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Sanskrit echoes around the world
Christian Science Monitor ^ | July 5, 2007 | Vijaysree Venkatraman

Posted on 07/06/2007 12:18:56 AM PDT by Lorianne

The rise of India's economy has brought an eagerness to learn the ancient 'language of the gods' – and a great-great aunt to English. ___ Deep inside the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on a Wednesday evening recently, a class of about a dozen students were speaking an arcane ancient tongue.

"It is time for exams, and I play every day," says one.

"Perhaps, you should study, too," counters another at the conversation table. The others laugh.

No, this isn't Latin 101 – that would be easy. This is Sanskrit, a classical language that is the Indian equivalent of ancient Greek or Latin.

Today, spoken Sanskrit is enjoying a revival – both in India and among Indian expatriates in the United States. There is even evidence of Sanskrit emerging in American popular culture as more and more people roll out yoga mats at the local gym and greet one another with "Namaste."

(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...


TOPICS: Books/Literature; History
KEYWORDS: epigraphy; epigraphyandlanguage; godsgravesglyphs; history; india; indoeuropean; language; sanskrit
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To: Gengis Khan
From Iceland to India, we’re all Caucasians...
21 posted on 07/06/2007 4:13:57 PM PDT by null and void (A large gov't agency is more expensive than a smaller agency with the same mission, yet does less)
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To: Allan

Sanskrit. MIT.


22 posted on 07/06/2007 4:25:40 PM PDT by ARridgerunner (Ron Paul)
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To: null and void

Thats true, Aryans were probably a branch of the Caucasians.
I am very fascinated by the linguistic history. I wonder what the first Proto-Indo-European language was and what it sounded like. Probably Celtic, Latvian, Armenian and Sanskrit are the closest surviving relatives. I wonder if we can ever reconstruct the Proto-Indo-European language and find out what it may have sounded like.


23 posted on 07/06/2007 5:21:17 PM PDT by Gengis Khan
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To: Gengis Khan
Linguistic relics linger in mountains.
24 posted on 07/06/2007 6:50:02 PM PDT by null and void (A large gov't agency is more expensive than a smaller agency with the same mission, yet does less)
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To: null and void

A friend of mine insists that Sanscrit is the basis for the Lithuanian language.


25 posted on 07/06/2007 8:00:56 PM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
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To: afraidfortherepublic
Sanscrit is the basis for the Lithuanian language.

Comments?

26 posted on 07/06/2007 8:24:10 PM PDT by null and void (A large gov't agency is more expensive than a smaller agency with the same mission, yet does less)
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To: afraidfortherepublic; null and void

I doubt it is the basis for it, but it is quite clear that both had a common ancestor, Sanskrit only seeming like the basis for Lithuanian, and others, because the language has been largely unchanged ever since its grammatical rules were tables millenia ago. Lithuanian might have been more fluid in its development, and thus, making it seem like it was/is a derivative of Sanskrit.

Atleast, that’s what I think.


27 posted on 07/06/2007 8:49:41 PM PDT by CarrotAndStick (The articles posted by me needn't necessarily reflect my opinion.)
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To: SunkenCiv
Interesting topic. A few weeks ago I heard a couple of kids being interviewed on a radio program. They were the singers for a group called "Shanti Shanti". They are a couple of american girls who sing sanskrit. Ya, Weird. It's really cool sounding stuff. There are samples on their site, and they are well worth a listen to.

They also do Gregorian chants, but I like Anonymous 4 better for that.  

28 posted on 07/06/2007 10:58:05 PM PDT by zeugma (Don't Want illegal Alien Amnesty? Call 800-417-7666)
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To: zeugma

Thanks! I’m a big fan of Anonymous 4; years ago I also liked Miranda Sex Garden, not sure if they’re around still. Folger Consort, Boston Camerata, Antoine Brumel...


29 posted on 07/06/2007 11:09:34 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (This tagline optimized for the Mosaic browser. Profile updated Friday, July 6, 2007.)
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To: CarrotAndStick

Don’t try to tell that to a Lithuanian! LOL. They are proud of their language and they believe that it is a deriviative of Sanskrit. I do not have the expertise to argue it one way or another, although I’ve read the same thing in the encyclopedia. I’ve always wondered how two such disparate parts of the world could have the same language.


30 posted on 07/07/2007 7:29:19 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
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To: afraidfortherepublic

They are proud that it was derived from a faraway language?

I didn’t know they admired Sanskrit... I was aware of there being a general academic interest in Sanskrit across Europe, and I was thinking it was left at just that.

I was only trying to imply that Lithuanian has likely had its own rich heritage, not necessarily tied down to Sanskrit.


31 posted on 07/07/2007 8:56:55 AM PDT by CarrotAndStick (The articles posted by me needn't necessarily reflect my opinion.)
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To: SunkenCiv
Thanks! I’m a big fan of Anonymous 4;

Why am I not surprised? :-)

First time I heard Anonymous 4, I was driving across country, and was listening to a PBS station in MS. They had an interview with the group and played some of the music from 11,000 Virgins. It knocked my socks off. I actually had to pull off the road so I could listen to it without distractions. Great stuff.

32 posted on 07/07/2007 12:46:33 PM PDT by zeugma (Don't Want illegal Alien Amnesty? Call 800-417-7666)
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To: CarrotAndStick

Well, I’m really just reflecting my Lithuanian friend’s opinion and that of his family. I know a Latvian too (both of these men work for me) and there is great friendly rivalry between the two cultures. The Lithuanian assures me that their language is the more pure of the two, although they share some words.


33 posted on 07/07/2007 1:43:03 PM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
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To: SunkenCiv

I cant help but notice, that Russian is written as “GREAT RUSSIAN” in that language tree. Is that intentional ?


34 posted on 07/07/2007 9:56:09 PM PDT by design engineer
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To: design engineer

By the standards prevalent in 19th-century Imperial Russia, many scholars did not distinguish between the Eastern Slavic languages spoken within the borders of the Russian Empire. The Eastern Slavic languages were claimed to be mutually intelligible, a position which has been called into question since. Great Russian, Little Russian (Ukrainian), and White Russian (Belarusian) were considered to be three dialects within the Russian language.

The name itself comes from the word Velikorossiya, or Russia Major, the term used in the Byzantine Empire and Russian Empire to distinguish the Russia proper from Malorossiya (Little Russia, now Ukraine) and Belorussia (White Russia, now Belarus).

The Great Russian, or just Russian, language was formed in the Late Middle Ages in the northern Russian principalities under heavy influence of Church Slavonic language. As compared to the Great Russian, other Eastern Slavonic languages were termed one-dimensional, because they lacked the stratum of high speech, derived from the Church Slavonic. For political reasons, the literary Russian language evolved under the significant influence of the Moscow dialect.


35 posted on 07/07/2007 11:03:01 PM PDT by CarrotAndStick (The articles posted by me needn't necessarily reflect my opinion.)
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To: CarrotAndStick

wow.. you seem to know a lot about Russian history.


36 posted on 07/08/2007 12:30:28 PM PDT by design engineer
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To: design engineer; CarrotAndStick

That’s to differentiate it from “Not-so-great Russian”, which is spoken on the wrong side of the beet field.

ba-dom-domp!

Aren’t you glad you got the real explanation first? ;’)

Thanks CarrotAndStick.


37 posted on 07/08/2007 1:02:36 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (This tagline optimized for the Mosaic browser. Profile updated Friday, July 6, 2007.)
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To: design engineer

Oops, not me, Wiki does. ;^)


38 posted on 07/08/2007 8:00:07 PM PDT by CarrotAndStick (The articles posted by me needn't necessarily reflect my opinion.)
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To: null and void

Not quite. Many of the folks on the North Coast of Eurasia are more properly NOT Caucausions ~


39 posted on 07/23/2007 3:50:07 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: afraidfortherepublic; null and void
More likely both languages are creoles that draw heavily on the same constituant base languages.

Ever try to dig your way through the Conjugations in Lithuanian? It's just about the nastiest piece of work I've ever encountered ~ except for Sanskrit.

Latin and Greek are both well-worked and developed languages that have shed, or assimilated, the earlier roots to a far greater degree.

English and Chinese, of course, are at the other end of the totem pole and they've absorbed all of their roots.

There are really no good, consistent explanations for why some languages work their way rapidly toward regularity and why others hang on to every old piece of grammar ever encountered. Perversity maybe?

40 posted on 07/23/2007 3:55:12 PM PDT by muawiyah
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