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When in India I was told there are even some rare families still raising their children with Sanskrit as their primary language. I think this spoken Sanskrit is

When in India I was told there are even some rare families still raising their children with Sanskrit as their primary language. I think this spoken Sanskrit is however a bit different from the written version which might mirror Latin that might also have had a spoken and written version (and the former is dead). Small remarks: * I found the description on the 'drum' pattern difficult to understand, that might be a word understood in a particular way in your culture/region? * The introduction mentions the verse that can mean both apology or declaration of war, would be great to have this mentioned/translated too as one of the examples. Thanks for an interesting article!

svat 6y ago
You're welcome! * For Latin, Wikipedia gives a list of “ages” (Old Latin, Classical Latin, Late Latin, Medieval Latin, Renaissance Latin, New Latin, Contemporary Latin), with "Vulgar Latin" (Latin as spoken by the common non-elite people) and Ecclesiastical Latin (Latin as used in the Church) on the side. The main point is that, when Latin was still a spoken language within living memory, the speech of the people had already started to diverge, and that is Vulgar Latin. But when say Newton or Gauss or Erasmus or Spinoza wrote in Latin, or when George I spoke in Latin to his prime minister Robert Walpole (according to Wikipedia), they were using not Vulgar Latin but "correct" Latin; they had just learned it as part of their education. In a parallel to that, "spoken Sanskrit" of the common people evolved into various Prakrit languages and into many modern Indian languages, just as Latin evolved into the Romance languages. But the families where Sanskrit is spoken (usually as just one language among many) all involve "correct" Sanskrit; it's just that the parents have learned it and teach it to their children. * Yes the "drum" pattern does not look like a drum to me either; it's just what the constraint is called :-) It's based on the strings around a certain kind of drum (possibly mṛdanga = mridangam); I've uploaded a few illustrations here https://imgur.com/a/8c6Sxet https://imgur.com/a/8c6Sxet — they're from books/blogs; will try uploading one of them to Wikipedia under a fair-use license. * About the chapter with two meanings: I didn't have a reference then, but I found one now and have added an example to the article! https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shishupala_Vadha&oldid=957269864#Linguistic_ingenuity https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shishupala_Vadha&...

svat 6y ago

You're welcome! * For Latin, Wikipedia gives a list of “ages” (Old Latin, Classical Latin, Late Latin, Medieval Latin, Renaissance Latin, New Latin, Contemporary Latin), with "Vulgar Latin" (Latin as spoken by the common non-elite people) and Ecclesiastical Latin (Latin as used in the Church) on the side. The main point is that, when Latin was still a spoken language within living memory, the speech of the people had already started to diverge, and that is Vulgar Latin. But when say Newton or Gauss or Erasmus or Spinoza wrote in Latin, or when George I spoke in Latin to his prime minister Robert Walpole (according to Wikipedia), they were using not Vulgar Latin but "correct" Latin; they had just learned it as part of their education. In a parallel to that, "spoken Sanskrit" of the common people evolved into various Prakrit languages and into many modern Indian languages, just as Latin evolved into the Romance languages. But the families where Sanskrit is spoken (usually as just one language among many) all involve "correct" Sanskrit; it's just that the parents have learned it and teach it to their children. * Yes the "drum" pattern does not look like a drum to me either; it's just what the constraint is called :-) It's based on the strings around a certain kind of drum (possibly mṛdanga = mridangam); I've uploaded a few illustrations here https://imgur.com/a/8c6Sxet https://imgur.com/a/8c6Sxet — they're from books/blogs; will try uploading one of them to Wikipedia under a fair-use license. * About the chapter with two meanings: I didn't have a reference then, but I found one now and have added an example to the article! https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shishupala_Vadha&oldid=957269864#Linguistic_ingenuity https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shishupala_Vadha&...