SV: Can Parent and Daughter co-exist?

[Lars Martin Fosse]

Vidhyanath Rao [SMTP:vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu] skrev 15. september 1999
16:25:

> I agree that the terms `language', `dialect' or `register' are quite fuzzy
> and how we draw the lines depends on political and social factors. But so
> does the term `living language'.

I think there is some merit to Vidyanath Rao's point here. Not only Tamil,
which he mentions, but also other "living" Indian languages have several
registers, and their written forms may be quite different from the spoken
language. Furthermore, within a Hindu context, all Indian languages apparently
at all times have been intimately connected with Sanskrit, which exchanged a
great number of lexical elements with the Prakrits and later vernaculars. (One
sometimes wonders if Sanskrit isn't an undead rather than a dead language :-).)

The development of Sanskritized *shuddh* Hindi would be a case in point. Here,
the popular version of Hindi/Urdu, so-called Hindustani, has been rejected as a
language of culture in favour of a language you can only speak if you have
higher education. (The same applies to Urdu, mutatis mutandis: Urdu gets much
of its vocabulary from Persian and Arabic). Thus we may ask: is shuddh Hindi a
living natural language (most speakers don't learn it on their mother's knee),
or is it an artificial language produced through language engineering, but
based on a natural language (Hindustani)? (I should add that loaning from Skt.
is more extensive in shuddh Hindi than loans from Greek and Latin in European
languages. Some speakers make a point of using the skt. form "pita" (father)
instead of the normal "bap"). The more Sanskrit, the better.

Urdu and Hindi are technically the same language, but when the well-educated
and cultured speakers of both idioms bring out the majestic parts of their
vocabulary, all they seem to share are the vector verbs and the syntactic
rules. Behind much of this would seem to lie the concept of the "ideal
language", which has to be different from what is normally used by the less
sophisticated members of society. Idioms such as shuddh Hindi could then be
regarded as a sociolect. But it is also a "statement" expressing a cultural
ideal, and its speakers would try to disseminate it and make it a standard form
of the language, much like High German in Germany. And if they succeed, what
would we have then? A language - not just a dialect or a sociolect - with a
Neo-Indo-Aryan grammar and a heavily Sanskritized vocabulary. It would seem
that Sanskrit doesn't really die, it just transmigrates through Samsara like
good Indians should :-). Not to mention that some people try to reintroduce it
as a first language, learnt on mother's knee. Which would make it a bit like
Hebrew if they were to succeed.

To sum up: If Skt. is used - like Latin in the middle ages - un till today,
while at the same time interacting strongly with vernaculars in certain
cultural contexts (ruled by religion, but not simply religious - an important
point), how dead is it *really*? Knowledge of Skt. is on the wane in India
(people apparently prefer a business education), but it would seem that the
corpse is still kicking.

Best regards,
Lars Martin Fosse

Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114,
0674 Oslo
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Phone/Fax: +47 22 32 12 19
Email: lmfosse at online.no