I do not understand this major anti sanskrit stance some people take. Lets accept a fact that every one in six people you meet in the world is an indian and every one in three asian , so if we look in this respect,it is good to know an indian language or mandarin as compared to german , so the population of the asian countries is guge.
Its time to propagate Indianness in every aspect. West has already acknowledged that our culture, tradition has lot of hidden messages and following us. In fact they are researching a lot and shortly they are going to patent everything and start teaching us. Yoga is taught in their schools, Sanskrit is taught in their schools and tomorrow there may be a day our way of living is taught there. If China, Japan, Germany are passionate about their language, culture, tradition why not we? Agreed these countries are stubborn to adopt English, but have they lost on development grounds, still continue to be developed countries. We Indians should come out of colonial slavery mindset and start building our reputation. Already we have mastered English and we can teach the world about our essence. No need to bow head to foreign language, culture and tradition. Stop looking ourselves comparing to Western world. We have adopted English as our language to communicate to the outer world...enough, no need for any other foreign language. Build brand India.
Great mAny Indians are fluents in English. English made Indians on top of world in every aspect. Spanish is spoken by large part of world. If any Indian wants a success must learn these 2 languages. India is a bigcountry with many talented people. Indians can beat many in the world.
This debate is unnecessary and is primarily arising due to not only a lack of vision among the educational institutions and parents but also partly due to those elements that have a perennial hatred to this government. This is a dangerous concoction because the debate is unnecessarily veering into politics - with which common man has little interest.
The reason why this debate lacks vision is the following: 1. Most parents and adults today see a friend, acquaintance or family member with similar educational background working in foreign shores and having better career opportunities because they learnt a foreign language. Thus they see value in their own children learning a foreign language to improve their career prospects. 2. Educational institutions have anyway become businesses that aim to cater to a demand rather than seeing the nobility of the profession. To top this, they lack a sense of vision. 3. Media finds an interesting debate with good TV viewership and latches on to it. 4. Political parties see this as an opportunity to connect govt with much maligned RSS
However let us get some basics correct. It is just a matter of few months that we are going to get access to apps on our smartphone that would allow a speaker to speak in the language of her choice and listener to listen to a language of her choice.
In this context, it is more important for our students to be able to master one or two languages rather than learn many inadequately.
Sanskrit will be the the alternative to Hindi. If it is Sanskrit, no South Indian states will oppose. most of the vocabularies of Indian language are based on Sanskrit.
Re: hindi alternative
by prem k on Nov 23, 2014 11:08 PM
Not true. I dont know about all states in South India - but for sure TN will have a problem with Sanskrit - even more than Hindi. It is complex politics, but the fact is that Sanskrit and Tamil both evolved around the same time.
Other Indian languages, including Kannada, evolved much later - some Kannada chauvinists may attack me for this statement, but I am just quoting the larger view of linguistic historians and I am not one.
While during the evolution of Tamil, a lot of Sanskrit words were added to its vocabulary (hridayam in Sanskrit is idhayam in Tamil) - reasons for which are unclear - and some Tamil words enriched Sanskrit vocabulary as well (example - aarthi: thi in tamil means fire, while aar / haar is garland). However Tamil purists that emerged in early 20th century - primarily from middle castes - saw Sanskrit as a polluting medium of Tamil and they found easy victims in Tamil Brahmins to heap the blame on for this pollution.
Tamil literature has undergone conscious cleansing of many Sanskrit words in the last 100 years and introducing Sanskrit in schools will give a new lease of life to the dying Dravidian movement. Sanskrit is seen consciously in TN as a tool for subjugating lower castes by Brahmins and its introduction in schools as a compulsory subject has the potential to not only inflame TN, but has the potential to ignite lower caste vs upper caste debate in adjoining and eventually to even North Indian states.
Re: hindi alternative
by prem k on Nov 23, 2014 11:10 PM
Not true. I dont know about all states in South India - but for sure TN will have a problem with Sanskrit - even more than Hindi. It is complex politics, but the fact is that Sanskrit and Tamil both evolved around the same time.
Other Indian languages, including Kannada, evolved much later - some Kannada chauvinists may attack me for this statement, but I am just quoting the larger view of linguistic historians and I am not one.
While during the evolution of Tamil, a lot of Sanskrit words were added to its vocabulary (hridayam in Sanskrit is idhayam in Tamil) - reasons for which are unclear - and some Tamil words enriched Sanskrit vocabulary as well (example - aarthi: thi in tamil means fire, while aar / haar is garland). However Tamil purists that emerged in early 20th century - primarily from middle castes - saw Sanskrit as a polluting medium of Tamil and they found easy victims in Tamil Brahmins to heap the blame on for this pollution.
Tamil literature has undergone conscious cleansing of many Sanskrit words in the last 100 years and introducing Sanskrit in schools will give a new lease of life to the dying Dravidian movement. Sanskrit is seen consciously in TN as a tool for subjugating lower castes by Brahmins and its introduction in schools as a compulsory subject has the potential to not only inflame TN, but has the potential to ignite lower caste vs upper caste debate in adjoining and eventually to even North Indian states.
once there were furore over withdrawing English from the schools of WB. Jyoti basu did it forcefully. He was right. Everybody should start learning in the mothertoungue.
This is a good move. How many know sanskrit, you still find a person knowing french, german. Rest of the world acknowledges Sankrit. Infact NASA did a research and found out that Sanskrit is the most perfect language for compilers built for their space missions as it uses the least characters for representing instructions. Only way indians can accept Sanskrit and its value is, let the west patent it and adopt it everywhere. Then only we will adopt it.
Re: West must patent Sanskrit
by Sheetal Kaur on Nov 21, 2014 11:47 PM
Language and and its script does not belong to anybody, Individual person,Organisation or Government, IT CAN'T BE PATENTED. NOR IT CARRYS A COPYRIGHT. There is no one owner of any language or a script in the world. Yes Sanskrit, is the mother of all language, it has been proved and accepted by every county of the world. In other word all languages evolved from Sanskrit, weather any one believes this or not that is there problem. Before any one starts shouting their heads off DO SOME RESEARCH ON LANGUAGES.
Re: Re: West must patent Sanskrit
by Raj Reddy on Nov 22, 2014 03:09 AM
Please give some proof on what you say Sheetal...
You wrote: "Yes Sanskrit, is the mother of all language, it has been proved and accepted by every county of the world.". Please let us know how you can substantiate that, so we can read it.
