Comments
Virtual__Vagabond t1_j0rb4hh wrote
I think it was implying that at the time, it was one of the great intellectual achievements as it was well known how to use it. After finding the machine over 2000 years later, the process had been lost.
PfizerGuyzer t1_j0rbs00 wrote
I read the article and felt it answered all of these questions adequately. Panini was not a contemporary scholar, he was describing Sanskrit centuries ago. We knew that his machine worked, but could not follow his instructions now. (That's what the 'machine' was, a set of grammer instructions that produced perfectly correct Sanskrit words. It was a conceptual machine.)
Rishi cracked what Panini meant in his instructions, and now we have a way to construct close to perfect Sanskrit.
Alimbiquated t1_j0ru2hc wrote
Paanini created a list of 3950 rules, each of which is a sutra, nonsense phrase to be memorized.
Consider the word glass. We create the plural by adding an s, but the rule is that we insert an e before the s. For the word cat, we don't insert an e, the s is simply added to the word. For the word dog, we add an s but pronounce it like a z. That is the kind of thing the rules deal with.
Here are the rules:
http://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil/1_sanskr/6_sastra/1_gram/paniniiu.htm
The rules use lists of sounds. Instead of listing letters in some traditional random ways, like the alphabet, he grouped similar sounds and gave each group a name. He call this table the Shiva sutras, shown here:
https://www.learnsanskrit.org/panini/shivasutras/
The name comes at the end of the list, so the semivowels l and r are referred to as k.
Here's some idea of how the rules work:
He groups these lists sometimes by naming the first letter of the first list and the name of the last list, so aten means a, i, u, l, r, e and o. (at mean short a).
On of the rules is at-eṅ guṇaḥ which defines the word guṇaḥ as a, i, u, l, r, e and o, the short vowels. (l and r are sometimes vowels in Sankrit) If you search the word guṇaḥ, it's used 10 times. As far as I know it's a nonsense word he invented for his rulebook.
ragnarok62 t1_j0s1qpz wrote
If there are 25,000 contemporary speakers, why would they not be able to make sense of the underlying algorithm? Are modern Sanskrit and ancient Sanskrit that much different?
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jimthesquirrelking t1_j0s46sq wrote
Modern and old English are far apart enough to be quite difficult to translate fully, I imagine a language with deeper roots even more so
Buntschatten t1_j0s4bbf wrote
But what defines what is perfect Sanskrit?
BarAgent t1_j0s4pxx wrote
Sanskrit speakers. It’s a dead language, but there are plenty of people who know it. And there are plenty of texts. There’s enough for a person to validate whether the rules work.
ragnarok62 t1_j0s5m4s wrote
The article should have made this more clear. To state that people speak Sanskrit today makes everything else odd.
Son_of_Kong t1_j0s63xc wrote
Basically, the student figured out that scholars have been misinterpreting one of the rules, leading to incorrect results. The students new interpretation produces correct ones.
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zorokash t1_j0s86ma wrote
.... I dont see the point of calling a language dead but also saying there are several speakers of that language. That's like opposite of dead. Sorry, but studying languages that are actually dying due to nobody speaking them any more, your description somehow doesn't fit right.
Shibbledibbler t1_j0s8ojn wrote
'Dead' is a legitimate categorical term, not a subjective judgement by BarAgent.
youdubdub t1_j0s9lj2 wrote
Knowing and speaking are two very different things.
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FoolishConsistency17 t1_j0sas0k wrote
Linguists call a language dead when there are no native speakers. People may speak it, but they learn it as a second language, often from texts, or from people who learned from texts. It ceases to change or adapt as a living language does.
BurntRussianBBQ t1_j0sbc17 wrote
I am I correct in my understanding it was as simple as, when there is a choice between the right and left side of a word, always choose or "modify" right?
This seems incredibly simple. Why did not one run across this before?
PfizerGuyzer t1_j0scjhl wrote
Not relevant in this case. Dead means no native speakers.
PfizerGuyzer t1_j0scmnr wrote
The last hundred years in particular has been spent assuming much more complicated solutions and delving into them..
youdubdub t1_j0scmnx wrote
That was my point. Thanks for the downvote, but we happen to be vigorously agreeing, lol.
[deleted] t1_j0sdb3x wrote
How are they dying if noone speaks them?
zorokash t1_j0sdbc1 wrote
Dude, the article clearly says this is about language and grammar. Why would you think about stones and machines? This is pseudo algorithm techniques.
It didn't make too many errors, the rule book was never correctly applied, and hence no accurate and conclusive results. That's the argument made here. And once the correct application is deciphered the errors are reduced to nearly zero. And thata why it is an achievement.
How bad are you at reading comprehension?
zorokash t1_j0sdvrl wrote
There are a few everyday speakers of Sanskrit, who use it sort of a vernacular in public speaking.
zorokash t1_j0se5fm wrote
People are having conversations in it, writing literature, has a news telecast in Sanskrit, there are drama and theatre , .... what else needs to happen for it to be considered "speaking" it?
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sadness_elemental t1_j0sfbri wrote
They assumed it meant earlier rules had precedence over later rules, it's simple once you realise but they probably didn't even realise they were applying the rule wrong
zorokash t1_j0sff4k wrote
Languages change due to act of speaking. Not related to it being native to anywhere or not.
English is not native to 99% of Indian population and some approx 20% can speak it. But if you removed those 20% and isolated them from other english speakers, the English they speak will still continue to change and adapt for newer needs and trends in language and pop culture.
This logic of a language is frozen if spoken only by second language speakers is entirely flawed. I know 6 languages, but if my 6th language got new trends among similar 6th language speakers of same language, I will still register that and it may or may not propagate back to 1st speakers of that language depending on how popular it gets.
zorokash t1_j0sfjok wrote
They are dying BECAUSE noone is speaking them... going extinct if it makes more sense to you?
Tony2Punch t1_j0sgovt wrote
There are people that speak the Vedic Sanskrit, it is extremely useful in figuring out the Proto-Indo-European Language. That is the old Sanskrit.
Fun fact, a Sanskrit Scholar would have been able to talk to a Lithuanian peasant back in ye olde’ time because their languages were similar enough.
TurkeyDinner547 t1_j0shfph wrote
Where are these rules written or contained exactly? And why is it being called a machine?
Edit:
>Why would you think about stones and machines?
Because the Rosetta Stone was also used as a linguistic tool, and the article literally uses the word "machine".
>How bad are you at reading comprehension?
Pretty bad when the author doesn't articulate exactly what they're talking about. Pretty good when the details are explained, and considering that I graduated college with a BSIT and a minor in history, but thanks for asking.
[deleted] t1_j0si2aj wrote
If no one is speaking them, they're dead, not dying.
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youdubdub t1_j0sj6fj wrote
It should be distinguished from the former language. There is no way the new speakers can discern prior inflection, verbal varieties, etc.
The old version of the language in dead in spite of an attempted revival.
Yrcrazypa t1_j0sjl5k wrote
Try to read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English. That's nowhere near as far back as Old English and it's already really difficult for most speakers of English, if not outright impossible for another huge portion.
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Duggy1138 t1_j0sl9ab wrote
People have enough trouble with Shakespeare and that's early Modern English.
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LangyMD t1_j0sli5o wrote
"No native speakers" effectively means "nobody's primary language". Nobody is learning that language and using it in their day-to-day life as their primary mode of communication.
"No native speakers" is a rough approximation of that, but still pretty much accurate - someone's primary day-to-day language would be what their kids learn.
That said, if there were a group who didn't have kids but primarily used a language they learned as a second language (think priests who primarily use Latin to talk to one another but aren't allowed to have kids), that language could be "dead" by the technical definition of "no native speakers" but still able to change and adapt like a living language. An "undead" language, if you will.
Gilbertmountain1789 t1_j0sluln wrote
zorokash t1_j0smk06 wrote
The entire work of Panini : Astadhyayi is the set of rules being discussed here. The rules are approx 4000, which have a system of construction of words and sentences. The debate of solving the system is to use it to get the resulting sentences which always differed from reality of actual Sanskrit language.
The student/scholar recently found the right interpretation of the rules, which is what the achievement is. Now the rules and algorithm produce results as prescribed by Panini in his ancient work. It is called a machine cos the rules act as a mechanism acting on a sound based input and producing a meaningful words and sentences as outputs. Hence a machine.
zorokash t1_j0smzeh wrote
I literally explained how people are speaking it as a secondary language for various functions such as speech, poetry, prose, and theatre. People are speaking and writing it. There are schools teaching it in the hundreds. You are using the word "speaking" but not giving a satisfactory definition of it.
willun t1_j0sn8di wrote
What? Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
TurkeyDinner547 t1_j0snl7o wrote
Ok cool. Thanks.
zorokash t1_j0snvmy wrote
You are literally forgetting how Sanskrit works. There has always been an unbroken line of scholars who have learned the language and have a vast understanding of the inflection and verbal varieties.
There is plenty supporting evidence of how vedas being recited in vedic schools with aid of oral traditions, are reciting in the exact inflection and speech variation as the ancient times. The oral traditions have literally constructed mechanisms to ensure this as a system that is widely studied as well. Sanskrit is not some language that people stopped using it for hundreds of years. Never the case. Infact the last Sanskrit scholar who wrote extensively in the language was no more than a 150 years ago.
There have been several Sanskrit schools of learning before and after that person. You are in denial of how the language actually functions and exists and studied continually. And all of these do cause language variations and trends just as much as any other language, or maybe fewer, but not zero.
_rgk t1_j0snxzd wrote
biriyani_lover t1_j0sopnf wrote
Lotta indian languages have their roots in Sanskrit and thus share a common vocab and some rules
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[deleted] t1_j0sperd wrote
So not no one?
zorokash t1_j0spg6c wrote
>Nobody is learning that language and using it in their day-to-day life as their primary mode of communication.
What difference does it make if the communication is the primary mode or secondary mode. What kind of arbitrary rule is this that there should be people who call it mother tongue for them to be considered a speaker of that language?
>"No native speakers" is a rough approximation of that, but still pretty much accurate - someone's primary day-to-day language would be what their kids learn.
That is irrelevant for it to be a qualifier for life of the language. A language spoken by 1st language speakers or 2nd language speakers is still the same language and usage. If do not use english for anything except in professional life should I not be considered part of the speaking population keeping it alive? Literally by speaking it, I am keeping the language tendencies accents inflection popcuktural references phrases and idioms, all relevant and recognizable. How is that not adding to keeping the language alive and well?
> An "undead" language, if you will.
So a Zombie language? Dude , the definition of living person vs a zombie is a human imagination. Just say its Alive without using complex "undead" status.
Besides, Latin is not used as extensively outside of religious services as Sanskrit is used.
43703 t1_j0spj4b wrote
It ain’t dead. It is compulsory upto 8th standard in Indian school curriculum. Its upto the students after that if they want to pursue it further.
zorokash t1_j0sq3g3 wrote
Yes, not Noone. There are speakers who speak it regularly, in the several thousands. Just not as mother tongue.
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Modern_rocko t1_j0sri2q wrote
Ye Olde’ Time, he just said
mylittlekarmamonster t1_j0srq8p wrote
> I’ll let you be the judge of that. Here are two sentences, one in sanskrit, one in lithuanian: Sanskrit: Kas tvam asi? Asmi svapnas tava tamase nakte. Agniṃ dadau te śradi tada viśpatir devas tvam asi. Lithuanian: Kas tu esi? Esmi sapnas tavo tamsioje naktyje. Ugnį daviau tau širdy, tada viešpatis dievas tu esi. English: Who are you? A dream in your dark night. I gave you the fire in your heart, so you are god our lord. Sanskrit: Kas tava sūnus? Lithuanian: Kas tavo sūnus? English: Who is your son?
Just some words. Lithuanian on the left, Sanskrit center, English on the right: DIEVAS-DEVAS-GOD; BŪTIS-BHUTIS-EXISTENCE; VIEŠPATS-VISPATI-Another expression for God (more or less equivalent to the christian expression: “our lord”); RASA-RASA-DEW; MEDUS-MADHUS-HONEY; JAVAS-YAVAS-CEREAL; UGNIS - AGNIS-FIRE; VĖJAS-VAJUS-WIND; AKMUO-AKMAN-STONE/ROCK; BANGA- BHANGA-WAVE; VYRAS-VIRAS-MAN; SŪNUS-SUNUS-SON; SENAS-SANAS-OLD; ESU-ASMI-I’M... Of course, they are still different languages, but it’s no wonder many scholars that want to study Sanskrit do study Lithuanian first.
LangyMD t1_j0ssghb wrote
If you really want to argue about this, you can take it up with the linguistics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_death
An extinct language is one that has no speakers, either native or second. A dead language is one that has no native speakers. These are terms that are widely used in the linguistics world and are well-defined, and mean different things.
ajtheshutterbug t1_j0ssiyd wrote
It's a liturgical Language like latin
LightIsWater t1_j0stb44 wrote
One measuring stick I can think of is that the “primary” (spoken every day by everyday folks) mode of communication can generate slang, while a language like Latin does not have those organic conditions in which to evolve at the typical rate of language change, which is how I’ll try to distinguish between Latin and English: one still has way more potential for change unless people suddenly start speaking Latin in stadiums and clubs. As for Sanskrit, I don’t know if I can determine its potential for change — sounds like there are people who still use it as their primary mode.
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SurferJase t1_j0sus4k wrote
I do bite my thumb, sir.
notmyrealnameatleast t1_j0sv6gf wrote
Wow that's so interesting, I had no idea they were so similar and yet so far apart geographically.
zorokash t1_j0svlq0 wrote
You are missing one big difference.. Latin today is used solely for two purposes, as a liturgical language on religion, and scholarly study of the language.
Sanskrit has more than just those. There is literature like prose poetry and plays written, recited and enacted for crowds. There are philosophical discussions happening. There was recently a south Indian commercial movie released , made entirely in Sanskrit, for general public to watch and enjoy.
For these reasons. Sanskrit is not in same boat as Latin. People keep trying to push it in that, but it isn't.
Also, how a language changes along with time is entirely dependent on culture and the specific language construction itself.
Sanskrit was largely focused on oral traditions and was extensively worked out to prevent changes in language sounds. Paninis works shows how those time lasting standards and mechanisms were made and enacted. Due to its peculiar circumstances, it should not be judged on same standard as other language with little to no sound standards like in latin or Hebrew etc.
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AliMcGraw t1_j0sxbfl wrote
You are incorrect. People are still writing literature in Latin, updating the language with modern terms, producing newspapers and newscasts in Latin, and so on.
It's still a dead language, but it's in wide and lively use, and well outside the walls of the Vatican.
AliMcGraw t1_j0sxf8a wrote
So what you're saying is it's basically exactly the same as Latin and Hebrew?
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Donna_Freaking_Noble t1_j0sxskh wrote
I think you'd have to know a lot more about Sanskrit to be able to understand more detail about the rules. I have a linguistics background and I can only kind of conceptually grasp what's going on with the rules after reading about it here and in other news sources. They're reporting on it as well as they can for non-expert, non-Indic language speakers.
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TurkeyDinner547 t1_j0t012s wrote
Glad to hear from someone in the field that doesn't insult my reading comprehension. Thanks!
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Staerebu t1_j0t4aku wrote
A hundred years ago an academic realised Panini's approach would quickly put them out a job and promptly set about creating innumerable rules to keep themselves employed
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MarsRocks97 t1_j0t5mzi wrote
On a tangent, but I read somewhere that “Ye” is not pronounced like in yet or yeet. The archaic letter Y was just commonly used to denote a “th” sound.
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Background-Throat-88 t1_j0t5qp9 wrote
Hindi helps a lot in learning sanskrit. They have almost same grammar
breakerbrkr t1_j0t5w6q wrote
Give this man the Voynich Manuscript.. time to crack that sucker.
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nolo_me t1_j0t7t3r wrote
The letter þ was called "thorn", it fell out of use with the rise of the printing press. In blackletter type "Y" was often substituted.
kittylkitty t1_j0t7u70 wrote
Thai / Laos / Burmese too
GoAheadMakeMySplay t1_j0t7vlg wrote
Yeah, right here. As a native anglophone, I struggled with Middle English (Chaucer, Canterbury Tales) and Old English was undecipherable (Beowulf) to me
[deleted] t1_j0t9l1e wrote
Okay. You kept on saying no one speaks the dying languages. So you can see that language isn't exactly precise and even though you think the definition of dead language isn't obvious, that doesn't mean it's wrong.
JamesTheJerk t1_j0t9wln wrote
Sure however the article is vague. If someone reading it sees the word 'machine', what conclusion is most easily drawn? And the entire article is written like that. It's deliberately metaphorical and this naturally confuses unexpecting readers.
my_h8 t1_j0tab4i wrote
https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/solving-grammars-greatest-puzzle?
this is a better source
Emotional-Top-8284 t1_j0tai5e wrote
I do not believe that these languages are descended from Sanskrit, though they may share vocabulary. Sanskrit is an indo-European language, and Thai/Laos /Burmese are not.
________________0 t1_j0tasga wrote
And Chaucer is late middle-English which is much easier to understand than even just early middle-English. I can read Chaucer pretty reliably now but fuck if I can read Layamon's Brut yet.
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ateSomeBo t1_j0tcbjr wrote
Because, they are mostly modern day priests and their families living in India, who learned them as religious scripts passed on through generations. Lot of intricacies are lost through this method, but it's the only way the language has survived as a spoken language. Almost none of those 25000 speakers really speak or use sanskit for their day to day activity, rather they use it as a secondary language mainly to perform religious rituals and prayers.
D4nnyC4ts t1_j0tcgyt wrote
Why do i recognise this film but cant place the name?
doom32x t1_j0tcrol wrote
Soo...a bit like Latin.
KingBubzVI t1_j0tczca wrote
What, you egg?
theshredder744 t1_j0tdkaj wrote
Yep. If I'm not mistaken Hindi is the closest related language.
Source: All my North Indian friends had no trouble learning it in school, but as a South Indian I barely passed the class 😭
GoAheadMakeMySplay t1_j0tdmhn wrote
*Whan that Aprile, with his showeres soote, and the raines hath perced to the roote... ________________0 hath this thy comme, in pilrammage for soote"
(yes, I'm drunk right now, so please accept this as an approximation)
________________0 t1_j0teoy2 wrote
Hahaha! I'll accept it!
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ThatGIRLkimT t1_j0tfhi5 wrote
Interesting. This post caught my attention.
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rikashiku t1_j0tfjuj wrote
Is the law of our side if I say aye?
freddy_guy t1_j0tfmh6 wrote
Lithuanian is a very conservative language in terms of the changes that have occurred in it in the many centuries since it diverged from PIE.
This means that to someone who speaks, say, English, learning Lithuanian is just as difficult as learning Sanskrit. So while it's useful in some sense, in that if you already speak Lithuanian it will be somewhat easier for you to learn Sanskrit, it's not like you should learn Lithuanian in order to better learn Sanskrit.
Plus, the similarities between Sanskrit and Lithuanian tend to be somewhat overstated by non-linguists.
MasterDooman t1_j0th47e wrote
Try reading it with a Scottish accent. It becomes remarkably easy to understand then.
If you're reading it with a North American accent, that's where it's difficult.
Was a trick I learned in university when dealing with Canterbury tales/beowulf/ other Middle English texts.
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cdncbn t1_j0thxzd wrote
Even more tangential, but I do enjoy saying 'th' to myself whenever I see Ye in the news.
doyouevensunbro t1_j0ti258 wrote
Like anyone could decipher the modern Scottish accent
Pinkletskillz t1_j0ti3u4 wrote
I am taking classes in Sanskrit at the moment, and knowing Latin and Ancient Greek (as well as some other PIE languages) is really helping me understand much of the grammar. Those languages as well as Indonesian have been useful for vocabulary too, although you sometimes do need to get into the historical linguistics if you want to recognize the similarities. Above all, it's really a lot of fun studying other languages and seeing the interrelatedness and possibilities of each of them :)
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Fiyanggu t1_j0tjtoy wrote
Their written script is based off of Sanskrit, but those languages themselves don't derive from Sanskrit.
vinyasmusic t1_j0tkxlk wrote
All bakwas This is being challenged already
Yugan-Dali t1_j0tmims wrote
Isn’t Indonesian an Austronesian language?
Terpomo11 t1_j0tn77r wrote
What do you mean by saying their written script is based on Sanskrit?
Pinkletskillz t1_j0tn7yl wrote
It is, but the vocabulary was influenced by a lot of other languages such as Sanskrit, Dutch, Arabic, Portuguese and English. It's a very interesting mix :)
Terpomo11 t1_j0tnbml wrote
I would be surprised if it's the closest living language to Sanskrit. Usually the most conservative language varieties are ones spoken in relatively out-of-the-way locations and not the widely-spread lingua francas. Like, say, Lithuanian or Icelandic. That said, it's still much closer to Sanskrit than any Dravidian language.
Terpomo11 t1_j0tnck9 wrote
Yes, but it has a lot of Sanskrit loanwords.
Terpomo11 t1_j0tnlso wrote
KhyberPass49 t1_j0tocnb wrote
Like Mongolian is written in Cyrillic but is not related to any Slavic language
curtyshoo t1_j0tppjo wrote
The first time I traveled to Europe I found myself sitting in a moving train with two Scots.
I couldn't understand a word they said.
Yugan-Dali t1_j0tpyid wrote
I see, thanks
kindred_asura t1_j0tqant wrote
never heard of that, that's crazy.
kindred_asura t1_j0tqkmo wrote
Can you work backwards in works like go from Milton and Shakespeare (modern english let's say) to Chaucer (middle english) to Beowulf (old english) and learn the language like that?
I read Paradise Lost and even that was hard for me since English is my 2nd language.
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masklinn t1_j0trht5 wrote
> They assumed it meant earlier rules had precedence over later rules
Other way around, within a priority level the later rule overrides the earlier (is the historical interpretation).
Iwantmyflag t1_j0ts0if wrote
Latin or ancient Greek help as they train analysing sentences. But there is no point in learning those first and then Sanskrit.
Iwantmyflag t1_j0tsf9v wrote
More like pretty common. The Alphabet you are using right now was originally developed for Phoenician, a Semitic language, adapted by the Greeks for Greek, not related. Also adapted to Etruscan, not related. From there adapted to Latin, not related to either of those and then once more to English, which is related to Latin but not that closely. Cyrillic is an adaptation of the Greek variant for Slavic languages and of course also not related to Phoenician.
And let's not even talk about cuneiform.
Cheeseburgerbanter t1_j0tsrkn wrote
Sounds like Panini was bread for success, sandwiched between other great works, still managed to spread amazing teachings, filling gaps in our knowledge, risen to great things....
Terpomo11 t1_j0ttnm9 wrote
But Sanskrit is a language, not a writing system. It can be written in multiple writing systems.
Russki_Wumao t1_j0tvyze wrote
I speak Latvian and I understood all but three words you listed. This is neat as fuck. The Sanskrit sentence reads more like Latgalian dialect. Probably because the region borders with Lithuania.
sycamotree t1_j0tw149 wrote
Is "soote" soot? Otherwise it didn't seem that tough. But I also obviously could just be wrong in understanding so there's that lol.
Granted I also don't understand what soot would even mean in this context unless it's a poem about volcanoes or something lol
Edit: I looked it up.. it means sweet? Guess I had no idea what I was talking about anyway
BaronMercredi t1_j0twhav wrote
beowulf is old english though
BBFA369 t1_j0tyfm7 wrote
They likely are - the whole region was heavily influenced by Hindu / Buddhist cultures. further south, Malay has a lot of lingual overlaps with Sanskrit for instance
dilsiam t1_j0u0f8a wrote
This is beautiful and very interesting, thank you for sharing
PfizerGuyzer t1_j0u18uu wrote
This is the kind of conspiracy the fits right at home with flat earth.
doegred t1_j0u1w0u wrote
TBF Beowulf is probably not the best example since it's poetry. Old English is still obviously its own language but if you've got a few basic notions of phonology and/or some knowledge of another Germanic language you'll probably be able to decipher a bit of OE prose. Poetry on the other hand will still be hard as fuck.
Givemeurhats t1_j0u1xpc wrote
I know a Scott. He works at waffle house
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PfizerGuyzer t1_j0u3opq wrote
"Pāṇini’s system—4,000 rules detailed in his greatest work, the Aṣṭādhyāyī which is thought to have been written around 500 BC—is meant to work like a machine. Feed in the base and suffix of a word and it should turn them into grammatically correct words and sentences through a step-by-step process."
I don't know. If you guys are having this reaction to the article, then it must in some sense be confusing, but if I were the author I would find this criticism borderline offensive.
Vaelos t1_j0u40rv wrote
What about cuneiform? 🤔
ragnarok62 t1_j0u55mx wrote
That’s good to know. Thank you for doing the work the article author should have done.
ColgateSensifoam t1_j0u5ihg wrote
For clarity, it was interpreted as the rule that occurs later in the rulebook applies, rather than the rule that occurs later in the word, as is actually the case
laujac t1_j0u88bu wrote
Now this is a conspiracy I can get behind.
JimiThing716 t1_j0u9rv1 wrote
He said let's not even talk about it. /s
AdventurousEarth533 t1_j0ubtq1 wrote
Maybe counter point - I speak Kannada (fluent), Hindi (fluent) and Sanskrit (not fluent). From my experience it depends on which flavour of Hindi you speak. For example, Hindi in (purely for the sake of an example), let’s say Hyderabad, is pretty much Urdu. In that case, my Kannada has a higher overlap with Sanskrit. Hindi is not uniform. It has a lot of regional nuances. Perhaps in certain regions Hindi is closer to Sanskrit, but I’m going to say Kannada (other than the written script) is a heck of a lot closer to Sanskrit than many people realise.
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PenPineappleAppleInk t1_j0udpcx wrote
A slight counterpoint to this, I speak Telugu which is also a South Indian language but has more Sanskrit influence. I've found that Sanskrit words are more commonly used in everyday language in Telugu than in Hindi. Hindi does use Sanskrit words as well, but while commonly speaking, we often resort to Pali/Prakrit or Urdu words.
I've also noticed something similar with Marathi. Of course, I grew up in Mumbai so my Hindi wasn't as "pure" as the one spoken in North India.
hungry4danish t1_j0uesaq wrote
Just because it is 2500 years old doesn't mean it was being studied for that long. It's more likely that it spent 2450 years not really cared about and only recently did scientists care to study it to try and figure it out.
HillbillyJimbo88 t1_j0ufux2 wrote
To be honest, I have found learning Webdings has been the biggest help in learning Sanskrit.
DeTrotseTuinkabouter t1_j0ufx43 wrote
To add to what others have said: it gets crazy. What is commonly taught as the oldest Dutch sentence (it isn't) is from c. 1100. One theory though is that it is perhaps a certain west Flemmish dialect of English.
Can't tell you the specifics but basically it gets fucky wucky that far back.
McDodley t1_j0uhswz wrote
Not sure exactly what you mean, but you may be mistaking cultural influence for linear descent. Malay, Thai, Lao, Burmese are members of three different language families: Austronesian (Malay), Tai-Kadai (Thai, Lao) and Sino-Tibetan (Burmese). Sanskrit is a member of an entirely different one (Indo-European). There is a lot of borrowed vocabulary from Sanskrit in Malay, Thai, Lao and Burmese, but their grammars all work extremely differently from Sanskrit.
Shay_throwaway t1_j0uhtg8 wrote
Can confirm, I'm a native Kannada speaker (aren't we all lol?) and I honestly had an easier time taking Sanskrit classes as a kid than Hindi classes.
SaiyaJedi t1_j0uihdn wrote
It was later adopted by the Akkadians, whose language was not related to Sumerian.
crostrom t1_j0ujnv8 wrote
This is reading like a Monty Python skit
Adlach t1_j0ujus5 wrote
I think a determined reader could get as far as Middle English with that approach but Beowulf, being in Old English, is probably unreadable without academic study of the language. Let me quote the first few sentences to you:
> Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum,
> þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
> hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
> Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
> monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,
> egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð
> feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad,
> weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah,
> oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra
> ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
> gomban gyldan. þæt wæs god cyning.
I did my undergrad in linguistics and personally the only sentence I can read is the last one, which literally translates to "That was [a] good king."
Drachefly t1_j0unp12 wrote
properly,
> Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
> The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
Means, "when the (sweet) rain of April has thoroughly wetted the ground after the drought of March…"
Weary-Independent991 t1_j0uq6yo wrote
It's the other way round. Learn Sanskrit and you can understand a little bit of this and that
Allidoischill420 t1_j0uqnxb wrote
How do you gain knowledge on language like you have
[deleted] t1_j0ur706 wrote
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JustRelax51 t1_j0uz1je wrote
Do you quarrel, sir?
theshredder744 t1_j0uz55a wrote
That's interesting. Admittedly, I'm not knowledgeable enough to tell the difference between Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Urdu words in conversations.
But I completely agree about how many Sanskrit words are used in Telugu, Kannada, and even Malayalam to an extent. It's always interesting how some words and phrases are the same across borders.
[deleted] t1_j0uzdor wrote
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CalEPygous t1_j0v0gfl wrote
Supposedly Latvian and Lithuanian are the closest living, spoken, languages to Sanskrit. This likely reflects the fact that Sanskrit being that it is not spoken doesn't evolve and Lithuanian and Latvian have changed the least among living Indo-European languages.
https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/aqjegs/connections_between_lithuanian_sanskrit/
Tharoufizon t1_j0vf54c wrote
Did you learn this from a Dr Fleming, perchance?
Volgin t1_j0vj670 wrote
Are there other texts that are contemporary to Beowulf but easier to read? I tried something similar in french a few months back and could easily read early 13th century letters and such but if the text was lyrical or some sort of poetry it was often way harder to read since it was written in an classical/older style that borrowed heavily from Latin.
RikerT_USS_Lolipop t1_j0vmjjv wrote
Is that a sexual invitation?
Adlach t1_j0vr7ar wrote
Not to my knowledge. English went through some huge shifts in pronunciation and orthography since the Old English period. I actually feel that using English as context for this article is misleading because of that—most other languages haven't undergone such dramatic transformations.
temalyen t1_j0vsdal wrote
Now I want to hear Groundskeeper Willie read it.
BBFA369 t1_j0vvk4q wrote
Ah I think you’re right. I don’t speak those languages so I have no idea how their grammar works but it’s really fascinating that you can borrow vocab between languages that way.
TIL, thanks for sharing!
temalyen t1_j0wf4ii wrote
I had an English teacher in High School who, when we were reading Canterbury Tales, would basically call us lazy if we said we couldn't understand what the heck it was saying. She said a bunch of times, "This isn't any harder than anything else written in english, you're just being lazy. If you actually concentrated, you'd have no problems at all reading it."
It always pissed me off because that is obviously not true, but she'd shut down any sort of dissent and insist we're making up a problem that doesn't exist. Annoying. To this day, I still don't understand why she'd take an attitude like that when it's very obviously wrong.
Terpomo11 t1_j0wgq6g wrote
Doesn't most of Hindi's core vocabulary descend from Sanskrit? Or are the sound changes enough to obscure it?
JamesTheJerk t1_j0wujgo wrote
Criticism is natural in every aspect of life and if the author is offended, so be it. I don't care and neither should they due to me being a lowly redditor and not a peer to the writer on the subject.
This is my opinion on the article and that's how I feel.
PfizerGuyzer t1_j0wv33p wrote
Your feelings seem motivated by a desire to put others down so you can feel big in comparison.
JamesTheJerk t1_j0wvy7j wrote
Which 'feelings' have I portrayed again? Please disregard my alias as I am not in fact a 'jerk'.
Iwantmyflag t1_j0wwnio wrote
Well...you start with Latin and ancient Greek in school, then you study linguistics and history with a focus on old languages. And you keep reading and reading whenever you come across something you don't understand. It also helps to be curious.
There's probably easier ways today like just reading Wikipedia. Not everyone has to suffer through deciphering Hittite cuneiform ;)
Iwantmyflag t1_j0wzug6 wrote
That's only the beginning. Over about 3000 years Sumerian cuneiform was used (at least) by the Sumerians of course, a language not related to any other as far as we can tell. Then Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, those 3 are semitic languages.
Also used for Elamite, another contemporary language not related to anything.
Hittite, an indoeuropean language. Again completely different from all the others.
Urartian, which I can't recall right now what it is related to but it's not semitic
and finally, heavily adapted, Old Persian, another indoeuropean language.
And it's not trivial to just use Cuneiform for a different language as the "letters" don't fit the sounds. For example it's a pain to map cuneiform symbols to Hittite sounds and uncertainties remain in transcribing and translating the texts.
What's more, we can only read, translate and even to an extent speak those millenia old languages because the writing was used so long and was still used for languages where we have modern descendants and/or texts in different scripts and alphabets like the Rosetta stone or the Darius inscriptions.
sycamotree t1_j0x1nvp wrote
I read this as, "When April with its showers sweet, the drought of March has pierced to the roots."
Iwantmyflag t1_j0x37ef wrote
Over about 3000 years Sumerian cuneiform was used (at least)
-
by the Sumerians of course, a language not related to any other as far as we can tell.
-
Then Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, those 3 are semitic languages.
-
Also used for Elamite, another contemporary language not related to anything.
Hittite, an indoeuropean language. Again completely different from all the others.
Urartian, which I can't recall right now what it is related to but it's not semitic
and finally, heavily adapted, Old Persian, another indoeuropean language.
Also Eblaite, Hurrian, Luwian which are related to the ones already mentioned and a few more where we have very little texts remaining.
[deleted] t1_j0x3aam wrote
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Drachefly t1_j0x8tlz wrote
I rearranged to make the grammar clearer. Like, what's doing the piercing in that sentence? It's April, not the drought of March.
sycamotree t1_j0x8ywu wrote
Man I thought it was a poem I didn't think about it making sense lol I'm just saying how I read it in a literal sense. I didn't interpret it as "first, then"
[deleted] t1_j0yrq4g wrote
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TurkeyDinner547 t1_j0r8th4 wrote
Cool article, but too bad it doesn't go into more detail about this "rule" and how it works exactly. And what is this thing we're talking about? A stone, codex, machine, or abstract ideas? If it generated so many errors and was inaccurate, then why was it previously "considered to be one of the great intellectual achievements in history" if this student had to figure it all out in 2022? The article leaves me with more questions than answers, unfortunately.