Legal constraints (la

[George Cardona]

Dear all, 
Red: 
What is the situation in India? Is it possible to write a Ph.D. thesis 
in Sanskrit?
> From my experience with Sanskrit universities in India, principally the Sampuur.naananda Sa.msk.rta Vi'svavidyaalaya.h in Varanasi, Sanskrit is regularly used as the medium for doctoral dissertations.  Cordially, George

-----Original Message-----
>From: Jean-Luc Chevillard <jean-luc.chevillard at UNIV-PARIS-DIDEROT.FR>
>Sent: Mar 19, 2009 8:25 AM
>To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
>Subject: Legal constraints (la "Loi Toubon") [Re: Language barriers --- financial barriers
>
>As a contribution to the debate, I would like to mention another 
>parameter, namely the legal constraints that vary from country to country.
>
>It is (in normal conditions) against the law to write a Ph.D. thesis in 
>English if you study at a French university.
>
>See the following link:
>
><http://www.dglf.culture.gouv.fr/droit/loi-fr.htm>
>
>where you will find the "Article 11", of the "LOI n° 94-665 du 4 août 
>1994 relative à l'emploi de la langue française" (known as "Loi Toubon") 
>which says:
>
>"La langue de l'enseignement, des examens et concours, ainsi que des 
>thèses et mémoires dans les établissements publics et privés 
>d'enseignement est le français, sauf exceptions justifiées par les 
>nécessités de l'enseignement des langues et cultures régionales ou 
>étrangères ou lorsque les enseignants sont des professeurs associés ou 
>invités étrangers."
>
>I have heard that in Germany a Ph.D. thesis can be written in English, 
>but I would like to have confirmation of that fact.
>
>I am under the impression that in Italy, a Ph.D. thesis must be in italian.
>
>What is the situation in India? Is it possible to write a Ph.D. thesis 
>in Sanskrit?
>
>The consequence of the French legal constraints is that a French Ph.D. 
>thesis in the field of Indology has to be translated into English before 
>it can hope to reach an international audience
>(and translation into Sanskrit, or Tamil, can probably only be viewed as 
>a third step).
>
>Of course, there are people in France who realize that this situation is 
>problematic, but there are other people who fight strongly against any 
>change.
>
>
>-- Jean-Luc Chevillard (CNRS, Université Paris-Diderot Paris 7)
>
>
>veeranarayana Pandurangi a écrit :
>> Certainly, I welcome prof. Kiparsky's suggestion.
>>
>> It is what suggested by me there in hyderabad seminar. What I pointed is
>> that Prof. Kiparsky, prof. Houben, prof. Stall and very few others have
>> contributed very much grammatical tradition of panini, on the subject that
>> prof. Houben spoke there. But most of these researches are in english, which
>> is mostly onknown to most of the very good traditional Samskrita scholars
>> who fortunatley still are keeping alive the panini's tradition. simlar is
>> the case of other shastras still rigorously studied in India, Nyaya,
>> Vyakarana, Mimamsa, Vedanta, Sahitya. [...]
>>
>>
>> Hence those writing in socalled international language i.e. English should
>> also publish in samskrita (not sanskrit) and technical language that
>> includes and that is original to paninian tradition, then the intended
>> result can be acheived. people should be made aware of these things. Many of
>> you may know oldtimer pandita manners very well while visiting india.
>>
>> [....]
>>
>> Similarly people should practice writing in sanskrit. Sure I know that will
>> have their no impact on their career in US universities and elsewhere, but
>> then english writing will have no result though writer may become profesor.
>>
>> I dont say it is solely the fault of people writing in english or language
>> itself, the sin is shared by Pandits also by not responding to these
>> writngs. but then there come all the barriers. we have a strike a balance to
>> overcome it. By writing in Samskrita one will only contribute more  to
>> language he studies, and nothing udesired thing will happen.
>>
>> This is what I spoke in Hyderabad.
>>
>> It is upto the scholars to workout.
>> veeranarayana
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 9:21 AM, Paul Kiparsky
>> <kiparsky at csli.stanford.edu>wrote:
>>
>>   
>>> If you want your work to be accessible to linguistically disjoint
>>> audiences, why write it up in just one language?   In smaller European
>>> countries it is, or at any rate used to be, usual to publish one's work both
>>> in English (or German) in an international journal, and locally in the
>>> national language.  For English-speaking Indologists, the comparable
>>> practice would be to publish both an English version in an international
>>> journal or book, and a Hindi, Tamil, or Sanskrit version in India.  As Jan
>>> Houben reported here on March 3, summaries of the talks at the recent Third
>>> International Sanskrit Computational Linguistics Symposium were made
>>> available both in English and in Sanskrit.  The traditional philologists and
>>> pandits who attended the conference welcomed the Sanskrit version as a step
>>> to overcoming the language barrier and establishing mutual understanding
>>> with English-speaking Indologists and computational linguists.
>>>
>>> Paul Kiparsky
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mar 18, 2009, at 5:09 PM, Simon Brodbeck wrote:
>>>
>>> On Friday 6 March 2009, Jean-Luc Chevillard wrote: "The more languages one
>>>     
>>>> knows, the better."
>>>>
>>>> Few would disagree. But that is from the perspective of the consumer or
>>>> recipient of texts. Active researchers are also producers of texts, and must
>>>> produce them in one language or another. From this perspective, one's work
>>>> will be inaccessible to those who lack facility with the language in which
>>>> it is presented; and the choice of language is therefore a choice of
>>>> audience.
>>>>
>>>> On the issue of financial barriers, it is an ongoing source of
>>>> embarrassment and bemusement to myself and many of my contemporaries that
>>>> the journals and publishers we have been led to believe are most highly
>>>> esteemed by our institutional elders (in whose hands our careers lie) tend
>>>> to be those which most of our desired audience cannot access. One cannot but
>>>> suppose that, as a result, most of the discourse that there is on
>>>> indological subjects occurs in contexts systematically ignorant of certain
>>>> recent discoveries in indology.
>>>>
>>>> The UK Arts and Humanities Research Council has been funding a higher and
>>>> higher fraction of British indological research in recent years. My
>>>> perception is that the AHRC are increasingly concerned to ensure that the
>>>> projects they fund have outputs accessible beyond the university sector.
>>>> Perhaps, then, pretty soon, projects whose principal written outputs are not
>>>> to be made freely available online will simply not be publicly funded.
>>>>
>>>> Simon Brodbeck
>>>> Cardiff University
>>>>
>>>>       
>>
>>
>>