Word and Jar

[Guest guest]

Do not make a "Word" like a potter makes a jar. Now I am not talking here

about PIE. I would like to write a technical article in one of the

regional languages of India, say in Marathi. I do not know the Marathi

words for English words "Entropy", "Probability" etc. Should I make new

words in Marathi using Sanskrit resources or not ? English makes new

technical words everyday by using resources of languages like Greek and

Latin. In addition, English uses resources from all over the world

(Algorithm from the name of the scientist Al-Kwarizmi and Potasium from

the "ash in the pot"). English speaking world writes even Sanskrit using

its own Roman alphabet. I understand there might be reasons not to add or

change the words in Vedic SanhitAs.May be for that reason, one of the

component of the Indian philosophy is engaged from the last 2500 years of

the known history in discussing "Shabda" and "Artha" and "Shabda PramANa"

or in short the semantics of the Sanskrit or Vedic language. If the

meanings associated with the words from Vedas are conventional, what was

the need to preserve them sound by sound? Is it to maintain the purity of

grammar? And what is the purpose of the grammar of the language anyway?

Prescriptive or descritptive? If it was originally prescriptive in case

of the grammar of Vedic language, I think, the purpose of original

reasons for prescriptive grammar are forgotton long ago and we ended

having only discussions on "Shabda PramANa" while others reached the

Moon. English is changing too. Nobody uses the correct expression "You

are taller than I" nowadays. Instead I often hear people saying,"You are

taller than me". A lady asked me a question,"Where are you working out at

?" Two prepositions at the end of a sentence? A grammar may hold a

language at a certain level of expressions so that contemporary people

could understand each other. But when people try new expressions, the

grammar might have to include them. In India, we could not stop the arrow

of entropy. Sanskrit broke down in many languages any way. And we are not

promoting any one of them in order to create a broader market in India.

We are neither there (1000 BCE) nor here. But we are writing books after

books on "Shabda PramANa". I read Bilimoria, Matilal, Gaurinath Shastri,

,Tandra Patnaik,Pushpendra Kumar,S.D.Joshi. I enjoyed reading all these

books. I enjoy reading again again the terminology "AbhidhA, LakshaNa,

VyanjanA and TAtparya". But what next? Where does this discussion from

Patanjali to this day lead us? It is good to talk and write about them

without tangible outcome. I am puzzled.

Around 1300 AD, Sindbad the sailor entered a temple of the Goddess(which

one, I do not know) in India. Nobody was in the temple. In the dim oil

lamps, Sindbad was astonished to see the deity. A priest appeared from a

dark corner and chanted something.Suddenly the Goddess became alive and

huge. Sindbad ran away from the temple. I call this tangible outcome. If

this is magic, so be it. Use it on Taliban!