Nehru and Persian/Arabic

[Paul Kekai Manansala]

Samar Abbas wrote:
>
> On Tue, 12 Jan 1999, N. Ganesan wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 12 Jan 1999, N. Ganesan wrote:
> >
> >  The University Grants Commission allocates funds for
> >  research into Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian only.
> >  This may be a vestige from Nehru era.
>
>  A thorough knowledge of Arabic and Persian eases understanding of their
> derivative, Hindustani, which is the third most widely used language in
> the world, is the de facto lingua franca and effective national language
> of India and understood by more than half of all Indians. Hence their
> status as classical languages: like classical Latin giving birth to the
> modern Romance languages, Classical Arabic and Persian gave birth to Urdu
> and its derivative Hindustani. Hence their status as Classical Languages
> par excellence of the bulk of the Indian population.
>
>  Moreover, a person speaking Hindustani can easily understand and write
> Arabic and or Persian with very little effort, while learning other
> classical languages is more difficult, but may be suitable for minorities.
>

You're right, but I would agree with Ganesan that Tamil deserves
classification as a classical language.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala