Sanskrit, etc. (was Curious...)

[Guest guest]

FOR

> > YOUR KIND INFORMATION SANSKRIT IS NOT DEAD

> LANGUAGE.

>

>

 

Sanskrit is anything but dead!! I love Sanskrit too

and have been studying it for some 10 years.

>

> I love Sanskrit. I am (slowly, with difficulty)

> studying it. No insult

> was meant in referring to it as a "dead language."

> I compared it to

> Latin, which is also a "dead language." As are

> biblical Hebrew, and

> biblical Greek..

>> Excuse ME, but I was told that Malayalam was (like

> most South Indian

> languages) derived from Dravidian roots, not

> Sanskrit. What Sanskrit is

> used by Malayalm speakers derives from Vedic

> religious texts. Was I

> misinformed? Is there a Malyalam speaker on List

> who can clear this up?

 

As I understand it, the relationship between Malayalam

and Sanskrit is sort of like the relationship between

English and Latin. Yes, there are many Sanskrit words

in Malayalam, but it belongs to the Dravidian (Tamil,

Telugu, etc.), not Indo-Aryan family (Sanskrit, Hindi,

Bengali, etc.) of languages. Although English contains

numerous Latin borrowings, mainly through Norman

French, its roots are Germanic. I sometimes wonder

what we would be speaking today if the Norman conquest

of 1066 had not succeeded. Probably something like

Anglo Saxon or German, with three genders, four cases,

etc.

 

>From another Hind-Jew, Sanskrit scholar, devotee of

Saraswati, and reader of Hinduism Today.

 

Keval

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

On Wed, 18 Dec 2002 07:07:34 -0800 (PST) Mike Brooker

<patria1818 writes:

 

> I sometimes wonder

> what we would be speaking today if the Norman conquest

> of 1066 had not succeeded. Probably something like

> Anglo Saxon or German, with three genders, four cases,

> etc.

 

There is a varient of Dutch called Freisian (spelling?) which has no

Latin/Norman French influences, which is the closest linguistic "cousin"

to English.

 

-- Len/ Kalipadma

 

 

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