This makes quite a different situation from that in India. "Composition" meaning translation into Sanskrit from a diffrent language is in the Indian curricula from the secondary stage. I thank Professor Gombrich for the clarification.

I point to a relevant topic. The position of Sanskrit in the Indian schools has now been touched upon in the List. This calls attention to the European Classical languages in the Western schools. Can it be expected that someone threw light on the position of the Classical languages in the European and American schools. As I knew indirectly French/English was the general preference as the second languaghe and Classical as the third. Is it still the preferred combination?

On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 4:52 PM, richard gombrich <richardgombrich@mac.com> wrote:

I am afraid that what recent contributors have written about "Sanskrit composition" in the Oxford final exams is a bit misleading. In this context, "composition" meant translation from a set passage of English, usually from a literary work by a well known author. This precisely followed how Latin and Greek were taught in schools when I was young -- and for centuries before that. No originality was involved.
Richard Gombrich
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