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Third opinion

In this case, the main argument is about (correct me if I'm wrong) about whether information about Sanskrit being an Indo-Aryan language and about whether liturgical and classical uses should be included. My opinion is that the lead paragraph is meant to portray the overall importance of the article in question. Thus, there should be something to be said about how Sanskrit is used. If you take a look at Latin, for example, or Ancient Greek, both classical languages, there's something to be said about the legacy of these languages. In addition, linguistics can cover a wide variety of information. An example can be found in Geography, as geography not only studies the spatial layout of Earth's features, it also examines how humans interact with these. Similarly, one should mention about how this language is used.

In response to the Indo-Aryan question, I believe that it should be inducted into the current information. Adding "from India" is awkward, but there should be some clarification on the exact country of origin. bibliomaniac15 02:31, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

um, the genetic classification of the langauge is right there, in the info-box. If we're going to stash "Indo-Aryan" into the intro, we should mention it next to where we say it's one of the earliest attested IE languages, saying that Vedic Sanskrit is the earliest attested IA langauge. dab (𒁳) 20:55, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Dab, this just doesn't make sense. Why don't you accept a third opinion on this? Just compare the immediate linguistic introductions to Latin or Greek:

Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome.

Greek (Ελληνικά, IPA: [eliniˈka] — "Hellenic") has a documented history of 3,500 years, the longest of any single language within the Indo-European family.

Not any reasonable justification exists to exclude the linguistic classification or geography from being mentioned in the opening sentence. Don't discredit yourself by using blunt power to flout other opinions without even trying to come to an agreement. Rokus01 22:38, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• The viewpoints of Rockus are ALL wrong :

• The Brittanica Encyclopedia is Not, was not and will never be a reference to be used to edit any information, presentation format and/or style, conventional nomenclatures, and moreover as a final arbitrator or even as an authority on articles written in Wikepedia---an encyclopedia that has absolutly No relation, does not share viewpoints and is not influenced or inspired by the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Wikipedia is an encylopedia, that is independent of any previously established encyclopedia, regardless of the popularity of the latter.

I hope that all members, particularly Rockus01 (who has caused a ruckus here) realizes ithis. The sooner, the better.

• Mr. Ruckus-01, Sanskrit was indeed developed and its liturgy composed within the territory that forms the Republic of India today. Sure, many parts in which the RigVedic Aryans developed Sanskrit, and wrote literary material in Sanskrit lies in modern-day Pakistan. But Pakistan/Pakistanis do not know, do not officially recognize, do not preserve and do not have any trace of their language in their country AT ALL.

• The conventional introductions to articles must answer the questions--What, where, when, Why, how etc. and in the present tense whether SPATIALLY or TEMPORALLY. The origins, histories, changes, evolution and the corresponding spatial, temporal and causal records & reasons for the same merit due mention/explanation (depending upon the scope of the article) LATER IN THE ARTICLE ONLY and not stuffed in the opening line.

Therefore keeping the aforementioned points, we can arrive at a conclusion as follows :

• The issue is NOT ONLY about how articles in encyclopediae begin, but whether Sanskrit is a classical language of India or not, whether it has been AND always been to date from the dawn of its creation, a liturgical language of India or not. The answers to these questions is YES.

• Therefore, the introduction should be, "Sanskrit is a classical language of India......."

I also request a Vote on this matter from messrs DBachmann, Crculver, GourangaUK, Rudrasharman et al. My vote is for India instead of Indo-Aryan or Indian-Subcontinent IAF

I don't think I really see the problem here. As far as I am concerned, this is a question of how to polish the intro, not in any way a factual disagreement. It's about stylistics. Note how we don't say "Latin is an Italic Indo-European langauge from Italy"? See what I mean? We can work both "Indo-Aryan" and "India" into the intro, but for the love of Ganesha, let it be done by someone with some editorial skills. dab (𒁳) 19:20, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear IAF, you have to understand this issue has more than one perspective. Just like the Brazilian tropical rainforests are to the interest of mankind and liable to international protection with or without the landowners, just like the Buddha statues from the Bamiyan valley in Afghanistan were the cultural heritage to the whole world with or without the Taliban, I realy don't mind Sanskrit being your national pride, your liturgical language or one of your official languages still spoken by a minority. I don't think people like you really care what Sanskrit mean to the world and just want to abuse it to look taller. To me, and to most of the civilized world, Sanskrit is an old Aryan language of utter linguistic importance, a vehicle to ancient myths and an artifact of history and culture. It originates from ancient Pakistan, or ancient India, or whatever except one single nation claiming heritance at the cost of all the rest of the world. No, Sanskrit is not from India. Sanskrit is from mankind, so please be kind and cut this nonsense. Rokus01 22:37, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

what the hell are you on about? can you focus on the issue for a minute? of course Sanskrit is "from India", just like the Brazilian forest may be of worldwide significance and still be "from Brazil". How about you make a clean suggestion of what you want and we'll try to address it, instead of getting sidetracked by IAF's (admittedly eccentric) worldviews. dab (𒁳) 22:41, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I always agree to a concise and serious explanation.

• To start with, the opening sentence should enumerate the most important points of interest. Do we agree on this?
• Next I would say: the most important fields of interest are: linguistics, literature, religion and current use. Do we agree on this too?
• Let us then first focus on "literature". This would be sufficiently defined by Sanskrit being a classical language. A classic language exceeds national and geographical boundaries. The only boundaries are cultural. Like Greek and Latin being classical languages of the Western World, not of Italy or Greece (Latin is a clasical language of Italy?? No way!) Sankrit is a classical language of the Hindu world, not of a single nation. Do we agree on this?
• Next, Sanskrit being a classical language of the Hindu world does not imply linguistic classification. If we agree on this too, we can focus next on linguistics.
• One way to give a linguistic classification is by defining the linguistic background. Sanskrit is an old Indo-Aryan language. You could say IE, but this is trivial. Sanskrit is also inflexional, this is a characteristic of Indo-Aryan and could be explained later. Saying "Indo-Aryan" implies more information than "inflexional" or IE. (do we agree on this too?)
• Then, Indo-Aryan was historically confined by geographic boundaries. We have to define these boundaries. I would not rely on the name of a nation. Either would I rely on the use of India in a wider sense: does India include all of British India? Everything east of the river Sindh? I recall the East-Indies, West-Indies and even native Americans, all Indians to some. No, we have to define a geographic area. Really, I don't understand on logical grounds the rejection of "Indian subcontinent", or "Ancient Pakistan and India". Maybe somebody I can take serious could explain this neat and clean to me?
• Anyway, to me the above yields to the following statement:

Sanskrit is an old Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent, a classical language of the Hindu world, a liturgical language of hinduism, buddhism and jainism and one of the 23 official languages of India.

I am not sure of the beauty of this, but it certainly is complete and correct. To me this is all that counts. Rokus01 10:51, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Sanskrit isn't just any "old Indo-Aryan language", its position is rather special. I propose that my mentioning its IA classification next to IE is more elegant. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dbachmann (talk • contribs) 11:08, 2 March 2007 (UTC).

Even like this, Sanskit is NOT a classical language of India. India is a national state, and now don't refer to Britannica for selecting just the words nationalists want to hear while leaving other definitions out. If this nationalistic question is so very difficult, why then not just leave India out altogether?

Sanskrit is a classical language, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India.

Additional option, for "being too special" to be just IA, combine linguistics with being classic:

Sanskrit is a classical language of great linguistic importance, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India.

By the way, may I also ask anybody to focus on my answers? Rokus01 12:41, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

• Look, everybody. Before the British left British India, the area that comprises Pakistan, Bangladesh & the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, was called India. This is similar to the deutche nations of Austria, Switzerland & Germany being unified many centuries earlier and called Deuche-Land or Germany.

I hope that this concept is clear to all.

British India was called India, because to give nomenclature to a culture that is settled in a particular area, that culture is tagged with the word derived from their geographic area itself.

So, Persians who saw the people living on the banks of the river Sindhu (now in Pakistan) called those people Hindus. Then the British came along and who called Sindhu as Indus (a corruption) and the associated people as Indians.

Today, the people living on the banks of the Sindhu in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan are NOT Sanskrit-speaking, they probably have NOT even heard of Sanskrit and have NO linguistic, cultural association to it whatsoever.

Australia is called THE WEST, when half of it lies in the eastern-most part of the world. This therefore is a cultural tag, and NOT a geographic tag.

Similarly, Sanskrit is an Indian language and an Indian language only, and not a Pakistani one. Common World heritage, Our Human Race, One-World-One-Peace is all hogwash for speeches at UN Assemblies.IAF

Mister IAF, this definition of India is obsolete. If you want to make clear you don't mean the current definition, you have to specify. (if you don't want to make this clear you are a nationalist with a big problem) To specify "Ancient India" would probably be sufficient, to me this equals more or less to the "Indian subcontinent", or more specifically to the historic Indo-Aryan - Hindu area's on the subcontinent. "Hindu World" could be used if you mean to identify a cultural entity like the Western World, or the Arab World, or the Muslim World, or the Latin World, or whatever. Besides, used to anything else but the current national republic, India is a misnomer by definition, historically abused to anything exotic from east to west. I propose we just delete this inproper use of the word India until we come to an esthetical agreement to a comprehensive opening message that will be complete and correct. Rokus01 18:04, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Mr. Ruckus01, who told you or whither from did you know :

• That the "definition of India is obsolete" ?
• That the use of the word India is "unethical" ?
• That what you say alone is "correct and complete" ?

Merely mud-slinging me with tags like "Nationalist" etc. won't do.

You sir, to me apparently have :

• Inadequate knowledge, which is clear when you say, "This definition of India is obsolete." Sure.
• Are a vandal, coz you are tampering with an edit that was agreed upon for months. Currently too, you do not have any consensus on your PoV. From what I see, nobody agrees with you and DBachmann sort of agrees with me.
• Are cloaking your vandalizing edits, by calling ME a "Nationalist" in turn !

I have answered all your queries. Here they are once-again :

• Before the British left, India was the area that comprised present day Pakistan & Bangladesh also.

* But more importantly, the etymology of the word "India" is due to the unique and distinct culture of people that lived on the other side of the Sindhu river (not just on its banks). This region fell fairly deep into modern-day India as well.

• The region where part of Sanskrit literature was composed, now falls in Pakistan, however India retained the name of "India" after it gained independence from the British. Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League actually wanted to have the name India for Pakistan, when negotiations were on with the British at the 11th hour of their rule in India !!

So the word "India", has not just been the name of a politically defined territory. It has been a name of a culture and of a civilization. It would also NOT be incorrect to call the present-day territory of India as the origin of Sanskrit of the Vedic civilization and of the Dharmic Faiths, because its just a mere 50-100 kms from the Sindhu river and besides, that culture and Sanskrit did originate & was advent largely in present-day India also. IAF

yes, (sigh), Ἰνδία is first and foremost the region of the Indus valley (viz., mostly modern Pakistan), and then of the entire Indian subcontinent (Greater India). The Republic of India hogged the name in 1947, but that is irrelevant for historical topics. India should really be the disambiguation page, or there will be no end of pointing this out to people, again and again.dab (𒁳) 10:42, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Look, you must have heard only about Harappa & Mohenjodaro. Do bother to read about Lothal and Dholavira also. Indus Valley sites stretch from Afghanistan and Iran to nearly central India. It's modern day Pakistan that happened to be in the thick of it all. Political developments 4 millenia later does not change what India stands for.

The biggest mistake that all of you are making is demarcating Pakistan 3 millenia ago, and even suggesting silly disambiguations. I shouldn't even be discussing all this. Today's politics was NOT for all time. The British India extended to all of Pakistan and Bangladesh too, and whose lineage was the one that descended right from the Persians' Sindhu-Hindu Indus-India; the one which recognized the Hindu people that lived yonder the Sindhu river.

Add up the populations of India, Pak & Bangladesh, and Hindus would still be in an absolute majority : 830 million vs. 450 mn Muslims. Add up other Dharmic adherents + Nepal and we get a few tens of millions more. In British India, this populace was more evenly distributed across, but now it is concentrated in India.

So this "claim" of the word India is not without substance. Before Islam came to the sub-con, India was what the Persians described : Territory where Hindus lived. This geographic definition (Sindhu and beyond) withstood the ravages of the Islamic invaders, all through the Mughals until finally the British codified and documented it.

After Mohammad Ali Jinnah & Co. got Pakistan much to the chagrin of Mahatma Gandhi, who wanted to maintain a unified India, India was well justified in retention of the name "India". I won't call it "hogging". The geographic parameter of India has an associate culture, a religion and a way of life tagged to it. That Islam's frontiers now swamp the Sindhu doesn't matter.

Even from a more nitty-gritty point of view, the Sindhu is not even a 100 kms from the Indo-Pak border at many places. Do you really think that the Vedic peoples had an inkling of things to come 4 millenia later and never set foot in present day India ? They did of course, as did their Indus-Valley predecessors, and they went far and deep into what is modern India.

So even if the argument of culture-association does not convince you, this argument surely should.

In fact, both arguments are in tandem with each other. Had history permitted only one to be valid today say for example Hindus being relegated to a small area near Myanmar, or Indians not being Hindus i.e. all Asians whether Persians, Arabs, Malays---or for that matter anybody who grew spices for the British---being called Indians, then I couldn't have had made this argument.

Like the Jews, Hindus too have had to struggle for not only a land but also for its very name. However, "Israel's" case for nomenclature against "Palestine" is weak, because what the Jews inhabit was and will always be Palestine by name. There was such an absence of any majority Jewish activity in the region for so many centuries, that Palestine bags the right of naming the territory.

However, there always has been majority Hindu activity around and beyond the Sindhu. Sure, some parts of it were chipped off to form Pakistan, but India remains (especially most of the "beyond the Sindhu" part).IAF

you very obviously didn't read my comment before embarking on "refuting" it, since you are essentially agreeing with me. The entire point is that "Pakistan" wasn't called "Pakistan" before 1947, it was called "India". dab (𒁳) 21:02, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Dab you are a (Personal attack removed) if there was not pakistan before 1947 for common people then was also no india for the people for the last 5000 years. If persians called anything beyond indus river india then who cares this is just a geographical classification not ethnic. Following this line if someone says that anything west of Ural mountains is russia then he will be also an (Personal attack removed) like you since on the west of urals many other cultures also exist like germanic, celtic, italic etc. You have to go deep into the west of urals to explore them. Similarly when persians called people east of indus rivers and hindus they used this term for geographic region because persians never went deep into india . I am sure if they would have gone deep into india they would also have called people near ganga river as fucking gangus etc. So the persians designation for hindus must be restricted either to the people dwelling indus river or dwelling in the nearest areas from indus river because this was there area of observation not your ganges(gand river) for the matter.

who said it was "ethnic"? I keep saying it's geographical. I appreciate that "Hindu" is a religious term today (since this is the English, not the Old Persian Wikipedia), but "India" happens to have kept the geographical sense it had in Hellenism). Yes "Gangu" "Ganga" would be the more appropriate term today, but I am afraid it's not very current. dab (𒁳) 10:35, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Possible Restructuring of the Article?

Is there a reason why this page contains an extensive description of Sanskrit grammar when such information could be moved to a different article? Having a separate Sanskrit grammar article would be in consonance with most of the other Wikipedia articles on major languages, and would allow us to present complete nominal and verbal inflectional paradigms. We could even have separate articles for the Sanskrit noun and the Sanskrit verb, if we choose to follow the pattern for German grammar. Apologies if this has been discussed before. Gokulmadhavan 08:34, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Yah, you are right. The Grammar section must be restructured and moved to Sanskrit grammar. Further the declension section must be moved to Sanskrit declension, and conjugation section to Sanskrit conjugation. As also case order of nouns must be changed to traditional - Nom.Voc.Acc.Instr.Dat.Abl.Gen.Loc. Roberts7 17:54, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I've taken a few steps to create the new structure. I've created separate pages for Sanskrit verbs and Sanskrit compounds that lead off from this page. Currently these offshoots are essentially identical to the main Sanskrit page, as I'm wary of making large-scale changes to a well-regarded page. As for now, Sanskrit grammar redirects to a page describing traditional and modern grammarians, and I haven't made any changes to this yet. Gokulmadhavan 05:20, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I am surprised we have not seen more comment on this proposal, which seems rather reasonable to me. I have looked at the example of German grammar that you gave and it seems to me that having a similar approach to Sanskrit would be helpful in keeping the article length to a reasonable level. You are showing wisdom by hesitating to make major changes too rapidly, as the outcries may come only after some motion is perceived. My suggestion would be to test this in phases, simply creating the Sanskrit Grammar page first, and just doing a move of existing content. I would not make any other changes for a week. We just did a similar major reorganization of content on the Vedas article and I expected the roof to fall in, but it did not. At each stage we tried to do the move in chunks that could easily be reverted to a status quo ante. If I understand your proposal, basically you would just move the current section 4 on grammar to a new page. I think that the redirect of Sanskrit Grammar to Vyakarana that is taking place now could simply be removed, keeping Vyakarana unchanged. It is really about the grammatical tradition, not the grammar itself, so it is a separate topic. I do not agree with the proposal to create subpages for different aspects of Sanskrit Grammar at this stage. I think all that is now in section 4 should be kept together as part of phase 1 of any changes. Buddhipriya 05:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Why vāk?

Wouldn't it be more Sanskritic to write भाषा instead of वाक्? In any case isn't contemporary Indian usage just to call the language संस्कृतम्? Vijñaptimātra 08:00, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

contemporary Indian usage has nothing to do with it, this being the article on a language codified in 500 BC. dab (𒁳) 07:32, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

For the kind information of those who fervently seek to dissociate ancient Indian languages and religions with current Indian culture, 'VAK' is very much in use in contemporary Indian languages of today. Its use does confirm to contemporary Indian usage. Indian_Air_Force

Agglutination

Could someone add something about Agglutination in Sanskrit? deeptrivia (talk) 04:25, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Removing the grammar manual

Hey, this is just to inform whoever might watch this page that I'm going to remove the grammatical paradigms. Maybe these might have a place in a more specific article. Rājagṛha 10:52, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi Rājagṛha, we're migrating grammatical paradigms to the various pages linked to from Sanskrit grammar in order to make the main page more informative and less technical. All paradigms that have been copied to the grammar pages can be removed from the main page. I think our goal should be to take out all paradigms from the main page and to put them away in other articles where they may be more relevant. Gokul Madhavan 15:48, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Sanskrit Numerals

The numerals I have added are accurate and are from A Sanskrit Primer by Perry. Sanskrit does not use "sh" for a transliteration. Azalea pomp 00:05, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Sapta is right and not sat or what you had posted. Indian_Air_Force

I've edited the numbers and this current list should now be accurate. ṣáṣ, ṣáṭ is Sanskrit for six, and sapta is seven. Gokul Madhavan 20:00, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Need help with a word here.

I know this amounts to misusing the talk page, but I'm desperate. :-O

Just a question to all you Sanskrit speakers:

Can the word "Anavasthā" be taken to mean "infinity"? I looked it up in a really good English-Sanskrit dictionary (spokensankrit.de) and the definition given was "absence of finality or conclusion", which seems to me to mean "infinity".

So, are "anavasthā" and "infinity" synonymous?

I hope a kind soul out there can help me out. I promise I'll delete this when I have an answer.

Thanks!

60.48.216.237 03:19, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Sanscrit is Not spoken in Nepal

Sanscrit is not spoken in Nepal. It is only spoken in a village in Karnataka. Princemathewalleppey 12:54, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Verification of possible Sanskrit word needed

Can someone please verify whether or not the following words originate from Sanskrit. I'm having a debate with another user who thinks they are probably Javanese but possibly originate from Sanskrit. I need a reference, too.

"Bhinneka Tunggal Ika"

Thanks, Glenn McGrew (Respond here or on my userpage) ReveurGAM 10:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Turangalîla-Symphonie

"The Turangalîla-Symphonie is a large-scale piece of orchestral music by Olivier Messiaen. ... He derived the title from two Sanskrit words, turanga and lîla, which roughly translate into English as "love song and hymn of joy, time, movement, rhythm, life, and death" ..." -- Uh, yeah? -- 201.53.4.206 11:46, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

IAF changes

User:IAF has made certain changes to the page that I dispute or that I call for sourcing for:

1. Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages in existence in the the world dubious. Source it
2. and the root of all Indian languages wrong. Certainly not Dravidian languages.
3. It was developed for the most ... Sanskrit is not an artificial language.
4. Changing When the term arose in India' to In India is a removal of information.

Also, in Standard English, twenty, divine, truth, and drive do not have retroflex plosives. There are no English equivalents for retroflex plosives. Indian dialects of English may have them (which I think is the source of the confusion) but most readers will be confused by the article saying that English t represents a retroflex plosive. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 17:38, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

My changes are not only valid, but also accurate. I don't know what Retrofl Explosives are, but the word Divine can be faithfully reproduced in Sanskrit without ANY loss, deviation or distortion of pronunciation. The same is for Twenty or Truth and Drive. It can be done so by any child who has started to learn Sanskrit.

1. Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages in existence in the the world is NOT dubious. Sanskrit dates back to Vedic times, and hence like Latin or Greek, it is one of the oldest languages in existence.
2. and the root of all Indian languages Except Tamil---all and I repeat all---Indian languages. Change it to ".....all Indian languages]], (except Tamil)."
3. It was developed for the most ... Languages are developed (or evolved as you interpret it). NO language of those times was conciously developed like Afrikaans.
4. Changing When the term arose in India' to In India is not a removal of information. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 16:46, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

1. Latin and ancient Greek are no longer spoken natively. The current native speakers of Sanskrit are the result of a revival but if we count that then we must consider Hebrew... anyway, I'm asking for a source here. If it's so clear then it shouldn't be too difficult to find a reputable source that backs up your claim. I understand that it's a classical language but saying that it's one of the oldest languages in existence implies things that aren't true.
2. Except Tamil, Allar, Badaga, Irula, Kannada, Kodava Takk, Kota, Kurumba, Malayalam, Paliyan, Toda, Tulu, Abujmaria, Gondi, Kui, Konda, Koya, Telugu, Kurux... should I continue?
3. The word "developed" implies that it was consciously developed (which it wasn't). The word evolve is more accurate.
4. Yes it is.
5. Also, see retroflex consonant. Those sounds are not English sounds. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:59, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

1. Regardless of the extent of the spoken Latin or Greek, they are in existence and are fully comprehensible and understood many times. Forget the a few thousand people in India whose OFFICIAL mother-tongue is registered as Sanskrit, there are hundreds of thousands of Pundits who conduct Hindu rituals while reciting the Vedas and other Sanskrit texts, right as you read this. Sanskrit is a full-fledged course in millions of schools..We have a Sanskrit News half-hour on National TV too. All this is not artificially revived like the recent fad for ancient Greek. There are languages (mere dialects) that are spoken by a highly restricted populace in very confined areas......some of the very ones which you have listed as having non-Sanskritic roots.
2. Next, the 3 official widely spoken southern languages of Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam do borrow heavily from Sanskrit. They have Tamil influences also, as Robert Caldwell wrote of Malayalam in his book, "A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Languages" considers Malayalam to be an ancient off-shoot of Tamil, that over time, gained a large amount of Sanskrit vocabulary and lost the personal terminations of verbs." Especially formal Malayalam and Telugu and contemporary Kannada. All this can also be said of all the localized variants or dialects that you've mentioned. So, change it to "heavily influenced the southern languages other than Tamil."
3. No the phrasing is appropriate.
4. The last one is not for ट and ड, but for ठ and ढ respectively (pronounced while exhaling air). I will make the changes in the article. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 04:12, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

1. Source it
2. I think the way you've rephrased it works.
3. ... The edit you've made is a removal of words and as it stands, it simply says "In India, Sanskrit was not thought of as a specific language set apart from other languages..." A reader may now ask "when? When was this the case?" Not now, since its use is past tense. The answer is "when the term arose in India." If you'd like to provide a different answer then that's appropriate but right now this sentence is incomplete. We can get a neutral third party to weigh in if it's that important to you.
4. Look at English phonology, General American, and Received Pronunciation. /ʈ/ and /ɖ/ are not English sounds. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:47, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

1. No sources are needed for very well known facts like the Taj Mahal is in Agra, India.
2. So that's settled.
3. Sanskrit as a term did not "arise" or "emerge" at one instant. The case as I've put it, was always there.
4. I'm afraid there has been a very serious misunderstanding here. टब (tub) and डल (dull) are faithful transliteral reproductions. ठग and ढोल cannot be reproduced in English. Even Buddha cannot be (westerners pronounce it as 'Booda'). Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 12:44, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia policy: "material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." I am challenging your assertions that Sanskrit has always existed and that it is "one of the oldest languages in existence in the world." I've already shown you that retroflex sounds are not part of English so I'm not asking you to find sources that claim that since I know there aren't any. How much time do you need to verify this information with sourcing? Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:36, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

IAF, I've removed most of the most tendentious material as not backed up by references to reliable sources. Here are some more specific comments:

• Your use of English examples for the retroflex plosives is problematic. "Tub" may sound like टब for some (not all) speakers of Indian English: however it is not pronounced that way by English speakers from any other part of the world. So the example is pretty much useless: speakers of Indian English will presumably know how ट (or the equivalent in their local language) is pronounced anyway, and other speakers of English will just be confused by the example.
• If you want to make a claim about Sanskrit's relative antiquity to other languages, please give a reference. I have no doubt that such claims are possible, but they need to be very carefully worded.
• While Tamil and Malayalam may borrow from Sanskrit (Malayalam much more than Tamil) that does not mean they descended from Sanskrit. Hindi borrows heavily from Persian: does that mean it is descended from Persian? Grover cleveland (talk) 04:39, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Look, we are not talking about the stiff English upper lip, where T is pronounced as T.hee. Indians pronounce T as T only and not as ठी . I know westerners pronounce D somewhat as ढी or as they pronounce Bood.ha while pronouncing Buddha. But D is D and rightly corresponds to ड and not ढ, pronunciations of Britishers left aside.

Malayalam's evolution has been highly influenced and helped by Sanskrit. Truly, Tamil and Sanskrit are the only 2 original mutually exclusive, independent Indian languages. All others are direct descendents and hybrids of these two.

About Sankrit's relative antiquity, I've explained in the comments section of the article's history of edits. No source is needed for that. Look at Latin or Greek. Thus, the same principle applies to Sanskrit also. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 06:11, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Retroflexes

It seems that it should be noted both in the table in the Vowels section and also in the table in the Consonants section what kind of retroflexes are the sounds: laminal, apical or sub-apical. --Klimov 16:26, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Hindi is apical, according to Ladefoged, as presumably are most of the Indic languages. Tamil and many of the Dravidian languages are sub-apical. Sanscrit is a different matter, because it isn't really an independent language anymore. I would guess that native Hindi speakers pronounce them apically, and that native Tamil speakers pronounce them sub-apically. kwami 20:49, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Is it too speculative to postulate that Sanskrit retroflexes were apical in Classical times? Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:09, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

You might want a source. I don't know that anyone knows. It's thought that pre-Sanskrit acquired retroflexes from the languages (presumably Dravidian) that it displaced and absorbed. But whether northern Dravidian was apical, the Aryans didn't fully master the sounds, or the Prakrits relaxed them is something that I'm not qualified to theorize about. kwami 22:39, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Canonical language: problem

The canonical language of Sikhism is not Sanskrit but rather Punjabi with a vocabulary balanced between Sanskrit and Arabic/Farsi words. Jainism's major Agama texts are written in Ardha-Magadhi Prakrit while many non-Agama texts find writings in all sorts of Prakrits, some Sanskrit, and apabhramsa and later tongues, so Sanskrit is really not the primary vehicle for Jain thought by a long shot. In reality, Sanskrit is most closely allied with the broader Vedist tradition while Buddhism is split between Sanskrit and Pali, though Pali ultimately won out. All of this should, in my opinion, be taken into account in the introductory paragraph. I know the attitude of regular editors on anons taking it upon themselves to edit major portions of text, so I've refrained from instituting the change myself until more people inveigh. --69.203.80.158 (talk) 14:20, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed edit

I'd like to do a major edit on this portion of uncited text on the page titled "Sanskrit":

"Writing came relatively late to India, introduced from the Middle East by traders around the 5th century BCE[citation needed], according to a hypothesis by Rhys Davids and favored by the Persian administration of Gandhara and Sindh. Even after the introduction of writing, oral tradition and memorization of texts remained a prominent feature of Sanskrit literature."

This is CONTRADICTED by the CITED information located on the Wikipedia relating to the venerated Sankrit grammarian, a page titled "Panini":

"Writing first reappears in India (since the Indus script) in the form of the Brāhmī script from ca. the 6th century BC, though these early instances of the Brāhmī script are from Tamil Nadu in southern India...."

Also note in that same article on Panini: "He is known for his Sanskrit grammar, particularly for his formulation of the 3,959 rules of Sanskrit morphology in the grammar known as Ashtadhyayi (meaning "eight chapters"), the foundational text of the grammatical branch of the Vedanga, the auxiliary scholarly disciplines of Vedic religion."

"It is not certain whether Panini used writing for the composition of his work, though it is generally agreed that he did use a form of writing, based on references to words such as "script" and "scribe" in his Ashtadhyayi.[3] It is believed that a work of such complexity would have been very difficult to compile without written notes, though some have argued that he might have composed it with the help of a group of students whose memories served him as 'notepads'."

Given that "script and "scribe" appear in his work, and relate to, let's say scripts and the scribes who were doing the scripting, that while Panini lived, which would have been early as the 6th Century BCE, that writing ALREADY EXISTED IN INDIA, AND WAS NOT "introduced by the Middle East around the 5th century BCE" as the article erroneously states now.

Additionally, the article concerning Panini states:

"The Ashtadhyayi is the earliest known grammar of Sanskrit (though scholars agree it likely was built on earlier works), and the earliest known work on descriptive linguistics, generative linguistics, and together with the work of his immediate predecessors (Nirukta, Nighantu, Pratishakyas) stands at the beginning of the history of linguistics itself."

So, there were scribes and scripts well before Panini, since HE LIKELY BUILT ON EARLIER WORKS.

Also note, in Sanskrit itself, the language is called, SAMSKRIT, and not Sankrit.

YogiVasistha (talk) 04:35, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

You've built up quite a case. So if it's not the fifth century, when was it? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:17, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Official language of Nepal

This page claims that Sanskrit is an official language of Nepal. I'm removing this claim because:

• It is unreferenced
• The Nepal page lists Nepali as the only official language of Nepal
• The recent change of Nepal from a Hindu to a secular state means that, even if Sanskrit used to be an official language, it is less likely to be so now.
• While the motto of Nepal, as listed on the Nepal page, is in Sanskrit, this does not make Sanskrit an official language of Nepal any more than "E pluribus unum" makes (or made) Latin an official language of the USA or "Dieu et mon droit" made French an official language of the UK. Grover cleveland (talk) 05:05, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Your third point is based on probability and likelihood, and so is invalid. On the same lines it can also be said that Medieval Nepal had Sanskrit as its official language as referenced in Nepal Bhasa. The example of US and UK does not automatically apply to Nepal. Besides, the opening sentence was in connection with not only Sanskrit being an official language, but also an ancient classical language, which it has been indeed so in the case of Nepal.

Malayalam's evolution has been heavily influenced by Sanskrit (discussed in the previous talk section). Those retroflex's diptongs and ting-tongs are beyond me, but I know my Devanagari as well as my English alphabet well enough to know that 'Telephone' and 'Donkey' are reproducible in Sanskrit, whereas Dd.hai and T.tha.thera are irreproducible in English. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 06:01, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

None of your points constitutes a verifiable reference for Sanskrit being a current official language of Nepal. Therefore that claim should not be in the article accoring to WP:V. Grover cleveland (talk) 06:06, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

IAF, I've asked you to play by the rules but I see here that you are not only refusing to give credence to sourcing but are even disrupting the regular process of civil content disputes. Please refrain from restoring any of your edits until you can provide adequate sourcing. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:09, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Sourcing per se is not necessary here, on account of Sanskrit dating back to over 4000 years. It's relatively antique. The contention is on the adjective, "oldest" which without sourcing apparently makes the statement appear like a PoV or an opinion.

Look at the converse of that statement, i.e. Sanskrit is not one of the world's oldest languages. Then a plethora of questions arise about it, whether it is as old as English or Urdu or Malay. At most, I am willing to concede to "world's oldest spoken languages in existence", which is factually correct on account of a relatavistic timeframe of civilizations.

So Aesoues and Cleveland, your continued insistence of a reference or a source for what essentially is a widely accepted notion of antiquity, is what that's derailing not just the process of dispute resolution, but the article itself.

Coming to Nepal. Sanskrit has been officially promulgated and promoted by the erstwhile Monarch (which explains the official status). For this purpose, a dedicated Sanskrit University was established by the monarch. Details from the official Nepali govt. website here : http://www.moe.gov.np/Autonomous%20Agencies/MS_University%20.php

Some of the goals that were envisaged were :-

1. To systematize Sanskrit education up to the highest level in the Kingdom
2. To preserve and promote Sanskrit education in different sectors of the Nepalese society
3. To develop the Kingdom of Nepal into a centre for learning through Sanskrit education.

All this by the King (official incarnation of Lord Vishnu) bestowed Sanskrit a near official level status, though maybe Nepali Bhasa is the national tongue used for government communication and official work. The King's recent ouster probably does not vitiate the purpose (atleast the University has not been dismantled). Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 06:36, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

IAF, thanks for finding that link, but it nowhere states that "Sanskrit is an official language of Nepal". Find a reference that says that, and we can reinstate the claim in the article. Cheers. Grover cleveland (talk) 07:14, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

As I've already said earlier, the King's promotion of the Sanskrit and inaugration of the University with the aforementioned goals are reason enough to qualify it as an officially recognized language. Nepal Bhasa is the only official language used for official government communication, currency notes etc.

Also Aeseuos, your repeated reversion of my edit for want of some source or reference for the phrase "one of the oldest languages", is actually needlessly asking for a url on a widely recognized norm of antiquity, and which has been already applied to Egyptian Language, if you've bothered to look. If a 4000 year old language is NOT one of the world's oldest spoken languages, then pray tell me what is ? The tongues spoken by extinct Neanderthals or the first of the Africans that ventured out of Africa ?

About the T and D, as an afterthought I still don't think that they fully correspond to ठ and ढ respectively, even though they may not entirely be coincident with ट and ड. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 16:58, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

IAF, let's see what the article says outside of your inclusion:

• • Dating back to as early as 1500 BC
  • Vedic Sanskrit is the earliest attested Indo-Aryan language
  • and one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family.
  • Spoken Sanskrit is still in use in a few traditional institutions in India

I think readers will already get the impression that Sanskrit is pretty old and that it's been in use for quite some time. Saying that it's "one of the oldest spoken languages in existence" however requires us to consider all spoken languages. This may be obvious to you but it's not to me, so humor me.

Also, for Egyptian language, it is deemed "one of the oldest recorded languages known" not one of the oldest languages (it also beats Sanskrit as far as age by over 1500 years).

As far as Nepal goes, even if it isn't currently official we should still mention something about how it was official until recently. I've put "Until recently, it had the same status in Nepal as well" with a fact check. That should give users time to find a source. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:59, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Aesous, this is not a year-by-year contest. The range of the evolution of the languages is in question. An 85 year old is old and so is a 96 year old, which when extended to a 4000 year old language and a now extinct (but whose vestiges remained till late medieval age) Egyptian Language applies perfectly well. Note the emphasis on the word "spoken" languages in existence, which Sanskrit still is (no matter how small the population) and Egyptian Language is not.

As regards the Nepal question, you cannot add your own opinionated phrases like "until recently" in it. In any case, now the onus of finding the source for not only the "until recently, but also the implied "not anymore" rests with you. As I've said earlier, that's the OFFICIAL website of the Education & Sports ministry of Nepal, that has laid out the 3-point plan for Sanskrit's spread in the erstwhile Officially Hindu Kingdom. The King's affiliation with the language (he is the Chancellor of the University) made it official by any measure of an unwritten decree.

Also, this sentence (I don't know who is the author), and I quote, "Orthodox Hindus maintain it to be the oldest of languages in the the world and the mother of all languages." is not only a naked unsourced passing comment based on heresay, it is also totally baseless, false and utterly stupid. It is one of the oldest spoken tongues in existence, besides a root of most Indian languages, heavily influencing some southern tongues too.

And Romany, if included must come in the end. The partial list must begin with Indian languages, followed by the 3 southern ones and the immediate neighbourly languages like Nepali and Sinhala. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 15:08, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Why must Romany come at the end? If we look at things from a linguistic rather than political point of view, Romany is extremely closely related to Punjabi, so perhaps it should be next to that language. Grover cleveland (talk) 17:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

On the subject of Sanskrit/Nepal, you might want to consider that governmental promotion does not necessarily make a language "official". For example, despite the fact that legislative and court proceedings, as well as nearly all higher education, is conducted in English in the USA, English is not the "official" lanaguage of the USA. In fact the USA has no official language. So that fact that a Nepal university is devoted to spreading Sanskrit means nothing about the "official" or "unofficial" status of the language in that country.Grover cleveland (talk) 17:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

IAF, you say "now the onus of finding the source for not only the "until recently, but also the implied "not anymore" rests with you." That's true, but you need to give some time for editors to find adequate sourcing. This edit where you removed a citation request is disruptive. Wikipedia works through verifiable sourcing and if you don't understand that you should reread Wikipedia's policies. If you understand them but still refuse to play by the rules then maybe Wikipedia isn't for you. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Grover you have to probably re-read what I wrote, that Nepal's monarch was made the Chancellor of the University. Though the King has been removed from godly status (he still retains that post) by Maoists, nothing has been said about the University and the king's post. And besides, the sheer age-old officialdom and timeless respect has always been there for Sanskrit in Nepal as said in the article on Nepal Bhasa. It is all these points together that makes it have the same status.

In these parts of the world, "official" means 'recognized', and one that can be used in Government communication (see Official languages of India). So, the example of USA that you're giving again and again is not applicable here. Also, it emerges that nobody actually bothered with giving English an official status as it was The One & Only since 4 score and 76 years ago. The article on USA mentions that it is practically the de-facto tongue, since it has been used in all official communication since time immemorial.

So, I take this very example of yours to provide a counter analogue that the Nepal monarch's being Chancellor of the Sanskrit univ. practically gave it an official seal too. Otherwise I can't go on reverting for just one sentence again & again simply for Aeusoes1's unwitting dogged insistence on some "source" and "playing by rules". :-{ Maybe plain logic isn't for him. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) 06:41, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Yup. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 09:03, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

See Yupping around is not exactly playing with the rules of wikipedia. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) 10:09, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how, in any stretch of the imagination, my saying "yup" is discordant with any rule or policy of Wikipedia in spirit or in letter. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 10:31, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

It was useless and not pertaining to the discussion at hand at all. Don't give us the I-have-democratic-freedom-and-rights-to-say-xyz-in-middle-of-road-till-it-aint-hurtful statement over here. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) 13:24, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

You said I have dogged insistence on sources and adherence to Wikipedia rules and that plain logic won't satisfy me. That is a correct assertion. Since "Yup" is a word to express agreement, my saying it was to express agreement to your statements regarding what I prefer. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:26, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

OK. Let's discontinue that particular line of discussion. I have said that a presently spoken language dating to 4000 years is old enough by any modern accepted standards. Every sentence or statement need not be cluttered with a backup of an outside opinion/source; it can be understood. We can change the line to "being 4000 years old, it is one of the .....". Indian_Air_Force (IAF) 04:58, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

All right, I'm looking at your recent reversions, which is basically one sentence. Let me break down each part

• Dating back nearly 4000 years, - the lead section already states that Vedic Sanskrit dates back to as far as 1500 BC. This is technically 3500 years but we can call 4000 rounding up.
• Sanskrit is one of the oldest - the article already says that it is a classical language, which is understood to be ancient
• spoken languages - the article already states that there are some attempts at revival. We might debate whether there was a period wherein no native speakers existed and whatnot but if there are native speakers now and there were native speakers a long time ago, what happened in between is incidental.
• in existence in the world - obviously if it's spoken it exists in the world.
• and the root of most Indian languages - the article already states it's the root of modern Indo-Aryan languages, which is a bit more precise but basically the same thing.
• and also heavily influencing the southern Indian languages - the article doesn't seem to say this already.

So, since all but the last of the information is already in the article, what does this sentence do? Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} —Preceding comment was added at 05:32, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

• We'll change it 3500 years then.
• Yes, the article says that already, but the weaving together of disparate ideas also forms a new idea. There is an implication here, that because Sanskrit is a 3500 year old tongue, that's why it is one of the oldest.
• Continuing from point 2, that it is one of the oldest spoken languages in existence is a collated point. Revival attempts are there but that doesn't mean a 'dead' or a near-extince language is being revived.....there has been no break in the people studying Sanskrit and making it as their tongue since it was formed. no matter how thin their number may have been. Case in point :- millions of ritual chanting priests, kids who learned shlokas by rote, those who commented on the canonical texts etc. How did Max Mueller learn then ?
• Remove spoken in the world, but nothing seriously wrong in that.
• The history of languages says so. Give some wikipedia references. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) 18:30, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

You say that weaving these ideas together forms a new idea. What is this new idea? Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:39, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

That a) Being 3500 years old, and b) being spoken still, it is one of the oldest spoken tongues in existence. There can be Joes who would not have made the connection. I don't get what is so redundant about that to you. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) 18:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

A much better example would be the first 2-3 lines of Greek language. Here goes -

• Greek....has a documented history of 3,500 years, the longest of any single natural language in the Indo-European language family. It is also one of the earliest attested Indo-European languages, with fragmentary records in Mycenaean dating back to the 15th or 14th century BC, making it the world's oldest recorded living language.

Let me clarify that I have no contribution/influence whatsoever in the editing of Greek language article. But you can see that I was trying to incorporate a similar idea into the article on Sanskrit. It just didn't occur to me to give live examples on wikipedia itself, instead of unconvincing examples on the average surfer Joes. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 18:32, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

After taking pause, I think most of my opposition to your edit is how it's worded rather than what it's trying to say. I see the point you're trying to make with the Greek example but something important to consider is that a Greek language has been spoken for thousands of years but the modern variant is quite different from the ancient one such that they are essentially different languages. The sociolinguistic situation is also a bit different. This is from the lead section of Latin (which parallels Sanskrit in sociolinguistic status more than Greek):

"After having lasted 2,200 years, Latin began a slow decline around the 1600s. But Vulgar Latin was preserved: it split into several regional dialects, which by the 800s had become the ancestors of today's Romance languages... Latin lives on in the form of Ecclesiastical Latin spoken in the Roman Catholic Church. Latin vocabulary is also still used in science, academia, and law. Classical Latin, the literary language of the late Republic and early Empire, is still taught in many primary, grammar, and secondary schools, often combined with Greek in the study of Classics, though its role has diminished since the early 20th century."

So how might we make a parallel with Sanskrit? Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:08, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

The parallels are stark. Like Latin, Sanskrit is confined to priests, rituals and elitist schools that teach Sanskrit (though many smaller ones do too). Most of India's missiles, rockets and aeroplanes are named in Sanskrit. The mottos of all universities, government organizations and the like are in Sanskrit. But the individuals who speak it fluently, number only in the tens of thousands. However, there has been no advent of "vulgar" Sanskrit. Its rough equivalent may be Prakrit and latter-day Hindi, Marathi, Bengali et al.

Having said that, the language is NOT dead. Just like Zeppelins which although no longer are the main carriers of air traffic like they once were, they are nevertheless still used as advertising banners and military radars. And in this, they will maintain their niche for decades to come. The same is the case of Sanskrit. Be it Chandrayaan, or simply chanting in poojas Sanskrit is staying. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 17:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

A language is dead when it loses its native speakers and its vitality, not when it loses its prestige or functionality. That it doesn't change is evidence of this. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:19, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Latin, Ancient Greek and Sanskrit (LGS) have indeed lost their functionality, but they won't be forgotten like these tongues : List of extinct languages. LGS are very well documented and studied, used wherever they can be (scientific inventions/discoveries) and have their minority share of enthusiatic speakers. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 18:00, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Look at the opening para in Greek language which has an edit similar to the one I made now. I don't see any valid opposition to this edit. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 18:45, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

You've already asked us to look and we (or at least I) have already debunked the comparison. I'm not willing to have this debate with you again. If you'd like to bring in a mediating party then you're welcome to do so. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 03:55, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

The comparison was never "debunked". Somebody changed my edit to the article midstream without consultation, because as far as I recall, my edit stood for quite many days after my last talk here in this section on Dec 7, 2007. Besides, I have the Greek language article as a headstart example. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 07:00, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Got it. It was DBachmann here who changed it without any attempt at consultation. It will be reverted back. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 07:04, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Satem is a sound change not a branch or group of Indo-European

Satem and Centum describe sound changes in the various branches of IE. There is no subgrouping of IE called Satem or Centum. Also, since Sanskrit is but one Indo-Iranian language, to mention a satem sound change is redundant as this information is already on the Indo-European pages. Also, I removed an unsourced statement that Sanskrit had an especially strong influence on the Indo-Aryan languages. Where is the source that it did not have a strong influence on the on IA languages? Azalea pomp (talk) 04:08, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I see no reason not to be explicit about Indo-Iranian languages being part of the group of Satem languages. If you've got a problem with the precise wording because it sounds like it's talking about a Satem family, I recommend rewording it rather than removing. As for the second removed claim, that Sanskrit has influenced Indian languages, I've restored it with a citation request tag. Let's give other editors time to back it up. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:57, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I reworded the sentence. The previous edit was simply not worded well, but incorrect. There is not any Satem subgroup of Indo-European. Many of the Indo-European languages with the Satem sound change have never been demonstrated to form a valid subgroup. Many Indo-European linguists such as Calvert Watkins have connected Armenian (satem) with Greek (centum) as a likely subgroup. Azalea pomp (talk) 22:25, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

While you make some controversial assertions, I think the way you've reworded the article makes it neutral to whether Satem/Centum were ever dialects. Good job. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:01, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Oldest existing language

To shortcut the following arguments about the oldest known and recorded language: Professor Samuel Kramer (University of Philadelphia-Orientalist) states that the oldest known and recorded language is Sumerian. The name 'Sumerian' was stuck on them by professor Oppert who translated it from Assyrian. The people however did not call themselves Sumerians as they did not speak Assyrian. They called themselves Mah-gar as it is proved by professor Badiny (Professor of sumerology; Anton Deimel's school). Professor Badiny also proved on the '29th Orientalist World Congress' opening sitting that Hungarian is the same language as Sumerian. (Sorbonne - Paris, 1973. The title of the presentation: "New lines for a conrrect Sumerian phonetics to confirm with the cuneiform scripts".) Anton Deimel writes in a private letter to Prof. Dr. Badiny " Ich habe nicht die geringste Schwerigkeit eine Verwandschaft des Ungarishen mit dem Sumerischen anzunehmen." ("I have no hardship accepting the Sumerian-Hungarian relation") Some history: the Hellens run down the Pelazgs as well as the Troyans. Both were 'Sumerian' speaking cultures. Rome was founded by the fleeing Troyans. No wonder, both Latin and Greek has hundreds of Sumerian-Hungarian words. The Etruscan writings can be read in hungarian. Furthermore, India has had close ties to the Sumerians. Hence the language relation. Congratulations: you just found the missing link what Sir William Jones couldn't. He didn't speak Hungarian. (Hungarians don't call themselves Hungarians either. They call themselves Magyar; ie: Mah-gar as above.) Greetings: Magi. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.233.122.121 (talk) 12:34, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

That's great and all, but no one in this discussion is claiming that Sanskrit is the "oldest known and recorded" language. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:28, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

... aaammm ... a few lines further down it reads: "... on the Greek language page ... making it the world's oldest recorded living language." Therefore the debate was about the oldest language - until it changed course. Also, above entry points out WHY Sanskrit/Latin/Greek all can claim to be "one of the oldest language". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.95.112.161 (talk) 08:07, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I noticed that there has been considerable recent dispute and edit-warring over this edit, which adds the claim that Sanskrit

"dates to 3,700 years back. This makes it one of the oldest spoken tongues still in existence."

Is there any reliable source to verify this claim ? If such a source (say a scholarly article or book) is available then content is worth adding; else it should perforce be kept out. Also all editors should be aware of the 3 revert limit, breaching which is likely to lead to editing blocks. Abecedare (talk) 09:23, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

There is a similar long-standing edit on the Greek language page from which I quote, "Greek (ελληνική γλώσσα IPA: [eliniˈkʲi ˈɣlosa] or simply ελληνικά IPA: [eliniˈka] — "Hellenic") has a documented history of 3,400 years, the longest of any single natural language in the Indo-European language family. It is also one of the earliest attested Indo-European languages, with fragmentary records in Mycenaean dating back to the 15th or 14th century BC, making it the world's oldest recorded living language.

The issue is not verifiability (Sanskrit's origins have been widely and consensually dated), nor authenticity, but the necessity and importance of mentioning it at all. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 15:36, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

• Please feel free to add the {{cn}} tag to the Greek language page and remove the claim if no reference is forthcoming.
• Verifiability is a issue; without a source the issue of weight does not even arise. If we find a scholarly source, I will support inclusion; without a source there is nothing to discuss. Abecedare (talk) 17:57, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

You should add the {cn} tag to the Greek language article, now that it has been brought to your notice. This particular issue was settled in the debate between me and Aeseous (?) as of Dec 7. On Dec 10, DBachmann changed it without seeking consensus. I didn't notice the change until a few days back. There was a broader issue of its "wording" rather than the issue itself, as Aeseous said himself.

In fact, you should have added the {cn} tag on this article too, after knowing that a similar viewpoint is expressed in the Greek article and that, that sort of an edit has been there since ages. Removal of my edit altogether will not do, because the focus is now on citation; with sufficient reasoning given to back its presence, a similar example in Greek language, and a now U-turned Aeseous, who had earlier accepted its presence, I added a {cn} tag there. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 05:07, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Again, the contents of Greek Language and status quo claims are irrelevant to the verifiability requirements on the Sanskrit article. Lets leave up the {{fact}} tag for a couple of days; hopefully a reference will be found, else we can remove the phrase you added. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 17:10, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Some comments.

1. The article already says "Dating back to as early as 1500 BCE, Vedic Sanskrit is the earliest attested Indo-Aryan language, and one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family." These are both sourced statements.
2. The information IAF is putting is worded poorly, making it sound like Indo-European or Indo-Iranian date back 3700 years.
3. It is a controversial claim to state that Sanskrit is still in existence/spoken. My understanding is that, outside of religious settings, use of Sanskrit died out in ways similar to Latin. Looking at the article, though, there doesn't seem to be any information to this effect, so we ought to expand that. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:56, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Abecedare, the standards applied to one article are applicable to another article that is written is an identical manner. It seems vague that what's alright for Greek language isn't so for Sanskrit.

Aeusoes :

• That is true and nobody disputed that or even changed those lines.

• If wording is the problem, then change it.

• That's a subjective matter. The article clearly mentions that there are fifty thousand registered speakers of Sanskrit in India. A village has all inhabitants fluent in the tongue. Its taught to hundreds of thousands in schools across. Whatever the case may be, its not on the verge of extinction even though it is not exactly witnessing high growth in the number of speakers. Another thing is that though its true that there have been revival attempts, but these attempts are not resusication attempts or attempts to save it from extinction. The Sanskrit corpus is well preserved by the Indian establishment, meaning Universities, books, research and the like; the 'revival' was just to get more people to start speaking the language and not some attempt to ask the last remaining speakers to pen down a quick guide to Sanskrit grammar before they die.

Again, 50,000 speakers is a number sizeable enough to classify it as a reasonably spoken tongue.

You had agreed to the edits I made in December, but have since done a flip. I am always bogged down by editors asking for references and citations, otherwise we shouldn't have been discussing this. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 04:16, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

IAF, The content of any other wikipedia article is irrelevant, since we make content descisions based upon wikipedia's core policies (WP:V in this case) and not based on other stuff exists.

Regarding the points you raise with Aeusoes, here are my comments:

1. The statements on dating in the lede are not obvious and definitely need citations. therefore I added the two citations you see last week. If I had found a citation for the sentences you wish to include, I would have added those too, but I didn't find any.

2. True, but wording is not the only problem with the disputed content. The fundamental problem is that it is unverifiable and that makes it unacceptable.

3. I agree with you. The determination whether Sanskrit is living/dead/dormant etc cannot be based upon Aeusoes, your or my personal analysis and would need proper attribution and citations; like the ones Aeusoes added to the Sanskrit#Decline section.

Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 04:31, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

• That Sanskrit dates to 1,500 BC is present in the article with citation. To calculate that it is 3,500 years old from today needs arithmetic, and not a citation.

• If there is a need for a citation that there are not many languages from that time still surviving today, then I have none. But that still does not demerit the fact's inclusion, because simple knowledge of the age of most languages not only indicates, but confirms that not even a handful of existing languages actually date back to that time. Wikipedia can also be a source of mined information rather than just a compilation of citations

• Sanskrit is not an Extinct language, though it may be a dead language. It is also not a totally dead language. It is a Modern language. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 06:39, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Abecedare has pretty much summed up my position on the matter. I would like to point out though, that IAF and I never never "settled" our disagreement. We were starting to find common ground when the edit was removed by a third editor. I figured he had given up since he didn't raise the issue anymore. I see now that he didn't notice it until recently.

IAF, you mention the community of native speakers. Is there evidence that they have continued speaking it from before its earlier death? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:58, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

FWIW I've added some {{Fact}}s to the Greek language article. Grover cleveland (talk) 00:47, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Aeseous, correction. The article already does mention the community of native speakers. This Indian govt. census page mentions Sanskrit people as 14135. You should have noticed the external link that reports how the natives of a village have Sanskrit as their first tongue. All this makes Sanskrit a spoken tongue. Dying yes, but still spoken.

And Abecedare, the Sanskrit article is loaded with needs for citation, and so giving an ultimatum for just my edits even though they are backed by reasonable discussion before, is totally unnecessary. I'm sure you also have no intention to remove the cosmetic {cn} tags in the Greek language article.

This issue is more about wording and presentation rather than just sources, which by the way are already there. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 18:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that there is a community of people who speak Sanskrit natively and that this is sourced. However, what would you say to someone who argued that this is the result of an earlier revitalization? This seems extremely likely and really sullies the "still" part of the edit you'd like to put in. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The claim of oldest surviving language is till unreferenced, and does not become true just because Greek and Latin are mentioned in the same sentence. After all what about Euskara, a language spoken by roughly 700,000, and mainstream scholarhip accepts as existing before Indo-European languages entered Europe; some even trace its origins as far back as 50,000 years ?! (see Fisher, Steven, "A history of language")

Note that I am not claiming that Euskara is the oldest surviving language; only showing how without scholarly sources specifically labeling Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Euskara etc as the oldest surviving language any such claims are unjustified and unacceptable original research. Abecedare (talk) 19:43, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Firstly to Aeseous, refer to the December discussion : These native speakers are not the efforts of a conscious revival attempt. This language has, besides always being the primary medium of rituals, had a speaker base, no matter how miniscule. Don't go on "likeliness", but facts.

Abecedare, it was made clear that it is one of the oldest surviving languages. There are thousands of languages and dialects spoken in the world, none of them so old. Conventional wisdom regards 4 or 5 out of a few thousand as "very small" or "few". So, what you see as WP:OR, I see as a factoid justifiably mined from a known statistic. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 18:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

There are no sources cited in the December discussion. I could justify my choice of determining what is or isn't likely but that's not really relevent since I said that in my asking if you have a source (which you don't). Throughout this and earlier discussions you either ignore or deny requests for citation (even removing them from the article) and all opposition against your tiny edit would end with such a citation. You apparantly don't have any usable sources. Please, come back when you do. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:27, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The onus to prove that Sanskrit has not been a spoken language throughout continuity, lies with you. The default is that Sanskrit has always been a spoken tongue, albeit one that is in continuous decline. Raking up a supposed suspiscion, and then blocking an edit for want of a source of the counter of what you raised, is not wikipedia editing.

Continuity must be assumed, until otherwise raised. You are doing the exact opposite. If you have raised the issue of continuity, then provide references; but I am not obliged to provide references that prove continuity. Anyway even if there has been no continuity (just assume momentarily), then too the facts by themselves remain : one of the few oldest languages still in existence. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 12:14, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Well in that case, I've done some research on the matter and done a pretty good job of editing the article to show that, like Latin, Sanskrit is a dead language. The title of one of this article's sources is "The Death of Sanskrit." If this doesn't "raise the issue of continuity" (even if you try to twist this into meaning something other than language death) then I don't know what would.

As for your final claim: I disagree. If the language has died, it doesn't "still" exist. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 14:35, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Scroll up and refer to the earlier conversation I had with Abecedare. Sanskrit is not a totally dead language, not an extinct language. By definition, its a modern language. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 11:07, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Funny, our article on modern languages specifically excludes classical languages from its definition (the first sentence of this article is "Sanskrit is a classical language of India..."). Since no one has removed this or disputed my edits describing how it failed to become a modern language, I can only assume that they either agree or haven't been able to find adequate sourcing to detail their disagreement. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:47, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Sanskrit is not a [dead language|totally dead] language. It is still spoken, and in that respect alone it confirms to the primary definition of a [modern language]. The [modern language] page excludes classical languages not by principle or definition, but by an assumption that all these languages are may not be spoken any longer, which is not true in case of Sanskrit. Like I said earlier, declining yes, but spoken still. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 15:57, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

The source has to deliver the fact, how many people use Sanskrit as their Mothertongue. However, scholars accept, that Sanskrit is indeed to be classified as dead language just like Latin or Ancient Greek. Latin is also not "really dead", because many people have to use it at their work such as priests in the catholic church. Just my 2 cents. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 21:58, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

And it does deliver the fact. Check properly. And Sanskrit shlokas are recited with equal magnanimity in the subcontinent's umpteen Hindu rituals, as are Latin ones. You are aware that the Vedas, Upanishads and Puranas from where these shlokas are recited from are written in Sanskrit, right ? Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 11:07, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thrihusivaperur. Read the article throughly, you'll find sources about Sanskrit speakers (census data and the news report from a village in Karnataka state). Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 12:14, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Thirusivaperur is the name.. I checked these sources. The news report tells how some children speak Sanskrit, but have to teach their parents. So it's not their mother tongue. I'm not able to verify the census data, or whether the data is telling us more about Sanskrit mother tongue people. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 13:19, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

In doing some research, I found the phrase "Sanskrit is one of the oldest classical languages of India." Does that sound like a reasonable compromise? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:26, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually that's a political issue. Like this one. In India forget predating, nothing even parallels Sanskrit in age.

And yeah, we're talking of one of the oldest spoken tongues in the world, and not one of the oldest classical tongues in just India. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 07:27, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, since we're starting to repeat ourselves and you're not willing to find sources or compromise, I think this discussion is over. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:59, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

It's fine if you've ended the discussion, for you were neither looking at existing sources, nor agreeing to reason anyway. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 16:29, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Aeusoes1, you know very well that all 8 or 9 north Indian languages (not to mention so many dialects) borrow almost all major words from Sanskrit. Please stop this obstinate insistence on sources, when I have repeatedly told you that there is no one such source (or atleast I could not find one) that explicitly states that precisely. Those that do, are from ultra right-wing sites.

Both of us know the facts and there are individual sources for each of the languages, that confirm they have descended from Sanskrit. Like this one or this one. Adding a string of 9 refs WILL NOT LOOK PROPER. You can add a citation tag if you want, but don't remove it altogether because we all know its true. The article on Languages of India too states this fact but without a source. The article is centered on this fact.

As far as the oldest language thingy is concerned, its again a matter of sources. List of languages by first written accounts states that Sanskrit has accounts dating to 1,500 BC. Sanskrit is a Classical language and which is not Diglosstic, which we know as it has been uncorrupted till today. Finally, the article states the census report that notes the number of native Sanskrit speakers. A recompilation of these 3 facts leads us to the "one of the oldest languages in existence". Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 06:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll try to find a reference for Sanskrit's influence on Indian languages. As for the oldest language ... we have lready gone over that dozens of time, and without a specific reference it does not belong in the article. Abecedare (talk) 06:09, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I have added references, which in fact support a stronger statement about the influence of Sanskrit than was originally stated in the article. Abecedare (talk) 06:58, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for finding additional sources for the article, Abecedare.

IAF, I don't know where to begin with your argument. Let me see if I can't break it down. Either:

• You have little access/ability in conducting scholarly research (your reliance on websites leads me to believe this), in which case you don't have the authority to make statements like "there is no one such source (or at least I could not find one) that explicitly states that precisely."
• You have done the research and found the sources but are unwilling to source them because "adding refs for 8 n-Indian langs won't look good." This is a rather ridiculous claim. Sources, even eight in a row, make articles look better not worse.

There might also be a point of confusion going on; citation requests are not present to mark dubious information--if I believed the information to be false I would simply remove it--and their presence in an article is to ask editors to find sources. If you can't find a source, you should still keep the citation request there for other editors to succeed where you have failed. Removing requests for citation is considered vandalism. I hope Abecedare's recent edits have demonstrated how this process can work. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:25, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Abecedare's find was his good luck (probably he knew where to look), for I have already said that what I could find was not proper reference material from sites like this or this. Your claim of sticking to sources rings hollow, because while you were content with adding the citation tag for DBachman's edit of Kariboli, you removed my version of the edit wholly. If you had doubt about the "oldest existing" part of my edit, you could have removed only that particular line, but let the second part be after adding only a citation tag.

If you think 8 references are OK, then you too agree to that fact that Sanskrit has parented north-Indian languages. You cannot complain about "lack of sources" for a point that is well mentioned in many other articles of wikipedia, including Languages of India, Linguistic history of India and last but not the least, a point that is well referenced in Marathi, Marathi grammar, Bengali, Hindi, Gujarati, Nepali etc. Despite repeatedly reminding you of all this, your removal of that edit constituted grouse vandalism.

As far as the 'oldest language' part is concerned, I fully removed that in my last edit. Sanskrit is indeed one of the few* languages from that time-range that are still spoken today. Elsewhere, the article does provide a reference to the Indian government's census data about the number of native speakers (even if you do not consider a village where Sanskrit is being revived). Once again, there has been no source that counts such languages, but it would be fairly conventional to declare that such languages are few (like Greek).

The bulk of the History section is devoted to breaking down the word 'Sanskrit' and explaining its meaning. This is better placed in another section. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 10:03, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

1. How Abecedare found the sources is irrelevant. My point was that, if you can't find a source yourself, don't remove the citation requests. Period.
2. The main difference between any claim you find me tagging and your edit is that yours is an edit subject to rigorous opposition. You've had several months to source it and you've failed. Are you accusing me of having a double standard? What do you think the root of my double standard is?
   1. By the way, the census information you keep referring to does nothing to address the extreme likelihood that the community of Sanskrit speakers is the result of a revival effort. If "Continuity must be assumed" then so does language change; if they speak paninian Sanskrit then the linguistic situation is not the result of normal linguistic continuity.
3. Yes, I agree that Sanskrit has influenced North Indian languages. If other articles provide that information without sourcing then they should also be tagged or sourced. There are many articles on Wikipedia that have sourcing issues. Sanskrit is one of them and we're trying to hold it to a higher standard than the articles you seem to be looking at. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 10:38, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

1. If you know very well the fact to be true, then do not remove full edits, while tolerating them (with cite tags, of course) if done by your Euro-buddy, DBachmann.
2. You have been told that individual references for each language abound (in wikipedia as well as outside), but a train of refs won't seem proper. Yet you ignored all this and removed my edit.
3. Before questioning 3 months of time, need I tell you that you had basically settled to my edits in Dec. after they were removed a few days later ? Now you claim to the contrary (and let's not discuss that any more). In these few months neither I nor anyone else looked for sources until I came across the changed article once again last month.
4. Do not raise the issue of "revival". Like I said, this is a needless, and opinionated passing suggestion to an otherwise default argument of continuity. I needn't entertain this. There is no cross-examination or investigation going on here. If you have doubts, you can do your own separate research to first prove that there indeed has been a revival attempt, and then come back with your findings.
5. And the individual language articles mostly do have sources to back the claim. In any case, there are numerous articles on the web of those individual languages that cite that Sanskrit is the main influence on those languages. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 11:06, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

1. There's nothing that I've removed that I believe to be true.
2. The edit in question was the removal of a citation request. Removing a citation request and saying "oh, it's cited somewhere in or out of Wikipedia" doesn't cut it. All of this is moot, though. You'll notice that it's cited right now.
3. I needn't entertain this
4. You obviously know very little about linguistics. All languages change over time in semantics, pronunciation, morphology, syntax, etc. This change is gradual but, over the course of several centuries, very noticeable. You actually believe that there is a community of speakers whose language has gone unchanged for thousands of years? If you believe that, I have some swamp land in Florida to sell you. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:48, 12 April 2008 (UTC)