Vāk or Vāc (stem vāc-, nominative vāk) is the Sanskrit word for "speech", "voice", "talk", or "language", from a verbal root vac- "speak, tell, utter". Personified, Vāk is a goddess, most frequently she is identified with Bharati or Sarasvati, the goddess of speech. In the Veda she is also represented as created by Prajapati and married to him; in other places she is called the mother of the Vedas and wife of Indra. In the early Rigveda (books 2 to 7), vāc- refers to the voice, in particularly the voice of the priest raised in sacrifice. She is personified only RV 8 and RV 10, in RV 10.125.5 speaking in the first person (trans. Griffith), "I, verily, myself announce and utter the word that Gods and men alike shall welcome. I make the man I love exceeding mighty, make him a sage, a Rsi, and a Brahman. " The intimate connection of speech, sacrifice and creation in (late) Rigvedic thought is expressed in RV 10.71.1-4: "When men, Brhaspati!, giving names to objects, sent out Vak's first and earliest utterances All that was excellent and spotless, treasured within them, was disclosed through their affection. " "Where, like men cleansing corn-flour in a cribble, the wise in spirit have created language, Friends see and recognize the marks of friendship: their speech retains the blessed sign imprinted. " "With sacrifice the trace of Vak they followed, and found her harbouring within the Rsis. They brought her, dealt her forth in many places: seven singers make her tones resound in concert. " "One man hath ne'er seen Vak, and yet he seeth: one man hath hearing but hath never heard her. But to another hath she shown her beauty as a fond well-dressed woman to her husband. " Vak also speaks, and is described as a goddess, in RV 8.100: "When, uttering words which no one comprehended, Vak, Queen of Gods, the Gladdener, was seated, The heaven's four regions drew forth drink and vigour: now whither hath her noblest portion vanished?" "The Deities generated Vak the Goddess, and animals of every figure speak her. May she, the Gladdener, yielding food and vigour, the Milch-cow Vak, approach us meetly lauded. " RV 1.164.45 has: "Speech hath been measured out in four divisions, the Brahmans who have understanding know them. Three kept in close concealment cause no motion; of speech, men speak only the fourth division."