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Impact vs. influence/affect/effect

@Fowler&fowler: The word impact is discouraged by practically every writers/style guide out there because it's an overused and usually misused buzzword. To be using it in a wiki, especially when it is abused with phrases like "significantly impact" proves this point. I am quite curious why you keep reverting such a straightforward change, especially given your lack of reasoning for keeping it the way it is. Getsnoopy (talk) 07:49, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

@Getsnoopy: This reply is in the nature of tying up loose ends before I take my vacation more seriously. Style guides are not always a good reference for Wikipedia. The newspapers' house styles were typically written with a view to limiting errors in the writing of their reporters who not too long ago came with a wide range of skills and knowledge. The big names of American journalism who started life as cub reporters, even office boys, are legion. Newspaper style guides, therefore, are probably more prescriptive than is appropriate for an encyclopedia. Having said this, the problem is usually with the verb, not the noun, used figuratively. The NY Times Style guide, for example, says, "impact. As a verb, it means strike with force (the way a meteorite strikes Earth, for example). Do not use it to mean affect or have an effect; in that sense, it is technical jargon." Later, it uses impact (noun) itself: "When overused, the exclamation point loses impact, as advertising demonstrates continually."
Dictionaries of usage are better guides. My namesake's 1926 original edition (whose 1958 copy belonging to my mother I'm staring at) makes no mention of "impact." The 1965 edition revised by Ernest Gowers, which I have subsequently picked up, frowns at the noun but does not consider the verb. The 1996 edition, revised by RW Burchfield, takes a more laid-back view, certainly of the noun, if not incipiently also of the verb. Wikipedia is written by hundreds of editors using dozens of regional English varieties, each with a rich literature. Unless there is clear misinformation in a sentence, I tend not to change it because of a stylistic preference. Therefore, when the verb "impacted" is being used, if it can be replaced—syntactically and semantically—with "had a significant/pronounced effect on," I would not change "impacted" for the latter, even though I don't personally use the verb. The main issue here though is the kind of edit you made. When you make one run through an article, fixing things in different sections, you unfairly importune editors who have the thankless job of maintaining the article. It is better if you make separate edits for the separate sections. So, all in all, I would leave the noun in the lead alone. For the verbs in the main body, I ask that you use your better judgment. I will not be replying. All the best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:42, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: The point, though, is that I didn't base it on newspaper style guides, but on English writing style guides in general. It's not even confined to a regional style; I've never seen any style guide recommend its usage as such, especially when alternatives exist. Even dictionary usage (the OED) frowns on this usage. Like I said, I'm not against the use of the noun figuratively; it just has to have the sense of "had such an effect on something that it is as if the thing has been physically struck and had its course completely altered". The problem is when it is used in the business jargon sense, especially when that jargon is further reinforced with redundant adjectives like "significant", as it is being used in the article. I don't understand what the problem with one edit taking care of them all is, since they're all related to the same reason the edit is being made; either way, I can make separate edits if that's what you prefer. I'm not going to leave the noun in there either seeing as the OED recommends against it and having it be reworded does not detract from the intended meaning. Getsnoopy (talk) 07:13, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
@Getsnoopy: I am sorry, but unless you give me precise replies, I have to revert all your edits (per WP:BRD). You made the initial bold edit. I reverted it. You now have to engage me to arrive at a consensus. Where in the OED? Chapter and verse, please. I can't engage people who are not precise in their replies. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:26, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, but this prescriptism goes to far. Dravidian and Southeast Asian languages were deeply structurally altered in such a way that "impact" is an adequate metaphor. Please read the first line in this article by R. O. Winstedt. Here's the "buzzword" in "business jargon". –Austronesier (talk) 12:56, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, Austronesier makes a good point, the usage has to conform to the intended meaning and emphasis in the various sources being cited in a sentence. Meanings are not "one size fits all," independent of context. Before I go, @Getsnoopy: I will note that I have now checked the full OED online (subscription required), the Shorter OED (two volumes), The Concise OED, and the Oxford Learner's Dictionary, and I'm hard-pressed to find any advice against using "impact," or any mention that it is a jargon word. The lattermost dictionary in the list above—and presumably the most prescriptive—has this in its 2020 edition:
Oxford Learner's Dictionary on "impact (noun)"
  • 1 impact noun [countable, usually singular, uncountable] the powerful effect that something has on somebody/something
  • a positive/a negative/an adverse impact
  • a significant/major/huge impact
  • to have/make an impact
  • impact of something to reduce/minimize the impact of something
  • the environmental impact of tourism
  • impact of doing something the economic impact of leaving the European Union
  • impact on somebody/something Her speech made a profound impact on everyone.
  • She has had a lasting impact on the lives of many of her students.
  • The project's impact on the environment should be minimal.
  • impact of something on somebody/something The report assesses the impact of the disease on mortality and population growth.
  • impact from something It is too early to notice any impact from the recent changes to the rules.
  • 2. (noun) the act of one object hitting another; the force with which this happens
  • craters made by meteorite impacts
  • The impact of the blow knocked Jack off balance.
The figurative meaning, whose use you are railing against, is their primary meaning; the literal is a secondary one. One of their examples has the collocation "lasting impact," the very wording in the lead that you are insisting on replacing. Their full example: "She has had a lasting impact on the lives of many of her students," hardly has the meaning you are offering: "had such an effect on something that it is as if the thing has been physically struck and had its course completely altered." The Oxford Dictionary of Collocations has "big," "considerable," and "dramatic" listed with "impact." I have already described what Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, still the premier guide to British English usage, says about "impact" in its 1926, 1965, and 1996 editions.
There may be legitimate objections to the overuse of a word in a paragraph, a section, even an article, but simply handwaving, I'm afraid, is not productive. Wikipedia relies on WP:RS. I will defer to Austronesier for the continuing discussion. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:03, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: You can't say that you will leave it up to my best judgement, that you will not reply further, etc. only to come back and revert all of my changes wholesale; that's not in good faith and it is frankly becoming tiring. Nevertheless, to yet again engage in this conversation: here is the link to the OED usage note. And by the way, using Oxford's Learner's Dictionary to justify certain usage is not a strong argument, seeing as the name of the publication itself says: it's a learner's dictionary. I've even talked to the editorial team of the dictionary, and they've told me that they take certain shortcuts in order to not complicate things for English language learners, which necessarily means that it should not be used as a guide for nuanced English-language usage discussions/decisions. The OED, as the link shows, does not, in fact, have the figurative meaning as the first definition and holds the figurative use of the word firmly in the realm of jargon.
@Austronesier: The first line of that publication is a textbook example (literally and figuratively) of how not to use the word impact: ...but oddly enough, the impact of her great civilization on the Malay world has been slight. Even if one were to assume the word is being used figuratively (which it is), it goes on to say that the "impact" has "been slight". "Impact", used figuratively, means "a strong/marked influence"; so was it a strong marked influence or not? It's clear that that author's oxymoronic use of the word "impact" is one that would be frowned upon by any usage guide, if simply the logic of that statement (or lack thereof) weren't enough to be convincing. That's not prescriptivism; that's simply incorrect. Getsnoopy (talk) 20:12, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
@Getsnoopy: Your link is not to the OED, which requires a subscription. Rather, it is a free simple UK English dictionary in Lexico, which has English and Spanish dictionaries, mainly for foreign language learners. The Oxford English Dictionaries have a hierarchy: The OED (2nd edition, 1989, 20 volumes; third edition, partially completed, available online with subscription), The (New) Shorter (two volumes, 1993, 3780 pages), The Oxford Dictionary of English (one volume, 2010, 2068 pages), The Concise (one volume, 1995, 1672 pages), the Modern Oxford Dictionary (this includes more recently included terms), the Oxford Learner's Dictionary (Really? They told you they give shortcuts, and risk giving the wrong advice to learners? What they told in private is useless for WP; only sources count.), and the Little Oxford. The real Oxford dictionaries do not give advice on usage; they record usage. I have checked all of them. There is nothing about not using "impact," either in the noun or the verb. The full OED's entry on "impact" has not been updated for the third edition. I will give below the second edition entry (note Mountbatten on Gandhi there) from 1989, as well as the Oxford Dictionary of English" entry from 2010.
Excerpts from the full OED (2nd edition, 1989) and the Oxford Dictionary of English (2010)
  • The OED (2nd edition, 1989):
  • (noun) b. fig. Now commonly the effective action of one thing or person upon another; the effect of such action; influence; impression. Esp. in phr. to make an impact (on). 1817 Coleridge Biog. Lit. 63 In any given perception there is a something which has been communicated to it [the mind] by an impact, or an impression ab extra. 1874 Stubbs Const. Hist. I. i. 7 The impact of barbarian conquest split up the unity of the Latin tongue. 1952 B. Russell (title) The impact of science upon society. 1965 Listener 26 Aug. 297/1 However much you give them, you are not going to make a significant impact on growth, though you may make an impact in the charitable sense. 1966 Economist 10 Dec. 1144/3 What has had an impact on food distributors, apparently, is the opening of an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission into supermarket games and stamps. 1969 Ld. Mountbatten in Times (India Suppl.) 13 Oct. p. i/1 He [sc. Gandhi] made such an impact on me that his memory will forever remain fresh in my mind.
  • Oxford Dictionary of English
  • (verb) b. fig. To have a (pronounced) effect on. 1935 W. G. Hardy Father Abraham 370 For there was about them an air of eagerness and of shuddering expectation which impacted on his consciousness and fascinated even while it repelled him. 1956 Oxf. Mag. 8 Nov. 81/1 The Magazine‥ is not the place for consideration of national and international events except in so far as they impact on Oxford.impact p noun /‘1mpakt/ 1 the action of one object coming forcibly into contact with another: there was the sound of a third impact | (mass noun] bullets which expand and cause devastating injury on impact. 2 a marked effect or influence: our regional measures have had a significant impact on unemployment.
  • verb [no obj | 4 come into forcible contact with another object: the shell impacted twenty yards away. @ [with obj] chiefly N. Amer come into forcible contact with: an asteroid impacted the earth some 60 million years ago. w [with obj | press (something) firmly: the animals’ feet do not impact and damage the soil as cows’ hooves do. 2 (impact on) have a strong effect on someone or something: high interest rates have impacted on retail spending | (with obj.] the move is not expected to impact the company’s employees.
The Cambridge Guide to English Usage (2002) says: "the Oxford English Dictionary (1989) takes both constructions (noun and verb) in its stride." (pages 268–269; see the full quote below)
Cambridge Guide to English Usage on "impact" as noun and verb
  • Impact as a noun ... is now the commonest form of the word by far. Instances of the noun run into thousands in the BNC, where there are less than 100 of impact as a verb. It first appeared in early C20, again in scientific writing, but has since been taken up in the discourse of business and government, as in: The housing market impacts on consumer spending in two ways. The policy was impacting men and women alike." These constructions are registered without demur in Merriam-Webster (2000) and the Australian Macquarie Dictionary (1997): and the Canadian Oxford (1998) goes out of its way to note that they are well established despite the objections of some. New Oxford (2000) distances itself from them, as “Chiefly American,” and warns that some in the UK react negatively to impact on as a verb (it doesn’t comment on the other (noun) construction). Verbal use of impact is evident in a

variety of informative British writing in the BNC, suggesting that its currency is growing. The Oxford English Dictionary (1989) takes both constructions in its stride.

Finally Joseph M. Williams says in Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace, University of Chicago Press:

Some think that only the vulgarians at the gate use impact as a verb. If you choose to defer to that opinion, fine, but do so understanding the wholly idiosyncratic nature of that judgment. The word impact derives from the past participle of impingere, a Latin verb. Moreover, impact has been used as a verb since at least the early seventeenth century. (All this information is readily available in the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary). Finally, the word compact shares part of the same root, compingere, and no one I know objects to the verb compact. Certainly, one might, ipse dixit, continue to insist that impact should never be used as a verb because of the widespread animus against that usage, but like other such rules, the rule would be idiosyncratic, arbitrary, without historical or logical justification.

As there is no danger anywhere in the disputed sentences of a reader interpreting "impact" to mean "collision" or "collide," and as the major dictionaries of British English don't balk (the Concise's only rival in British English, Chambers 21st Century seem unfazed with either), and at lease one popular style guide considers the rule to be arbitrary, the best compromise I can suggest is that you leave the noun alone; you may if you'd like, change the transitive verb "impact" to "impact on." All the best. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:02, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
It is a link to the OED. They have made the content available for free ever since they started that website. You are confusing Lexico, which has content from the actual OED, with the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. And yes, the editors at Oxford's Advanced Learner's dictionary have told me that; I'll consider the facts straight from the source more than any source that you wish to see, regardless of whether they exist or not; you can contact them yourself if you'd like. Regardless, yes, I have a copy of the actual OED as well, and it says the same: it is commonly used figuratively, but that it is the effect of something colliding with something else with great force. The debate is not whether impact can function as a noun vs. a verb, so those references are immaterial. The point is not about whether people will misinterpret it; it's about standard, formal, non-jargon usage. I will change the words to something else so that it will serve as a compromise, especially considering I don't see how you could have a problem with changing the words to be the definition of "impact" in the way you want to use it. Getsnoopy (talk) 22:18, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

The OED website is this. It requires a subscription. I've had one for nearly 20 years. Please tell me where the OED says what you claim it does. Until then please don't unilaterally change the phrasing on the page. Best rgards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:10, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

  • Comment We have a concise expression that no one objects to except for one editor out of personal preference. The fact that they were able to paraphrase it without changing its meaning is proof that they understand what is said, but simply don't like it. This is getting disruptive. (I have downloaded Shennan's The First Farmers of Europe recently via my WP library account. I cannot count how many times Shennan uses "impact" figuratively in the very same way we do here.) –Austronesier (talk) 11:13, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: The OED has made its dictionary content officially available through Lexico, which is where the page redirects to when you follow the link trail from the Oxford Languages website. As for the OED saying it, you've actually quoted it above: fig. Now commonly.... How many OED entries would you say are prefaced with "now commonly"? I've even showed you the usage note from the Lexico website, which is based on Oxford APIs that pull from the same site as the rest of Oxford content, say that it is jargon. @Austronesier: Regardless, I even conceded that the word can have figurative meaning, but figuratively, it means "a marked influence" or "strong influence". My contention is with misusing even the figurative term in phrases like "lasting impact" and "significantly impacted", which is redundant and makes it seem like the writer does not know what the word means. Dismissing all of the sources I've referred to which either label it as jargon or outright discourage its use and obstinately refusing to reword the phrases using words I've suggested that convey the same meaning without the word misuse, that's what actually amounts to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Saying that me being able to understand something enough to be able to paraphrase it in a better way amounts to it being personal preference is like saying that I can understand terms like "dying of laughter" to be figurative, so one should not edit an article if it has such a sentence. Getsnoopy (talk) 01:03, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
You obviously know nothing about the OED. The expression "now commonly" occurs in dozens of OED entries. Please stop wasting my time. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:46, 22 February 2021 (UTC) Refactored by scratching first sentence. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:41, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
You obviously know nothing about the OED. The expression "now commonly" occurs in dozens of OED entries. Please stop wasting my time. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:46, 22 February 2021 (UTC) Updated before any reply. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:41, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
Lexico's English dictionary is a decent dictionary, i.e. it is an adequate one but with limited range. The OED, on the other hand, is the most reliable and comprehensive record of English meanings and their use. It is a descriptive dictionary not a prescriptive one. It, therefore, never gives advice on usage. Lexico-"Oxford UK English" does because it is written for Spanish speakers.
Thus you would be hard-pressed to find the following entries from the OED in the Lexico-Oxford UK English Dictionary: (a) "British raj" I know this very well because the OED used some material I had written for WP's British raj article in its 2007 revision (see Talk:British raj archives) (b) Does Lexico-Oxford have the entry "Right of watercourse?" (c) the adjective "paling" (not the noun)? (d) the plural noun, not singular: palings (with many examples)?" (e) the adjective "owlet-haunted?" (f) the noun "owlet light (with examples)?" and finally (g) the transitive verb "affect" with object an infinitive clause (i.e. beginning with "to") and the following beautiful examples: 1846 C. Dickens Dombey & Son (1848) v. 38 ‘Oh you beauties!’ cried Susan Nipper, affecting to salute the door by which the two ladies had departed. 1879 M. Arnold Irish Catholicism in Mixed Ess. 100 I have never affected to be surprised..at the antipathy of the Irish to us. 1954 I. Murdoch Under Net xiv. 192 They did not need to affect to ignore..the leather patches on my elbows. 2001 J. Diamond C: Because Cowards get Cancer Too (new ed.) vii. 125 I seemed to have lost that trick I'd developed early on of affecting to be cool about cancer. (See: https://www.lexico.com/definition/affect) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:41, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
Lexico-"Oxford UK English" does because it is written for Spanish speakers. It's now clear you know nothing about Lexico. The Spanish part of Lexico didn't even exist a year ago. Furthermore, I've used Oxford dictionaries for over 25 years now as well. Writing inflammatory remarks and striking them through as if they should not be read / never happened hearkens back to school examinations, and isn't doing you any favours since I can clearly read what you wrote. Perhaps stop with the insults and stick to the topic at hand?
Lexico might not have all of the entries that the OED has (and rightfully so, as the OED's speciality is historical usage, while Lexico is only for modern usage), but it uses the same API that is used for the now-online OED and all other Oxford dictionary content. You can still find the entry for the Raj, for example, which refers to the British Raj when capitalized. None of this is the point though.
My point is that the OED doesn't use terms like "Now commonly" for every entry, but only for certain entries which have taken on a meaning that is not the traditional one and is evolving. Seeing as there are two Oxford sources with one qualifying it as "Now commonly" and another labelling it clearly as "jargon", the two sources point in the same general direction. Expecting anything more from sources (especially the OED in this case) is unrealistic. Those, however, in conjunction with all of the other actual style guides I've linked to clearly place the figurative use of the word, especially when it's used simply as a stand-in for "an effect" vs. "a strong/marked influence", in jargon territory. Now, one could debate whether jargon belongs on WP or not, but my point is that there is a way to reword those phrases (mostly just words) such that they retain their intended meaning without using jargon. I don't understand why you're overzealously reverting my changes given the above. Getsnoopy (talk) 20:26, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Getsnoopy, please give this a rest; you and others have expended many kilobytes of text over a single word; I rather think everyone has better things to do here. If you really feel that strongly about it, feel free to ask for uninvolved input; extending this discussion ad nauseum isn't going to achieve much. FWIW, I don't have a strong opinion here, but as the long-standing version, F&F's text should remain in place until consensus is reached. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:44, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
  • The thing is @Vanamonde93:, it wasn't my phraseology. It was added to the lead by Austronesier, a highly respected linguist with whom I had the privilege of working on the lead of this page (as I had had earlier on the Urdu and Hindustani language pages). Austronesier, Joshua Jonathan and I made a big effort in shoring up the lead last Fall, with many a talk page discussion We bent over backward to take all points of view into account. Getsnoopy had never made an edit on the Sanskrit page until late December 2020. In his second edit a week later, he took aim at all instances of "impact" in the article (with guns blazing in this edit summary). We all know about the WP injunction to be bold, but we don't interpret it to be that of being inconsiderate to the work of others. Somewhere else (I've forgotten) he was attempting to make the case that "Webster's Unabridged" meant something that it did not in common lexicographic parlance. I understand that I've become a lightning rod of sorts, but this is gone into the realm of disruption After my post above wherein I added Joe William's long quote, there was some quiet, but then it started up again. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:30, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for correcting me about that text's authorship. I think I do appreciate the rest of what you said, though; hence my request to Getsnoopy that they drop this matter. Vanamonde (Talk) 00:47, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
@Vanamonde93: I actually agree with all of your sentiments; the only thing I'd say differently is that those sentiments should be directed to Fowler&fowler, not me. I don't understand why so much heated discussion (much of it tangential) had to occur in order to change four words (really just different forms of one word). with guns blazing Really? That is ridiculous. As for soliciting others' opinions, I want to do that now. I really didn't think changing a single word would attract such clamour, but I do feel strongly about using the word "impact" and its air of jargon in an encyclopedia article, especially given the sources I presented.
@Fowler&fowler: No one here is disrespecting others' work or being inconsiderate. The discussion you linked to seems to have been about the content of the topic, not about the exact words that should be used to convey that content, much less about the word "impact" specifically. I respect the care that went into the lead to bring it to where it is and your (and the other editors') passion, so that is one thing; viciously defending your work and reverting others' is another entirely. Getsnoopy had never made an edit on the Sanskrit page until late December 2020. In his second edit a week later, he took aim at all instances of "impact" in the article... It sounds like you have issue with my pedigree with this article more so than the actual content of my changes. This is not in the spirit of WP nor professional behaviour. I really should not say this, but in the course of this long discussion, I've had 2 other editors reach out to me privately about your behaviour and how they appreciate me challenging your behaviour (though that wasn't my goal at all). That should really give one pause. Getsnoopy (talk) 22:05, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
"those sentiments should be directed to Fowler&fowler" No, they shouldn't. F&F may have been brusque, but he hasn't made a song-and-dance over a word the use of which is still largely a matter of preference. If you feel so strongly about it, you should go and get the MOS amended. If other users are concerned about my behavior, they ought to take it up with me; given how much harassment I've endured with respect to Indian history, I do not set much store by private messages any more, I'm afraid. Vanamonde (Talk) 23:28, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
The behaviour comment was directed to F&F, not you. As for MOS, MOS already says to use reliable sources; it doesn't comment on specific words being banned, nor would it. I've given plenty of reliable sources for it not being a preference and why we shouldn't use the word in the contexts that they are being used in the article. Getsnoopy (talk) 07:49, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
I've been watching from the sidelines and I don't have any strong opinions on this, but your behavior is the problematic bit here. Two editors, both of whom have contributed significantly to this article have explained the idea to you, and you seem to be going on and on "but only I'm right" here. Enough is enough, you either get an RfC done because you don't like the usage of one word or stop this. —SpacemanSpiff 17:18, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
@SpacemanSpiff: I'm not saying "only I'm right"; not even close. I'm saying "see the evidence for yourself". If one believes that the word means "a significant effect", then saying "significant impact" is redundant. The fact that I'm having to even defend this simple idea is silly, but you are right, enough is enough. I'm fine with an RfC. Getsnoopy (talk) 08:49, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

IPA pronunciation of "saṃskṛtam"?

Hi, I just thought I'd raise this because my attempt to reinstate the IPA pronunciation of Sanskrit (and the audio sample for it) just got reverted by Dyḗwsuh₃nus on the basis that it was an inaccurate pronunciation of that word. However, while I can understand the reasoning for that reversion, I definitely think there should at least be an IPA pronunciation here because most language articles here in Wikipedia have IPA pronunciations featured (Latin is also a classical language like Sanskrit and it has IPA featured in its page) and it also gives more purpose for the IPA Help page for Sanskrit (whats the point of even having that if its excluded from its own article because of one incorrect transcription?) so its absurd in my opinion to exclude that just because the pronunciation appeared innaccurate (it would have been far better in my opinion to just correct the IPA according to the IAST transcription rather than remove it entirely). I'd be grateful if anyone here can please point me in the right direction on this or give me an example of a more accurate IPA for "saṃskṛtam" (for that I request anyone who either speaks Sanskrit or has enough knowledge on it to comment on that), many thanks. Otherwise if there is no response to this after a while, I will look at the romanisation of "saṃskṛtam" carefully and try to reinstate it myself again (and if I believe reversions for that are wrong, I won't hesitate to revert back if necessary). Broman178 (talk) 14:43, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Broman178 for raising this. The greater part of my objection is to the pronunciation in the audio sample. I've now restored the IPA part, and I'd put my further responses in this matter at [1] as it has already been discussed there at length. Thanks again. -Dyḗwsuh₃nus (talk) 15:49, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for the reply and for at least restoring the IPA bit as it doesn't make much sense to exclude the IPA when most language articles in Wikipedia have it featured. If the audio sample is incorrect (when listening to that sample carefully, I can now understand why it wasn't quite right) then I won't attempt to restore that as I do believe accuracy to the IPA is important. Broman178 (talk) 16:55, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
I'll discuss the IPA choices in the other thread, but yes, the audio sample seemed simply unacceptable. So it's good we can agree to leave that out. Since some of the sounds of Sanskrit have fully disappeared, I'm not hopeful of finding a good rendering given by someone simply on account of being an Indic-language speaker, however proficient in the Sanskrit language otherwise. But I think this has been discussed elsewhere.
Similarly, the audio sample on the page (in the Sanskrit#Phonological_alternations,_sandhi_rules section) is wayyy off the mark. I know of better samples (some collected way back in time) but I don't know about their copyright status, and in general I need to study a bit more about copyright on Wikipedia before adding audio. Dyḗwsuh₃nus (talk) 18:38, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Slow edit war about Sanskrit revival

This page undergoes a slow edit war about the revival of Sanskrit, with focus on speaker data in the infobox. The content swings between the extremes of "no native speakers", based on sources that do not cover the revival movement at all, and the uncritical inclusion of self-declared census data from India and Nepal.

Ideally, the question is not settled in the infobox, but in the main text which should reflect the revival effort and its result as covered in relevant and reliable sources. The fundamentalist platitudes ("Dead!" ~ "Not dead!" ~ Dead!" ~ "Not dead!" ad nauseam) of the Pollocks and Malhotras in their ivory towers won't answer the question, nor will primary sources like census data do so, but only case studies and surveys that actually scrutinize the extent of Sanskrit revival in the field and the factual language that is spoken in revivalist communities.

Obviously, we need sources like this one[2], in order to present the topic in an encyclopedic and ideology-free manner. I will try to look for more apt sources and make some additions based on these sources later, but want voice my feeling of "enough is enough" anyway, which is maybe shared by other page watchers, too. –Austronesier (talk) 12:12, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

I have added the sources that cover the "revival movement." There are no native speakers of Sanskrit in India. It can't happen in a rural village in the Hindi belt. What are the mothers speaking? Female literacy is the lowest in the Hindi belt. So what are the chances that the women are speaking Sanskrit and not the local dialect both among themselves or with their children? The "revival" might increase the number of Sanskrit users in India, but not speakers. Similarly, there almost no native English speakers in India even though there are many millions of English users. The Anglo-Indians are pretty much the only ones. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:23, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
Weil nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf. - tbc :) –Austronesier (talk) 13:57, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
@Austronesier: A wise turn of phrase. I've added two newspaper articles by McCartney published in The Wire in May 2020. I Will look forward to your more nuanced summary of the journal article you cite (also by McCartney). All the best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:59, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: McCartney's article is fun (in the best sense) to read and to work with, but I will have to postpone it till next month for the sake of some urgent off-WP writing (hope yours is going smooth, mine is over-over-due at the end of this month). –Austronesier (talk) 10:28, 25 November 2020 (UTC)
@Austronesier: I wish you all the best in your endeavor. I'm forgetting the name of the poet who said, "One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:29, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

How do we actually define a native speaker? Don't we consider someone who speaks Sanskrit at home or their children who grew up to listening to their parent's Sanskrit, a native speaker like this one?[1], Having said that their numbers are much less because of the India's huge population, but they are out there. I personally know few of them. 223.29.193.66 (talk) 06:56, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for indenting correctly next time. What is the veracity of such feels-so-good-I'll-believe-it-anyways claims? Do these Pāṇini-proteined whiz-kids turn out fine perfects and aorists?, or even plain participles and periphrastics?, do they use ten-word compounds to describe the weather or a date they had?, do they maintain the distinction between bráhman and brahmán (and of course even pronounce the -a in brāhmaṇa!), would they resort to Sanskrit phraseology if their house was on fire, or Sanskrit synonymy to describe the sereneness of a honk-defying traffic-blocking mid-busy-street Indian cow? --Dyḗwsuh₃nus (talk) 11:22, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
PS: And you yourself say you hardly know any of them! Dyḗwsuh₃nus (talk) 11:53, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
@Dyḗwsuh₃nus: Your jealousy won't change the truth. You don't even cared to read the article that is shared here. If want to call The Sun, moon go ahead. īṣyayā tvayā saṃskṛtaṃ saṃskṛtavyākaraṇādbhāropelīkṛtam. samprati satyamabhimukhamasti tarhītastato vakṣi. satyaṃ sambādhayituṃ śakyate paraṃ na parābhāvayitum. (Good luck with Google translate). This is my last comment here. 223.29.193.106 (talk) 12:56, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
prativaktre dyausūnor namāni sādarāṇi. diṣṭyā saṃskṛta·vāg·devī·samprasādena Google translate na me nityam! satya·mṛgaś ca satya·prasaraś c'aiva khalv asmat·kāmitam iha. satyam na kadācit parābhavitavyam, tu saṃskṛta·vāk·pravardhana·vyavahāreṣu satyam abhibhūtam gṛddhyā, bhavati satya·sunirṇetā kaś ca kutra ca? Dyḗwsuh₃nus (talk) 17:33, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/this-bengali-family-speaks-only-sanskrit-at-home-to-keep-alive-the-ancient-language/story-Q3R57iAwwRdBN5QWtudYqI.html

Decline of Sanskrit section

This section seems to attribute the decline of Sanskrit entirely to the advent of Islamic power, which is a dangerous and politically charged idea. It does not say this directly, but the absolute lack of any other factors in this treatment is problematic. I have added a sentence on the role of vernacular languages to start alleviating this. I find this part, cited from Pollock, particularly troubling: "Sanskrit literature there disappeared, perhaps in the "fires that periodically engulfed the capital of Kashmir"". This is cited entirely out of context; the actual source states clearly that it is possible historical data such as texts and manuscripts may have disappeared in these fires, leading to our present ambiguity about what happened in that period. The phrasing distorts this meaning, implying that the fires and Mongol invasion stopped literary production, which is not what the writer intended to say. Gowhk8 (talk) 17:06, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 July 2021

Let me edit the first paragraph. 2601:641:C000:AEF0:ADEA:417D:A1ED:B69 (talk) 02:19, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: this is not the right page to request additional user rights. You may reopen this request with the specific changes to be made and someone will add them for you, or if you have an account, you can wait until you are autoconfirmed and edit the page yourself. TungstenTime (talk) 12:28, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

RfC on usage of "impact"

Given that the usage of the word impact is figurative in all instances in the article and is prefaced or otherwise surrounded by language that conveys "significance", should the instances of the word be reworded?

  • Option A: Yes, the word impact means "a significant/marked influence" or "to influence significantly" and/or is jargon, so having the words significantly, etc. is redundant. Reword the instances of impact to be effect/influence and/or affect/influence so that words like "significantly" are no longer redundant.
  • Option B: Yes, the language conveying "significance" should be removed since that is implied in using the words impact.
  • Option C: No, there is no problem with the way things are currently worded.

—Getsnoopy (talk) 09:14, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree that the choice of the word "impact" is not particularly felicitous, especially in the area of cultural influences. This is mainly because "impact" in its figurative usage obviously tends to connote a violent, intense and instantaneous effect, owing to the original usage of "impact", which tends to refer to "balistical" type of events. I also see that there is much dispute in academia about the appropriatenesse of this word in literary usage (the noun and the verb), so it is probably best avoided. More subtle words such as "influence" are much more appropriate in this context, illustrating diffuse and delicate cultural phenomena developping over the centuries. This will be my only comment here, as I do not intend to be drawn into a sterile, far-fetched argument over minutiae. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 09:51, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
"Delicate" cannot be applied to the world's oldest form of apartheid, racism, and semi-slavery that began in South Asia with the arrival of Sanskrit and the Indo-Aryans. No event in India of later vintage, the arrival of the Turkic-Muslims or the British came anywhere near creating the kind of trauma Sanskrit did for the vast majority of South Asia's population. As the migrating Indo-Aryans (on their fabled domesticated horses and chariots) were mostly males, they also began the world's oldest surviving forms of institutionalized misogyny (female infanticide, dowry, and a taboo on widow remarriage) in order to monopolize privilege and property rights. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:37, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
PS Sanskrit above = archaic Sanskrit Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:41, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
Mr F., it's not that kind of "impact" I had in mind when talking about the impact of a language on other languages. Dr F, maybe you can advise Mr F to strike out the erratic rambling from this discussion among grown-ups (take this from someone who sang his children to sleep in the language of Hitler, Eichmann and Mengele). –Austronesier (talk) 15:37, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
I know you did not have that kind of impact in mind, but to misquote Shakespeare, how many moments hence shall these your noble words be reinterpreted in states unborn and accents yet unknown. I wasn't rambling, by the way, but being perfectly serious. The Indo-Aryan migration did have a cataclysmic impact on the ancestors of what today are the lower castes in India and women, which together comprise 85% of India's population, if not more. Sanskrit, or its progenitor language(s), did not themselves cause the pain, but it was part of a culture that did:
Quotes from Tim Dyson's A Population History of India, OUP, 2019
the settlement of the Ganges basin by Indo-Aryan-speaking people was an extremely long and arduous process. The texts of the Vedas refer to Arya victories over dasas, their darker-skinned enemies. And the process of settlement well may well have involved driving communities out, appropriating women, and the enslavement of pre-existing peoples. (p. 11) ... Accordingly, as tribal societies were encountered by the expanding Indo-Aryan societies, so the evolving caste system provided a framework within which—invariably at a low level—tribal people could be placed. ... the Aranyachará (i.e. forest people) were grouped with the most despised castes. (p. 19) ... the results of genetic research can be seen as tentatively consistent with some of the conclusions from linguistic research. In particular, and broadly mirroring the contrasting Indo-Aryan and Dravidian language distributions, most of the subcontinent’s people appear to be characterized by various degrees of mixing of two major and genetically distinct populations (as well as other elements). These have been called the Ancestral North Indians (ANI) and Ancestral South Indians (ASI) respectively. In genetic terms, the former are relatively closely related to populations living in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Europe. Relatedly, levels of ANI ancestry are appreciably greater among people who speak Indo-Aryan languages and people from higher castes. Notice that these indications are at least consistent with the suggestion that the caste system was most fully developed by people who lived in the north, and that the southward spread of a heightened system of caste involved the progressive incorporation of pre-existing peoples at lower levels. ... The evolution of Indo-Aryan society in the centuries before c.200 bce not only saw increased segregation with respect to caste, it also seems to have seen increased differentiation with respect to gender. Arya kinship was patrilineal—i.e. descent was reckoned through the male line. As perhaps might be anticipated, then, women were seen as inferior. ... later Sanskrit texts (e.g. the Mahabharata) contain clear signs of female abuse. Therefore, by the time of the Mauryan Empire the position of women in mainstream Indo-Aryan society seems to have deteriorated. Customs such as child marriage and dowry were becoming entrenched;65 and a young women’s purpose in life was to provide sons for the male lineage into which she married. (pp. 19-20). ... Practices such as female infanticide and the neglect of young girls were possibly also developing at this time, especially among higher caste people. Further, due to the increasingly hierarchical nature of the society, marriage was possibly becoming an even more crucial institution for childbearing and the formalization of relationships between groups. In turn, this may have contributed to the growth of increasingly instrumental attitudes towards women and girls (who moved home at marriage). It is important to note that, in all likelihood, these developments did not affect people living in large parts of the subcontinent—such as those in the south, and tribal communities inhabiting the forested hill and plateau areas of central and eastern India.67 That said, these deleterious features have continued to blight Indo-Aryan speaking areas of the subcontinent until the present day. (p. 20).)

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:19, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Across a large part of the subcontinent, this has resulted in what Freud might have called identification with the aggressor. No one wants to chuck the caste system (except some in South India and some Buddhist Dalits; and perhaps Dalits generally because they remain socially walled out); they only want to move up it. The endogamy and social exclusion still thrive, even if the economic stratification has ameliorated somewhat. But since I respect you, and you know about Austro-Asiatic languages, whose ancient speakers were at the receiving end of Sanskrit's violent "impact," I have struck my previous comment. I've been in academics too long; I never say anything unless it is sourced. It is now in plain sight. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:24, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
Tim Dyson, Professor Emeritus of Historical Demography at LSE gave the keynote address that the UN Population Conference in New York a few years ago. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:32, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
"The texts of the Vedas refer to Arya victories over dasas, their darker-skinned enemies." Absolute nonsense. This Tim Dyson seems confused between dasa(servent) with dasyu(enemy). WP:FRINGE 103.76.82.105 (talk) 07:57, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Same word. The "servant" meaning comes from their subservience to the Aryans. Dāsānudāsa (talk) 09:06, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Support using "influence" if it will improve the article Spudlace (talk) 06:13, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
And who will bell the cat? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:45, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: I would not support diminishing the traumas of apartheid or psychology of language and identity but the current uses are routine things like "significantly impacted Sanskrit's morphological system". The RfC outcome would not be construed to prevent future uses of the word "impact" for the impacts on people. Spudlace (talk) 07:00, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
@Spudlace: That's a smart comment. I have just realized that I have not read the RfC's statement. I have assumed it is a continuation of the more general (and fruitless) discussion of the previous sections. The nominator had been opposing the use of "impact," noun or verb, in any context. His new oppose seems to be of the collocation "significant impact," and its verb forms, limited now to the context of this article. I don't know if this means he has accepted "lasting impact" in the lead, but, regardless, there is only one way to settle the dispute, and that is by examining if those expressions appear in reliable sources, especially the scholarly ones, in the context of Sanskrit, and more generally the classical link languages. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:58, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
PS And that I propose to do very soon as rigorously as I can. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:59, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Option C per Fowler&fowler's and my comments above. But I suggest to trim down the triple use of the verb "impact"; it's the repetitive occurrence here which makes it stylistically problematic. (It becomes "jargon" when readers feel that an author has a restricted expressive repertory that mostly consists of catchwords).
As for the arguments in Option A and B: to use "lasting" and "significant" with "impact" is not a tautology, but just adds emphasis where "lasting effect/influence" or "significant effect/influence" is too weak. And in the current case of the noun in the lede, it is too weak, as can be seen from two trivia from SE Asia (the region I know best):
  1. The official name of Bangkok (Krung Thep Maha Nakhon...) is almost completely made up of Sanskrit loanwords with a few splashes of Pali; the only non-Indic component is krung.
  2. Indonesian has tons of loanwords from Sanskrit: many of these already entered during the early history of Malay (on which Indonesian is based), but many others were sucessfully coined by language planners after independence post-WWII. At that time (more than 400 years(!) after the collapse of Majapahit, the last major Hindu kingdom in the archipelago), Sanskrit was felt as a "neutral" heritage language which could be tapped as source to create neologisms so that the new national language would be neither overly "westernized" (as opposed by Muslim elites), nor too "Arabized" (as feared by the non-Muslim minorities).
A general comment about style guides as "WP:RS": every statement in this encyclopedia should be verifiable, have due weight in the given context, and be written in a way that is comprehensible and stylistically acceptable for a general audience. For WP:V and WP:WEIGHT/WP:NPOV, we indeed rely on external reliable sources, but comprehensibilty and style are a matter of editorial judgement by the collective of WP users. It is a personal choice to have your stylistic judgement shaped by exisiting external style guides, but pointing at style guides doesn't add additional weight to your personal preference.
So while "impact" may be generally frowned upon in certain circles because of its excessive use in other circles (which is amply verified by citations from usage guides in the above discussion), we are nevertheless free to use it where it deems us apt, especially when we are in good company, as the attestations in this search show. Yes, some of these results indeed do belong the category of heavily jargonized texts, but in most previews I do not get the impression that the use of the phrase "had a lasting/significant impact on" will be felt as a stumbling stone by average readers, nor that it necessarily carries the connotation of a "violent, intense and instantaneous effect".
–Austronesier (talk) 11:24, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
As this RfC is about trivia in the first place, I would like to add to your examples of trivia from Southeast Asia where I too have traveled in my day. The regnal name of the late King of Thailand was Aduldej Bhomibol (cf Sanskrit: Atulya (incomparable) tej (brightness) bhumi (earth) pal (keeper, ruler)). When the current king (Vajiralongkorn) was not in the royal family's good graces a couple of decades ago, his younger sister Princess Sirindhorn began to be groomed for a greater role and was given the title of "Mahachakri" (cf Sanskrit: Maha (great) chakra (wheel, but in this instance of Dharma)). When the princess drives to Hotel Erawan (cf Sanskrit Airawat, Indra's elephant), she might first find herself being driven on Wireless Road, the official Thai name of which is Thanon Withayut (cf Sanskrit vidyut = electricity). Thailand is a Buddhist monarchy. Nearby Indonesia is a Muslim-majority nation. Among the elite is their former president Megawati Sukarnoputri (cf Sanskrit: megha (cloud) wati (-like, -with qualities of) putri (daughter)), who is the daughter of Indonesia's founding father Sukarno, and a Muslim. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:32, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Bhūmi·bala Atulya·teja - earth-power unparalleled brightness - is perhaps the grandest name one can hope to have. And the Thais have form in raiding Sanskrit lexicon for grand names - let's start with the full name of Bangkok!
BTW, I had added some interesting examples of Southeast Asian Sanskrit use to the main page, but my edits were reverted, because quoting Wiktionary was deemed OR!! Dyḗwsuh₃nus (talk) 12:39, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
@Austronesier: to use "lasting" and "significant" with "impact" is not a tautology One could argue that "lasting" might not be, but "significant" is. That's exactly the definition of the word impact: "a marked/significant influence". Merely claiming that things like the WP style guide, let alone external style guides, are subject to personal preference does not make it so. Writing "significant impact" is like writing "ATM machine" or "Indian chai tea latte". Getsnoopy (talk) 21:24, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style regulates a lot of things, but per default not choice of words (I think that's what Vanamonde93 meant when they advised to get the MOS amended first). MOS:VOCAB and MOS:Words to watch provide some caveats, but do not subscribe to prescriptivism.
"Impact" means "impact". A dictionary definition is by its very nature auxilliary and descriptive: the word exists before its entry. The dictionary definition is not an absolute tool to parse a word and interpret it into its "true components", which would then restrict e.g. the choice of modifiers to a noun because of a double occurrence of an adjective after "parsing" of the noun. Editors of academic publishing houses obviously not do restrict their approach to language in such a way, otherwise we wouldn't have numerous attestations of these purported tautologies. Btw, what's wrong with ATM machine or LCD display? –Austronesier (talk) 08:02, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
@Austronesier: The definitions in a dictionary, while not prescriptive, are sources which serve as a benchmark for how words are meant to be used. If they weren't, then citing them as a reference anywhere, let alone on WP, would be pointless as per your argument, seeing as people can invent any interpretation of any word. Case in point: per se (or even "per say") to mean "particularly" rather than its actual definition, "in and of itself". Unless you're also advocating for the former as a valid outcome, especially on WP, this argument does not carry much weight, especially on WP where decisions are guided by reliable sources. Your argument seems to be that if someone somewhere has used it (including in academic sources), it must be proper usage. The problem with this reasoning is the assumption that academic sources cannot make editorial mistakes, which I've seen far too many instances of to know better. ATM machine, LCD display, and Indian chai tea latte are instances where the user of these terms clearly does not know the meaning of the core terms in question and amount to tautology. It's akin to saying "kill someone dead". They do not belong in formal speech, and they surely do not belong on WP.Getsnoopy (talk) 22:14, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
Ah yes, the assumption that you somehow have the ground truth because of your vivid and grandiloquent descriptions of mere claims you are making; that is exactly what advances arguments on WP. Getsnoopy (talk) 21:24, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
I should also add that the MOS specifically recommends against using contested vocabulary, where it lists "impact" as one such word, so this RFC might be moot anyway. Getsnoopy (talk) 00:35, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Option C - "influence" and "effect" are rather too weak replacements for "significant impact." What is meant by the former is simply not of the same degree as what is meant by the latter. As for the word "significant" being superfluous or redundant or unnecessary with impact, I strongly disagree. In this case usage, the phrase "significant impact" almost functions as a single lexeme in and of itself - that is to say, though they be two separate words, they function as a single unit of meaning; to write that something "had an impact" without any qualifier for the word impact would be an almost meaningless statement.

Do note, that which I describe above is not something that you can determine from reading the dictionary entries for these words, but this describes general normal language usage, which ought to be followed in articles. Firejuggler86 (talk) 02:09, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

@Firejuggler86: this describes general normal language usage, which ought to be followed in articles Does this mean WP articles will use phrases like per se (or even "per say") to mean "particularly", and the like? Who determines what normal usage is? And how does one settle disputes using reliable sources if someone disagrees with another?
to write that something "had an impact" without any qualifier for the word impact would be an almost meaningless statement. I think what you mean is that you interpret it as such, which is therefore your (albeit controversial) opinion. It's another matter that almost no source would agree with you. Getsnoopy (talk) 22:14, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

@Spudlace: Many apologies for not furnishing the evidence I had promised in my interchange with you. This RfC, sputtering along as it has been for two months, went off my spheres of attention. The expressions "lasting impact" and "significant impact" are both used in the context of scholarly studies in Sanskrit. Here are just four examples.. Michael Witzel is the Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard, Patrick Olivelle is a Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Religions at the University of Texas, Austin; Aloka Parasher-Sen is Professor of History at the University of Hyderabad, India, where she is also Dean of the School of Social Sciences; and Kim Plofker is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at Union College; her magnum opus is Mathematics in India, Princeton University Press, 2009.

  • Witzel, Michael (2006). "Brahmanical Reactions to Foreign Influences and to Social and Religious Change". In Patrick Olivelle (ed.). Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE. Oxford University Press. p. 460. ISBN 978-0-19-977507-1. Persian cultural influence on India, including that emanating from the Near East, is visible in some new ideas in public administration, road building, town planning, public buildings, and Persian eclectic art, that is seen in Asoka's pillar capitals. However, the most important and lasting imact was the introduction of writing in Gandhara and the Panjab.
  • Parasher-Sen, Aloka (2006). "Naming and Social Exclusion: The Outcast and the Outsider". In Patrick Olivelle (ed.). Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE. Oxford University Press. p. 437. ISBN 978-0-19-977507-1. It is pointed out that whereas in the Vedic context of the Atharva Veda the suprahumans were conceived of as spirits of life, fertility, and joy that were eternally free, a new dimension was added to these interactions with humans when these spirits were assimilated into the narrative of the epics. ... In the Ramayana, the forest spirits are unequivocally represented as evil forces that have to be totally eradicated and destroyed. ... The sojourn of the brahmanas and ksatriyas in the forest and their interaction with these suprahuman spirits had a significant psychosocial impact during later centuries.
  • Plofker, Kim (2007). "Mathematics in India". In Victor J. Katz, Annette Imhausen (ed.). The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam: A Sourcebook. Princeton University Press. pp. 504–. ISBN 0-691-11485-4. Foreign sciences became more and more widespread in India during this period, and had a sporadic but significant impact on mathematical sciences in Sanskrit
  • Plofker, Kim (2009). Mathematics in India. Princeton University Press. pp. 277–. ISBN 0-691-12067-6. While astrolabes and zij-style tables had a significant impact on the practice of second-millennium Sanskrit astronomy, other aspects of Islamic mathematical science apparently produces no detectable effects.
  • In other words, the noun "impact" preceded by intensifying or amplifying adjectives "significant," "lasting" or others, does see use in scholarly studies in Sanskrit by the best-known scholars. There are many other examples, which I won't importune you with. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:06, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Close

@SpacemanSpiff: Please note that this RfC began on March 11. It is now nearly two months later. There is no consensus that the expression "significant impact," "lasting impact," is either syntactically unsound or stylistically frowned upon. Could you or some other admin @Vanamonde93: (who engaged Getsnoopy upstairs), please close the RfC? As you will see, in this history, after Firejugller86's post of March 24, no one has posted other than the nominator and my response now to Spudlace above. In my count, three editors (Austronesier, Firejuggler86 and I) have voted for Option C (no change in phrasing). Two (user:Pat and the nominator) have voted for option A; and one (Spudlace) has said, "Support using "effect" if it will improve the article. Howsoever you parse the last, there is no consensus for a change. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:06, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

"Fringe territory"

@TrangaBellam: Regarding this edit diff, what exactly you found to be a Questionable sources including conf. papers, and Hindutva propagandists. Fringe territory? Reception in computing, unlike S. Asia, doesn't fit into your idea of "hindutva" framework. These are scientific papers with well presented results, unlike scholarships in S. Asian history. —Wiki Linuz ( 💬 ) 19:48, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

One step back: what has this to do with Sanskrit? This is an article about the language, not about the history and impact of its grammatical description. Maybe it is due in Pāṇini, with some pruning of sources as indicated by TrangaBellam. –Austronesier (talk) 20:55, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
These are scientific papers with well-presented results, unlike scholarships in S. Asian history. - While I do not work in NLP, I teach statistics in university for a living and have a fair idea of recognizing valid scholarship (and their impact) in science. Crying hoarse about scholarship in S. Asian history won't help.
You cannot cite conference papers which are hardly cited by anybody - including a 40-year-old article and of all people, Subhash Kak - claiming Sanskrit to be something extraordinary unless tertiary scholarship supports such an assessment. I checked a few textbooks, taught at the undergrad and postgrad level in reputed universities, and failed to find anything on Sanskrit. If I am wrong, disprove me and insert back at our article on Sanskrit grammar. TrangaBellam (talk) 21:11, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
hardly cited by anybody, actually no; the sources that I cited through Gérard Huet or Rick Briggs's works have a major reception in computational linguistics. The other papers adds upon this structure through analyzing and unit testing the specialized NLP models and featuring the results. And I don't understand how publishing year of the theoretical modeling matters, given that, Turing machines are cited till date for obvious reasons. I don't know which reputed universities' texts you're referring to, but “text books” in computer science doesn't exactly play the same role as it does in mathematics or history. The models, specifically in computer science, are presented through scholarly research conferences or papers through reliable medium like IEEE, ACM and such (and usually implemented from there on), and doesn't necessarily be presented in a text book. Not sure why you'd detract Kak's work on this, given that he's a trained scientist, although the material isn't primarily sourced from him. However, I consent that it best fits Sanskrit grammar. Given this, the materials cited in relevance to NLP doesn't violate the policies. —Wiki Linuz ( 💬 ) 23:33, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
Bloomfield was a linguist, writing in the 1930s when there were no computers, not a computer scientist. Your text is WP:SYNTHESIS. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:02, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
Hmm, thanks for pointing that out, Joshua Jonathan. It turns out, I did mess things up when sourcing from multiple publications. I'm rewriting it from scratch, I'll submit it for inclusion before committing the change to mainspace. —Wiki Linuz ( 💬 ) 05:30, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
@WikiLinuz: The article Sanskrit grammar is mostly descriptive, and we don't have an article that is dedicated to the history and theory of the grammatical description of Sanskrit, so I still think the article Pāṇini is the best place to elaborate about the impact of Pāṇini's work. As for Bloomfield, Kak is not the best source to cite. Apart from him being ideologically tunnel-visioned, he is simply not a linguist. So I suggest to let the actual experts speak, e.g.
It's partly accessible on Google Books, but I'm sure you can get the full paper via Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request. This paper by Murray Barnson Emeneau is a bit old, but nevertheless also very enlightening.
As for NLP, you should avoid put the cart before the horse. E.g. Huet's case study indeed cites the long descriptive tradition of Sanskrit sandhi rules, but AFAICS his theoretical apparatus is not developed out of these rules; but rather, the practical implementation is just fed by these rules. –Austronesier (talk) 10:00, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

"Recognised minority language in South Africa"

It seems a bit misleading to list South Africa as recognizing Sanskrit as a minority language in the infobox. What the constitution says is that the national language board must promote respect for languages used for religious purposes such as Sanskrit. That seems distinct from recognizing it as a minority language, and so I feel that it should be removed from the infobox (was added in August) 157.157.113.198 (talk) 08:55, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Do we have any actual figures? I know that Sanskrit is taught in some schools. St James in Durban springs to mind. I shouldn't imagine that too many of the students have the sort of background that would see them use Sanskrit for religious purposes. --Pete (talk) 09:09, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Spoken contemporarily

Sanskrit is still used in India by native speakers.[1][2][3][4] Egon20 (talk) 09:58, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

@Egon20: Please read the text of the lead carefully and the references cited therein. The judgments of Sanskrit's demise are those of some of the foremost experts of the language. As for attempts at revival, which are what you have cited, those are all hopes, fond hopes. They come and go. Sanskrit has been a sleeping beauty language among the right-wing Hindu nationalists in India for years. When they come in power, the numbers of native speakers miraculously jump with many more males than females, which would be very odd for a "mother tongue," given that women statistically give birth to the same number of male babies as females. Generally, to be a native speaker, such as say an English-speaking child in Blue River, Wisconsin, your environment of social exchange needs to be English-speaking, the pastor, the choir, the butcher, the baker, the grocer, the neighbors, the extended family, and your parents, especially the primary caregiver in childhood, which has historically been the mother. For the mother to have the felicity of native speakers, who are generally able to think and speak in full clauses, takes time, at least a generation. That has not happened yet with Sanskrit. Those who call themselves native speakers, are attempting to align themselves with the prestige of the language (as the lead states). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:54, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
Which reminds me that there's still an important source that hasn't been tapped for this article yet (Wire is good, De Gruyter Mouton is better). –Austronesier (talk) 11:24, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/travel/destinations/a-village-where-locals-speak-only-sanskritmattur-in-karnataka/photostory/82595449.cms#:~:text=Welcome%20to%20Mattur%20(or%20Mathur,of%20Sanskrit%20for%20daily%20communication.
  2. ^ https://www.cntraveller.in/story/mattur-village-karnataka-speaks-sanskrit/
  3. ^ https://www.ndtv.com/karnataka-news/karnataka-mattur-the-only-village-in-india-that-still-speaks-sanskrit-1847533
  4. ^ https://detechter.com/seven-sanskrit-speaking-villages-in-india/

Kristubhagavatam

It's not without interest that Sanskrit has left its traces even in Christianity [[3]] --Hellsepp (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 18:12, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

My changes were reverted, but I'm not sure why

Hello all,

Recently I made a few minor copyedits to the page Sanskrit, but @Fowler&fowler: reverted it, saying it was nonconstructive.

These are the corrections I made:

  • There was a sentence saying "Vedic Sanskrit belongs to the early Old Indo-Aryan" - which is quite ambiguous, so I changed it to "Vedic Sanskrit belongs to the early Old Indo-Aryan stage".
  • Secondly, there was a sentence "The roots of all Prakrit languages may be in the Vedic Sanskrit and ultimately the Indo-Aryan language" - but there is no single Indo-Aryan language, and all I added was a clarification template since I didn't want to spread misinformation and hoped that a user with more experience could fix it for me.
  • Thirdly, it is spelled "North India", not "north India".

Do you think my changes are good or bad? After all, Fowler said it was nonconstructive but recommended that I bring it up on the article's talk page. I left a message on their talk page too, but seeing as they do not respond to messages left by others, I thought it better to bring it up here where everyone can discuss the issue.

Cheers, 98.179.127.59 (talk) 03:39, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

I have seen that you have made good copy-edits in various articles, so I'd better address this point by point:
1. This looks good to me.
2. The article before "Vedic Sanskrit" is awkward, but yes, "Indo-Aryan language" must be wrong; I guess it is intended to be "Proto-Indo-Aryan language".
3. This is a verbatim quote, and the original text has "north India". If it looks too gross, you can add a [sic!] to it.
I will partially reinstate your edits, Fowler&fowler, I hope this will be ok then. The text still needs some amendments, especially imprecise statements like "it is generally accepted by scholars and widely believed in India that the modern Indo-Aryan languages [...] are descendants of the Sanskrit language", which is an oversimplification and still needs to be elaborated on, cf. Woolner's insights (from 1928, not 1986!) in the quote. –Austronesier (talk) 11:43, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
Thank you both @98.179.127.59 and 98.179.127.59: and @Austronesier: I reverted it because there were a number of edits and I don't have Ausrtonesier's expertise for sorting out the correct ones. I will defer to Austronesier on all aspects here. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:17, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Phálam is not of proto Dravidian origin

Proto Dravidian is a completely reconstructed and speculative language, which means modern linguists created these words, which means there is no 1st source that has Paḷam as a fruit. Matter of fact meaning of Phálam in Sanskrit as fruit is only a part of it (abbreviations according to any model dictionary ; You'll see, in definition of Phála many words such as, Krishna, Ratnava, etc. They're to be prefixed with the main word Phála, i.e. Phálakrishna, Phálaratnava, etc.):-

फ - pha (only L.), mfn. manifest; m. a gale; swelling; gaping; gain ; ^vardhaka; =yak- s/ia-iiiil/iann ; n. flowing; bursting with a popping noise ; bubbling, boiling ; angry or idle speech.

फल् - Phal, cl. I. P. (Dhatup. xv, 9) pha- lati (ep. also A. te; pf. paphala, MBh., 3. pi. pheluh, Bhatt.; cf. PSn. vi. 4, 122 ; aor. aphdlit, Gr.; fut. phalishyati, MBh.; phalitd, Gr.), to burst, cleave open or asunder, split (intrans.), MBh. ; R. &c.; to rebound, be reflected, Kir.; BhP.; (Dhatup. xv, 23 ; but rather Nom. h.phala below) to bear or produce fruit, ripen (lit. and fig.), be fruitful, have results or consequences, be fulfilled, result, succeed, Mn. ; MBh.; Kav. &c. ; to fall to the share of (loc.), Hit. ; to obtain (fruit or reward), MBh.; to bring to maturity, fulfil, yield, grant, bestow (with ace., rarely instr.), MBh.; Kav. &c. ; to give out, emit' (heat), Kir.; (Dhatup. xx, 9) to go (cf. t/pal) Caus. phdlayati, aor. aplphalat, Gt.(cf.phdlita): ^>es,\A.piphalishati,Gt.: Intens. pamphulyate,pamphuliti,pamphulti, ib. [Cf. +/sphat, spkut; Germ, spalten; Eng. split^\

Extended content

Now this:- 

फल - Phála, n. (ifc. f. a or i) fruit (esp. of trees), RV.&c. &c.; the kernel or seed of a fruit, Amar.; a nut- meg, Susr.; the 3 myrobalans ( = tri-phala, q. v.), L. ; the menstrual discharge, L. (cf. pushpa) ; fruit (met.), consequence, effect, result, retribution (good or bad), gain or loss, reward or punishment,

advantage or disadvantage, KitySr. ; MBh.; KSv. &c. j benefit, enjoyment, Pancat. ii, 70; compensa- tion, Yjjn.ii, 161; (in rhet.) the issue or end of an action, Das. ; Ssh. ; (in math.) the result of a calcu- lation, product or quotient &c., Suryas. ; corrective equation, ib. ; Gol.; area or superficial contents of a figure, Aryabh. ; interest on capital, ib. ; the third term in a rule of three sum, ib., Sch. ; a gift, dona- tion, L. ; a gaming board, MBh. [cf. Goth, spilda; Icel. spjald}; a blade (of a sword or knife), MBh. ; R.; Kum.; the point of an arrow, Kaus.; a shield, L. ; a ploughshare (p/idla), L.; a point or spot on a die, MBh. iv, 24 ; m. Wrightia Antidysenterica, L.; (a), (. a species of plant, Car.; w. r. for tufa, Heat.; (f), f. Aglaia Odorata, L.; a kind of fish ( =phali), L. - kaksha, m. N. of a Yaksha, MBh. kantaka, f. Asclepias Echinata, L. kalpa- lata, f. N. of wk. kankahin, mfn. desirous of reward, Kum. kama, m. desire of reward, Jaim. kamana, f. desire of a r'sult or consequence, W. -kSla, m. the time of fruits, MW. krishna, m. Carissa Carandas, L. ; -pdka, m. id., L. kesa- ra, m. ' having hairy fruit,' the cocoa-nut tree (the f of which is covered with a fibrous coat resembling hair), L. kosa (Susr.) or saka (L.), m. sg. and du. 'seed receptacle,' the scrotum. khandana, n. fruit destruction, frustration of results,MW. khau- dava, m. the pomegranate tree, L. khela, f. a quail (=phdla-kh), L. tjrantha, m. a work describing the effects (of celestial phenomena on the destinyof men),VarBrS.,Sch.; N.ofwks. trraha, mfn. ' receiving fruits,' deriving profit or advantage, BhP. ; m. the act of doing so, Satr. - grab! (TS. ; AitBr.; Kith.) or -irrahishnn (SSiikhSr.), mfn. fruit-bearing, fruitful. grahin, m. a fruit tree, L. ghrita, n. 'fruit-ghee,' a panic, aphrodisiac, SarngS. ; a medicament used in diseases of the uterus, ib. caudrika, f. N. of sev.wks. camasa, m. a cup containing pounded figs (with young leaves and sour milk instead of Soma), KatySr., Sch.; Jaim.; (others 'ground bark of the Indian fig-tree with sour milk'). caraka, m. 'fruit-distribution,' a panic, official in Buddhist monasteries, L. coraka, m. a kind of perfume, L. cchadaua, n. a house built of wooden boards, L. tantra, mfn. aiming only at one's own advantage, Kum., Comm. tas, ind. in relation to the reward or result, Apast. ; conse- quently, accordingly, virtually, MW. til, f. the being fruit, the state of f, Kathas. traya, n. 'f-triad,' the 3 myrobalans, L.; 3 sorts of f col- lectively (the f of the vine, of Grewia Asiatica or Xylacarpus Granatum and Gmelina Arborea), ib. trika, n. ' f-triad,' the 3 myrobalans, ib. tva, n. = -id, KathSs. da, mf(a)n. ' f-giving,' yield- ing or bearing f, Mn. ; bringing profit or gain, giving a reward, rewarding, giving anything (gen. or cqmp.) as a reward, BhP.; Bhartr.; Kathas. &c.; a f tree, tree, L. danta-vat, mfn. having fruit- teeth or fruit for teeth, Heat. d&trl or -dayin, mfn. 'f-giving,' yielding f, giving a result, MW. dipikS, f. N. of wk. dharman, mfn. 'hav- ing the nature of fruit,' ripening soon and then falling to the ground or perishing, MBh. nir- vrittt, f. = -nishpalti, KatySr. ; Jaim.; final con- sequence or result, W. nivritti, f. cessation of consequences, W. nishpatti, f. production of fruit, fulfilment of consequences, attainment of re- ward, Kap. m-dada, f. N. of a female Gan- dharva, Karand. pancamla, n. a collection of 5 kinds of acid vegetables and fruits, L. (cf. phal&mla- paiicaka). parinati, f. the ripeness of fruit, Megh. parinama, m. id., A. parivritti, f. a fruitful harvest, Ap. paka, m. the ripening of fruit (see below) ; the fulfilment of consequences, VarBrS. ; Carissa Carandas, L. (cf. pdka-phala and krishna-p-ph}; -nishlhd (Suir.), /W/o'(Mn..), kdvasdnd (L.), kdvasdnikd (L.), f. a plant end- ing or perishing with the ripening of f, an annual plant. pakin, m. Thespesia Populneoides, L. patana, n. knocking down or gathering f, Mn. padapa, m. a f tree, R. puccha, m. a partic. species of esculent root or bulb, L. para, n. N. of a city (=phalaka-p"), Rajat. -pu.sh.pa, (ibc.) fruits and flowers ; -vat, mfn. adorned with ft and fl, Heat. ; -uriddhi, f. increase or growth of fr & fl, MW.; 'pSpaiobhita, mfn. adorned with fr and fl, MW. pushpa, f. a species of date tree, L. ; Ipomoea Turpethum, L. pnshpita, mfn. covered with fr and fl, BrahmaP. -pushpi, f. Ipo- moea Turpethum, L. para, m. ' full of kernels,' the citron tree, L. puraka, m. id.,Bhpi.; (prob.) n, the citron, Car. pracayana, n. gathering fruits,ParGf. prajanana, n. the production of f,RSjat. prada, mfn. bringing profit or a reward, BhP. pradana, n. the giving of f (a marriage-cere- mony), BrArUp., Samk. pradlpa, m. N. of wk. prayukta, mfn. connected with or producing consequences, yielding fruit, W. prasuti, f. a growth of f, crop of r, Ragh. -prapti, f. obtain- ing (the desired) f or result, success, Ratnav. ; Ka. priya. f. Aglaia Odorata, L.; a species of crow, L. prepsu, mfn. wishing to obtain f, desirous of attaining results, R. bandhln, mfn. forming or developing f, Ragh. bhaksna, mfn. feeding on f; -id, f., Gaut. bhaga, m. a share in any product, shof advantage or profit, BhP. ; N. of wk. bhaffin, mfn. sharing in profit or advantage, par- taking of a reward, Mn. iii, 143. bhaj, mfn. re- ceiving fruit, sharing in a rew, MBh. bhnj, mfn. enjoying fruit, MW. ; m. a monkey, Prasannar. - bhuti, m. N. of a Brahman, Kathas. -bhumi, f. 'retribution-land,' place of reward or punishment (i.e. heaven or hell), Kathas. bhuyas-tva, n. a greater reward, AsvGr. bhrit, mfn. fruit-bearing, fruitful, KSv. bJioga, m. enjoyment of conse- quences ; possession of rent or profit, usufruct, W. bhogin, mfn. enjoying fruits or cons , receiving profits, ib. bhogfya, mfn. that of which one has the usufruct (a pledge), Yajn. - matsya, f. the aloe plant, L. maya, mf()n. consisting of fruits, Heat. mnkhya.f. a species ofplant ( = aja-moda), L. mudffarika, f. a kind of date tree, L. mula, n. sg. or du. or pi. fruits and toots, Mn. ; MBh.; R.; Kathas.; -maya, mf(f)n. formed of f and r, Heat. ; -vat, mfn. supplied with f and r, R. mnlin, mfn. having (edible) f and r, MarkP. yukta, mfn. connected with a reward, KatySr. yoga, m. the attainment of an object, Mudr. ; Sah. ; remuneration, reward, MBh. ; R.; (af), ind. because the reward falls to (his) share, KatySr. rajan, m. 'king of fruits,' a water-melon, L. rasi, m. the 3rd term in rule of three, Aryabh. Tat (phdla-), mfn. fruit-bearing, fructiferous, covered or laden with fruits, AV. ; VS. ; GrS. &c. ; yielding results, successful, profitable, advantageous, AV.;Apast.; Hit. (-id, f., Jaim.; Mcar. ; -tva, n., ChUp., Samk.; Sah.); having profit or advantage, Vop. ; (in dram.) containing the result or end of a plot, Sah. ; (ati), f. a twig of a partic. thorn tree ; (others' the plant/ry'a/cf./^a/'?),ShadvBr.; Gobh. ; N. of wk. vandhya, mfn. barren or desti- tute of fruits, not bearing f, L. (cf. phal&if). varti, f. (in med.) a suppository, SarngS. var- tula, m. Gardenia Latifolia, L. ; n. a water-melon, ib. valli.f. a series ofquotients, Aryabh. ,Comm.; Col. vakya, n. promise ofreward, KatySr., Comm. vikrayini, f. a female fruit-seller, BhP. vri- klha, m. a fruit tree, L. vrikahaka, m. the bread-fruit tree, L. iSdava, see -shadava. sa- lln, mfn. yielding wages, Kir. ; experiencing conse- quences, .sharing in results (//'-/f0, n.), L. sai- sira, m. Zizyphus Jujuba, L. sr eshtba, m. ' best of fruits,' the mango tree, L. shadava, m. the pomegranate tree, L. (written idf1 }. saip yukta, mfn. connected with a reward, KatySr. lam- yoga, m. the being conn with a r, Jaim. Bam- Itba, mfn. bearing fruit, MW. sampad, f. abun- dance of f, good result, success, prosperity, W. lambaddha, m. ' f-endowed,' the tree Ficus Glomerata, L. sambhava or -sambhS, mfn. produced in or by f, W. aambhfirS, f. ' having abundance of f,' the tree Ficus Oppositifolia, L. sahasra, n. a thousand fruits ; du. two thousand f, MW. _ B&mkarya-khandana, n. N. of wk. s&dhana, n. effecting any result, Kris, on Pan. ; a means of eff any r, W. siddhi, f. realising an object, success, a prosperous issue, Sah.; Kas. on Pan. stana-vati, f. (a female) having fruits for breasts, Heat. - stbana, n. the stage in which fruits or results are enjoyed, Buddh. sneha, m. 'having oil in its f ,' a walnut tree, L. haul, f. loss of f or profit, W. harm, mfn. f-seizing, stealing f, Pan. vi, 2, 79, Sch. -hari, f. N. of Kali (a form of DurgS), L. Una, mfn. ' yielding no fruits ' and ' giving no wages,' Pancat. hetu, mfn. one who has results for a motive, acting with a view to r, Bhag. PhalakankshS, f. hope or expectation of favourable consequences, ib. Phala- kaikshin, mfn. desirous of results, wishing for fa v" ons, ib. Phalagama, m. ' access of fruits,' pro- duction of f, load of f, Sak.; the fruit season, *utumn, R. Fualagra, n. 'f"-beginning," f-time, Hariv. ; -sdkhin, mfn. having fruits at the ends of its branches, ib. Phaladhya, mf(a)n. ' rich in f ,' covered with f, Mricch. ; Ragh.; (a), (. the wild plantain, L. Phaladana, m. ' f-eater,' a parrot, L. (cf. pkaldsana}. Fhaladhikara, m. a claim for wages, KatySr. Phaladnyaksha, m. ' super- intendent of f ,' Mimusops Kauki, L. Phalanu- bandha, m. sequence of results, the consequences or results of (comp.), SSntis. Phalanumeya, mfn. inferable from c or r, Ragh. Fhalanusarana, n. rate or aggregate of profits, MW. Plialanta, m. ' ending with fruit,' a bamboo, L. Fhalanve- shln, mfn. seeking f or results, looking for a re- ward, MW. Phalapurva, n. the mystic power which produces the consequences of a sacrificial act, Nyayam., Comm. Phalapeksha, f. regard to re- sults, expectation of cons , W. Phalapeta, mfn. deprived of fruit, unproductive, unfertile, ib. Pha- laphalikS, f., g. sdka-pdrthivddi. Phalabdhi, m. N. of wk. Fhalabhisheka, m. N. of wk. Phalabhoga, m. non-enjoyment of profits &c., MW. Fhalamla, m. Rumex Vericarius, L.; n. a tamarind, L. ; -pancaka, n. the 5 acid or sour fruits, viz. bergamot, orange, sorrel, tamarind and citron, L. (cf. amla-paftca 3.n& phala-pancdmla). Fha- lamlika, mfn. having anything made with sour fruit.Hariv. Phalftrama.m.afruit-garden, orchard, L. Fhalarthin, mfn. one who aims at fruits or reward, Pancat. ; thi-tva, n., Jaim. Fhalavan- dhya, mfn. not barren of f, bearing f, L. Fhala- sana, m. 'f"-eater ,' a parrot, L. (cf. phal&dana). Phalasin, mfn. feeding or living on f, Vishn. ; Susr. Phaiasakta, mfn. attached to f or results, acting for the sake of reward ; fond of f, seeking to pluck f, W. Phalssava, m. a decoction of f , Kathas. Phalasthi, n. 'having f with a hard rind,' a cocoa-nut, L. Fhalahara, m. feeding or living on f, Susr. Fhale-grahi, mfn. bearing f, fruitful, successful ( <=phala-j"), Malatim. ; Naish. (cf. Pan. iii, 3, 26). Phale-grahi or 'bin, mfn. b f, L. PhaUtara-ta, f. the being other than f, Da5. Pbal&ndra, f. a species of Jambu, Bhpr. Phale-paka, -pakS, -paku, g. nyahkv-ddi. Phale-pakin, m. Hibiscus Populneoides,L. Phale- pnshpB.f.Phlomis Zeylanica, Bhpr. Phale-ruha, f.Bignonia Suaveolens.ib. Phaloccaya,in. collecting or a collection of fruits,W. FhalottamS, f. ' best of f ,' a kind of grape without stones, L. ; the 3 myro- balans, L. ; the benefit arising from sacred study (?), W. ; a small sort of rope(?), W. Phalotpati(!), m. the mango tree, L. Phalotpatti, f. produc- tion of fruit, profit, gain, advantage, Pan., Sch. Fhalotpreksha, f. a kind of comparison, Kuval. Phalodaka, m. N. of a Yaksha, MBh. Phalo- daya, m. arising or appearance of consequences or results, recompense, reward, punishment (with gen. or loc. or comp.), Mn. ; Yajn.; R. &c. ; joy, L.; heaven, L. Phalodtrama, m. pi. development of fruits, Bhartr. Fhaloddesa, m. regard to results, W. Fb.alodbb.ava, mfn. obtained or derived from f, Susr. Phalonmukha, mfn. being about to give f, Mcar. Phalopagama, mfn. bearing f, Vishn. Fhalopajivin, mfn. living by the culti- vation or sale of f, R. Fhalopabhoga, m. enjoy- ment of f, partaking of reward or of the conse- quences of anything, Kap. Phalopeta, mfn. pos- sessing fruit, yielding fruit, MW. Pbalaka (ifc., f. ika)=phala, fruit, result, gain (-/z*fl, n.), Kull. on Mn. ii, 146; menstruation (cf. na-ua-phalika); (phdlaka), n. (m.,g.ardharcadi; ifc. f. a) a board, lath, plank, leaf, bench, Br. ; GrSrS., &c. ; a slab or tablet (for writing or painting on; also -= page, leaf), Kav. ; Yajn., Sch.; Lalit.; a picture ( = fitra-pV), Mricch. iv, J ; a gaming- board (cf. sdri-ph); a wooden bench, MBh.; a slab at the base (of a pedestal ; cf. sphatika-ph ) ; any fiat surface (often in comp. with parts of the body, applied to broad flat bones, cf. aysa-, phand-, laldta-ph &c.); the palm of the hand, SBr. ; the buttocks, L. ; the top or head of an arrow, Kull. on Mn. vii, 90; a shield, MBh.; bark (as a material for clothes), MBh. ; Hariv. ; the pericarp of a lotus, Sis.; -yantra, Gol. ; a layer, W. ; the stand on which a monk keeps his turban, Buddh. ; m. Mesua Roxburghii, L. ; (a or ika], {., see below. pari- dhana, n. putting on a bark garment, MBh. pani, m. a soldier armed with a shield, L. pura, n. N. of a town in the east of India, PSn. vi, 3, IOI (cf. phala-purct). yantra, n. an astronomical instru- ment invented by Bhas-kara, Gol. saktha, n. a thigh like a board, P5n. v, 4, 98, Sch. Fhalaka- khya-yantra, n.ka-yantra, Gol. Phalaka- vana, n. N. of a forest sacred to SarasvatI, Cat. ("ii-vana, MBh.) Pbalaka-sadana, n. the obtaining or reaching a plank (said of a drowning person), Ratnav.

Hope this gets seen. If action is taken then I'll post more words. Yeshehat (talk) 16:22, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

I hope with above evidence, Phalam as a sanskrit word is noticed of. Yeshehat (talk) 16:24, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Help on Sanskrit Words

Hi can someone help me in pointing out the "polluted in" words by Sanskrit on Tamil? To be clear i want sanskrit words not used in Tamil. Thanks. Puppet reel (talk) 06:23, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Half of Tamil will be gone of you remove Sanskrit from Tamil. Be it New Tamil or Old Tamil (which is more Sanskritised). Almost all of the philosophical and scientific terminologies in Tolkāppiyam have originated from Sanskrit. Sanskrit has been in use from Cholan Dynasty, whose rulers claim they are direct descendents of Lord Rama. Yeshehat (talk) 16:36, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Why changes are being reverted?

I've given enough evidence for my edits, why people are persistent to change it back @Austronesier: Yeshehat (talk) 18:51, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

The material you have deleted is supported by two sources. If you have a reliable source of the same calibre as Burrows and Parpola that debunks the etymology of phala, you can cite it. Otherwise, the musings of an anonymous WP editor (like most of us are) don't outweigh scholarly works, per WP policy and also basic common sense. –Austronesier (talk) 10:55, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

The sources are not getting published, I'm trying again Yeshehat (talk) 14:10, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

As I told, Proto-Dravidian is a completely reconstructed language. A reconstructed language cannot "debunk" a historical language or its etymology. Here are the sources:-

Dakṣiputra Pāṇini - Aṣṭādhyāyī (Original Yeshehat (talk) 14:14, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

I am unable to cite the website, as it's not getting published, so here is title of the dictionary:- Sanskrit-English dictionary etymologically and philologically arranged, with special reference to cognate Indo-European languages, by Monier Monier-Williams (Page 715-718)Yeshehat (talk) 14:25, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

www(dot)lexilogos(dot)com/english/sanskrit_dictionary.htm Yeshehat (talk) 14:26, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Please read WP:SCHOLARSHIP. It states that modern scholarly sources (i.e. authored by known modern scholars and published by academic publishers) are the most reliable sources on WP. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:44, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Very intellectual. So the "modern scholarly sources" will overcross the very creator of that language? More importantly even if you are overlooking the creator of Classical Sanskrit, Dakṣiputra Pāṇini, there are known modern scholars such as Professor E. Leumann, Ph.D. of the University Of Strassburg, Professor C. Cappeller, Ph.D. 

Of The University Of Jena, Otto Bohtlingk and Rudolf Roth,

Professor A. Weber of Berlin. And of course, Monier Monier-Williams, elected to the Boden Professorship in the University of Oxford, the well known scholar and author of the book "Sanskrit-English dictionary etymologically and philologically arranged" is academically published by Oxford Press or University Press, Oxfors. Hope this is a credible source to the renowned and scholarly editors of this article. Regards. Yeshehat (talk) 17:21, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Here is the renowned scholar who has given etymology of Sanskrit words https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monier_Monier-Williams Yeshehat (talk) 10:59, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

You'll find the dictionary cited in Talk section there Yeshehat (talk) 11:04, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

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Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 10:37, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

MOS:ERA

This article has long used CE/BCE to refer to the eras. A few hours back Prophet of Truth and Knowledge (talk · contribs) changed that to AD/BC throughout the article with the edit-summary "If people are offended by the gregorian calender then they're free to use other calenders.". I reverted their edit and informed them about the relevant guideline MOS:ERA, which says An article's established era style should not be changed without reasons specific to its content; seek consensus on the talk page first (applying Wikipedia:Manual of Style § Retaining existing styles) by opening a discussion under a heading using the word era, and briefly stating why the style should be changed. Unfortunately, instead of following that advice they simply reerted back to their preferred version. So I am starting this discussion to give them an oppurtunity to explain their edit-warring and so that others can chime in. Abecedare (talk) 00:07, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Hmm. "Long" but not always - it was begun using BC/AD & used that for many years until a no doubt undiscussed and illegal change in late 2007. As I'm sure you know, that is a factor under WP:ERA. Personally, I generally prefer BC, but used to use BCE on Indian articles until I realised that a high proportion of Indian readers don't know what it means (sometimes they ask). Now I use BC (mostly). Johnbod (talk) 01:04, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
CE/BCE is modern usage used worldwide in all English language academic sources. Style guides for journal and book submissions require them.
If some Indian readers know "Before Christ" and "Anno Domini," their knowledge of Christ (let alone Latin) is rote. In other words, the proportion of Christians who know Latin in the Indian population is small. Similarly, some aging Indians very likely know SOS (Save Our Soul) or E&OE (Errors and Omissions Excepted), or at least that is what authors such as Salman Rushdie and his clones—who have made their careers parodying Indian English for Western readers—think they know.
The use of BC and AD in an article such as Sanskrit, which predates all notions of Christianity or the Gregorian calendar by more than a millennium, would be doubly meaningless. George Cardona, for example, in the Britannica article "Sanskrit language," uses only one notation: "the Rigveda (“The Veda Composed in Verses”), which scholars generally ascribe to approximately 1500 BCE. ... one of the finest grammars ever produced, the Aṣṭādhyāyī (“Eight Chapters”) composed by Pāṇini (c. 6th–5th century BCE). ... known from the time of Kātyāyana (4th–3rd century BCE) ... the pinnacle of which is represented by the Vākyapadīya (“Treatise on Sentence and Word”) of Bhartṛhari (late 6th–7th century CE)" and so forth. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:06, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
"CE/BCE is modern usage used worldwide in all English language academic sources. Style guides for journal and book submissions require them." is not actuially true - always. The point is not what Indians understand about the origin of BC/AD, but that they do understand it as an era style, whereas only those expensively educated in English are very likely to understand BCE/CE, which, as you know perfectly well, they will not encounter in the Indian media. Johnbod (talk) 16:02, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
"as you know perfectly well, they will not encounter in the Indian media"
I'm not aware that I do know. I hardly ever read the Indian media, preferring the NY Times, Washington Post, Guardian, the Times of London, Le Monde, Sydney Morning Herald, Toronto Star, and Lord knows a few others before I even deign to employ The Hindu as a source. See 2020 Delhi riots or my latest effort in the lead of Cheetah reintroduction in India. The Indian media is not reliable.
But you are correct about one point. The NCERT textbooks, the ones that see India-wide use, and by no means in expensive English medium private schools only, do use BCE/CE in English, but they also use taqreeban qabl masih and isvi in Urdu (taqreeban = approximately, qabl = before, masih = messiah, isvi = of the isa = Jesus as in the "I" of INRI, hearkening to the earliest times). I wouldn't change it in Urdu, not because the Urdu speakers are used to it, but because a link to a past and heritage will be lost upon changing, in other words precisely because the Urdu speakers do understand the origins of BC/AD. Had the English conventions been Ante Messiah and Anno Domini, I would have been less likely to oppose them, because they too would have been a link to a past and heritage that "Before Christ" is not, in the same way that the King James Version is and the Revised Standard Version is not (when it comes to the heritage of the language). Its too late in English usage. BCE/CE is here to stay. Once you make the changes, there's no going back. Anyway, thank you for your observation that seems to be borne out in the NCERT text books. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:10, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
Sadly "Once you make the changes, there's no going back" is usually true on WP, but this is entirely due to American cultural imperialism, and nothing else. Actually the Canadian Museum of History did make the change and a few years later (in 2013) reversed it, because even in Canada not enough of the general population were familiar enough with BCE, see Common Era. They continued with BCE in the scholarly publications, and if WP was a scholarly effort, I'd be happy to always use BCE. But it isn't - policy is very clear on that. You seem very hung up on the historical/cultural nuances, but the crucial point for any shorthand term of this sort is, do people understand it readily? Johnbod (talk) 14:30, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
That may be where we part ways. I'm not devoted to Wikipedia or its policies, only to the best scholarly sources and their consensus. I see WP as a means to disseminate the consensus of the best scholarly sources. One of the big problems on Wikipedia (i.e. one of the main reasons that it is not considered reliable) is that a large number of people have mastered policy but are clueless about scholarly consensus. They think that truth on Wikipedia is what is determined by an RfC in which a nominator can pull it out (like a Saturday night special in a Chicago bar) at will at the slightest altercation and perform a long drawn out smoke and mirrors show in the hope that the clueless WPians will vote early and vote often. I mean look at all the Indian or India-POV editors who edit Pakistan-, Afghanistan-, Tibet- and Central Asia-related pages and have turned those pages into nightmarish caricatures. Anyway, I better stop. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:10, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
Can we hat/archive this section quickly? Most of the edits made by that account are era style changes, and the best way to deal with WP:NOTHERE-editors is WP:DENY. –Austronesier (talk) 15:32, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

NO KNOWN SPEAKERS of Sanskrit?

The article downright says *the heading*. Recently from an RTI, the information was given by Union Home Ministry’s Registrar General and Census Commissioner office that there are 24,821 speakers of Sanskrit from Census 2011 (NOT of 2022, of which the data is in segregation as I write this), but the article completely turns a blind eye from this fact and Evidence 6 is about the village Jhiri, not of all of India, thus it's a false evidence keeping in mind entire India.

Evidence 7 is about Uttarakhand's CITIES and not of India, again, false evidence. Oxford University's data collection, again, is not from all of India.

The argument is fluctuations in the reported speakers of sanskrit from 1991 to 2001, which are now 20 years old and are again, turning blind eye to 2011 Census data. Even if we are keeping out the fluctuation data, there are still atleast thousands of "Sanskrit speakers" in India as opposed to the.... scholarlier claim of "No known speakers". I am to change it based on the official evidences directly from government, and not from "intellects" which haven't even done anything to collect data from whole of India and talking from just puny data collected Yeshehat (talk) 07:06, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

https://www.cnbctv18.com/india/only-24821-people-in-india-have-sanskrit-as-mother-tongue-govt-data-14819891.htm If you're looking furthermore Yeshehat (talk) 07:07, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 December 2022

Change the IPA symbols for त,थ,द,ध from t,tʰ,d,dʰ to t̪ ,t̪ʰ ,d̪ ,d̪ʰ respectively which includes the diacritic for dental plosive which are missing from the original draft. This might unambiguously mistake it for foreign alveolar plosives. Suggested edit location: Phonology>Consonants> the table under 'Sanskrit consonants in the Devanagari script'>Row for dental plosives titled 'dantya'. AbhishekDixit638 (talk) 14:04, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. RealAspects (talk) 03:46, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Writing system

please mention devanagari script in the section of writing system Varenius101 (talk) 20:53, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Article issues and concerns

Greetings, Some suggestions. An "issue" is the article classification. The B-class criteria states: The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations. It has reliable sources, and any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited. The article fails this and the "hidden categories" show "Articles lacking reliable references from October 2014", and includes 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021, and 2022, and at least one subsection "needs additional citations". It does not take an expert in sourcing to know that there are enough issues to not jive with the criteria. I am reassessing the article to C-class per the criteria.
Article size. The article shows to be "95 kB (14849 words) "readable prose size"", but that is misleading. Block quotes and embedded lists are not counted but inline quotes are.

Bloat

Some sections and subsections are rather long, even though there is a "main article" or "Further information" heading. The "Vedic Sanskrit" has the "Main article, of the same name, but the subsection is bloated and sporting "inline citation needed" tags. There are subsections, like "Accent", and a citation subsection tag.

Notes and references

This, too me, is problematic. The first entry in the "Note" section actually starts ""In conclusion". All the main points, and any conclusions, from the sources should be in the article and not argued or clarified through the notes and references section. This is suppose to be an encyclopedia and not a dissertation.
Getting rid of some of the bloat (The history section is the main one) may solve some inline citation needed issues and the article can be returned to B-class or better. -- Otr500 (talk) 22:40, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

There are 11 entries in the "External links". An article can be promoted with none but three commonly used. Currently the section is a link farm and should be trimmed (maybe with a chainsaw) per ELPOINTS #3. -- Otr500 (talk) 00:14, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 March 2023

Change "Fruther reading" to "Further reading", assuming it is a typo. Vanitasvanitatum69 (talk) 23:40, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Vanitasvanitatum69 for spotting that typo. But instead of simply fixing the spelling, I have removed the section itself since its only content was a specialized scholarly article that IMO would not be too relevant to readers of an introductory article on "Sanskrit", such as this one. I am copying that source here though, incase anyone want to use it as a source for a specific existing or new claim in the bosy of this or related article.
Abecedare (talk) 23:57, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

"Revival"

Sanskrit is a classical language since Millenia, therefore the quantity of fluent speakers is way more relevant than of native. However, is it needed 10 different sources to emphasize that in the whole 1.4 billion people of India there's not one native speaker? What is this? Really, I'm brazillian and this kind of high ideological hate makes Wikipedia disgusting, or, at least, english language based wikipedia... Have some shame, people. 191.210.247.108 (talk) 22:44, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Old German Words, Slavic Words which are corelated to Sanskrit

Bratha means brother in German, Slavic and Sanskrit. It would interesting if someone compiles a list.

Old English is similar old German later English was bastardized with Latin and French (Norman) influences.. 103.216.212.153 (talk) 10:56, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

The list is here: Indo-European vocabulary. Dyḗwsuh₃nus (talk) 18:44, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 May 2023

Please add, early in article the sentence 'akin to one of dialects of Classic Greek'

Source: 'Teach yourself... Sanskrit', Coulson As evidence: Ghossanna, used in Gospel as 'Hossanna', means in Sanskrit 'proclamation', a ceremonial salutation, as roman Ave, German Heil, english Hail. No need to remark the Seleucids, Greek invaders that gave martyrdom the Maccabean brothers, were there not much before Jesus, left other terms as holocaust, Synagogue, sanhedrin,... Urdu, Hindi, Bengalese , are Sanskrit or Prakrit derived languages, Prakrit being to Sanskrit what Vulgata was to Cult latin. Language in Pakistan derived from Sanskrit, but is written in Arab alphabet 81.44.88.66 (talk) 13:01, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. I'm not sure what exactly the title of the supposed source is, or what is being quoted from it. Could you provide a link or maybe an ISBN? Actualcpscm (talk) 13:17, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 September 2023

change "Bengal This" to "Bengal. This" to add missing punctuation 142.115.189.7 (talk) 14:42, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

 Done M.Bitton (talk) 14:55, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Pronunciation

The table in the subsection "Pronunciation" has some issues that need to be fixed.

  1. The second column has no header. Its function is unclear, and without attribution, it feigns objectivity, but actually it is just unsourced. I suggest too delete it.
  2. The column attributed to Cardona has many gaps. This insinuates that in such cases, Cardona agrees with Goldman & Goldman and the unattributed first column; this is however not the case in a couple of instances (e.g. with the short high vowels). And even where it is, it won't hurt to spell out the agreement.
  3. The retroflex series is transcribed as postalveolar in most cases (t̠ for ʈ etc.). There is an old debate about what a "true" retroflex consonant is, but both Goldman & Goldman and Cardona describe points of articulation that can safely be labeled and transcribed as "retroflex" (Goldman & Goldman: the tip of the tongue should be curled back further to the roof of the mouth; Cardona: located at the area immediately behind the alveolar ridge (mūrdhanya [usually translated 'retroflex'])). Cardona explicitly uses the term retroflex in the further description, not only for the rhotic and the sibilant, but also for stops and nasals.
    I suggest to use plain ʈ, ɖ, ʂ, ɳ, as in the table in "Consonants".
  4. The table attributes [ɐi ~ ɛi] for ai and [ɐu ~ ɔu] for au to Cardona. Actually, Cardona writes: the Taittirīyaprātiśākhya notes that according to some the segment a in ai and au is a closer vowel than the usual a. Closer than a [ɐ] would be [ə]; Cardona does not say that it is not central like the usual a. So we should change [ɐi ~ ɛi] / [ɐu ~ ɔu] to [ɐi ~ əi] / [ɐu ~ əu], but note that this actually is an OR interpretation of the source. To be on the safe side, I suggest to only use [ɐi]/[ɐu] and a note in prose about the reported variation.

Also, I am not very happy about the use of ⟨ɑ⟩ in /ɑː/, /ɑj/, /ɑw/ for ā, ai, and au. None of the cited sources uses ⟨ɑ⟩. Only Goldman & Goldman's description for the layperson (pronounced like the o in "mom") might suggest [ɑː] for ā, but all sources that are more explicit about the exact phonetic nature of vowels describe it as central (and FWIW, Robert Goldman uses central or front [aː] when reading Sanskrit texts aloud). And /ɑj/, /ɑw/ are entirely unsupported by the sources. It's not just the ⟨ɑ⟩ that is wrong, but also the transcription of the second segment as glide; Cardona mentions that according to some traditions, the second segment was pronounced with an even longer duration than the a. Let's replace /ɑː/, /ɑj/, /ɑw/ with /aː/, /ai/, /au/.

Thoughts? If no one objects, I will change the tables in the next few days. –Austronesier (talk) 11:23, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Sahitya (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 17:55, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Box-Headed Script

The following web-link was added:

Will an entry on that writing system for Sanskrit have to be made?

If so, how could it be titled? -- Apisite (talk) 22:34, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

@Apisite I read the document and it is good. I originally reverted thinking not relevant, and also seemed like promotional. But reading it more, it seems good, but I am not sure whether other editors will think same. Asteramellus (talk) 01:45, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 May 2024

I want to add to the main table, where it speaks about the regions where Sanskrit is used, to write just Indian Subcontinent (which is geographically a synonym to South Asia, but more related to the concept of the Indosphere), Indianised Southeast Asia (to specify that it was parts of Southeast Asia under Indian influence), and also Tibet and Mongolia, the Indo-Tibetan cultural sphere, which in the mediaeval and early modern period received large influences from India (Mongolia through Tibet). 31.221.136.153 (talk) 08:11, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. This is a large change, and should be discussed here before being proposed using the Edit Request template. PianoDan (talk) 20:09, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Indian sources ignored

I don't know if this is covered elsewhere but I was wondering why this article relies almost exclusively on Western experts to the exclusion (with very few exceptions) of native Indian sources? There are so many Sanskrit scholars in India, it is taught in High School, there are Sanskrit newspapers, it is one of teh recognised official languages of India etc. But it seems that only Western sources are relied upon to give us any information on the language. Why is that? It would be like a page on English that relied only on Chinese and Japanese scholars, or scholars of any country other than those who are native English speakers. And, yes in India there are still native speakers of Sanskrit. So it seems to me that this article is a very Euro-Centric presentation that leaves out the views of those who actually use the language. I would like to see this remedied with a more balanced approach and more emphasis and input from Indian sources and much less from Western sources. 67.204.247.30 (talk) 17:26, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi - good points. You can list here such reliable sources and also start contributing from such sources? Asteramellus (talk) 18:24, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
Having an imbalance in sourcing is one thing and I agree with this point, although I disagree about the "ignored" which insinuates that this is done deliberately. Any material that is up to international standards (and there is lots of it produced in India) is welcome.
The question of "native" speakers of Sanskrit is a different thing. Independent, non-promotional sources are required for this topic. "Still" is also misleading, since the oft-reported contemporary Sanskrit-speaking village are the product of a deliberate revitalization effort that is not directly related to the unbroken chain of transmittion as the language of Brahmanic tradition. –Austronesier (talk) 18:42, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Add some new information about Sanskrit

Sanskrit ( Sanskrit : संस्राम, Sanskrit pronunciation: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] ) is a language of the Indian subcontinent . Sanskrit is an Indo-Aryan language which is a branch of the Indo-European language family. [5] Modern Indian languages such as Hindi , Bengali , Marathi , Sindhi , Punjabi , Nepali , etc. have originated from it. All these languages also include the Romani language of European gypsies. Almost all the religious texts related to Vedic religion have been written in Sanskrit. Many important texts of Buddhism (especially Mahayana) and Jainism have also been written in Sanskrit. Even today, most of the yajnas and pujas of Hinduism are done in Sanskrit only. Sanskrit means "reformed" or "changed". Sanskrit language is written in Devanagari script. Dhamma script kept improving (changing) a little with time. For example, a little difference can be seen in the words in the inscriptions and records of Maurya and Gupta period. This continued for many centuries and many scripts emerged from Pali Prakrit language (in Dhamma script) like Tamil, Telugu in the south and Bengali, Nagari Sharada in the north. The use of Devanagari script started in the 9th century and by the 11th century, Devanagari script was fully developed. If we talk about Sanskrit language, since the script of Sanskrit is Devanagari, it also came in the middle of the 9th century. Before this, no archaeological evidence of Sanskrit language was found nor is it mentioned anywhere. Hence, it proves that the oldest language of India (whose ancient name is Jambudweep ) is Prakrit Pali and the oldest script is Dhamma script (now Brahmi script). If we look at it, the oldest language and script is the language of Indus Valley Civilization which has not been read till date. Mohit atulkar (talk) 00:45, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

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