SV: Latin, Sanskrit, Arabic

[Lars Martin Fosse]

Vidhyanath Rao [SMTP:vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu] skrev 09. september 1999
21:35:

> <JoatSimeon at aol.com> wrote:

>> -- Sanskrit was preserved orally for centuries; however, it was used
>> only for religious purposes, and primarily as religious poetry.
>> Nobody spoke it in day-to-day life,

> The counter-evidence is and has been well-known to specialists for a long
> time. ...

In addition to Vidyanath Rao's information, I would like to add that Sanskrit
existed at different levels of proficiency. It was not only a religious
language, it was also an epic language, and it was apparently - in a simplified
form - used as a lingua franca all over India after the Prakrits had become too
different to be mutually comprehensible. We talk about Buddhist Hybrid
Sanskrit, a version of Sanskrit that does not adhere strictly to Paninian
grammatical rules, and we also have so-called Epigraphical Hybrid Sanskrit, a
version with clear influence from the vernaculars. (See Damsteegt, T. (1978).
Epigraphical Hybrid Sanskrit. Leiden, E. J. Brill.). Allthough Sanskrit had
competition from the Prakrits, the fact that it eventually became the lingua
franca of the Buddhists should indicate to what extent it was used and
understood - at one level or another - all over South Asia and all the way to
Central Asia, where we have dug up quite a lot of Skt. manuscripts. It may not
have been the "mother tongue" of many people, but otherwise, it must have been
the English of ancient South Asia.

Lars Martin Fosse

Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
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