim Sen Joshi etc.)
Stage two:
In the prakrit stage there was a tendency to eliminate the consonants placed between two vowels.
So, v-c-v structure of the ite of panditeya got simplified into pandey.
Now, interestingly, this change affecting the form of the word got accompanied by another change which changed the role of this word altogether. In the other words, the process ended up with two words out of one with the distinct roles assigned to each of them, pandit appears to the left and the right sides of proper names playing the role of both epithet and caste surname too, on the other hand its derivative pandey appearing to the right of proper names denotes caste surname only.
