Culture Cloning

# 377 Anil

That post was quite impressive.

However, I am curious about impact of such perfection. If a language has such tight rules it would be great from automation point of view. However, could this have contributed in keeping most of the ordinary folks “illiterate” since they probably didn’t have time, capability or inclination to deal with very strict rules?

One of my Chinese friends once told me that there are a total of about 3000-3500 symbols, self contained word(s), in mandarin. Even educated folks could use only 700-800 of them and ordinary people can barely write 300 or so. His point was that to be an English literate, one need to know small number of alphabets, while in their language, the literature and court dealings became province of only a chosen few and that contributed to keeping most of the folks “enslaved” to the aristocracy.

As I think back, I am not sure how far he was correct since Chinese are doing great on literacy front now using the same language.

Any opinion on this since you seem to know so much about languages :)?

re: Sindhi, Urdu controversy?
http://www.sulekha.com/news/nhc.aspx?cid=439060

(..nobody can deny that though Urdu is the mother tongue of only 7.5 percent Pakistanis, the language has now become the lingua franca in Pakistan - from Karachi to the Khyber. Sindhis, Punjabis, Seraikis, Pushtuns and the Baluch speak this language fluently. There is thus no opposition to the status of Urdu, but resistance is seen when Urdu is used to bulldoze the regional languages.



Sindhis are passionately attached to their language and culture. They have always resisted the suppression of their language by Urdu-speaking settlers, who till today are called muhajirs or refugees. Muhajirs were the first rulers of Pakistan. They made Karachi Pakistan`s first capital, from where Sindhi was all but banished. Muhajirs controlled Sindh`s second largest city, Hyderabad, too. Sindhis complained that they were being made ``Red Indians`` in their own province.)
Sridhar

re: Anil`s various
Whatever, whatever.
Just end this charade and stupidity, will u?
Sridhar

Re: # 378

Sridhar:

Seemingly you are quite narscissitic to think that I have to impress you.

Any way if it pleases you to know that I studied Sanskrit not only when my father and grandfather, but in early 80`s, I also led an effort to design computer programming language for a fortune 10 company at Stanford with Prof. O. J. Dahl. Prof. Dahl invented the data abstraction called ``Class`` which is now common in programming language. Infact, Prof. Dahl, and one more person joined my team effort that I led to include Class in programming language.

What I had just wrote for you and Ajeya is only a glimpse of grammar, and both human and computer programming languages work Prof. Dahl and I did. You seen to fancy yourself to much, it would not be an exaggeration if I tell you that I have hired and fired more people of your kind of psychiatric people in my life.

Please do get real, and understand the logic, facts and research that I am presenting. Otherwisse you might start having delusions that Panini and Kalidasa were really born after 19th century.

Sanskrit is a language quite dear to me. As I see to your heart. This does not mean your should get emotional. In fact, if it helps you, in mid 90`s, I have funded the effort by the goup in Karnataka to foster Sanskrit. There are some aspects of early Hindu thought process and clausal logic that evolved out Sanskrit interests me a lot, and I feel is relevant in present day also.

Anil

Re: # 378

Sridhar;

I am beginning to feel that probably I have studies more than you have and therefore, wasting time with you. Your knowledge of Sanskrit is limited to emotional attachment and are unable to see the reality. Therefore, you are blinded and are unable to see the difference between Bankim Chandra Chapptopadhaya`s bengali novel with a sanskrit poem Vande Matram in it, and Sri Arbindo`s discourses in Sanskrit, from common man thousands of year before, who did not speak Sanskrit, despite the best efforts of the court of Vikramaditya onward.

Genrally, I don`t discuss with people, who have short fuse for listening, and are unable to understand reason. I hope you will indeed do more research and study Sanskrit before you commit to discussions.

Anil

Re: # 377

I have always found it strange that in North Indian langauages, Dnya becomes gya
as in Pradnya becoming Pragya, Dnyan becoming gyan.
And Kru becoming Kri like Sanskrut becoming Sanskrit, Krushna becoming Krishna.
I think in South India, they will pronounce Kru and not Kri and Dnya and not gya.

re:#366 by Ajeya
Are u saying sanskrit split into many languages, hindi being one of them? I really do not understand your POV.
Sridhar

re:#376 by anil
I was saying that even up until 19th century, people who knew sanskrit well conversed in that language. Sri Aurobindo often gave speeches in sanskrit. Bankim wrote the memorable Vande mataram in sanskrit and he was just in his 20s.
Get over that court and romance stuff. I think u have very little knowledge of sanskrit and are now just quoting from the web sources to impress me.
Sridhar

Sridhar & Ajeya:

Sanskrit Grammar
There is much more to write about Sanskrit grammar, for now I want to share the following.

Human language have sentence as the main construct, just as computer languages have program as the main construct. The grammar is developed how the sentence can be formed in syntax and semantics. Sanskrit delivers more semantics through its syntax than anyother language that I know. This is where designers of Sanskrit spend more time to make its syntax precise, governed by rules, and context free. Context free allows a properly formed word though syntax to deliver the same meaning in any context.

English and other European languages, except German, have:

{Sentence} ::= {subject} {verb} {object} as the basic construction of the language.

In Sanskrit, the construction is:

{Sentence} ::= {subject} {object} {verb}

Freeing up verb from the middle allows Sanskrit great flexibility, and makes its grammar context free. It helps make single words to deliver complete meaning.

Panini enumerated rules to formalize Sanskrit grammar.

{verbs} have forms – past, present, and future, and singular, dual and plural.

Dual form is unique and is mainly used in reference to Purush (male) and Prakriti (female) union in romance and to address King and Queen, or other exalted couple.

There are precise rules to change each of the nine (9) forms that are possible for each verb. There are precise suffixes for each form. For example, Namaami mean by itself means, “I bow”, and nothing else. Verbs can also have proverbs as qualifier prefixes.

{subject} and {object} can be nouns and pronouns, with adjectives as prefix.

Again there are precise rules for masculine, feminine and neutral gender; past, present and future tense; and singular, dual and plural forms. For instance, Lata’s present one home, Lata’s previous two homes, and Lata’s future many homes, will use different suffixes but precisely defined for the name Lata. Similarly for the home when used as {object} in different context will have precisely defined suffixes.

The rules for sandhi (combining words) are well defined and precise. Since each noun and each pronoun when used as {subject} or {object} has precise and accurate rules to form in a complete context. Therefore, when fully formed{subject} and {object} are “sandhied” together they follow rules too, and are higher abstraction like “Class and Methods” in computer languages.

Metaphors, adjective, and proverbs can take their forms as well. If you read Kalidasa’s description of Stri, in Meghdoot, and flight of Cloud you will appreciate the beauty of this language. Some times one combined word describes everything.

In all, as I recall, there are about 80 sutras that define the entire Sanskrit grammar.

The problem comes in “uchaaran”, it is quite difficult to perfect. Ordinary person tend to break Sanskrit combined words into recognizable phonetic sound to speak out. Experts speaker tend to speak combined word including sandhis in entirety, without breaking it into constituent words. In Sanskrit there is big emphasis on ``uchaaran``, whether you go to a center in South India or North India where Sanskrit is taught, one can hear Sanskrit chants of the students.

North Indian “uchaaran” is recognized as flawed, because, it is greatly influenced by colloquial language, and inclusion of “apbhransa” (impure) words in colloquial languages. While Marathi and even South Indian Brahmin speakers have purer pronunciation, this fact is also well accepted. I have personal experience. I had met a Sanskrit scholar in Bangalore, and we were discussing this subject. He asked me recite a shloka from Gita, and I did. He then recited and I could hear the difference. He then wrote down the entire shloka and showed me how I was breaking up combined words and pronouncing and how he was pronouncing without breaking the sandhis of same words. He also pointed out how my breaking sandhis were influenced buy the Hindi phonetics.

No other human language has so precisely defined formal grammar (grammar for the grammar). The fact that Sanskrit has such precise formal grammar, and absence of colloquial, folk tales and songs, while there is presence of scriptures, classical literature, law, medicine, economics written in Sanskrit, indicates the extent and limit of its use.

Hindi has much smaller set of Sanskrit grammar rules, whereas Marathi has more Sanskrit grammar rules, especially related to “sandhis”. Uchaaran of spoken words in Marathi, is closer to words in Sanskrit, also. Marathi, has fewer “apbrahansa” Sanskrit words than Hindi. Thus it is much closer to Sanskrit.

Anil

Re: # 350

Sridhar:

Without calling you stupid, I wonder where did you get the link of 19th century to my point of Sanskrit being ``designed`` for court and romance. I hope you know Panini was born much before 19th century, and so was Kalidasa.

Anil

Re: # 364

``Women just desist from eating grains or cooked food but they are allowed to drink and eat certain foods. ``

i did say that in one of my earlier post.

l had a tamil friend (from Kalpakam, TN) who was working in TISCO, Pune. there he observed his marathi colleagues fasting every week. He told me that this fasting business was a big farce, as these people eat more food (fruits, sweet semollina) during lunch than on non-fasting days :)

mannyd:

I repeat that a remark against a gender-biased custom, which karva chauth certainly is, does not mean hindu-bashing.

As for the ball in the well story, I think that her reference was to the horrible events associated with that well.

And to top it all, she does not know the difference between `there` and `their`, does not know when to use a question mark, can not do a simple cut and paste to back her claim on `Advice and advise`, thinks laughing causes you to lose your brain and eye sight.

She ordered you once to forget the claim on a ball you lost in a well in Pakistan. I think once in her youth she laughed too hard and has been a blind twit ever since...LOL..
HAHAHAHHAHHA!

Dost Mittar: ` So, it is unfair to say that she is using just another stick to beat up on the hindus.`

Have you seen Pakistai movie Maula Jat? Do you remeber the flesh, blood, fat and gore flying around in the movie. This lady is saying that Karua Chauth creates more real life fiascos than Maula Jat. She is plain off her rocker.

Pakistanis, Bengla Deshis or Ceylonese do not celebrate Karua Chauth. Hindus do. She has interviewed her Hindu female friends( All five of them) and they are complaining to her instead of their husbands about this `cruel and inhumane practice`. Very strange group of friends.

She has been on Chowk for a number of years and has spoken against gender based inequities. Big deal. I am not impressed at all.

From what I can remember, she fasts during Ramdan, breaks her fast with a date, demands feminine napkins in Pakistani airports, goes into agony over touching a free bottle of wine and sends it back, thinks all governments should be replaced by corporations and looks down her nose at all Desi males. You want to mollycoddle this self centered arrogant female, please go ahead. I feel no urge or compulsion to do that.

Brave lady feminista ran away,
She tucked her tail and ran away
away, away, AWAY.

Go fly a kite, Feminista. I would rather go on ahunger strike than fast, specially on orders from a silly supercillious spoiled brat like you.