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I understand it comes across as jingoistic, but truly Sanskrit grammar and pronunciation hasn’t changed since Pānini. The word Sanskrit itself means “constructe
by FlyingSnake 5y ago
I understand it comes across as jingoistic, but truly Sanskrit grammar and pronunciation hasn’t changed since Pānini. The word Sanskrit itself means “constructed” and there was a rigorous effort to prevent ambiguity.
- fooker 5y agoGrammar hasn't. Pronunciation has, a lot.
- gpraghu 5y agoYou are almost completely wrong. How do you account for the precision of Panini as the previous commenter pointed out? How do you know to postulate that? There is NO other formalized grammar akin to Panini, so don’t judge Samskruta by other so called Indo European standards!
- hawk_ 5y agothere are no recordings from panini's times and panini's texts pertain to grammar. they don't prescribe pronunciation - like precise position of tongue lips etc...
- ummonk 5y agoWhat are you talking about? Panini did detail the pronunciation of each character. And the actual pronunciation (i.e. accounting for things like assimilation) is then encoded in the writing via Sandhi. Likewise, we have older information on pronunciation as well in the Pratishakhyas. Ancient Indians cared a lot about accurate pronunciation, especially for mantras where the thinking was that without correct pronunciation, the mantra would not work. Picture the Harry Potter "wingardium leviosa" scene. Modern don’t actually hew to the prescribed pronunciation for certain letters, but it’s certainly specified by Panini.
- prox 5y agoThat’s actually the first thing you learn and it’s quite rigorous where to vocalize and how.
- fooker 5y agoYeah, and it differs based on where you're from!
- gpraghu 5y agoIt is NOT Sanskrit, which was foisted on the world by the british. Please be respectful and call it by it real name, given by Panini which literally codified and formalized it.
- fooker 5y agoMaybe if more people learnt the language instead of crusading on about it's supposed heritage, it would have been the official language of India.