Sanskrit in scientific terminology

[schopra at cabler.cableregina.com]

Paul:  It is not neccessary to reinvent technical terms which are in common
use, I feel we should use the terms as they are.  Phone is a phone in most
languages.  Boron is Boron, and so it should be in Sanskrit.  English is a
great language because it has borrowed freely from all languages.  What
would a menu look like if translated into true English, very boring.  Cafe
au Lait expresses better than anything.  A la carte, you couldnot improve on
that.  Taxi in Sanskrit should be nothing but a taxi. Helllo, becomes, ello
in french but the spelling remains the same.  Why not we think of importing
words in Sanskrit.  No pure language exists.  At one time Sanskrit must have
borrowed from the great Dravidian languages which pre-existed in India when
Sanskrit arrived.  No wonder the language grew - alchemy of mixing languages
gives more more powerful communication tools.  Unless we can improve, let us
borrow .. words in Sanskrit.  Of course there are incredible words that can
be created by adding prefixes and suffixes which exist in Sanskrit.  aqueous
and anaqueous, wonder wondertum and maybe anwondertum .. we can explode the
language ... maybe import those words into other languages and we have an
explosion of ideas not just words.  Maybe we start to create superlanguages
.. Let us get creative ... and get away from pure languages, there are none
... they are dead.  Let us create a million new words.

>When Mendeleev introduced his periodic system of elements in 1867, he 
>predicted that the gaps in the table would be filled by as yet 
>undiscovered elements with certain properties that he specified.  He 
>named his predicted elements by prefixing the Sanskrit numerals eka-, 
>dvi-, tri-, shchatur- [sic] to the names of the corresponding known 
>elements.  (Unfortunately, the predicted elements were given new 
>nationalistic names when they were later discovered, e.g. Mendeleev's 
>"eka-aluminium" became gallium, "eka-boron" became scandium, 
>"eka-silicon" became germanium, "dvi-tellurium" became polonium, and 
>"tri-manganese" became rhenium.)
>
>Why did Mendeleev use Sanskrit terminology here rather than Greek or
>Latin as is normal?  Could it be that he knew about the Sivasutras?
>If he did, he must have seen that they are really a periodic system of
>the Sanskrit sounds, amazingly similar to his own periodic system of
>chemical elements even in their arrangement. So could the Sanskrit
>names have been meant as homage to Panini?
>
>This raises the question how much Sanskrit Mendeleev knew.  He taught
>at St. Petersburg.  Could someone tell me what Sanskritists were there
>in the 1860's?  When were Boethlingk and Roth there?
>
>The only other use of Sanskrit in scientific terminology that I know
>about is the modern term "antarafacial".  Does anyone know of others?
>
>Paul Kiparsky
>
>