frequencies

Anna A. Slaczka annamisia at YAHOO.COM
Wed Feb 18 09:54:44 UTC 2009


Well, modern spoken/written Sanskrit is certainly heavily influenced by modern Indian languages, especially Hindi.

Anna.



Anna A. Slaczka
Leiden University
The Netherlands


--- On Wed, 2/18/09, Alexandra Vandergeer <geeraae at GEOL.UOA.GR> wrote:

> From: Alexandra Vandergeer <geeraae at GEOL.UOA.GR>
> Subject: Re: frequencies
> To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
> Date: Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 9:37 AM
> That makes it even more interesting to perform statistical
> tests. When you
> read Latin descriptions of new species in the 19th century,
> you can't help
> seeing a native language substratum underlying this
> 'Latin'. Why this
> wouldn't have been the case for Sanskrit? Everybody
> repeats the same,
> Sanskrit is pure, holy and so on, but has this ever been
> measured? Being
> holy doesn't make it vulnerable to impacts from a
> 'lower' level, including
> the bazaar, if you like. Also Sanskrit suffered from an
> evolution from
> within, so to say.
> 
> (I'm not a linguist either; even if my phd is on a
> linguistic subject, I'm
> more interested in the statistics of language use than in
> the derivation
> of word stems :-) ).
> 
> Alexandra
> 
> > Obviously Sanskrit is a language functioning in a
> timeless never-never
> > world. It is the language of the Brahmanical sacred
> world-order. Thus it
> > would probably never have been meant to be a vehicle
> of daily
> > communication.
> > Sanskrit is timeless, pure and holy, at least
> certainly since the second
> > millenium (C.E.). The use of Sanskrit by Buddhists in
> the first millenium
> > is
> > certainly remarkable. Could it indicate a strong
> tendency on the part of
> > Buddhists to adapt themselves even more to Brahmanical
> norms than the
> > texts
> > of the Pali canon seem to indicate? The comparison
> with Hebrew is
> > interesting, for Hebrew is another ancient sacred
> language of scriptures
> > and
> > not of daily communication on worldly matters. Latin
> and Arabic also
> > developed these tendencies.
> > But I'm no linguist.
> > Victor van Bijlert
> >
> >
> > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> > Van: Indology [mailto:INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk] Namens
> > franco at RZ.UNI-LEIPZIG.DE
> > Verzonden: dinsdag 17 februari 2009 15:55
> > Aan: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
> > Onderwerp: Re: frequencies
> >
> > Frequency in Sanskrit does not work in the same way as
> in English and
> > other modern languges. It is possible to complie a
> list of 3000 words
> > in English that cover 70-80% of "all"
> conversations, newspaper
> > articles, etc. This is just not possible in the case
> of Sanskrit--if
> > it were possible, it would have been done a long time
> ago--because the
> > vocabulary is highly specialized according to literary
> genres. On the
> > other hand, if one moves within the same genre, one
> can go back and
> > forth hundreds of years without any difficulty,
> something that cannot
> > be done in English, German, French and do on. Hebrew
> is an exception,
> > but this is a special case.
> > Best wishes,
> > EF
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >   Quoting Jonathan Silk <kauzeya at GMAIL.COM>:
> >
> >> Just a quick note (in addition to correcting the
> misprint pointed out by
> >> Jan--yes, of course, linguist!): Whether or not
> one wants to include the
> >> lexicon of Buddhist texts as
> "Sanskrit"--and there was long ago more
> >> than
> >> one discussion about this, about whether we also
> want to speak of Jaina
> >> Sanskrit, architectural Sanskrit and so on--the
> language of these texts
> >> is
> >> not in any sense "derived from Pali".
> While the two are related, to be
> > sure,
> >> and some portion of Buddhist(ic) Sanskrit
> vocabulary may have been
> > borrowed
> >> or adapted from Middle Indic (--that is, *some*
> Buddhist[ic] Skt is
> >> 'Sanskritized Prakrit'), I am not aware of
> any case in which it can be
> > shown
> >> that the Middle Indic in question is Pali (but I
> have not looked into
> >> this--has anyone?).
> >>
> >> This is slightly off the topic, but the point is
> that if one wants to
> > decide
> >> to exclude particularly Buddhist lexica from a
> lexicon of Skt, the
> >> grounds
> >> for this cannot be that the words are not Skt.
> >>
> >> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 2:39 PM, Alexandra
> Vandergeer
> >> <geeraae at geol.uoa.gr>wrote:
> >>
> >>> Naturally, but the same is valid for
> present-day English. Frequency
> >>> lists
> >>> are based on a wide spectrum, including
> newspapers, books, literature,
> >>> spoken language, but not necessarily poems. In
> the case of Skt, I'd
> > expect
> >>> epics, philosophical texts in the broadest
> sense, shastras, [Buddhist
> >>> texts not, likely derived from Pali] to give a
> reasonable sample of the
> >>> Sanskrit language as is.
> >>>
> >>> And I agree with Jonathan that the lexicon
> suggested by Himal is likely
> >>> a
> >>> 'useful' vocabulary to read avarage
> Skt texts. Anyway, thanks Himal for
> >>> the suggestion.
> >>>
> >>> Alexandra van der Geer
> >>> Athens
> >>>
> >>> > I am not sure whether the question is
> even meaningful for classical
> >>> > Sanskrit. Frequency where? In Epic
> literature? In philosophical
> >>> > literature? In dharmasaastra or Buddhist
> texts? Each genre has its
> >>> own
> >>> > special vocabulary, and its own
> frequencies.
> >>> > Best wishes
> >>> > EF
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> J. Silk
> >> Instituut Kern / Universiteit Leiden
> >> Postbus 9515
> >> 2300 RA Leiden
> >> Netherlands
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
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> Messaging Program.
> >


      





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