Languages: Sanskrit & Tamil -- A perspective

[Guest guest]

Dear Members : It is very appropriate to have the benefit

of some one like Professor Hart , who is " impartial " on

the subject . I agree with his assessment . Thanks to

Sri Dileepan and Sri Sridhar Srinivasan for helping us

to gain a perspective with this scholarly feedback .

 

I serve in the Language Bank of the Red Cross . I prepared

recently in article entitled " Languages : some Facts and Figures "

for them .

 

You might be interested in this collection of facts to gain

additional perspective on Tamil in the world assembly of languages

that Professor Hart refereed to in his evaluation .

 

Neither the size of the population speaking a particular language

nor the passions of the politicians using their languages to ride on

them for their own agenda ( DMK or Basque or Catalan ) affect

the affection and reverence for a particularly rich language.

 

I grew up when Sri EVR turned around out of bitterenss against

the congress party to form his own DMK . The feelings of resentment

among the different groups in tamilnAdu were so high

that my family decided that I should take Sanskrit as my second language

instead of Tamil at School and College . I never wanted to do anything

with Tamil . What a tragedy it would have been , if I had ignored

the study of Tamil , which I took up a few years later , after

completing my Doctoral studies at MIT . Had I persisted in my attitude

of extremism , I would have lost access

to all of our kula dhanams in Tamil .

 

Since Tamil and Sanskrit are very important to our group ,

We have no doubt about their pre-eminence for our

emotional and spiritual well-being . When we compare them

against the assembly of world languages , we develop

a healthy respect for other languages , while enhancing our

reverence and dedication to Sanskrit and Tamil

and to "ponderover " works in these two rich languages

containig the source granthams of the Ubhaya VedAnthA

tradition .

 

Now coming back to the Facts and Figures on Languages ,

this is what I wrote based on " Hard Facts " provided

by Linguistic Researchers :

 

**There are 6,700 languages spoken in 228 countries ;

there are 39,000 dialects associated with the latter .

Based on grammatical and phonological systems ,

these form into subgroups ( Viz)., Indo-European ,

Semitic et al .

 

** Linguists recognize that a number of world languages

may join the endangered species and are working to

preserve them . They have also created many " artificial

languages " with their own distinctive grammar .

 

** Geographic distribution of the number of living languages

break down as follows : The Americas/1000; Africa/2,011; Europe /225;

Asia /2,165 and the pacific, 1302. The corrsponding percentages

for these regions are 15, 30 , 3 , 32 and 19 respectively .

 

The top dozen languages by the size of the speaking populations are :

 

*** Mandarin Chinese --885 Million (M)

*** English --450M

*** Spanish --266M

*** Hindi --182 M

*** Portugese --175 M ( Brazil+Portugal )

*** Bengali --168M ( Includes Bangla Desh )

*** Russian --160M

*** Japanese--126M

*** French --122 M

***German --118M

*** Wu-Chinese--77M

*** Javanese --75M

 

*** Under 75 Million and above 50 Million are :

Tamil , Marathi , Telegu , Urudu , Korean ,

Yue-Chinese, Vietnamese, Turkish , Min-Nan Chinese et al

 

*** Sanskrit Speakers -- Same category as Latin and classic

Greek speakers : dwindling or staying put !

 

I can imagine in the days of AzhwArs , the Tamil speaking population

and for that matter , the Sanskrit speaking population were an order

of magnitude less . That is why , it is amazing to see how our

predecessors saved the treasures like Vedams thru oral/aural tradition

and the Tamil classics and AzhwAr aruliccheyalgaL thru

kanta pAtam route and on palm leaves to last out and nourish us

even today .

 

Isvara Samvathsaram , Margahazhi month,

Muppatthu MUvar ThiruppAvai Dinam

The day before Kal Garuda Sevai at NaacchiyAr Koil

 

Om GaruthmathE Nama: Om Veda PurushAya Nama :

Om Pakshi RaajAya nama:

 

Oppiliappan Koil VaradAchAri SadagOpan