[INDOLOGY] Scientification in India

Tue Sep 11 17:30:17 UTC 2018

The attached article, which quotes the piece by Briggs that Patrick links
to above, might also be of interest here.

It is linked to at https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7724257/ and is
part of conference proceedings rather than an article in one of IEEE's
journals.

The authors do their best to arrive at a positive answer of the title
question ('Is Sanskrit the most suitable language for natural language
processing?'), but their arguments fail to convince me.

All the best,
    Antonia

On Tue, 11 Sep 2018 at 18:14, George L. HART via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> This reminds me of my own foray into Indian languages and computing. It
> was back when Pascal was widely used and Smalltalk (one of the first
> object-oriented programming languages, championed by Daniel Ingalls, Jr.,
> the son of the famous Sanskritist) was widely discussed. Prof. Emeneau
> asked me to give a talk on linguistics and I decided to show how the
> Dravidian languages are well-adapted for computerization, or at least to
> show how some aspects of their structure could give insight into developing
> new computer languages. My idea was based on modularization. In South
> Dravidian (and, I would guess, other Dravidian branches), sentences have
> the structure SOV, and the verb can be changed from a finite verb to an
> adjective, noun or adverb by changing its suffix. When this is done, the
> sentence is then inserted into another sentence with a finite verb, which
> itself can then be changed into another part of speech if so desired.
> Dravidian thus makes it simple to create long sentences with many
> subsidiary parts that themselves are potential sentences. This, I thought,
> was something that fits the paradigm of object-oriented programming
> languages. In the event, my talk was scheduled at an inconvenient time and,
> fortunately perhaps, almost no one showed up.
>
> At present, I really don’t think any human languages are of much help in
> developing computer languages. The kind of modularity present in
> contemporary computer languages like Swift is quite different from the
> structure of any language I am familiar with. But, I would add, highly
> inflected Indo-European languages like Sanskrit and Russian strike me as
> singularly poor models for computer languages. Certainly, I would argue, a
> good case can be made that Tamil gives more insight into the sort of
> modularization central to programming than Sanskrit. George Hart
>
> On September 11, 2018 at 8:32:30 AM, patrick mccartney via INDOLOGY (
> indology at list.indology.info) wrote:
>
> Dear Prof. Michaels, widely
>
> Perhaps you already know of this overly misquoted article by Briggs
> <https://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/466>, from
> which it is believed by many that NASA considers Sanskrit to be the best
> language for programming their computers and space ships. It seems,
> however, to be the source of one of the biggest factoids in relation to
> Sanskrit and Science. It seems that...no one who argues that Sanskrit is
> the best language for computing, has actually read the article. It
> suggests, instead, that learning case-inflected languages like Sanskrit
> might possibly help the computer programmer in making new,
> specifically-engineered languages for computing through having a better
> appreciation for languages.
>
> Samskrita Bharati have this publication
> <https://www.samskritabharati.in/preview?s_bharti=NDIxNjY2MDkwMTMyMzI=>.
> I was just watching this video by Sushma Swaraj, i
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn1_rrRtk0s>n which by the 3rd-min, the
> audience learns of Sanskrit's true wonders as a programming language,
> amongst other things. Sanskrit will, it is alleged, even by high-ranking
> members of the Indian government, will heal the wounds of culture and
> tradition caused by modernity. Such as Prime Minister Modi’s recent
> factoid-laden opinion
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCbfH-nuDhA&feature=youtu.be> (in the
> first 5-minutes). Or the Minister for the MEA, Sushma Swaraj,
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLlHUx3pXtg> who explained at the 16th
> World Sanskrit Conference in Bangkok, 2015, that Sanskrit is capable of
> purifying the world. However, this is part of a bigger push
> <https://www.scoopwhoop.com/news/sanskrit-sushma-swaraj/#.rt34au28f> to
> revive Sanskrit culture within India through the use of metaphors that
> suggest Sanskrit will purify all that comes in contact with it. Swaraj also
> asserts that Sanskrit is like the Ganges river; yet, we know that this
> river is terribly polluted
> <https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-ganges-holy-river-from-hell-20140806-100xz9.html>.
> What, then, does this tell us about the purity of Sanskrit
> <https://www.academia.edu/6274287/The_sanitising_power_of_spoken_Sanskrit>,
> and it’s ability to purify things, especially minds
> <https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/16th-world-sanskrit-conference-in-bangkok-sanskrit-should-be-propagated-to-purify-minds-of-people-says-sushma/article7363971.ece>
> ?
>
> Also, I was watching this video this morning, in which, around the 19-min
> mark, Maria Wirth explains
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE8r5t56AR8&lc=z23fszogdzziw3yuiacdp433qdxi0lccdi5kyqlpgldw03c010c.1536664787529344>
>  how the Russians apparently used knowledge from some ancient manuscript
> they took from the Germans after WW2 that helped them build their ICBMs. I
> often find myself reading Meera Nanda's
> <https://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl2026/stories/20040102000607800.htm>
>  work on 'Vedic science' to help understand this phenomenon. 'Science in
> Saffron'
> <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303857130_Science_in_Saffron_Skeptical_Essays_on_History_of_Science>
>  is quite good. And, also, prophets facing backwards
> <http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=8AAD803B743B0484DA0BBFB0E52CF174>.
> So too, Saffron Science
> <https://www.epw.in/journal/2015/6/margin-speak/saffron-science.html>.
> There is a broader discussion around pseudoscience mimicking science
> <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/theo.12109> and the philosophy
> of pseudoscience
> <http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=742E9347357C303AAEF580C8AC89CE2E>,
> which are worth considering.
>
> Hope these links help.
>
>
> All the best,
>
> パトリック マッカートニー
> Patrick McCartney, PhD
> JSPS Fellow - Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies, Kyoto
> University, Japan
> Research Associate - Nanzan University Anthropological Institute, Nagoya,
> Japan
> Visiting Fellow - South and South-east Asian Studies Department, Australian
> National University
>
> Skype - psdmccartney
> Phone + Whatsapp:  +81- <+81-80-9811-3235>80-9811-3235 <+81-80-9811-3235>
> Twitter - @psdmccartney
>
> *bodhapūrvam calema* ;-)
>
>
> Yogascapes in Japan <http://yogascapes.weebly.com/>
>
> Academia <https://patrickmccartney.academia.edu/>
>
>
> Linkedin
> <https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=241756978&trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile>
>
> Edanz <https://www.edanzediting.com/expert/anthropology/patrick-mccartney>
>
> Modern Yoga Research <http://www.modernyogaresearch.org/events/>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 11, 2018 at 4:33 PM Michaels, Axel via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>>
>>
>> In the course of the recent WSC discussions on this list, Dr Iris Iran
>> Farkhondeh recently mentioned a little brochure by the RSS: “There was also
>> this little booklet produced by the RSS (samskrit samsthan and not svayam
>> sevak even though it seems now that the two RSS are getting nearer and
>> nearer) with a mention of astrolomy (sic) and all the other sciences that
>> for sure originated in ancient India.” Unfortunately, she did not keep this
>> booklet. Since I am co-editing a book on this topic, I would be very
>> grateful if someone who attended the conference could share the brochure
>> with me.  I would also be interested in relevant and serious literature
>> focusing and the wide-spread claim that all science is rooted in India.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Axel Michaels
>>
>>
>>
>> Prof. Dr. Axel Michaels
>>
>> Seniorprofessor | Vice President Heidelberg Academy of Science and
>> Humanities |
>>
>> Director Research Unit "Historical Documents of Nepal" (नेपालका पूर्व-
>> आधुनिक कालका लिखतहरू), Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities
>>
>> South Asia Institute
>> Im Neuenheimer Feld 330
>> 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
>>
>>
>> http://www.haw.uni-heidelberg.de/forschung/forschungsstellen/nepal/index.de.html
>>
>>
>>
>>
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-- 
Dr Antonia Ruppel
www.cambridge-sanskrit.org

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