language for communication

[Lars Martin Fosse]

At 14:19 13.09.96 BST, Lance Cousins wrote:
>I, for one, welcome communications in Romance or Germanic languages. Indeed
>I would regard an openness to that as a mark of serious scholarship.
>
>I do not see the need to have a single language of communication. Apart
>from anything else, the quantity of important work in Indology conducted in
>French and German (taken together) is at least equal to that in English
>(and probably greater). Of course English far exceeds all other European
>languages in the production of rubbish !

I'll certainly not contest that! 

>If you restrict postings to the English language, then you merely produce
>the result that some French or German scholars will not post because it
>will be too time-consuming to do so. (Many who are fluent in reading
>English cannot write English at speed.) This would be a loss to us all.

I doubt very much that serious French and German scholars would not post
because it would be too time-consuming. If a Norwegian can learn how to
communicate in English, so can the French and the Germans. The important
question is: How many in the world community of Indologists are able to read
French and German (not to mention Russian and Italian) with ease? When I see
bibliographies at the end of papers produced in India, there are hardly
references to anything written by Germans or French scholars. This may
partly reflect the state of the local libraries. There is, however, a
Sanskrit World Conference coming up in January, and it might be an idea to
discuss the question there, in a contest which is not dominated by
Westernes. If I remember correctly, one of the reasons why Dumezil's work
had trouble reaching the USA was that he wrote in French, which a large
number of American scholars do read with ease. That is a pity, because
Dumezil was extremely important (no matter what you think of his ideas). To
repeat myself: What it boils down to, is communication. If you choose to
communicate in a language that a group of potential readers do not read, and
refuse to use a language that the same group does read, then you are
excluding them. So: Do you want to exclude the readers that don't read
French or German?

Best regards,

Lars Martin Fosse