Talk:Sanskrit/Archive 4

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Writing

I've removed the following sentence from the "writing" section because it seems unclear and in need of ciations:

Writing came relatively late to India, introduced from the Middle East by traders around the 5th century BCE, according to a hypothesis by Rhys Davids and favored by the Persian administration of Gandhara and Sindh.

Note that "writing came relatively late to India" is not true, if the script of the Harappan civilization counts as "India". Grover cleveland (talk) 17:18, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Additional sources

Doing some searching, I found some articles that, by their abstracts, I could tell that they would improve this article. Unfortunately, I'm not able to get the actual articles:

• Thirumalai, M.S. (2004). "Declaring a Language Classical". Language in India. 4 (10).
• Hastings, Adi (2003). "Simplifying Sanskrit". Pragmatics. 13 (3–4): 499–513.
• Van der Burg, Corstiaan J G (1996). "The Place of Sanskrit in Neo-Hindu Ideologies: From Religious Reform to National Awakening". In Houben, Jan E. M. (ed.). Ideology and status of Sanskrit: contributions to the history of the Sanskrit language. Leiden: E.J. Brill. pp. 367–381.
• Franci, Giorgio Renato (1995). "Supplementary Notes on Sanskrit in Contemporary India". Studi orientali e linguistici. 6: 201–209.
• Hock, Hans Henrich (1992). "A Note on English and Modern Sanskrit". World Englishes. 11 (2–3): 163–171.
• Rajeshwari, Pandharipande (1991). "The Perfected Language". English Today. 7 (2): 7–10.

I think they'll help refine the ways in which the sociolinguistic situation of Sanskrit differs from that of other classical languages like Greek and Latin. If anybody can get ahold of these articles and use them in the article, that would be great. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:46, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a good source of Sanskrit resources. The website is up and running, and constantly updated for nine years!: Sanskrit & Sánscrito - The sun of Sanskrit knowledge By Gabriel Pradīpaka and Andrés Muni . I am adding the link to the home page in English, but the website has a doorway to Spanish on http://www.sanskrit-sanscrito.com.ar/ . Some pages are in Portuguese as well.--JohnBluePlus (talk) 07:07, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

the infobox has to be edited

No official status in India. Sanskrit appears in the Indian constition only. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 16:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

"Classical Language of India"?

India exist just since 1947. Sanskrit is an ancient language of whole south asia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.33.166.40 (talk) 10:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

The modern independent state of India began in 1947 but an area known as India existed hundreds if not thousands of years before that. But this may have been largely synonymous with South Asia. Considering that Nepal and some other nearby countries also seem reverent to Sanskrit, should it be "Classical languge of South Asia" or is there something extra special about Sanskrit as a classical language that applies only to the modern state of India? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 12:52, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

There is a special link to the modern country, since the government of India allegedly declared Sanskrit as classical language. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 13:14, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Sanskrit has been used historically well outside south India -- for example in Indochina and central Asia. Grover cleveland (talk) 18:38, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I would think that it's similar to Ancient Greek, which may have a special link to the modern nation of Greece but is a notable classical language in most of the West. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:45, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

um, "India" may only have existed since 1947, but then Sanskrit has only been a "classical language of India" since 2004. dab (𒁳) 07:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it seems like how the Indian government classifies Sanskrit is a red herring. Outside of government declarations, we find Sanskrit's importance in other surrounding areas, no? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 16:37, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

well, yes, Sanskrit is important in various areas. Your point being? Classical Sanskrit is "classical" regardless of government declarations. But this obviously isn't about classicity itself, but about red herrings like labels stuck to things by government declarations. dab (𒁳) 16:40, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Well the issue is whether the article should say "Sanskrit is a classical language of India" or "Sanskrit is a classical language of South Asia." The anon above believes that it should be the latter and that seems correct to me as well. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

"South Asia" is a relatively bad term. Let's take a look. South Asia: India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and so on to mention the biggest countries in South Asia. Sanskrit: India (hinduism) yes, Nepal (hinduism) yes, Pakistan (islam) NO (Persian-arabic), Sri Lanka (buddhism) NO (Pali). It's wrong to put in South Asia instead of India. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 18:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Saying "a classical language of South Asia" doesn't mean it has to be all nations of South Asia and it doesn't mean it's the only one. It's enough that it's more than India. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:12, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

After all i think, "South Asia" is a misleading term. It's better to give exact data in which countries Sanskrit is used. The term "classical language of India" is absolutely correct, since the origin of Sanskrit is India. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 19:37, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, but Pakistan and Bangladesh were originally part of India. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:39, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I mean, Sanskrit was developed in today's India. First Sanskrit classical texts written in Grantha-script by Pallava-Dynasty, then transported to Nagari-script in Gupta-Empire. Both located in today's India. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 19:46, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that's a good determiner. If we go that far back then the anon's concern about the term "India" being a recent one sounds more correct. Moreover, Sanskrit was not "developed" it evolved, and the area where Sanskrit as a language (rather than as a written form) arose is less well known. "Sanskrit is a classical language of South Asia" can still mean that it's a classical language of India and doesn't have to mean that it's a classical language of Sri Lanka. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:51, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

You and me know that. But the readers will be misled. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 20:58, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we need to appeal to readers who stop reading the article after a few sentences or who don't look at the userboxes on the right. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:08, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not the reader's fault, when they read a pretty wrong sentence. Maybe we should remove "of India" or transform it to "recognised in India as classical language" instead of this South Asian hoax due to sentiments.. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 22:19, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

We could do that. What exactly was historically the greatest reach of Sanskrit? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:39, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Difficult to answer, but as an indication you may use the old palm leaves libraries. There are all in India as i know.. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 12:46, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

this is such a non-starter. Here is the situation:

• "classical language" has become a political term in the RoI what with the Tamil language movement etc.
• the government decided to call languages "classical language of India" in the 2000s just to make the activists happy. If you are not an Indian policital activists of some sort, this is supremely unimportant and certainly not WP:LEAD-worthy.
• Sanskrit has a huge corpus of literature. There is a certain standard register of Sanskrit, known as Classical Sanskrit, as opposed to Vedic Sanskrit, Epic Sanskrit and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, considered "Classical" with respect to other registers of Sanskrit. This has nothing to do with the puerile "classicity" noise in Indian politics.

dab (𒁳) 13:03, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not a political language activist, but i find it's interesting stuff, that India has a category of classical languages, though. I think, you are kinda jealous, dba, cause swiss german is far from to be tagged as classical. ;-) --Thirusivaperur (talk) 14:02, 14 June 2008 (UTC) btw. we are talking about Sanskrit as a whole, not the Classical Sanskrit only. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 14:04, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I hope you are jesting (ah yes, a smiley. Well, if Switzerland should ever become a state of the RoI, I am sure the Swiss will begin to clamour for "backward caste" status and recognition of the eminent "classicity" of their various idioms immediately. Until then, I doubt they would see the point ;-) Yes, classical language of India is worth a note, but certainly not in the lead of this article (WP:LEAD). --dab (𒁳) 15:03, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand your point?! Shall we delete the complete "classical language" sentence?! --Thirusivaperur (talk) 15:46, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

my suggestion is in my edit. --dab (𒁳) 17:27, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I removed the fandom phrases. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 18:05, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

keep up your current vein of trolling, and you may find yourself "removed" sooner rather than later. You have had enough warnings on your talkpage now. --dab (𒁳) 19:02, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Please assume good faith and do not throw accusations of trolling so cavalierly. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:26, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

hah, Thirusivaperur and good faith. It was fair to AGF for that account back in March. Not now. "AGF" doesn't mean "obligation to kindly smile moronically while people insult everyone's intelligence and keep violating consensus on principle". dab (𒁳) 10:13, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I meant "form" in the last edit comment. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 19:40, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Please don't remove references & wikilink without discussing it here.-Bharatveer (talk) 05:34, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Sanskrit is Neither spoken, nor recognized in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and in the Islamic Military rule of Bangladesh. It is recognized, spoken and has influenced languages in India, Nepal, Sri-Lanka and Bhutan link.

Regardless of the pseudo-liberal vomiting above, India has always been refered to as the land with it's distinguishably distinct peoples who followed any one of the Indian Religions and who spoke Sanskrit and it's variants. These 2 attributes were tagged along with their unique identifiable culture and language. After Independence, the political entity now known as India, rightly inherited the word 'India' on account of not only it's retention and holding of the vast majority of the territory that has been called India since ages, but also the retention of the attributes that led to it's being called India, namely the Sanskrit language (and other spawned languages), and Indian religions. It's not for nothing that and Sanskrit became one of the official languages of India and Nepal. Scheduled/recognized/official all roughly mean the same here. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 06:39, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

why do you guys have to turn everything into a petty, pathetic, vitriolic political mess. British India was partitioned in 1947, we know. Try to get over it. This article is about Sanskrit, not Indian irredentist nationalisms. dab (𒁳) 10:09, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

For you and others, I've already mentioned a non-political and practical reason which (once again) is that Sanskrit is NOT a language of all of South Asia i.e. it discounts Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Now you don't have to inveigh ALL and Everything within the aegis of Indo-Aryan and non Indo-Aryan. Yes it is well known that Sanskrit is a branch of the Indo-Iranian sub-branch of Indo-European language family(ies), but that is mentioned later on. For all practical, modern and known purposes, first & foremost it is an Indian language for Indo-Aryan's sake! Later, it is an Indo-Aryan then Indo-Iranian and Indo-European and Europeo-African tongue !

The article on Latin also starts off on a similar jolt : Latin is an ancient Indo-European language.....

What's the fad with Indo-Aryan and Indo-European ? First of all mention that Latin is an ancient classical European tongue. Then go on to mention it's lesser known origin of being an Indo-European language and Indo-Alien language because what is less tangible comes later; what is more practical and what carries the bulk of history should come first. Do you DBachman, while introducing yourself say "I am of caucasian stock from Europe. I am from Deutscheland. I am German" ? Do you ? Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 12:20, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

it's just a classification. You read an article on a language, the first thing you want to know is, how is it classified. India is mentioned about five times in the lead already. dab (𒁳) 12:30, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

So the classification comes second to the existential region of belonging. The Indo-Aryan mention is placed in the 3rd sentence of the first paragraph, if so many articles like Latin, Greek and Russian deem this classification to be so important. Yet, it remains and should come after the nation/region of it's habitat.

And no, the phrase, "Classical language of India.." is not a political assertion. It is fully justified, with reasons elaborated above. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 18:44, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

nonsense. the phrase "Classical language of India" is a political assertion beginning to end. It isn't "justified" (what is a "classical language" of a country in the first place?), it's just a government fiat, dating to 2004. Do we call Latin a "classical language of Italy"? No. There is Classical Latin and Classical Sanskrit. These are classical compared to other forms of Latin or Sanskrit, they arent "classical of somewhere". dab (𒁳) 07:21, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

"Latin is a classical language of Western Europe" sounds a lot more rediculous than "...of Italy." Calling Sanskrit a classical language seems fine to me and is certainly better than "a historical language." — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:02, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Dab, don't just dabble, but study a subject in depth; otherwise you'd just be drab like you are now. You have a nominal viewpoint that you want to blow into a fact, but sorry your bubble's been burst long ago. You very well know (and if you don't, then go out and know), that the word India has been a geographical identifier of much of the region of present day modern-India. That identification came from the unique class of people whom the Persians or whoever encountered. I have already explained the reasons why the modern political entity has inherited the name.

And before you start howling for sources, I have many for you. Just refer to the sub-history or rather the chain of events that led to present day India inheriting that name from Pakistan (the Pakistani leadership wanted India to be the name of their nation).

Now German is from Germany, but is also spoken in Switzerland, Austria and parts of Poland. It is a language from all of Deutcheland, but Germany having been (and still being) the territorial chunk of that region, and the epicentre of all the evolution of German, it rightly gets to name that language after itself. That's why it's German and not Swiss or Austrian.

But unlike the wide acceptability of German in Switzerland and Austria, Sanskrit my dear fellow, is not just unrecognized in Pakistan and Bangladesh, it is seen to it officially, that all traces of anything "Hindu" or "Sanskritic" or "Indian" is disallowed there. People there probably haven't even heard of the language. That's why you cannot call it a pan-South Asian language, but just an Indian one. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 16:55, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

About "Classical". I meant it in the sense of it being age-old, and one that is given a special status because of that. Something similar to a Greek "classical" play, or Shakespearean "classic". The distinction is not between the subtler Paninian and Rig-Vedic Sanskrit. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 16:59, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Above poster: Before you go amok with your lame argument. As you wrote, “German language is from Germany and written so in Wikipedia or anywhere else is justified I agree.

Similarly Hindi is from India" and written so in Wikipedia I have no problem.

But I have huge trouble if somebody writes Latin is from Italy or from Germany because it is incorrect and similarly it is incorrect to write Sanskrit is from India. Lets not mistake between Hindi and Sanskrit

Languages like Nepali, Sinhalese,Bangali, Hindi, and other 100 of ethic languages come from Sanskrit and even Urdu is mixture of Sanskrit and Arabic only written in arabic script.

As Sanskrit has been there since ancient time so it should be written as Classical Language of South Asia. Word classical already justifies that it could be written as South Asian languages. Because When Sanskrit came in to existence none of the countries now were in existence in South Asia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jazzmand (talk • contribs) 08:52, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Sanskrit should be written as Classical language of Nepal. Clearly Nepal existed before India and it was only Hindu Kingdom till 2006. The Coat of arms of Nepal which has been there since around 1700 before India came into existance. At the base of the design a red scroll carries the national motto in Sanskrit: जननी जन्मभूमिश्च स्वर्गादपी गरीयसी (jananī janmabhūmiśca svargādapi garīyasī), which translates as "The mother and the motherland are greater than heaven."[1] And not to mention new coat of arms carries the same motto in Sanskrit.

Please refer to the history section of this article which contains a picture of an old manuscript Devi Mahatmya on palm-leaf from 11th century which is in Monastery in Nepal. This all proves that Sanskrit is a classical language of Nepal not of India in any case.

When we see on the top right of this article it says Sanskrit is spoken in India and in Nepal. Nepal exists since 1700 and India since 1947. So, it paradox to write it is a classical language of India. Anbody with Ounce of Sanity would realize that Sanskrit is not brainchild of any Indians that their name should be written ten thousand times in the article as it starts.

I don't want to edit-war here but I would like to see the first sentence changed as soon as possible.

Indians please top this argument to write Sanskrit as classical language of India?!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jazzmand (talk • contribs) 09:32, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Jazzmand, you're obviously creating a stink here. The crux of your uber-jingoistic bile has been stub bed out for good already.

Oh, and please don't swagger your silly red parchment (oh, red "scroll") and an arms coat. By the time I finish listing the number of edicts, inscriptions, and not to mentions volumes of books in Sanskrit that have been compiled in India since the past 3 millenia, his highness King Gyanendra would have forfeited all his income to Maoist taxes.

You have already given us a booming introduction about your ignorance about India and it's history, forget other subjects. Go have some candy. Pat, off you go. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 16:46, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

IAF, I'm having difficulty telling whether I agree with you or not as your personal attacks toward other editors are cluttering your prose. This behavior is unbecoming of a Wikipedia editor and confusing as well. So calm down and be civil.

This goes to everyone else as well. Let's all be nice to one another, folks. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:42, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

well IAF..i think you miss out the whole argument up there..its ain't about me or king gyanendra..its about language sanskrit. It just shows that you don't have any argument left so you are attacking me in personal level..which shows how uncivilized you are.....

guys just see sanskrit is the mother language of most of the south asian languages and it has been there since ages. How can this India as a nation which is there since just 1947 can claim to have it under its name.... just wake up... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jazzmand (talk • contribs) 15:05, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

you obviously have no idea what you are talking about. May I suggest you read the actual article? dab (𒁳) 17:55, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Mr.Mrs Dab... you are right i have not read the article about Sanskrit .. coz whole article is about India coz it starts:- Sanskrit (संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism and other Indian religions,[1] and one of the 23 scheduled languages of India.[2] It belongs to the historical Indo-Aryan family of languages.

If this place Wikipedia is to fulfill the political propaganda of a certain country and to have their name advertised on the stake of the facts then I have nothing to say. Sanskrit is spoken in Nepal and India. And it has influenced all the languages in South Asia, like Latin has its influence in most of the western European countries. It is an ancient language of south Asian civilization and it is the language of Vedas. I am from Nepal and I am Hindu just like other 89% of the folks. I am proud of my rich culture and languages. Sanskrit is an essential part of Hindu rituals that we have been performing since ages. It hurts deep in my heart to read when somebody writes Sanskrit is a classical language of India. It is the classical language of the whole region. The people who are willing to seek information here in Wikipedia have a right to know the truth the facts. Not just some propaganda. Sanskrit is classical language of South Asia!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jazzmand (talk • contribs) 07:48, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Surely Sanskrit is a language of great importance for many south asian countries, but only India has designated Sanskrit as classical language. If Nepal, Sri Lanka and all the other countries would make this decision too, you're claim would be respected. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 17:34, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Jazzmand, you have ably demonstrated that you will resort to cheap personal attacks even, only so that you can further your ultra nationalistic trash, no matter how illogical or out of facts it might be. Your claim that the "whole article is about India" is wrong, because if you read the article it is solely about Sanskrit and India is mentioned very few times. Nepal is mentioned wherever deemed appropriate.

Sanskrit developed only in the region that lies in present day India and some parts of modern Pakistan, which for all practical purposes upto 1947 was also called India. Thus, "India" as a sense not only means the modern political country of India, but also the 'larger' idea of India that this modern entity is an inheritor of.

And please don't go rambling on and on about Nepal. Do you even know that Nepal's king had offered to amalgamate Nepal into India as an Indian state in as recently as 1955 ? You might as well ahve been an Indian now and never even have posted whatever you did. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 06:50, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Edits

1. historical would mean, that the language is no more in use. False statement.
2. official status is not as same as listed in a schedule. Official status means, that a country uses it as an official language. This is not happening.
3. Paninis dating varies extremely. It's unserious to give this data in the lead.. —
4. deleted unserious claim of the age of Sanskrit itself, instead of Rigveda only. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 15:46, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, the latest version by Sindhutvavadin seems to be somehow correct. Let's discuss now on that basis. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 16:40, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

all your points have been answered above, or are satisfactorily explained in the relevant articles. Read the article on Pāṇini and check out its sources before you complain about things. Try to pull your own weight. Your claim that "most modern languages of India influenced Sanskrit" is blatant nonsense. Some medieval languages (such as medieval Persian and Tamil) may have influenced Sanskrit, but hardly "most modern languages". dab (𒁳) 17:03, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Sanskrit as GENERALISED TOPIC

For me, Sanskrit may mean a lot (like Sanskrit culture, Sanskrit language, etc). So I suggest that this topic should be moved to Sanskrit language in order for this topic to become specific. Lee Heon Jin (𒁳) —Preceding comment was added at 07:21, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

There is no such thing as a Sanskrit culture (hence the redlink). There are also no Sanskrit people or Sanskritians as one might call them. But yes "Sanskrit" on its own could still refer to a number of things, such as language, literature, grammar etc. so I support the move. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 07:32, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't support the move. "Sanskrit literature" is literature in the language known as Sanskrit and Sanskrit grammar is the grammar of the language. Sanskrit always refers to the language. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:56, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Though it's a little bit bad organized. There we have a Vedic Sanskrit article and it's also well described in this "general" Sanskrit language article. On the other hand Classical Sanskrit has no own article. Therefore this article should be a redirect to these two languages, i think. So when you write in Sanskrit, there would be two options to choose. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 17:29, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I guess there is no harm in having a Classical Sanskrit specific article. However, Sanskrit is assumed to be referring to the Classical dialect unless stated otherwise. Similarly, Classical Greek redirects to Ancient Greek but Homeric Greek (which can be likened to Vedic Sanskrit) has its own article. So either we can make a separate Classical article and convert this into an essentially comparison between the two forms of Sanskrit (and maybe others like Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit even though it is more of a Prakrit) or we keep the articles as they are and create a new article for the comparison between the different forms, perhaps called Dialects of Sanskrit. Having said that, Vedic Sanskrit currently has a section which discusses the main differences between it and the classical form. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 08:39, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I would second a split into the various Sanskrit-topics. The term Sanskrit should show the Sanskrit-topics redirection page. Greek should be also divided in the same manner. There should be extra-articles for the differences between the languages. So everything is well organized and accessable. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 19:11, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

In Sanskrit, samskrta is of course an adjective. In English however, "Sanskrit" is a noun, and refers to the language. This is en-wiki. Enough said. dab (𒁳) 20:22, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Need Sanskrit

Need Sanskrit at Ranganatha. Badagnani (talk) 01:23, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Some confusion

I have a few questions:

1. Is Classical Sanskrit and Vedic Sanskrit mutually comprehensible? The article does not explain that, rather it compares it to the difference between Homeric Greek and Classical Greek, which to me does not seem like a good idea because most people are not linguists and have no idea what the relation between the two is, and because there is no article in Wikipedia about Classical Greek, it’s Ancient Greek and talks about many dialects through a long span of time. Some clarification here can be useful.
2. I understood from this article and Vedic Sanskrit that they are not dialects of one language (as I previously thought) rather that Classical descended from Vedic, is my understanding correct?
3. I am highly confused about the time frames given. Both articles claim that the language of which the article about is attested as far as 1,500BC, if that is true then they both existed at the same time, which is contradicted by the same articles. If it is not true, I assume that Classical existed later, so when did it first exist? Just a wild guess: probably about the time of the decline of Vedic around 500BC? Can someone please confirm or correct this?
4. When did the language die out? I understand that a single date can not be given but is it not possible to give a time frame such as “between X century and Y century”? Just so that the less informed like myself will have a sort of clue.

Thanks for your help, I appreciate your hard work. --Maha Odeh (talk) 13:05, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Here's a quick historical rundown, according to my understanding.

• In the second millennium BCE Indo-Aryans move into what is now north west India, bringing their own language(s) with them. These languages are collectively known as "Old Indo-Aryan". The only Old Indo-Aryan language that has come down to us is Sanskrit, yet there must have been other forms used by the common people.
• The earliest Old Indo-Aryan texts known to us are the hymns of the RgVeda, composed in Vedic Sanskrit, dating from 1500-1300 BCE.
• Over the next thousand years or so we have other texts of a religious or ceremonial nature, showing gradual development of the language.
• Around 500 BC, "Middle Indo-Aryan" dialects/languages developed out of the Old Indo-Aryan languages/dialects, and became the vernacular speech of most of northern India. Such languages had a greatly simplified phonology, and are often referred to generically as "Prakrit".
• This means that Sanskrit was now the surviving representative of an archaic group of languages, used for religious rituals and known only by the educated elite (similar to the use of Latin in medieval Europe). Hence the "Sanskrit" ("cultured") vs. "Prakrit" ("profane") dichotomy.
• Because of the enormous religious prestige of the Vedas and later religious works, great attention was paid to the phonology and grammar of the language in which they are written. This produced a tradition of grammarians, culminating in Pāṇini (5th-3rd century BCE).
• During the time from the earliest Vedas to Pāṇini, there was of course some development in the language. This explains the point in the article about Pāṇini having to account for forms which had fallen out of use.
• The tremendous prestige of Pāṇini's grammar set the standard for future aspiring Sanskrit authors.
• Hence "Classical Sanskrit" simply means "Sanskrit conforming to the grammar of Pāṇini".
• Thus Pāṇini in effect froze the features of grammar and phonology that he outlined in his work.
• It is not entirely correct to say that "Classical Sanskrit developed from Vedic Sanskrit", because there are also regional differences between the two languages (Vedic Sanskrit represents the language of the NorthWest, while Classical Sanskrit is more Central). It would perhaps be better to say that Classical Sanskrit represents a more developed form of Old Indo-Aryan than Vedic Sanskrit.
• Authors would continue to write in Classical Sanskrit for two thousand years (although, as we have seen, it had long since ceased to be anything close to anyone's first language). The language was still allowed to develop in many ways as long as Pāṇini's rules were not violated. Thus we see the development of huge compound nouns, the preference of participles over finite verbs to express past actions, and so on. These often tracked parallel developments in the Prakrits.
• Thus, for example, Kālidāsa, generally reckoned the greatest poet of Classical Sanskrit, lived perhaps eight hundred years after Pāṇini (who codified the language in which he wrote).
• Not everyone was caught up in the prestige of Pāṇini and Classical Sanskrit. Thus we see the epics (the Ramayana and Mahabharata) written in different form of the language sometimes called "Epic Sanskrit", which includes more influences from Prakrit. We also have Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, etc.

So Classical Sanskrit, by definition, dates from the time of Pāṇini. As to when it "died out", that question is somewhat difficult to answer. Classical Sanskrit was never really a "living language" in the first place (even in Pāṇini's time the first language of the people was Prakrit). Classical Sanskrit is still used to provide neologisms for modern Indo-Aryan languages, and Sanskrit is still taught to Brahmins in order for them to recite the Vedas. There may well still be people writing plays, poems, etc. in Classical Sanskrit today for all I know.

Does this help at all? Grover cleveland (talk) 00:02, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Moved comment here from article

This comment does not seem to belong in the article for quite a few reasons:

• It makes derogatory remarks about "foreigners" (!!), accusing them, without any reference, of mispronouncing the final short vowel. (I can't resist pointing out that one could equally well accuse Hindi-speakers of mispronouncing when they omit the final short vowel altogether -- for example as as /ɕiv/ instead of /ɕivə/).
• The remaining points seem to be duplicates of information already given earlier in the article.

In the Devanagari script used for Sanskrit, whenever a consonant in a word-ending position is without any virāma (freely standing in the orthography: प as opposed to प्), the neutral vowel schwa (/ə/) is automatically associated with it—this is of course true for the consonant to be in any position in the word. Word-ending schwa is always short. But the IAST a appended to the end of masculine noun words rather confuses the foreigners to pronounce it as /ɑː/—this makes the masculine Sanskrit words sound like feminine! e.g., shiva must be pronounced as /ɕivə/ and not as /ɕivɑː/. argues that in Vedic Sanskrit, अ indicated short /ɑ/, and became centralized and raised in the era of the Prakrits.

Cheers. Grover cleveland (talk) 23:32, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Consistency (or an explanation) of the Romanization scheme here

In some places there are accents (Á) over some of the Sanskrit words. What do these mean?! These accent marks are not shown on the IAST article at Wikipedia. Are you even using IAST here? If you are, then please explain to me what these accent marks mean and why they are not shown on the IAST article. If they are not IAST, then please replace them with full IAST. YoshiroShin (talk) 20:07, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

At a quick glance I only notice the accents in the Numerals section. They are used in older Sanskrit, that is, Vedic Sanskrit. In transliteration practice various Vedic accents are used in both IAST and ISO 15919, but I do not have the knowledge to add the needed information to the IAST article. --Kess (talk) 22:38, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

we have dedicated Vedic accent article. --dab (𒁳) 11:28, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Articulation

It seems that the Sanskrit article, the Phonology section could benefit from a subsection on Articulation (s. http://sanskritdocuments.org/learning_tutorial_wikner/index.html, for example).

Or maybe a new, specific article on Sanskrit articulation.

--Klimov (talk) 16:54, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Peacock terms

There are several glorifying phrases added without ANY factual substantiation or just about anything.

• What is this nonsense about Sanskrit being spoken in Pakistan, Korea and China? There is a difference between 'spoken in' and Buddhism's 'liturgical language' being Sanskrit, influencing China. Sanskrit has NOT influenced or changed Chinese (which is Tonal in the first place), Korean (which is a language isolate) or in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Urdu is the ONLY official language and even Punjabi, Sindhi and others are only recognized languages).

• 'as the learned language'

Many more. The Wikipedia page has to only mention that Sanskrit is being revived. Please do not make use of this page to revive Sanskrit or any other agenda. Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 02:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Once again, 'spoken in' in the infobox modified since it is not 'spoken' as a liturgical language in any Buddhist areas but texts are only written. Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 01:58, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

While I agree that such statements are inaccurate and should therefore be edited out unless backed by reliable sources it seems like an overreaction to give the entire article a heading of "peacock terms". By all means highlight the relevant/offending sections and call them "peacock" if you wish but I can't see how everything else amounts to a "revival" or glorification agenda. It seems a bit unfair as I have found the article generally very informative, comprehensive in scope and mostly very neutral. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.36.248 (talk) 11:41, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

An article does not have to made up of only Peacock terms for that to be subject to this inspection. Also, informative articles can also have peacock terms used in them. So I am putting the tag back on, and I will clean up the Peacock terms if anyone is willing to help. Thanks Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 02:30, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

The article as pointed out before, in this same section, had nonsense about Sanskrit being spoke in Pakistan and all that. Neither did it have citations nor was it to provide information, just promoting a subject matter baselessly. The article has been improved slightly, however still seems to only promote the subject matter. Even normal information is being spiced up to make it look like a propaganda article. Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 02:40, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Sudarsansn, some time back there was an disconcerted, but nevertheless stormy tirade from some editors who wanted to insert the phrase that Sanskrit is a "South-Asian language". When pointed out that there is government-approved acrimony against it in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and a near concentration only in India and Nepal, they whimpered away. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 06:54, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

That is exactly what I mean by the use of peacock terms and promotion agenda, there are several such ones here. Removal of the tag is not substantiated in talk page, the reason for posting is clearly mentioned here. This might have to be taken notice of by the administrators. Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 04:23, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I see more and more edits being made to baselessly promote the subject matter, one look at the edit history of the article will make it evidently clear

• "the figurative presiding position accorded to all forms of Sanskrit" (??)
• "being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved, its oldest core dating back" (Why this extreme redundancy?)
• "and it has significantly influenced most modern"

I see only the kind of edits pointed out by User IAF above

- Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 04:36, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Sudharsansn, may I ask you to tag the offending passages with an inline {{dubious}} (or else just remove them) instead of tagging the entire article with a less than helpful {{peacock}}? answering your points:

• "the figurative presiding position accorded to all forms of Sanskrit"-- I agrse this is bs.
• "being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved, its oldest core dating back" -- this is due to the difference of Vedic Sanskrit in general and Rigvedic Sanskrit in particular. There is a millennium between the "oldest core" of Rigvedic Sanskrit and late Vedic Sanskrit, and another millennium between late Vedic Sanskrit and Kalidasa.
• "and it has significantly influenced most modern Indian languages" -- well, it has, just like Latin and Greek influenced most modern European languages.

--dab (𒁳) 08:22, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

The point is very simply this, there are too many ones, like those were the ones I saw in like one minute. There are several others, like almost every paragraph has about five or six of them. The tag is being removed because it is 'less' helpful but the point that is lost is that that is the most descriptive one to be used.

Based on your point Dbachmann, have you removed all the peacock terms and the tag in one go? Or at least, if you are interested, we, and other interested users, can clean it, giving it a time span of 2-3 days. Let me know, thanks Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 20:50, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Spoken languages

Sanskrit is NOT spoken in China, Nepal, Pakistan and other areas. It is not even spoken in India except for one hypothetical district with 3000 speakers. This was the issue raised in the Peacock terms section. Also, litturgical languages are NOT spoken languages, it is only the language in which the religious text is written.

People come here to glorify and revive Sanskrit, Wikipedia is not to be used for agenda and revival but citing information. Period. Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 02:50, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

So you don't think that in any of those areas where Sanskrit is used as a sacred language that Sanskrit is spoken at all? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 16:10, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

It is used only for religious function. So Hindu priests and gurus often chant verses in Sanskrit and read the sacred texts in Sanskrit, but I doubt they speak it generally. It would need a source if that were the case. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 07:00, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I have attended a course on spoken samkritam and have friends who went and studied the living sanskrit in the villages where it is spoken as a common language. It seems to be an old fashion to call Sanskrit 'dead' just to make it similar to Latin I guess. Wikidās ॐ 10:20, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Probably. I also watched a youtube video where there's this illiterate 6-year old girl not knowing anything about eka-vacana and bahu-vacana and obviously knowing the difference between singular and plural of Sanskrit nouns she uttered ^_^. I am really interested how far the tradition of vernacular spoken Sanskrit goes in the past: is it uninterrupted from Pāṇinian times, or just a result of subsequent cultivation of well-minded peasants by a few Brahmins that were not so obsessively possessive on "deva-bhāṣā" ? If this former is the case, then the things are radically different than in the case of Ancient Greek or Latin, who ceased to be utilized for any kind of conversation > millenium ago (even though people wrote books in them, and cherished them, but strictly as literary languages). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 15:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Sanskrit debates were a common place just 300 years back, and poetry was written and recited not long ago. There is a huge wave of interest in spoke Sanskrit in recent years. At this pace it could become more of a spoke language then Gaelic Language at present. Yes people speak Gaelic but it is in a similar state to what you have described abpve:-) still its a living language. Completely different thing is the classical Sanskrit. Since the end of 17th c classical Sanskrit is not used for public debate and thus became less of a spoken language. Before that the debate was a major cultural element almost a 'theatre' level performance and was widespread. Now only a few villages (size of Gaelchta areas) has living language. Bleeding Mogul rule. Wikidās ॐ 15:51, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

It was not just the Muslims that made spoken Sanskrit in decline. Even 1500 years, Pali and Prakrits were very common. Most Buddhist and Jain texts are in these languages, not Sanskrit. By then, only the Brahmins would have known Sanskrit. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 22:23, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

But the original purpose of this discussion was regarding countries other than India. There may be a few villages left which still speak Sanskrit in India but it is completely liturgical among other countries which used like South East Asia. So the infobox should only say "Spoken in India" unless somebody can pull out a source from somewhere. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 22:26, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

DaGizza, you are right. It is not 'spoken' anywhere else. Wikidās ॐ 20:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Sanskrit stopped being a mother-tongue before the Buddha's time. Classical Sanskrit never was. Mitsube (talk) 22:34, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

let's just say it is spoken in the Indian subcontinent. The 1947 borders are irrelevant to this. Liturgical languages aren't spoken as a first language, but they are, of course, spoken. Already, as hinted at by the term, in liturgy. --dab (𒁳) 13:06, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

We cannot just 'say' it is spoken in the subcontinent. Borders are very much relevant, how can they be redrawn to the point before 1947 just to make it sound bigger. It is marginally spoken ONLY in India, not in the Subcontinent (which includes Pakistan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Bhutan, etc). Liturgical languages may be spoken, but do not have to be spoken. Moreover, Sanskrit is used only mantras, shlokas kind of things and except for a dubious citation about some random village in Karnataka, is not spoken anywhere. Even if so, we can believe in the number cited and it has 49,000 odd speakers.

Please do Sanskrit revival elsewhere and come and write about it here, do not revive it here. Thanks Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 21:11, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

edit with care

this article is very vulnerable: It has a long history of development, and it has been contributed to by many people who actually know about the topic. Sadly, it seems to attract a lot of "improvements" on the part of editors with insufficient knowledge of the topic [1] who inexplicably are always convinced they know better. Any unilateral change of long-standing, discussed, stable content needs to be viewed with suspicion. In the light of all this, permanent semiprotection would be best. The chance of article improvement by drive-by editors adding "corrections" is negligible. --dab (𒁳) 13:01, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, but also see [2]. As far as I can see, that's an unsubstantiated POV. Sanskrit (or Classical Sanskrit) was not invented or created or defined by Panini. He wrote a grammar for it, the only extant grammar among a dozen others named by him prior to his time, see Schools of Sanskrit grammar#Preceding_Eleven_Schools. Kindly stop Mitsube from indulging in unconstructive edit-warring and POV pushing. ­ Kris (talk) 18:41, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

if this is your only concern, we can discuss the phrasing. The fact is that these "Eleven Schools" are only known via Panini. Panini's work is the oldest surviving grammar of Sanskrit. It is undisputedly true that he had predecessors, only their work has been lost. I would prefer the phrasing "as laid out by" over "as defined by" myself, but this is a detail and open to bona fide discussion.

so, would you be satisfied if we replace "as defined by Panini" by the more agnostic "as laid out by Panini"? dab (𒁳) 18:46, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

What about your ad-nauseum reverts without giving any specific reasons? ­ Kris (talk) 18:51, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes the earlier statement about Panini (before Mitsubi's revert) was good enough. ­ Kris (talk) 18:52, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

>>Any unilateral change of long-standing, discussed, stable content needs to be viewed with suspicion.<<
No, that is just your mentality. You need to see what those changes are and see what the damage (if any) is.
>>The chance of article improvement by drive-by editors adding "corrections" is negligible.<<
So I became a drive-by editor and the chances of me making any improvements is negligible, so you can flex your muscles and revert all my edits just because of your baseless suspicions? ­ Kris (talk) 18:58, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

You are acting like a drive-by editor, and you need to respect sourced material. Mitsube (talk) 19:22, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Sanskrit became a secular language of philosophy and culture after Panini. Mitsube (talk) 19:25, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah you can try pushing that POV as hard as possible, Panini was just "one" popular sanskrit grammarian, thats all. ­ Kris (talk) 19:21, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I see no replies from user:dbachmann for his article-wide reverts based only on his suspicions rather than a careful analysis on whether each of my contributions were damaging the article or helping its improvement. I dont know if that is a case of bullying members like me, together with his above interesting adjectives to describe me. ­ Kris (talk) 19:21, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

You raised a valid point. I gave you a suggestion for a compromise phrasing. Instead of reacting, you immediately take the discussion elsewhere. If you want to continue this discussion, you'll need to focus on article content, point by point. So please stop testing people's nerve and start contributing in good faith. No, Panini was not just "one" popular sanskrit grammarian, you obviously have no clue what you are talking about. Already your grammatical mistake in the diff I link to above shows that you have no detailed knowledge of the topic. So why don't you just limit yourself to constructive suggestions and stop the antagonism. dab (𒁳) 19:35, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I have enough knowledge on Panini to talk about his contribution. To modern scholarship, Panini might appear to be the most important sanskrit grammarian, only because we dont know who the others were before him. It was a long tradition of grammar, and Panini himself acknowledges that. Most of what we credit to Panini were not his inventions. Despite what you might think, Panini's grammar was descriptive (not prescriptive), and there are enough mainstream linguists who attest this view. Also what you described as a grammatical error on my part is formed by your own ignorance and prejudice. If you know better you can try finding a saMskRtA vAk anywhere, it should be saMskRta vAk, because this is convention. Under what authority do you find yourself competent to make mass reverts without analysing whether my work on the article is constructive or desructive? I have no need or intention to antagonize you, but you are trying to play the bully with me, using words like "drive-by" editor etc and making total-reverts of my work without any basis. ­ Kris (talk) 14:40, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Do you note the difference between the saṃskṛta an adjective and a noun? vāc (nom. sg. vāk) is feminine, thus the -ā in qualifying adjective.

Pāṇini (or whoever signed the works under that name, regardless of whether they were his own inventions, result of a continual refinement during the history by a number of predecessors - all of which is speculative as very little known for sure even for Pāṇini himself, let alone for his predecessors), from today's perspective, did the capital work regarding the codification of what we today refer to as "classical Sanskrit". It is likely that he described his mother tongue (hence it was descriptive, but conditionally speaking - only in synchronic context), or [more likely IMHO] the archaic Brahmin speech, but his work was prescriptive and dominating in terms of defining "proper Sanskrit" for all writers afters him. The term prescriptive refers to role of a work as defining some kind of standard language - an abstract role model one should strive to attain in his writing. The term descriptive refers to a way that e.g. grammar or dictionary is written - describing spoken language, not trying to e.g. invent words that are not spoken, but are necessary in order to describe some regular morphological process. As far as the latter point is concerned, the answer is no - Pāṇini and other grammarians invented e.g. verbal roots in order to explain etymologies for some nouns (cf. in MW dictionary notes for the roots √al, √ṇa, √dhiṣ, √naj, √nīl, √paṇḍ, √parṇ, √pal, √pall, √puṇ, √pur, √bid, √maṭh, √mark, √maṣ, √vaṭ, √śaś, √sakh, √sī, √stu, √stūp, √hal), or invented meanings or nouns themselves to account for e.g. lost or secondary meanings preserved in compounds or whatever appears to be some kind of derivation. So the terms descriptive and prescriptive are not necessarily in a collision. What must be emphasized is the absolute authority of Pāṇini's work in later times; saying that he was just "one popular Sasnskrit grammarian" would be a gross understatement of his influence. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 17:35, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I totally agree with Ivan. To say that Panini was just another grammarian is silly. Contributors whining about their edits getting reverted should STOP editing Wikipedia as it is a gradual accumulation and compilation of ideas that have come-by, and NOT 'driven-by', owing to changes made to the articles. Such contributors who crib about the authority of others should first analyze that the authority is in the existing Wikipedia standards and not in a self-proclaimed sense of 'I-know-Panini-he-was-my-neighbor' POV authority. One should stop making absolutely immature statements like 'I know Panini' (as if he were one's neighbor), 'ignorance and prejudice', etc when it is patently obvious that user Srkris is the one driving-by to drop POV parcels. Some more rewording and rephrasing needs to be done and it will be done. Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 03:06, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Comments made by user Srkris who is whining about personal attacks: "which ignoramus altered this?", "formed by your own ignorance and prejudice", "Under what authority do you find yourself competent to make mass reverts ". User: Srkris warned about personal attacks: WP:CIVIL - BE CIVIL!! - Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 03:30, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Do we need a separate main articles?

Do we need separate main articles for each of this article's sections to reduce the article's size and make it better organized and meaningful? ­ Kris (talk) 19:24, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

the article is already WP:SS. I am not sure what you are trying to achieve here. dab (𒁳) 19:32, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

We have separate article already for Vedic Sanskrit, Sanskrit grammar, Sanskrit phonology, Sanskrit revival, etc. If others sections like history grow large enough such that they they no longer adhere to WP:SS, separate article will be created for them in due course. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 23:17, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

This is clearly WP:POVFORK. A point of view (POV) fork is a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. Both content forks and POV forks are undesirable on Wikipedia, as they avoid consensus building and therefore violate one of our most important policies. Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 03:21, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

what, pray, is a pov fork? By "this", you mean this article? So what is it a cfork of? You are not making sense. dab (𒁳) 17:28, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

If you don't understand what it means, read what's in the link for anything to make sense. The idea of creating articles out of sub-sections of a bigger article to push POV is POV fork. Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 00:06, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Indian Religions and the Indian Subcontinent

Fact 1:Indian Subcontinent does NOT mean India. It includes Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Burma, Sri Lanka and Maldives. Sanskrit is NOT spoken in ANY of these countries.

Fact 2: It is NOT the liturgical language of Indian religions, which again is not Hinduism alone. It includes Ayyavazhi, Sikhism, etc. It is one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, since several core texts of even these religions are in different languages.

Do not enlarge the labels just to make it sound bigger. We cannot say that Sanskrit is spoken in the Eastern Hemisphere just to make it sound bigger and that India is in the Eastern Hemisphere. Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 03:07, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Sanskrit is almost never spoken by Buddhists. Texts written in Sanskrit are almost exclusively used in translation. Mitsube (talk) 06:55, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. Firstly, it is not 'spoken' anywhere, in the strictest sense of conversations or casual talk, except for that dubious claim about some speakers. But even the benefit of doubt can be given that such a large country may have 50,000 speakers. To extend it to a Subcontinent or say that Hindu or Buddhist Priests talk to their 'devotees' in Sanskrit is pure nonsense. As mentioned, do not inflate numbers and use of adjectives to do revival here, the POV Editors here do it elsewhere and then come and report it here. Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 10:12, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

The data on the native speakers is based on the census. while it is correct that it is spoken only in some limited areas of india, not pakistan etc:) Wikidās ॐ 10:26, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Yep, indeed. Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 20:02, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Just a minor correction, Sanskrit is partially a liturgical language in Sikhism. There are some Sanskrit verses in the SGGS. But I still agree with your general argument. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 21:29, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

The presence of some Sanskrit verses only indicates its relationship with other Dharmic religions and SGGS is written in Archaic Punjabi. Thanks for the mention though. Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 00:20, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Of course sanskrit is spoken in Nepal. We have studied the language in our primary school and we have got several governmental institutes those teach Sankrit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jazzmand (talk • contribs) 11:02, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Persistent Vandalism of Infobox contents

The "spoken in" field in the infobox of this article should specify (1) Indian Subcontinent or South Asia, and (2) Southeast Asia because Sanskrit is a historical natural language evolved from Vedic Sanskrit and was used across the Indian Subcontinent (and elsewhere, such as Gandhara, Kamboja, and South-East Asia) for significant periods of time. These places had Indianized kingdoms and are included within the term Greater India. It doesnt matter if it is not spoken or recognized as an official language anywhere today. ­ Kris (talk) 16:41, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

how about just linking Greater India? The question is rather futile, since it is a literary language not natively spoken anywhere. dab (𒁳) 17:26, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

All natural languages have to be natively spoken somewhere at some point of time. Sanskrit was spoken natively wherever it evolved into prakrits later. It also remained in use side by side with the prakrits (but was later retained as a native language only by the brahmins till the early part of the last millenium). The question here is not whether it was spoken natively or non-natively. ­ Kris (talk) 18:48, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

I would be interested to see a source on Sanskrit being a mother tongue (of any group) after 500 BCE. Mitsube (talk) 19:44, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

The infobox should specify where it is spoken today, not where it was spoken a thousand years ago. Since by that token, we should specify the language spoken in Canada as Cree, Metis and Inuit instead of English or French. This is blatant POV nonsense. Do not enlarge the labels just to make it sound bigger. We cannot say that Sanskrit is spoken in the Eastern Hemisphere just to make it sound bigger and that India is in the Eastern Hemisphere. Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 00:12, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

POV pushers may disagree, but the logic is that that for a dead language, its historical geographies make more sense than current geographies. ­ Kris (talk) 09:01, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

It is patently obvious as to who is the POV pusher here. Enlarging labels is POV, citing where it is spoken today is what is required in the Infobox. Historical geographies seem to make sense only for the POV garbage that is being pushed here. Maybe we should write Eastern Hemisphere to push more. Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 19:29, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Looks like Srkris is hellbent on enlarging the labels. He once again replaced it as Indian Subcontinent in spite of the rebuttal here and is now enlarging the Indian Religions label. Sikhism and Jainism have Sanskrit words by virtue of being Sanskrit based languages, they are NOT written in Sanskrit and their liturgical languages are NOT Sanskrit. Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 21:17, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Jainism relied on Sanskrit far less than Buddhism, see the link on my userpage. Mitsube (talk) 21:29, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Srkris in that historical geographies are more important for quasi-dead languages like Sanskrit. But that means it wasn't spoken in these countries, but just a liturgical language. The best solution would be to add a "Spoken in" and "Liturgical language" section in the infobox. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 23:30, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

How did you come to the conclusion that Sanskrit i.e Old-Indo-Aryan was never spoken?­ Kris (talk) 16:28, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Srkis is partially correct - there was a period when Sanskrit (in pre-Pāṇinean non-codified sense) was spoken vernacular, for most practical purposes Vedic Sanskrit being equal to the Late Proto-Indo-Aryan. Dialectal stratification between the western and central dialects is even discernible, even within the Ṛgveda itself! Now, to what extent exactly was the geographical distribution of spoken Vedic Sanskrit (in supra-dialectal sense) different to that of "Vedic Prākrits" (Indo-Aryan dialects ancestral to other prākrits)—I have no idea. However, dumbing down Sanskrit usage and expansion as some mere "liturgical language" in post-Vedic times would be a severe understatement and PoV, just as much as it would be to claim that Sanskrit is spoken anywhere where it's not. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 17:31, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Sanskrit was, and is, of course, spoken, but it was by definition never a vernacular. This article focusses on Classical Sanskrit. The question of dialectal traces in Vedic Sanskrit should be discussed at Vedic Sanskrit. The seminal study of this is Witzel (1989), which has been referenced there for ages, but I warn you that it is all quite speculative. It is a misleading anachronism to speak of "Sanskrit in pre-Pāṇinean non-codified sense": the proper term for this would be Old Indic. This would include the early Indo-Aryan dialects ancestral all prākrits as well as to Sanskrit proper. This is not the topic of this article. The Old Indic vernaculars of which Sanskrit was the standard register no doubt existed, but they are unattested. The surprising thing isn't that vernaculars of 1000 BC were lost -- the exceptional thing is that anything has survived. The fallacy is, of course in Srkris' "Sanskrit i.e. Old-Indo-Aryan". These aren't synonyms, even though Sanskrit is the only attested Old Indic dialect. Discussing the question of "Sanskrit as a mother tongue" is like discussing "Classical Latin as a mother tongue". Classical Latin wasn't a mother tongue, Vulgar Latin was. In contrast to Old Indic vernaculars, we have some records of Vulgar Latin, but that's the only difference.

No, Ivan, "Sanskrit usage and expansion(huh?) as some mere 'liturgical language' in post-Vedic times" is not "a severe understatement and PoV", it happens to be the definition of "Sanskrit". You keep ignoring that "Sanskrit" is short for samskrta vak, which translates to "refined speech" as opposed to mere vak "speech". Asking "is Sanskrit spoken natively" is like asking "is refined, literary English spoken natively". The answer is no, you need to get a full education before you will be able to speak it. --dab (𒁳) 18:33, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

this is relevant to this discussion, or "Persistent Vandalism of Infobox content" how? This justifies the reversion to India in the infobox how? --dab (𒁳) 19:09, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I mistook this to be also a discussion about the first line of the article. Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 19:24, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I though we were discussing also Sanskrit in a sense Vedic Sanskrit, which is here apparently treated as "Old Indic". They are not exactly two "different languages" but whatever. The infobox should then more explicitely state the difference between the classical language one had to learn and master to be proficient in (as non-mother-tongue), and the earlier spoken and closely related Old Indo-Aryan vernaculars including Vedic ones which also contribute to the corpus of Sanskrit literature, and are also covered by they term Sanskrit in a more wider sense. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:25, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Dbachmann, Classical Sanskrit is not merely Panini's dialect, but also includes the language of the whole corpus of non-vedic Sanskrit literature. Some of these (example the language of the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata) is not in Paninian Sanskrit. There are scores of other documents (like for example the Nirukta and Nighantu, which are composed in an intermediary stage between vedic and classical sanskrit. All these (after vedic but upto paninian sanskrit) are called classical sanskrit. Just as how you claim Sanskrit is not the same as Old-Indo-Aryan but just an OIA dialect, classical sanskrit is also not synonymous with Panini's dialect as represented by his grammar. Patanjali in his Mahabhasya ("great commentary" on Panini), clearly mentions that even in his time (c. 2nd BCE) there were many Brahmins who didnt need to study sanskrit to speak it perfectly as a native language, and it was clearly therefore natively spoken (albeit by a minority) even till the turn of the christian era. ­ Kris (talk) 08:13, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Font size in the "See also" section

Why is smaller font size used in the "See also" section? Normally it is just the same as other section, and I don't understand why my previous edit concerning it was reverted. Can anyone tell me the reason if there is any? Thanks for your attention. Salt (talk) 03:18, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Your edits may have been a casualty of the crossfire in the edit wars that were going on. I'll update this anyhow. Thanks. ­ Kris (talk) 08:16, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Sanskrit is spoken in Nepal as well!!!!

Whats wrong with these Indians here... what do they want to prove?! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jazzmand (talk • contribs) 11:09, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

How is it that this user is still around with all the blanking, nonsense, a ton of warnings and blocks?? Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 03:45, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I think he is blocked for good now if you check the block log. He may create sockpuppets though just to annoy us further. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 04:26, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Gizza, yes, I am waiting to see a sockpuppet pop out of nowhere now. Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 06:38, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah suckers...if somebody is questioning the authenticity of the bullshit you write here then he is the culprit... nice tradition you guys have here.. Hats off —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.33.166.40 (talk) 13:03, 26 November 2008 (UTC)