SV: Classical languages of India

[Lakshmi Srinivas]

--- Lars Martin Fosse <lmfosse at ONLINE.NO> wrote:
> "A classical language is a language with an ancient
> literature of
> outstanding quality that through a considerable
> period of time has played
> an important part in the history, literature and
> culture of several peoples
> that otherwise may use different mother tongues."


Dear Dr Fosse,

This suggestion seems to require, for a candidate
language to qualify as classical, an imperial context
whereby subject peoples use the language of the
imperial nuclear zone viz., Latin in the Roman Empire.

I'm not altogether sure this model is directly valid
in the Indian context esp. of Tamil.

In the case of Tamil, the elegant reasoning of AK
Ramanujan is certainly worth recalling - cf. Indology
post dt Fri, 15 Jan 1999 06:54:44 PST by Chris
Fernandez in the thread 'Classical vs. Modern'.

I hope that you do not require that a language be well
and truly dead for it to qualify as a Classical
language. This was another one of the arguments
advanced against Tamil's claims to being a Classical
language.

Thanks and Warm Regards,

LS




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