VYAKARAN: Re: Classical Sanskrit Accent

[Dick Oliver]

>And is it worth it with a read-only language? 

Sanskrit may not be conversational anymore, but let's hope it never becomes
a read-only language! It would be a sad day when the Vedic oral tradition
vanishes completely.

>...only to make myself understood!

The primary use of Sanskrit pronounciation today is not to make oneself
understood, but to preserve what is almost certainly the planet's oldest
language with a living oral tradition. Any efforts to identify how
pronounciation varies regionally, and how it may vary from its historical
pronounciation, is worthwhile in my book.

Oh, and BTW you'll probably be understood better if you refrain from, as the
South-Indian idiom goes, "speaking in Sanskrit." <grin>


--Dick Oliver ----------
  Cedar Science Center
  Wolcott, Vermont USA