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For context of Non-Indians: though ancient, there is little evidence Sanskrit ever was a common spoken language among laymen. It was the language primarily used

For context of Non-Indians: though ancient, there is little evidence Sanskrit ever was a common spoken language among laymen. It was the language primarily used for religious purposes. It was/is a language of high culture and political elites. Coming back to the premise of the paper, the grammar of this language is declared to be sufficiently easy to disambiguify such that it's easier for computers to understand. Just to put it in context, this property is actually a part of many other languages including japanese. Pro tip: Most of japanese grammar can be covered with a handful of BNF grammar! Being an indian I know one other language spoken in the south of India that exhibits this property as well - Tamil. Equally ancient as sanskrit but widely spoken language even as of 2021. Point being, the intention of the paper, though it sounds benign, there is a political context to it which cannot be set aside completely.

Ballu 5y ago
wait.. put ref when you are saying " political context to it which cannot be set aside completely.". What political context, are you talking about. I am not linguist or AI expert. But most of your so facts are of no where related to paper as well as authenticity of the work. Check the author as well as date of the paper.
- lewisjoe 5y ago
  This paper has been repeatedly quoted by the far right of India on how one of the elitist ways of doing something is superior and ahead of time. I saw another comment here which linked to a specific instance of usage. I know the author's intention might be benign. I know the paper dates back to the 80's. But seriously, read through the paper and conclude for yourself if a similar argument can't be made for any of the hundreds of languages in existence today.
  - mistrial9 5y ago
    give credit where credit is due - the rest is bloviation, on all sides
  - zepto 5y ago
    Separately from anything else. Just because the far right quotes something does not mean that something is either wrong, or political. This is true throughout the world. Simply saying ‘the far right likes it so it is bad’, is itself a suspect claim.
KhoomeiK 5y ago
> primarily used for religious purposes *intellectual purposes. The constant religion-washing of Indian intellectual history is colonial-era propaganda, for lack of a better term. It has gone so far that now the vast majority of people think there is nothing more to India's intellectual past than Hinduism. A very substantive portion of Sanskrit literature, if not the majority, deals with non-religious topics such as linguistics, logic, poetics, astronomy, rhetoric, mineralogy, statecraft, geography, and more. I agree with your main point though.
- jimsimmons 5y ago
  Nothing to do with colonialism. Present day right wing will characterize Sanskrit as word of God
  - bergerjac 5y ago
    Just because people are perceiving the "present day right wing [characterizing] Sanskrit", doesn't mean that everyone interprets & connects that with Sanskrit. I engage with the language through Yoga, mantras and chanting,… and zero politicians interrupt that process, nor do I think about them. Sanskrit has lived even before humans invented the idea of "the right wing".
    - jimsimmons 5y ago
      None of what you describe is actually engaging with language. Politicians don’t have to interrupt. They just have to make it a part of their agenda and spread fake pride to the masses. It’s better than opium.
- amznbyebyebye 5y ago
  Thank you for this comment. So true. The colonialists came with their world view, made the Indians feel inferior to subjugate them. Indians in turn have fetishized this colonial view and have self hated on their own culture as a result, to the delight and as intended by colonialists. Part of this self hate is this conflagration of Sanskrit with Hinduism, and while the two were closely related, there is such a rich intellectual culture of Indian thought (Both Sanskrit and non Sanskrit thought) that can be appreciated while still being “modern”, let’s call it. I really wish more Indians would understand this.
mediterrenean 5y ago
Interestingly anything Indian mentioned in this forum most of the time sounds chauvinistic to me. Not this comment itself but the point it makes at the end says what I mean. There’s this effort trying to appear distinguished.
- jimsimmons 5y ago
  Indian right wing is a formidable force. They have a deep sense of entitlement and more than that a deep sense of resentment towards the west. You’ll see artifacts of them coping, gerrymandering and twisting reality to serve ideological purposes. The current government is particularly interested in “pride” more than any modern democracy
  - srean 5y ago
    We are going through something akin to the KKK era of the South - protecting the culture and all that. How and to what extent this gets settled would have immense significance.
aatharuv 5y ago
For context of non-Indians and Indians: Sanskrit is used to refer to several different languages. It's often ambiguous which one people are referring to when they say Sanskrit. Classical Sanskrit is the only one which wasn't spoken as a common language. Classical Sanskrit -- the language codified by amongst other Panini, around the 5th century BC, which was used for religious and secular purposes for high culture and amongst the political elites. At this time, some of the other languages now called Sanskrit had turned into the "Middle Indo-Aryan languages", including Pali, and the Prakrits, whose descendents now include the modern Indo-Aryan languages of northern India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Vedic Sanskrit -- the language of the Vedas (1700BC-600BC, approximately), believed in its earliest forms to be the common languages which then became some of the modern north Indian languages. Classical Sanskrit is a codification of Vedic Sanskrit. Broadly -- any Old Indo-Aryan language, including the pieces of Mitanni Aryan attested in inscriptions in northern Iraq/Syria/Turkey embedded in other language texts including Kikkuli's Horse training manual (mostly in Hittite, except where he uses "Mitanni Aryan" words in glosses and defines them), and king names in the Hurrian language, which are meaningful when interpreted as Sanskrit.
- jimsimmons 5y ago
  > its earliest forms to be the common languages which then became some of the modern north Indian languages. Baseless claim. Sanskrit is not a special ancestor to North Indian languages and there’s nothing that separates North Indian languages from southern ones. Tamil has far more influence on northern Indian languages and other Indian languages including Sanskrit than Sanskrit.
  - govg 5y ago
    What do you mean by "there's nothing that separates North Indian languages from southern ones"? They're from two distinct language families, aren't they?
    - jimsimmons 5y ago
      Based on what? You can’t just say so because of geographic or racial reasons.
bravenous 5y ago
Making sweeping false statements without proof or facts. Massive literature (Vedas,Upnishads, yoga, Ayurveda, shavite mediations texts) all were spoken & orally taught till foreign invasions around 1000 AD. The language was part of day to day village culture till India started breaking. BNF form and Chomsky work was greatly influenced by Panini Grammar Asthadays. It is different matter Chomsky does not acknowledge it while his professors do as to the source of influence on their work. Tamil derived from Sanskrit as is Malayalam & Kannadiga and countless other Indian languages. So are many words in German, English and central European languages derived from Sanskrit Dhatus(root words). All words in Sanskrit come from this corpus of 2200 root words and new compound words created using these. Now that is the beauty of Sanskrit. Panini Ashtadaya ought to be read by any serious linguist or CS person trying to built a DSL or a new programming language.
- jimsimmons 5y ago
  > Tamil derived from Sanskrit as is Malayalam & Kannadiga and countless other Indian languages. False. Dravidian languages were likely part of Indus Valley civilization. They were the original Indian languages. In fact Tamil doesn’t even have many borrowed words from Sanskrit Sanskrit was never commonly spoken. Panini himself understands this and created Sanskrit grammar for fast transmission and not easy conversation. It’s not clear if Sanskrit was ever used conversationally. Even today, in Mattur, where everyone uses Sanskrit, it’s not the conversational language. It’s reserved for special occasions and teaching. Decline of Sanskrit has nothing to do with foreign invasions. They never invaded or ruled over south India for long. Hinduism thrived with Shankaracharya, Ramanuja, Bhakthi movement etc in the South. North Indians have no one else but themselves to blame for the loss of their culture. Have you read Ashtadyayi? It’s a genius piece of work but won’t help you zilch in practice. Also learn the name of the scripture properly before you falsely profess random crap to stroke your ego.
  - bravenous 5y ago
    Anybody who has studied Sanskrit & Tamil notices tremendous similarity. Even the sounds and letters 90% overlap. Both Kannadiga & Malayalee agree Sanskrit is the mother language but not missionary funded Tamil political class. You can’t have it both ways. One side you push the Dravidian supremacist mindset but then claim to be part of the Northern Indus/Saraswati valley civilisation. Indian used to be contiguous land mass, one time all the way to Bali and up to Volga river - king Lalitaditya including Gandhar(Kandhar, AFghanistan.) I don)t believe in North & South Indian rhetoric - colonial trope popular with Christian missionaries. Not only I have read Ashtaadayi but used it’s principles to build a DSL. Sanskrit was designed for compactness and ease of remembrance, does not rule it out for speaking. I live near Asharams where they speak Sanskrit even today. This Himalayan Ashram is nearly 300 years old. You keep making false, vague and generalised self serving statements as if you lived and spoken Sanskrit for 100 years. The corpus of Sanskrit literature exposes your “zilch” mindset. So tell me few phonetic sounds which exists in Tamil but not in Sanskrit & ones which exist both in Sanskrit and Tamil ? That will set the record straight for the audience without you trying to bamboozle us with political rhetoric.
pattisapu 5y ago
Sanskritist and linguist here. Many discussions of Sanskrit outside the world of linguistics devolve into politics ... the discoveries of the Indians are what they are, just like the discoveries of the Greeks are what they are ... "but what about caste oppression" reminds me a bit of the "math is racist" wackos in the US lately.

Ballu 5y ago

wait.. put ref when you are saying " political context to it which cannot be set aside completely.". What political context, are you talking about. I am not linguist or AI expert. But most of your so facts are of no where related to paper as well as authenticity of the work. Check the author as well as date of the paper.

lewisjoe 5y ago
This paper has been repeatedly quoted by the far right of India on how one of the elitist ways of doing something is superior and ahead of time. I saw another comment here which linked to a specific instance of usage. I know the author's intention might be benign. I know the paper dates back to the 80's. But seriously, read through the paper and conclude for yourself if a similar argument can't be made for any of the hundreds of languages in existence today.
- mistrial9 5y ago
  give credit where credit is due - the rest is bloviation, on all sides
- zepto 5y ago
  Separately from anything else. Just because the far right quotes something does not mean that something is either wrong, or political. This is true throughout the world. Simply saying ‘the far right likes it so it is bad’, is itself a suspect claim.

KhoomeiK 5y ago

> primarily used for religious purposes *intellectual purposes. The constant religion-washing of Indian intellectual history is colonial-era propaganda, for lack of a better term. It has gone so far that now the vast majority of people think there is nothing more to India's intellectual past than Hinduism. A very substantive portion of Sanskrit literature, if not the majority, deals with non-religious topics such as linguistics, logic, poetics, astronomy, rhetoric, mineralogy, statecraft, geography, and more. I agree with your main point though.

jimsimmons 5y ago
Nothing to do with colonialism. Present day right wing will characterize Sanskrit as word of God
- bergerjac 5y ago
  Just because people are perceiving the "present day right wing [characterizing] Sanskrit", doesn't mean that everyone interprets & connects that with Sanskrit. I engage with the language through Yoga, mantras and chanting,… and zero politicians interrupt that process, nor do I think about them. Sanskrit has lived even before humans invented the idea of "the right wing".
  - jimsimmons 5y ago
    None of what you describe is actually engaging with language. Politicians don’t have to interrupt. They just have to make it a part of their agenda and spread fake pride to the masses. It’s better than opium.
amznbyebyebye 5y ago
Thank you for this comment. So true. The colonialists came with their world view, made the Indians feel inferior to subjugate them. Indians in turn have fetishized this colonial view and have self hated on their own culture as a result, to the delight and as intended by colonialists. Part of this self hate is this conflagration of Sanskrit with Hinduism, and while the two were closely related, there is such a rich intellectual culture of Indian thought (Both Sanskrit and non Sanskrit thought) that can be appreciated while still being “modern”, let’s call it. I really wish more Indians would understand this.

mediterrenean 5y ago

Interestingly anything Indian mentioned in this forum most of the time sounds chauvinistic to me. Not this comment itself but the point it makes at the end says what I mean. There’s this effort trying to appear distinguished.

jimsimmons 5y ago
Indian right wing is a formidable force. They have a deep sense of entitlement and more than that a deep sense of resentment towards the west. You’ll see artifacts of them coping, gerrymandering and twisting reality to serve ideological purposes. The current government is particularly interested in “pride” more than any modern democracy
- srean 5y ago
  We are going through something akin to the KKK era of the South - protecting the culture and all that. How and to what extent this gets settled would have immense significance.

aatharuv 5y ago

For context of non-Indians and Indians: Sanskrit is used to refer to several different languages. It's often ambiguous which one people are referring to when they say Sanskrit. Classical Sanskrit is the only one which wasn't spoken as a common language. Classical Sanskrit -- the language codified by amongst other Panini, around the 5th century BC, which was used for religious and secular purposes for high culture and amongst the political elites. At this time, some of the other languages now called Sanskrit had turned into the "Middle Indo-Aryan languages", including Pali, and the Prakrits, whose descendents now include the modern Indo-Aryan languages of northern India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Vedic Sanskrit -- the language of the Vedas (1700BC-600BC, approximately), believed in its earliest forms to be the common languages which then became some of the modern north Indian languages. Classical Sanskrit is a codification of Vedic Sanskrit. Broadly -- any Old Indo-Aryan language, including the pieces of Mitanni Aryan attested in inscriptions in northern Iraq/Syria/Turkey embedded in other language texts including Kikkuli's Horse training manual (mostly in Hittite, except where he uses "Mitanni Aryan" words in glosses and defines them), and king names in the Hurrian language, which are meaningful when interpreted as Sanskrit.

jimsimmons 5y ago
> its earliest forms to be the common languages which then became some of the modern north Indian languages. Baseless claim. Sanskrit is not a special ancestor to North Indian languages and there’s nothing that separates North Indian languages from southern ones. Tamil has far more influence on northern Indian languages and other Indian languages including Sanskrit than Sanskrit.
- govg 5y ago
  What do you mean by "there's nothing that separates North Indian languages from southern ones"? They're from two distinct language families, aren't they?
  - jimsimmons 5y ago
    Based on what? You can’t just say so because of geographic or racial reasons.

bravenous 5y ago

Making sweeping false statements without proof or facts. Massive literature (Vedas,Upnishads, yoga, Ayurveda, shavite mediations texts) all were spoken & orally taught till foreign invasions around 1000 AD. The language was part of day to day village culture till India started breaking. BNF form and Chomsky work was greatly influenced by Panini Grammar Asthadays. It is different matter Chomsky does not acknowledge it while his professors do as to the source of influence on their work. Tamil derived from Sanskrit as is Malayalam & Kannadiga and countless other Indian languages. So are many words in German, English and central European languages derived from Sanskrit Dhatus(root words). All words in Sanskrit come from this corpus of 2200 root words and new compound words created using these. Now that is the beauty of Sanskrit. Panini Ashtadaya ought to be read by any serious linguist or CS person trying to built a DSL or a new programming language.

jimsimmons 5y ago
> Tamil derived from Sanskrit as is Malayalam & Kannadiga and countless other Indian languages. False. Dravidian languages were likely part of Indus Valley civilization. They were the original Indian languages. In fact Tamil doesn’t even have many borrowed words from Sanskrit Sanskrit was never commonly spoken. Panini himself understands this and created Sanskrit grammar for fast transmission and not easy conversation. It’s not clear if Sanskrit was ever used conversationally. Even today, in Mattur, where everyone uses Sanskrit, it’s not the conversational language. It’s reserved for special occasions and teaching. Decline of Sanskrit has nothing to do with foreign invasions. They never invaded or ruled over south India for long. Hinduism thrived with Shankaracharya, Ramanuja, Bhakthi movement etc in the South. North Indians have no one else but themselves to blame for the loss of their culture. Have you read Ashtadyayi? It’s a genius piece of work but won’t help you zilch in practice. Also learn the name of the scripture properly before you falsely profess random crap to stroke your ego.
- bravenous 5y ago
  Anybody who has studied Sanskrit & Tamil notices tremendous similarity. Even the sounds and letters 90% overlap. Both Kannadiga & Malayalee agree Sanskrit is the mother language but not missionary funded Tamil political class. You can’t have it both ways. One side you push the Dravidian supremacist mindset but then claim to be part of the Northern Indus/Saraswati valley civilisation. Indian used to be contiguous land mass, one time all the way to Bali and up to Volga river - king Lalitaditya including Gandhar(Kandhar, AFghanistan.) I don)t believe in North & South Indian rhetoric - colonial trope popular with Christian missionaries. Not only I have read Ashtaadayi but used it’s principles to build a DSL. Sanskrit was designed for compactness and ease of remembrance, does not rule it out for speaking. I live near Asharams where they speak Sanskrit even today. This Himalayan Ashram is nearly 300 years old. You keep making false, vague and generalised self serving statements as if you lived and spoken Sanskrit for 100 years. The corpus of Sanskrit literature exposes your “zilch” mindset. So tell me few phonetic sounds which exists in Tamil but not in Sanskrit & ones which exist both in Sanskrit and Tamil ? That will set the record straight for the audience without you trying to bamboozle us with political rhetoric.

pattisapu 5y ago

Sanskritist and linguist here. Many discussions of Sanskrit outside the world of linguistics devolve into politics ... the discoveries of the Indians are what they are, just like the discoveries of the Greeks are what they are ... "but what about caste oppression" reminds me a bit of the "math is racist" wackos in the US lately.