| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Off topic: Have you seen any translator with CV in a dead language on Proz.com? Thread poster: Łukasz Gos-Furmankiewicz
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| Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Empty post | Balasubramaniam L. 
India
Local time: 06:21
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | I wouldn't go so far as to call Sanskrit a dead language | Jul 4, 2013 |
It is extensively used in India of which it is one of the national languages (there are 21 of them and still counting). You even have daily news bulletins broadcast in Sanskrit every morning by All India Radio.
It is a subject taught in schools throughout India, so there are millions of students and thousands of teachers equipped in Sanskrit. Some at least would know the language well enough to speak it.
It is possible to do an MA and even a PhD in Sanskrit from most In... See more It is extensively used in India of which it is one of the national languages (there are 21 of them and still counting). You even have daily news bulletins broadcast in Sanskrit every morning by All India Radio.
It is a subject taught in schools throughout India, so there are millions of students and thousands of teachers equipped in Sanskrit. Some at least would know the language well enough to speak it.
It is possible to do an MA and even a PhD in Sanskrit from most Indian universities and hundreds of students do it too.
Further, Sanskrit is extensively used in the Hindu, Buddhist and Jain rituals and thousands of priests master the language for this purpose.
Even now thousands of books and magazines are published in Sanskrit.
And curiously enough, the Vedas (the religious texts of Hindus) are preserved not in written form, but in oral form for which the entire corpus of the four vedas running into thousands of stanzas have to be laboriously learnt by heart with the correct pronunciation. Thousands of priests and scholars have been doing this for millennia and special gurukuls (seminaries) exist to facilitate the study and preservation of the vedas.
Most Indian languages derive their terminology from Sanskrit (in the case of Hindi, about 75% of all the words are of Sanskrit origin). So learning Sanskrit is still necessary to fully master Indian languages.
And the final proof that Sanskrit is still alive and kicking is that there are several villages of priests in India when everyone from children up to the headman speak only Sanskrit.
But Sanskrit is not a commonly used language, and it has been so for thousands of years, that is, ever since modern Indian languages like Hindi emerged and took over from Sanskrit as the lingua franca of the people. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Sankrit's a living language | Jul 4, 2013 |
Okay, you've convinced me.
Incidentally, I once thought to learn the language myself. My mother had previously intended to study indology before eventually choosing hebraistics, she still has the books. I remember how I suddenly lost that learning zeal when I saw the alphabet. Some five pages of diverse characters in devanagari, if I recall correctly. I still remember how my learning zeal waned all of a sudden at that moment. ... See more Okay, you've convinced me.
Incidentally, I once thought to learn the language myself. My mother had previously intended to study indology before eventually choosing hebraistics, she still has the books. I remember how I suddenly lost that learning zeal when I saw the alphabet. Some five pages of diverse characters in devanagari, if I recall correctly. I still remember how my learning zeal waned all of a sudden at that moment.
But, I've toyed with the idea of Latin stationery or Latin text on stamps. Might revisit the idea if I ever get to translate canon law anywhere close to frequently.
Triston Goodwin wrote:
...to offer translation services into and from Pig Latin, but there's not much of a market for it.
I'm probably going to be coaxed into writing in Latin for my alma mater's law review later this year. I've always wanted to do that, but it's going to be a heckload of work. I'm going to go for something close to Aquinas's Latin rather than Ciceronian, so it's not like classical scholars are going to be mighty pleased. In fact, they just might want to flay me alive or something like that (as yet another party so inclined).
[Edited at 2013-07-04 19:40 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 06:21
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | Strange that you say that | Jul 5, 2013 |
Łukasz Gos-Furmankiewicz wrote: I once thought to learn the language (Sanskrit) myself. My mother had previously intended to study indology before eventually choosing hebraistics, she still has the books. I remember how I suddenly lost that learning zeal when I saw the alphabet. Some five pages of diverse characters in devanagari, if I recall correctly. I still remember how my learning zeal waned all of a sudden at that moment.
I wonder which book you were referring to, for Sanskrit has a very compact and highly scientific alphabet consisting of just 16 vowels and 29 consonants, all neatly arranged into groups. They all behave according to clearly defined rules. In fact, this alphabet, as well as the Sanskrit language itself, is so scientific and predictable (because of the clearly codified rules of usage by the renowned grammarian Panini), Sanskrit was found be the most suitable language for use on computers.
Incidentally, this very same Devnagari alphabet is used in Hindi, and several other Indian languages like Marathi, Nepali, Konkani, etc.
Alphabets derived from Devnagari are used by a number of other languages like Gujarati, Bengali and Punjabi.
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Balasubramaniam L. wrote: Łukasz Gos-Furmankiewicz wrote: I once thought to learn the language (Sanskrit) myself. My mother had previously intended to study indology before eventually choosing hebraistics, she still has the books. I remember how I suddenly lost that learning zeal when I saw the alphabet. Some five pages of diverse characters in devanagari, if I recall correctly. I still remember how my learning zeal waned all of a sudden at that moment. I wonder which book you were referring to, for Sanskrit has a very compact and highly scientific alphabet consisting of just 16 vowels and 29 consonants, all neatly arranged into groups. They all behave according to clearly defined rules. In fact, this alphabet, as well as the Sanskrit language itself, is so scientific and predictable (because of the clearly codified rules of usage by the renowned grammarian Panini), Sanskrit was found be the most suitable language for use on computers. Incidentally, this very same Devnagari alphabet is used in Hindi, and several other Indian languages like Marathi, Nepali, Konkani, etc. Alphabets derived from Devnagari are used by a number of other languages like Gujarati, Bengali and Punjabi.
So, I really don't know what made up those several pages of characters then. But there seemed to be characters after characters after characters. Any clues?
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