Talk:Sanskrit/Archive 8

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Metaphorical (underlying) Meaning of the existence of Vedic language 'Sanskrit'

Sanskrit it's self according to the online Etymology dictionary, [1610, from 'samskrtam' is a commentary on the perfection of the language for which it's named, & is described to be closely connected to the principle of Karma, as well. The word 'Sanskrit' means, well-formed, put together; and perfection.

NetKismet (talk) 12:46, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Given that there is no one pronunciation of Sanskrit, I think it will be more useful to have a separate section on pronunciation, rather than chronically changing the IPA in the orthography table (which BTW was not taken from the sources given). I labeled the table for 'various renditions' but created just one column, based on the values in the orthography table. When sources conflict, we can add a new column for the other source, rather than engaging in futile debates over which source is 'correct'. — kwami (talk) 17:11, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Kwamikagami: I am quite disappointed by the text in the section you added here because it was unsourced. After some study of the old versions, I see that the table you added after your text, one with a 'cn' tag is a very old, legacy unsourced content. If we can't find a reliable scholarly source for it, let us skip it. Unsourced sections and major claims encourage blogging and all kinds of unsourced misinformation/nonsense insertion by others in this otherwise well-cited article, and on a subject that has numerous scholarly sources. If you or someone can find WP:RS that verify content of the text and table you added, it would be most welcome. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 10:58, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Ancestor of Modern Indic Languages

How should we deal with the claim that Vedic Sanskrit is the ancestor of modern Indic languages? Even this fallback position is untrue. Should we refer the reader to Indo-Aryan languages for the evolutionary relations between the Sanskrits and other Indic languages? --RichardW57 (talk) 00:30, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Origins of Sanskrit

I am not a scholar in this area, so I am hoping someone here can address this. I read an opposition to the notion that Sanskrit is Indo-European online. They argued that Sanskrit pre-dated Aryan invasions by at least 2,000 years. I do not know how well-informed these people are, but here is the debate:

https://learnsanskritonline.com/lessons/Introduction/about-sanskrit

If it is true, this certainly should be corrected. If it is incorrect, perhaps the argument should be better detailed in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.89.41.53 (talk • contribs)

They don't actually address the issue of whether Sanskrit is related to languages outside the Indian subcontinent. They're complaining that the simplest explanation of how the Indo-European languages were anciently spoken inside and outside India doesn't work. One suggestion is that Indo-European spread from India, largely westwards. The brute fact of deep similarity remains, regardless of difficulty in explaining how the spread of the language(s) occurred. --RichardW57 (talk) 00:54, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

This is standard Hindutva stuff, and completely WP:FRINGE or worse afaik. Johnbod (talk) 01:53, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

I suggest the article Proto-Indo-European homeland as am introduction to the subject. TomS TDotO (talk) 03:23, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

An IP added it. The link is a non-RS, and some of the views therein do not reflect the mainstream scholarship. It is fringe as Johnbod says. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:36, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Notability of some info

The article states that "The body of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of philosophical and religious texts, as well as poetry, music, drama, scientific, technical and other texts." but this can be said of pretty much any language. I'd argue that the second half of the sentence stating that its literature includes poetry, music, etc. could be dropped.

{{u|Rey_grschel}} {Talk} 09:25, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

incomplete

Where are the verb conjugation and noun declension panels that other language articles have? 100.15.127.199 (talk) 13:58, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Please check Sanskrit#Morphology. --Tamravidhir (talk) 14:06, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Tocharian

Tocharian is indeed a member of the Indo-European language family and as such related to Sanskrit. Nakashchit (talk) 08:22, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Yep, sure is. I reverted the addition again, as there are dozens and dozens of languages, living and dead, which could be added to the list. But this article isn't about the Indo-European language family, it's about Sanskrit. If you want to make your case for adding Tocharian to the list, go ahead. Mathglot (talk) 08:53, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

"Hinayana?"

I note that in the statement, the word "Hinayana" is used: "The Mahāsāṃghika and Mahavastu, in their late Hinayana forms, "

While I am not a Buddhist, I am aware that for that particular path of Buddhism, the word Theravada is preferred, as "Hinayana," or "lesser vehicle" is seen as rather insulting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pauljulian (talk • contribs) 21:58, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Why can’t Sanskrit be considered a recognized language?

Sanskrit is an eighth schedule language of India and therefore if it can’t be considered an official language, I understand, but why can’t it be considered an recognized language. Even on the the page for India it list one of the recognized languages as Sanskrit. I don’t see why we can’t at least put it as a recognized language because if you go the page on the Sindhi language it lists Sindhi as an official language in Pakistan and India (where it is not native to any state in present-day India), so why can’t we put Sanskrit as a language. Arimaboss (talk) 19:09, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

@Arimaboss: Firstly Sindhi is spoken natively in Gujarat and what other pages contain should not have a bearing here. Though I agree, it should be in the infobox as an official language. Not only is it under the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India, a specific list for language promotion and protection on an official constitutional basis, but it also the official language at the state level in both Uttarakhand an Himachal Pradesh. Pinging @Austronesier: as he was the one who removed it. Gotitbro (talk) 19:58, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

@Arimaboss: Thank you for bringing this to the talk page. My second revert was erroreous due to lack of scrutiny, I apologize for that. You didn't place an edit summary, so I didn't notice the different nature of the second edit (but that doesn't exculpate me from not having looked more closely). As you and Gotitbro correctly point out, Sanskrit does have a special recognition at the Union level, and even official status on the state level of said states. Maybe the latter should be specified in infobox as well. –Austronesier (talk) 07:50, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

"Hinayana?"

I note that in the statement, the word "Hinayana" is used: "The Mahāsāṃghika and Mahavastu, in their late Hinayana forms, "

While I am not a Buddhist, I am aware that for that particular path of Buddhism, the word Theravada, or "vehicle of the elders" is preferred, as "Hinayana," or "lesser vehicle" is seen as rather insulting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pauljulian (talk • contribs) 21:59, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

'Hinayana' is sometimes regarded as pejorative, but is also used in historical works to refer to the pre-Mahayana teachings of the early Buddhist schools. It is not synonymous with Theravada and shouldn't be used interchangeably with that term- the Mahāsāṃghika, for instance, were a completely different school with their own doctrine and canon that was distinct from Theravada.

I'm not sure that the sources in this section are being represented correctly but can't access them- Mahāvastu is a text, not a school, and the remarks about Sanskrit & Prakrit in the Theravada tradition are strange to me. The remark about 'Prakrit' is baffling- do they mean Pali or something else? This line:

According to Renou, Sanskrit had a limited role in the Theravada tradition (formerly known as the Hinayana)

is not correct- Hinayana was not an early name for Sanskrit, and if the remark was originally about the Hinayana tradition, then replacing it with 'Theravada' is distorting the meaning, because it was probably about early Indian schools generally rather than Theravada specifically. --Spasemunki (talk) 22:15, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Pronunciation (audio file)

The pronunciation of the word for Sanskrit in the audio file is the Hindi pronunciation, right? Why is that being used? Yuhani (talk) 01:57, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Changed to Sanskrit pronunciation --Naveen Sankar (talk) 20:32, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Stem vs nom. sing.

In this edit, Nakashchit replaced nativename and pronunciation in the Infobox, to use the stem form (Saṃskṛta) rather than the nom. sg. (Saṃskṛtam) as it's been for at least the last twelve years. Anyone care to comment? Sara? WQUlrich? Mathglot (talk) 09:04, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

@Mathglot: this, this, this, this sources use/support Saṃskṛtam. George Cardona in his book on Panini's work, e.g. on page 4 (see item 7) uses Saṃskṛtam, but on page 564, uses both Saṃskṛtam and Saṃskṛta. The burden of proof justifying a change to the 12-year version should, therefore, be on Nakashchit. We can do an RfC thereafter, if necessary. Support restoring it back, meanwhile. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 15:33, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

 Done Rolled back to stable version. Mathglot (talk) 00:04, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Nakashchit: You linked a number of dictionary links here, apparently in response to the above. I have most of these with me, but I am unable to verify what you state. Please identify the specific page numbers. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 23:46, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Every other Sanskrit word in Wikipedia that I have seen is introduced in the stem form, the standard form used in every Sanskrit dictionary. (Don’t take my word for it; check the dictionaries at https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/, and the declensions at https://sanskrit.inria.fr/DICO/grammar.html.) Wikipedia could, of course, use the nominative singular, which is the dictionary form in Latin, for example, because Latin is the classic language of the English? This is a bit weird. In Sanskrit just stating a noun is a bit like putting a definite article in front of it. In this case would you change every other article in Wikipedia? Your decision. I am not interested either in disputing entries or in learning how to be really good at editing Wikipedia. I enjoy Sanskrit and I believe that I can add value, but if my edits are rejected by others I lose interest. Nakashchit (talk) 01:15, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

What specifically are we supposed to look at with those two links? You are evading repeated requests to provide specifics (e.g. page numbers) that we can verify. We do not accept original research and challenged-plus-unverifiable content in wikipedia, per our core content policies/guidelines. You are welcome to contribute if you are willing to respect these and other core content/editing guidelines. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:46, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

I have taken a look at the source cited by Ms Sarah Welch, Cardona (1997). The forms which appear in pages 4 and 564 are cited from Panini as they appear in running text, including instances where saṃskṛta is used as a modifying adjective. The passage which is significant for this discussion, however, is found on page 1 (see item 1), where Cardona unambiguously uses the stem saṃskṛta as citation form of the language. Another supporting source is the Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics, page 316. Nakashchit therefore has made a good and verifiable point. –Austronesier (talk) 02:12, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Austronesier: Thanks for stepping in. I don't see the support on page 316, did you mean page 318 of Klein et al edited book? There are several issues here: the long-standing infobox/lead sentence needs to be coherent and consistent in all scripts. संस्कृतम् in Devanagari has the म् ("m") at the end. So, were we to arrive at a consensus to revise, then this too needs to be revised. But should we revise? The example you give, is similar to the example of page 564 I gave above. The historic usage has been a bit complicated. See Section 2.6, particularly pages 71–72 published by Brill Academic. There it states that Samskrta has in past been used as an adjective (samskrta vac), not noun, and "Samskrta vac stands in all probability for what we call Sanskrit language" [the subject of this article]. See also the past usage of the neuter form for languages: page 46 by Quiles et al (Indo-European Association), also page 34 by Hsien (published in 1997, so before wikipedia and this source could not be copying from us). Yet, your page 1 example above makes sense too. I would favor that we briefly summarize all these alternate versions, citing the appropriate sources, plus make the spelling consistent in the two scripts. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 03:49, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

I fully agree, all further changes as a result of this discussion should be consistent in the whole article and in both scripts. Sorry for the typo in the page number! A list of sources supporting either spelling will definitely be helpful, ideally each entry flagged (if applicable) as citation form or as forms taken from an intraclausal Sanskrit context.–Austronesier (talk) 04:49, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm not in the same league on this topic as you all and still learning; so let me just ask this: from what I can glean from the conversation, there is some support for both positions. When that's the case, WP:DUEWEIGHT comes into play as the governing principle, and calls for majority and significant minority views to be given in proportion to their representation in reliable sources, and to avoid views that are only a tiny minority. So, with respect to the matter at hand: how do these different views stack up against each other, as far as how often they appear in reliable English language sources?

Secondly, it occurs to me that if there is a consensus that arises out of this discussion, it may affect more than just this one article. Perhaps it would be helpful to open this discussion up to a wider group, or link it from WP:INB, or one of the language WikiProjects.

Finally, when the word is not in running text, but cited in isolation, either as WP:WAW, or for example a headword in a dictionary, what form is used then? It seems to me that the answer to that question, should have a signficant impact in what form or forms we choose here. Mathglot (talk) 06:05, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Some data: this ngram plot compares the two, but of course, gives no clue of how the items are being used in context, so we probably can't draw any conclusion from it, without examining the actual sources in more detail. Additionally, the numbers are so low, that it must be based on very little data, and that may make the comparison even less reliable as an indicator. Mathglot (talk) 06:26, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

As for the citation form in a dictionary, it always is saṃskṛta which is the stem form; this (rather than the nominative saṃskṛtam) is also what Indian scholars fluent in Sanskrit will answer if we ask them what the language is called; in the same way they will refer to "knowledge" and the ancient sacred texts as veda (rather than using the nominative form vedaḥ); and so do we in the article Vedas. In running text, like "Sanskrit is...", inflected case-marked forms will inevitably be used. So, Nakashchit aptly used the analogy as if we were using an English noun with an article as an encycĺopedic entry. In running text, we will always write "the planet" or "a planet", but will hardly use the latter two as citation forms.

Nevertheless, the relevant question for us is: how do sources written in English for an English-speaking audience refer to Sanskrit when they explicitly want to introduce to us the native name of the language? The sources collected by Mathglot clearly show that both the stem form and the nominative form are employed, even if the latter runs against the intuition of Sanskrit-educated Indians. WP:DUEWEIGHT will have to decide. Based on Klein et al (2017) and Cardona (1997), I would opt for saṃskṛta, but we should wait for more input from other editors. @Kanguole, Uanfala, and Florian Blaschke: any ideas, or aspects we have overlooked yet?–Austronesier (talk) 10:11, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Responding to ping and pretending not to notice the intricacies of the above discussion, I can only say that we would generally need special reasons not to use the citation form: so use the stem unless there are compelling reasons to do otherwise. – Uanfala (talk) 10:41, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Austronesier, possibly another way to elicit input, is to see which users in these categories have recent contributions, and ask them to join in: Category:User sa-N (1 user!), Category:User sa-5, Category:User sa-4, Category:User sa-3. Mathglot (talk) 10:47, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Mathglot for the effort. +1 to Uanfala, per WP:COMMONNAME usage in recent decades (stem). With Austronesier, I see a consensus approach emerging. Am okay with RfC if that would be prudent or necessary? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:38, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

saṃskṛtam

find English books with samskrtam

• Hsien (1997). Sanskrit Lessons, p.34 (Citation form)
• Panini; Rama Nath Sharma (1 January 1999). The Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini: english translation of adhyāyas four and five with sanskrit text, transliteration, word-boundary, anuvr̥tti, vṛtti, explanatory notes, derivational history of examples, and indices. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Pub.Pvt.Limited. pp. 165–166. ISBN 978-81-215-0747-9. OCLC 246593844. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
• Vajra Bodhi Sea. Sino-American Buddhist Association. 1997. pp. 34, 41. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
• Andronov, Mihail Sergeevič (1999). Dravidian historical linguistics. Moscow: Institute of Oriental Studies, The Russian Academy of Sciences. pp. 23–24. ISBN 978-5-89282-112-4. OCLC 848233484. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
• Original language of Jaina canonical texts. Ahmedabad: Prakrit text Society. 1999. p. 33. OCLC 470161227. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
• Kapoor, Kapil; Singh, Avadhesh K.; Indian Institute of Advanced Study (2005). Indian Knowledge Systems. New Delhi: Indian Institute of Advanced Study. pp. 34, 47. ISBN 978-81-246-0334-5. OCLC 836275544. Retrieved 30 September 2019.

saṃskṛta

find English books with samskrta

• Klein et al (2017). Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics, p.318. (Citation form)
• Varadachari, Venkatadriagaram (1960). A history of the Saṁskṛta literature. Allahabad: Ram Narain Lal Beni Prasad. pp. 4, 253. OCLC 458407352. Retrieved 1 October 2019.
• Singhal, K. C.; Gupta, Roshan (2003). The Ancient History of India, Vedic Period: A New Interpretation. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Dist. pp. 164, 169. ISBN 978-81-269-0286-6. OCLC 1075046554. Retrieved 1 October 2019.
• Pāṇini; Joshi, Shivram Dattatray; Roodbergen, J. A. F. (1991). The Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini with Translation and Explanatory Notes. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. p. 10. ISBN 978-81-7201-166-6. OCLC 29595124. Retrieved 1 October 2019.
• Yadava, Ganga Prasad (1982). Dhanapala and His Times. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company. pp. 1, 16, 17, 23. OCLC 9760817. Retrieved 1 October 2019.</ref>

Discussion (cont.)

Almost all other articles on a Sanskrit word uses the stem form in English as well as in Sanskrit: Krishna, sutra, shruti, upanishad, veda, etc. This is also the form generally used in English. The exception is words in which the stem form finishes in a short a (schwa). In these cases the English follows the Hindi which drops a final short a, for example pandit (paṇḍita) as well as Sanskrit, the received English form. The form Sanskritam is a decorative innovation used nowhere else in Wikipedia and rarely in English. But if you decide to keep it, pray tell, will you also then endorse using inflected forms of every other form? Nakashchit (talk) 19:33, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Almost all other articles on a Sanskrit word uses the stem form - the dictionary form - as the Sanskrit: kriṣṇa, sūtra, śruti, upaniśad, veda, etc. The form sanskṛtam in the nom. sg. is a decorative innovation used nowhere else in Wikipedia and rarely in English. But if you decide to keep it, will you then also endorse using inflected forms of every other Sanskrit word? Nakashchit (talk) 19:33, 5 October 2019 (UTC) Nakashchit (talk) 19:57, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

The exception is words in which the stem form finishes in a short a (schwa). In these cases the English follows the Hindi which drops a final short a, for example pandit (paṇḍita) as well as Sanskrit, the received English form.

That's not really true: In loanwords, English usually follows Sanskrit, but sometimes Sanskrit words are borrowed via a Hindi intermediary, which explains cases like pundit and Sanskrit. To be fair, there's also chakram besides the expected chakra, but all these are fully integrated loanwords in English, while we're talking about how to cite Sanskrit lexemes here. And Austronesier is right that the default citation form for Sanskrit nouns is the stem without any endings (just like – to point out another habit – for Sanskrit verbs, it's usually the third person singular present indicative, e. g. tudáti, if the goal is to refer to a specific verb formations; otherwise, the bare root may also be cited, with its own conventions regarding full grade or zero grade). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:54, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

It has gone back and forth know, from Saṃskṛta in Jan 2020[1], back to Saṃskṛtam now. I would like to invite editors पाटलिपुत्र (who is aware of this discussion and has cited it in their edit summary) and Naveen Sankar to contribute to the discussion, so we can finally get a consensus. –Austronesier (talk) 09:22, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

No mention of Sanskrit Origins of Rig Veda/Merv history

Add this and keep it cool

According to the Rig Veda, Vedic Aryans migrated from Meru to invade and settle the Indo-gangetic plains, and introduced Sanskrit to the region. Margiana, also known as Merv/Merw/Meru, in Turkmenistan, is the plausible homeland of Vedic Aryans.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.58.190.155 (talk) 02:02, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for posting this on the talkpage, instead of addings the links to numerous wikipedia articles. Before we discuss the content, can you please explain what the linked webpage is, and why it may be a reliable source to use on wikipedia? As I wrote on another talkpage, i couldn't find any information about the supposed authors "Prof Sanjay Srunavas" and "Gujpreet Baljinder Singh", or if/where the essay had previously been published. The website currently hosting it, says that it is A compedium respository [sic] of open-source research and interviews of post-humous academics who succumbed to the intelligence community, retrieved from the depths of decommisioned international archives, and translated from the native Czech., which doesn't inspire confidence. Abecedare (talk) 14:32, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Tamil fanatic trolls vandalizing the article!

This article is frequently being targeted by Tamil fanatic trolls who change the name Sanskrit to Tamil or make some similar changes. Know this: your attempts are nothing but vandalism. Tamil vs Sanskrit is not the point of this article and should not be discussed! As for if Tamil is older than Sanskrit, it is not relevant but the FACT is Sanskrit is more than a millennium older than Tamil, contrary to whatever Tamil fanatic jingoistic propaganda you're listening to. The oldest traces of Old Tamil can be dated to 2nd Century BC while the oldest attestation Rigvedic Sanskrit comes from a no later date than 1700 BC which means Vedic Sanskrit pre-dates Old Tamil by a millennium and a half! And even that is Old Tamil, Modern Tamil is much younger than that. This article is not for the purpose of showing superiority of one language over the other. Please stop.

2409:4042:2E88:3119:0:0:388B:3306 (talk) 07:04, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

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Deletion of text on Sanskrit language influence on South Indian Languages of Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam

Uanfala, You have WP:DISRUPTIVE deleted content on this page which has been there for a while without engaging in any discussion on the talk page. These edits have not been found to be helpful to improve this Wikipedia article. Please assume good faith WP:AGF on part the original editor to show that there has been a influence of the Sanskrit language on South Indian languages. There are valid citations provided for the same. If you intend to challenge the same, that is most welcome activity however, constructively doing so benefits Wikipedia when we talk about your concerns on the talk page and that is the the principle behind WP:CONSENSUS. Forcibly removing a well intended text builds hatred in the Wikipedia community and should be avoided where there has been an option provided to discuss your actions before doing such actions.

Sanskrit has significantly influenced the grammar, phonology and vocabulary of the Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam languages of South India.

References

Jaykul72 (talk) 02:05, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Journal of Mythic society is a peer reviewed publication that has often been cited in books published by reputed publishers such as Oxford University, Brill, Routledge [see here]

Sanskrit has exercised a profound influence on Kannada vocabulary

The other three languages of Dravidian Group, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam have been considerably influenced by Sanskrit both in phonology and vocabulary. Modern Indian literature / 1, Surveys and poems. (1992). New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. Pg 8

Sanskrit words have been borrowed into Kannada from the earliest times -- the very first document in Kannada, the Halmidi inscription of c 450 CE contains a large number of Sanskrit words (see S.N.Sridhar 1975a and Chapter 11 in this volume). Kannada writers have always treated the entire Sanskrit lexicon as an extension of the Kannada lexicon (cf. Emeneau and Burrow 1962)[…] Among the thousands of Sanskrit words in Kannada, many have been used for hundreds of years as an integral part of the ordinary language and have been thoroughly assimilated. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that it is almost impossible to talk or write in Kannada without using atleast some words of Sanskritic origin.

The effects of borrowings from Sanskrit on the lexical and grammatical systems of Dravidian languages have been profound. Murray Emeneau and Thomas Burrow (1962) note the tendency ‘for all four of the Dravidian literary languages in the South to make literary use of the total Sanskrit lexicon indiscriminately’. So massive has the influence been that it is hard to utter more than a few sentences in these languages without using a word borrowed from Sanskrit.

‌India has been a single cultural area for most of two millennia, and all the Dravidian-speaking region is heavily influenced by Sanskrit, the universal learned language of the subcontinent. Three of the major languages, Malayalam, Kannada, and Telugu have such large proportion of Sanskrit loanwords that early Western linguists believed the whole family to be an aberrant group of Indo-Aryan languages, directly descended from Sanskrit.

While Dravidian languages borrowed a great deal of Indo-Aryan (especially Sanskrit) vocabulary, they in turn are argued to have impacted on In Indo-Aryan at deeper levels of structure, for instance in the domain of phonology where Indo-Aryan retroflexes have been attributed to Dravidian influence. With regard to syntax, Chatterji claimed that Dravidian and Indo-Aryan syntax ‘are one’ the convergence starting in early Middle Indo-Aryan. […] A sentence in a Dravidian language like Tamil or Kannada becomes ordinarily good Bengali or Hindi by substituting Bengali or Hindi equivalents for the Dravidian words and forms, without modifying the word order, but the same thing is not possible in rendering a Persian or English sentence into NIA language.

References

Jaykul72 (talk) 03:28, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

@Jaykul72: Per MOS:LEAD, the lead section is a summary of the article sections to follow. The proper place for all this would be section 8. If the material has been established in that section based on consensus about what to state and which sources to use, we can present a summarizing statement in the lead section.

FWIW, disagreement is not disruptive, voicing it in the wrong way easily can become so. And note that I have boldly taken the liberty to amend the defective citation from The quarterly journal of the Mythic society.

About the statements itself:

1. Influence on vocabulary: agreed, this is well-supported by the sources you present. But the same also happened in many languages of (mainland and insular) Southeast Asia. The above statement about Kannada could equally be applied to Malay. Only mentioning the major Dravidian languages creates WP:undue weight.
2. Influence on grammar/phonology: Doesn't Reinöhl (2016) state exactly the opposite? Or at least bi-directional convergence?

–Austronesier (talk) 08:34, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Apologies for taking the liberty of explaining the removal in an edit summary rather than here. I normally try to replace questionable content with something better, rather than remove it outright, but unfortunately I don't have an infinite supply of time and Dravidian languages are not an area I'm very familiar with anyway. I don't question that the text was added in good faith, but good intentions don't always translate into good results. The problem with the original text was that it made some obviously false statements (Sanskrit influence on Tamil phonology?), and its sourcing was odd (a website based off Raj-era gazetteers, an incomplete citation to a paper, and a work on literature). Now, Sanskrit's influence on the vocabularies of the literary languages, not just of South India, but farther afield is indisputable, but as pointed out by Austronesier, it should be stated broadly, without singling out just four of the languages influenced. As for the grammar and phonology, that's more varied, and blanket statements will be off the mark. I agree that the proper place for all that is the relevant section in the article, but a summary could definitely be added to the lead. – Uanfala (talk) 12:20, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I have added supporting text in the section 8, please review. Thanks, Jaykul72 (talk) 08:20, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, that looks like a wonderfully detailed addition. I can't review (as this is not my area), but I trust that you know what you're doing. – Uanfala (talk) 23:10, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

22 instances of Indo-European word repeated in Sanskrit article

There are large number of duplicates of the word Indo-European in these lines which need to be deleted:

1. Sanskrit (/ˈsænskrɪt/, attributively संस्कृत, saṃskṛta, nominally संस्कृतं, saṃskṛitam) is a classical language of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages.
2. Sanskrit is an Old Indo-Aryan language. As one of the oldest documented members of the Indo-European family of languages,
3. It traces its linguistic ancestry to the Proto-Indo-Aryan, Proto-Indo-Iranian and Proto-Indo-European languages.
4. Sanskrit belongs to the Indo-European family of languages. It is one of the three earliest ancient documented languages that arose from a common root language now referred to as Proto-Indo-European language:
5. Other Indo-European languages distantly related to Sanskrit include archaic and classical Latin (c. 600 BCE – 100 CE, old Italian), Gothic (archaic Germanic language, c. 350 CE), Old Norse (c. 200 CE and after), Old Avestan (c. late 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (c. 900 BCE).
6. The closest ancient relatives of Vedic Sanskrit in the Indo-European languages are the Nuristani languages found in the remote Hindu Kush region of the northeastern Afghanistan and northwestern Himalayas, as well as the extinct Avestan and Old Persian—both Iranian languages.
7. Sanskrit belongs to the satem group of the Indo-European languages.
8. In order to explain the common features shared by Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages, the Indo-Aryan migration theory states that the original speakers of what became Sanskrit arrived in South Asia from the north-west sometime during the early second millennium BCE.
9. Evidence for such a theory includes the close relationship between the Indo-Iranian tongues and the Baltic and Slavic languages, vocabulary exchange with the non-Indo-European Uralic languages, and the nature of the attested Indo-European words for flora and fauna.
10. The pre-history of Indo-Aryan languages which preceded Vedic Sanskrit is unclear and various hypotheses place it over a fairly wide limit. According to Thomas Burrow, based on the relationship between various Indo-European languages, the origin of all these languages may possibly be in what is now Central or Eastern Europe, while the Indo-Iranian group possibly arose in Central Russia.
11. The Vedic Sanskrit language or a closely related Indo-European variant was recognized beyond ancient India as evidenced by the "Mitanni Treaty" between the ancient Hittite and Mitanni people, carved into a rock, in a region that are now parts of Syria and Turkey.
12. Vedic Sanskrit literature "clearly inherited" from Indo-Iranian and Indo-European times the social structures such as the role of the poet and the priests, the patronage economy, the phrasal equations, and some of the poetic meters.
13. The Vedic literature includes words whose phonetic equivalent are not found in other Indo-European languages but which are found in the regional Prakrit languages,
14. Sanskrit's link to the Prakrit languages and other Indo-European languages
15. Sanskrit shares many Proto-Indo-European phonological features, although it features a larger inventory of distinct phonemes.
16. There is an equivalence to terms deployed in Indo-European descriptive grammars,
17. According to Masica, the presence of an accent system in Vedic Sanskrit is evidenced from the markings in the Vedic texts. This is important because of Sanskrit's connection to the PIE languages and comparative Indo-European linguistics.
18. Sanskrit, like most early Indo-European languages, lost the so-called "laryngeal consonants (cover-symbol *H) present in the Proto-Indo-European", states Jamison.
19. According to Ruppel, verbs in Sanskrit express the same information as other Indo-European languages such as English.
20. Unlike some Indo-European languages such as Latin or Greek, according to Jamison
21. The classical version of the language has elaborate rules for both voice and the tense-aspect system to emphasize clarity, and this is more elaborate than in other Indo-European languages.
22. Similar affixes for the feminine are found in many Indo-European languages, states Burrow, suggesting links of the Sanskrit to its PIE heritage.

Jaykul72 (talk) 09:35, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

And why should this info be deleted? How would that improve the article? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:42, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Now tell us how many of the statements are repetitive? I see two or three, but in most of the cited pasages, each contains a different statement which would be incomplete without "Indo-European". FWIW, the word "the" occurs much more often in the text than "Indo-European". Delete it? –Austronesier (talk) 10:04, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

What's the point in repeating over and over the same thing? 1, 2, 3 and 4 are saying the same thing which can be summarized in one sentence. In section 2.1 it is already mentioned. In the lead section there can be one reference. 2 and 3 can be deleted. Jaykul72 (talk) 10:21, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Only 4 is repetitive, but does not appear in the lead setcion. 1, 2, 3 are distinct statements. 2 goes into details of 1 not said there. 3 mentions Proto-Indo-Iranian. You could compress the statements into one, but that is a matter of style. Please consider also where each statement appears in the text flow (opening sentence, first paragraph, lead section, article corpus). A good lead must "repeat" in condensed form the most important statements in the article corpus. –Austronesier (talk) 10:27, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Infobox picture

A illustrated page from a 19th century Bhagawad Gita

I have now added a picture from a 19th-century Indian Sanskrit manuscript of the Bhagwad Gita, composed ca 400 BCE – 200 BCE, which was donated by Monier Monier-Williams to the British Library. It is the beginning of the iconic scene of Arjuna losing heart on the battlefield of the Mahabharata. It can be found in verses 20 (second half) and 21 (first half) in this translation by Annie Besant. I have added the relevant translation in the image file. I feel such an image is much better than a simple text image without much explanation. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:45, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

What's Bhagavad Gita got to do with Sanskrit? If there is a picture it should be that of Panini who is the father of Classical Sanskrit. Jaykul72 (talk) 02:43, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

If we include a picture here, it should visualize the language, not its scholarship. The Bhagavadgītā is by far the universally best known text in Sanskrit. So it is an apt illustration here. –Austronesier (talk) 08:04, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

WP:OR there are no references to your claim. There are Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda, Atharvanaveda and many other texts which are in every day use in several rituals by 800 million people. Jaykul72 (talk) 09:33, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Any source that the Bhagavadgita is not as highly revered by said 800 million people? And what about the 6+ billion non-Hindu potential readers of this encyclopedia? Alternative suggestions for an illustrative picture? –Austronesier (talk) 09:51, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

@Jaykul72: We are not volunteering our time for Wikilawyering ad nauseam. Did you say anything about the bogus dictionary.com reference that had graced the lead sentence for years and years and years? No, you did not. Did you say anything about the silly "Sanskritam" illustration, given that the word "sanskrit" first appears attributively in epic Sanskrit and in nominalization a full millennium after Panini? Of course you did not. But you have no compunction wasting time now. If you think the Gayatri mantra of the Rg Veda is chanted by 800 million Indians, please tell in real-time what it means, what its preceding shloka is, and the following. I am waiting. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:44, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Ten minutes later. @Jaykul72: What happened? It shouldn't take that long. If it is recited daily by 800 million, some source will be available. You mean the preceding and following shlokas have no scriptural significance, only this one, whose meaning no one understands, whose deity Savitar no one worships? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:53, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Mate you seem to be taking my test. Here is a loose translation though not accurate in words but meaning is what matters.

Om bhur bhuvasvah – I pray to the earth and the atmosphere

Tat savitur varenyam – I pray to sun

Bhargo devasya dhimayi – Illuminate me with the divine grace

Dhiyo yonah prachodayat – Energize this whole world and remove my ignorance

Jaykul72 (talk) 10:57, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Om bhur bhuvasvah occurs nowhere in the Rg Veda. What is Savitar? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:00, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

May I remind you WP:PA Please do not attack others religious faiths. @Vanamonde93, RegentsPark, Abecedare, and Doug Weller: Jaykul72 (talk) 11:03, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Huh? Whose faith have I attacked? I'm critiquing your misrepresentation of a faith, of its origins, its holy books. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:08, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't see the attack. As for the image, clearly is should be of Sanskrit itself, and I have no doubt the best known text of Hinduism is the Bhagavadgītā. And that's easy to source, this text says that explicitly.[2] Can we please not get sidetracked by other issues? It really does not matter what gets changed or the meaning of some texts. Doug Weller talk 12:17, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I do believe this statement whose meaning no one understands, whose deity Savitar no one worships? is a sarcastic personal attack on my religious faith. Why should one misinterpret and misrepresent a prayer that I say everyday? Jaykul72 (talk) 12:33, 10 October 2020 (UTC) Jaykul72 (talk) 12:35, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I have no idea what your faith is. The general remark about the level of Sanskrit knowledge among people in India who use Sanskrit ritually is well-sourced. Many others before me have remarked on it. You might have the sincerest of motivations, but you did not know that the "Om ... swahah" is not a part of the Rg Veda, nor that Savitar is not quite the sun, unqualified that is. What is worse is that you have, based on this arrogance, been adding UNDUE material directly to the lead. WP is ultimately beholden to a DUE representation of the scholarly sources, not what faith or lack thereof people arrogate to themselves. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:07, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I desist answering them on this page. I will move it to your talk page. Jaykul72 (talk) 21:46, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Sorry @Jaykul72:, you can't move a discussion that began here, rooted in your POV here, to my user talk page. I have no interest in discussing irrelevant things elsewhere with you, only the topic of Sanskrit here. I've reverted that edit. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:58, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Sorry how does this discussion help in improving this article? If you insist we can continue on my talk page Jaykul72 (talk) 00:07, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

You got it. I have no interest in off-topic discussions, neither here, nor on my user talk page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:12, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Question on the 6th paragraph of the lede - WP:Lede

@Kautilya3, Anupam, and Johnbod: if time permits, can you look into this content in the lede highlighted in green below? I am still learning, so I want the opinion of those who have been editing Wikipedia for longer. This part of the lede seems unencyclopedic to me and of poor quality citation compared to others on the lede; and factoring that it might something that looks better in the body than the lede IMO. Just wanted to get your opinion. Thank you for your time in advance! Zakaria1978 ښه راغلاست (talk) 02:31, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Despite attempts at revival, there are no native speakers of Sanskrit in India. In each of India's recent decadal censuses, several thousand citizens have reported Sanskrit to be their mother tongue, but the numbers are thought to signify a wish to be aligned with the prestige of the language.

@Zakaria1978: If you don't know anything, you should ask me first rather than pinging people who don't know anything about this either. What are you doing here Zakaria? I've warned you don't be disruptive. If Mallikarjun is saying there are no native speakers, then there aren't. Period. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:19, 12 October 2020 (UTC) You are nipping at the heels of my edits, wherever I edit. If you stalk me, I will make sure you are topic banned as I've already warned you. Don't be disruptive. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:29, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

And next time, don't pick a sentence out of context. There is a paragraph:

Sanskrit's status, function, and place in India's cultural heritage are recognized by its inclusion in the Constitution of India's Eighth Schedule languages.[49][50] Despite attempts at revival,[51][52] there are no native speakers of Sanskrit in India.[6][52][53] In each of India's recent decadal censuses, several thousand citizens have reported Sanskrit to be their mother tongue,[note 5] but the numbers are thought to signify a wish to be aligned with the prestige of the language.[52][54] Sanskrit has been taught in traditional gurukulas since ancient times; it is widely taught today at the secondary school level. The oldest Sanskrit college is the Benares Sanskrit College founded in 1791 during East India Company rule.[55] Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial and ritual language in Hindu and Buddhist hymns and chants.

Amazing, how you have mangled it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:35, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

I mean what a shame, a crying shame, that I just spent an hour trying to locate the exact shloka in Valmiki's Sanskrit Ramayana, with the first attested use of the word "Sanskrit" employed for speech or language—in a beautiful passage of the brooding Hanuman in Book 5 (Sundarkand)—and then translated it into English, and then corrected the citation that had been in the page for years, that no one before had caught, and we have here a new editor on Wikipedia who does nothing but gripe. Knowledge is of no value. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:51, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Dravidian Languages removed from lead section without any talk page discussion

@Fowler&fowler:, the following text has been removed without any discussion on the talk page:

Sanskrit has significantly influenced the phonology, lexicology, morphology and grammatical systems of South Indian languages of Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam.

Section 8.1 on Indic languages has the relevant content for this summarization out of which I am quoting Shulman here:

Shulman mentions that although contrary to the views held by Tamil purists, modern Tamil has been significantly influenced from Sanskrit, further states that "Indeed there may well be more Sanskrit in Tamil than in the Sanskrit derived north-Indian vernaculars". Sanskrit words have been Tamilized through the "Tamil phonematic grid".

References

Jaykul72 (talk) 19:59, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

RFC on Influence of Sanskrit on Dravidian languages

Influence of Sanskrit on Dravidian languages which was summarized in the lead section has been deleted. Should it be deleted? Jaykul72 (talk) 20:23, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Comment by Fowler&fowler: In the lead of this article, the Modern Indo-Aryan languages whose dominant ancestor is Old Indo-Aryan Sanskrit are barely mentioned. Why should the Modern Dravidian languages, whose descent is oblique, be mentioned in the kind of detailed synthetic list they were? On the other hand, I have expanded the description of the interaction of Vedic Sanskrit and ancient Dravidian languages without using the jargon that the previous version was couched in. Lining up sources without being able to express their import in common language is meaningless on Wikipedia, and unencyclopedic. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:32, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• What was there was:

  "The most archaic form is found in the Rig Veda, composed between c.1500-1200 BCE.[29][27] An ancient Proto-Dravidian language has influenced Vedic Sanskrit.[30][31]"

  What is there now it:

  The oldest of these is Vedic Sanskrit found in the Rigveda, a collection of 1,028 hymns composed between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE by Indo-Aryan tribes migrating east from what today is Afghanistan across northern Pakistan and into northern India.[29][30] Vedic Sanskrit interacted with the preexisting ancient languages of the subcontinent, absorbing names of novel plants and animals; in addition, the ancient Dravidian languages influenced Sanskrit's phonology and syntax.[31]

  Please don't start RfC facetiously, especially when you are distorting what has happened. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:41, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Encyclopedic prose requires summarizing the general trend in common but precise language and illustrating it with a meaningful vignette, not giving the reader turgid jargon clapped together as a long list each of whose items has been cited to different sources each more recondite than the previous. Examine for yourself how ridiculous this is: "Sanskrit has significantly influenced the phonology, lexicology, morphology and grammatical systems of South Indian languages[6] of Kannada,[7] Telugu,[6] Tamil[8] and Malayalam.[9]" How much? Just as much as it has Hindi, Bengali, ... which are not even mentioned in the lead?Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:47, 13 October 2020 (UTC) Updated Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:59, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• Comment The strong impact that Sanskrit had on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies (cf. section 8 in toto), is certainly leadworthy, however without singling out specific languages. In the current structure of the lead, it is best mentioned as a follow up statement to the last sentence in the first paragraph ("...it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions"). I'll insert a tentative version of it. –Austronesier (talk) 07:39, 14 October 2020 (UTC)