3 ms·

The link "which claims that one of the great attributes of Sanskrit is that the same sentence can have two or more completely different meanings" explains clear

The link "which claims that one of the great attributes of Sanskrit is that the same sentence can have two or more completely different meanings" explains clearly how this happens. Names in Sanskrit are simply descriptive attributes. Things traditionally have many names (which are simply descriptions of different aspects) but that seems unimportant in this context. I don't see how that interferes with it being used as a programming language, although it doesn't seem particularly useful for the AI problems it was proposed for. There is also no need to carry over the tradition of referring to the same thing with different descriptions in a programming context. It seems kinda neat that every name is necessarily descriptive as well. Am I missing something, perhaps the ambiguity goes deeper than that?

Florin_Andrei 9y ago
It's a language with a long cultured tradition, that was formalized very early on. Of course that early formalization would have an impact, that's what you would expect. The many layers of meanings is again what you would expect to emerge after a long history of entangling various fields of knowledge, such as philosophy, history, theology, etc, in a dense web with language at its core seen as a primary tool of exploration in these fields (their metaphysics postulated that words have "power" in and of themselves, so language automatically acquired very high status). Some of these developments are also seen in Europe historically, but not to the same extent. Probably because there was no single unifying language there to play that role (Latin did play that role, but too briefly, and there was no continuity on that level between the ancient Greek tradition and the latinizing Middle Ages - while the whole eastern half of that cultural ecosystem skewed towards a Slavic lingua franca, and even then mostly for religious purposes).
- freshhawk 9y ago
  The ability to compose sentences with multiple correct and interrelated meanings made me want to learn it. That sounds fascinating and beautiful, the best possible language for poetry.
- ganfortran 9y ago
  But computers hate ambiguity.
  - Florin_Andrei 9y ago
    Which is why the whole "computer language" meme is probably bullshit. It's definitely good for poetry, however.
  - freshhawk 9y ago
    But as I understand it the ambiguity is not in the grammar, but only related to the high prevalence of homonyms.

Florin_Andrei 9y ago

It's a language with a long cultured tradition, that was formalized very early on. Of course that early formalization would have an impact, that's what you would expect. The many layers of meanings is again what you would expect to emerge after a long history of entangling various fields of knowledge, such as philosophy, history, theology, etc, in a dense web with language at its core seen as a primary tool of exploration in these fields (their metaphysics postulated that words have "power" in and of themselves, so language automatically acquired very high status). Some of these developments are also seen in Europe historically, but not to the same extent. Probably because there was no single unifying language there to play that role (Latin did play that role, but too briefly, and there was no continuity on that level between the ancient Greek tradition and the latinizing Middle Ages - while the whole eastern half of that cultural ecosystem skewed towards a Slavic lingua franca, and even then mostly for religious purposes).

freshhawk 9y ago
The ability to compose sentences with multiple correct and interrelated meanings made me want to learn it. That sounds fascinating and beautiful, the best possible language for poetry.
ganfortran 9y ago
But computers hate ambiguity.
- Florin_Andrei 9y ago
  Which is why the whole "computer language" meme is probably bullshit. It's definitely good for poetry, however.
- freshhawk 9y ago
  But as I understand it the ambiguity is not in the grammar, but only related to the high prevalence of homonyms.