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>I'm curious whether there are any other languages that are naturally "punny". I never thought of this before, although I know some Sanskrit (having learned it
by vram22 9y ago
>I'm curious whether there are any other languages that are naturally "punny".
I never thought of this before, although I know some Sanskrit (having learned it for some years in school) - but due to its overall design and the fact that words can be built up from other words, and also due to many short words having potentially many meanings (and hence longer words built up from short words, even more so), I think there is probably a lot of scope in Sanskrit for punning. Sanskrit poetry probably has a lot of it, but likely prose too. A very rich and enjoyable language to study, even just for its own sake, i.e. even if you are not studying it in order to understand Indian philosophies, yoga, etc.
- jaldhar 9y agoI don't think puns so much but Sanskrit is the world champion of double entendres. Like one poem which can be read as a praise of ascetism or a description of an adulterous love affair. Or the one which if read forwards tells the story of the Ramayana and in reverse the Mahabharata.
- vram22 9y agoNever heard of that last one, sounds amazing.
- svat 9y agoYes, puns are called śleṣa (shlesha, श्लेष) in Sanskrit poetry. (For a bit more, you can search under those two spellings, make sure to search the first two pages and also Google Books.) There are even entire long poems that are a “pun” — they tell two stories, depending on how you read each verse. Yigal Bronner has written a book about these: > Extreme Poetry - The South Asian Movement of Simultaneous Narration (2010) though the book is a bit lighter on examples and heavier on theorizing (the price of academia) than I'd like.
- vram22 9y agoInteresting, will check that out.