Language barriers --- financial barriers

[George Hart]

I would like to suggest, as gently as possible, that it is not a good  
idea to speak of an "indisputable hierarchy of languages" for  
Indologists, all of which happen to be Western.  I can testify that  
there is an enormous scholarly literature in Tamil that is important  
for Indological studies -- and that it is in no way inferior in  
quality or learning to what is in German or English.  The same is true  
of Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu -- and I suspect of the major North  
Indian languages.  If a student came to me and asked whether she  
should learn French, German, Tamil or Telugu, I would answer Tamil or  
Telugu without a second thought.  The fact that western scholars are  
ignorant of what is written in these languages does not mean they are  
less important or illuminating than what we write. George Hart