Scripts (continued)

[thompson at jlc.net]

My point about the use of Skt. as a medium of exchange was a little tongue
in cheek, and I do not intend to send out saMdeZas in anything but English
for now. But in fact besides being an object of study for Sanskritists,
Skt. has also been a language of scholarship.  Like Latin, another dead
language that has been used as a medium of exchange for international
scholarship, Sanskrit has served as a more or less *neutral* language which
could be used to discuss any number of things.  This territoriality about
one's language of preference [French, Hindi, English, Sanskrit, etc.] is, I
confess, annoying [however, I apologize if I have been too vehement].
Clearly what is desired is a neutral medium of exchange, as well as a
standard convention for transliterating Indic languages [in fact, I do not
presuppose that Skt. = Indic]. I don't particularly care what that language
of exchange is [as long as I can gain access to it: how about Latin?] nor
do I especially care about transliteration conventions, as long as we all
agree.  Like G. Huet [I assume] I would like to see more of that "30%
interesting indological communication"....

Concerning which, I was intrigued by P. Kiparsky's posting re Skt. in
scientific terminology. I cannot answer his questions re Mendeleev's
knowledge of Skt. or the ZivasUtras, etc.  But as for homage to Panini, I
understand that Chomsky has also performed one to Panini.  Perhaps members
of the list might be interested to know more of this and related matters.


Of course, linguists of all sorts use the term sandhi, and the field of
comparative religion has been frequently enriched by numerous Skt. terms in
its general vocabulary, and I am convinced that folklorists should adopt
the term Atmastuti to designate a well-known but otherwise un-named genre
of folk and ritual literature.  Pseudo-science is of course filled with
Skt. terminology [perhaps because it lends credence]. As for real science?
I don't know.

This is an interesting issue which I hope to hear more about from those who
do.

Sincerely,
George Thompson

p.s. in response to M. Deshpande's  recent posting: perhaps Skt. is not
quite dead yet. Or perhaps it has been reborn.