periodisation of Skt. (was: Re: Tamil words in English)

[Robert J. Zydenbos]

Vidhyanath Rao wrote:

> [Since nobody would bite my post about periodization of Sanskrit, I
> will try to steer this that way :-)]

> There is Sanskrit, and then there is Sanskrit.

> Medieval Sanskrit, in its syntax, had been deeply influenced by
> Prakrit. So much so, that some genres, like drama dialog, are just
> Prakrits in Sanskrit phonology. Modern Sanskrit, being modelled on
> medieval S., (with some further influences from modern languages),
> continues this.

This is in fact a very interesting and important topic, which too
few people have looked into. If more Sanskritists would try to
describe how and where Sanskrit was modified in the course of time,
a variety of colleagues would benefit from it: historians, students
of literature, etc. etc. This is of course not easy, but such
research has already been done for, e.g., later Latin, and it
should be possible for Sanskrit too.

RZ