07-04-2007, 05:53 AM
I think the above site was created by this guy:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Spoken Sanskrit on the web
Spoken Sanskrit? A German, who lives in Kochi has taken the lead in putting up an online dictionary of conversational Sanskrit. PRIYADARSSHINI SHARMA learns from him that the Sanskrit word for Internet is `antarjalam'!Â
Why stop conversing in Sanskrit after the beautiful Sanskrit greeting, `namaskaram'? Well, did you know it is Sanskrit? It is. And they say Sanskrit is a dead, ancient language. No, not so for retired professor of Mathematics, Klaus Glashoff, a German. He, along with three other Kochiites, is putting together an online dictionary of spoken Sanskrit, www.spokensanskrit.de. It is being researched, compiled, edited, and corrected right here. The author, Mr. Glashoff will have you believe that it is a logical process in his career of teaching and learning.
The flow chart of this magnum opus goes like this: After 25years of teaching mathematics at the university of Hamburg, he switched to post-retirement study of logic and its flow into the study of ancient logic, that is, Greek and Sanskrit. He felt the need to learn conversational Sanskrit then, but found there was no proper Sanskrit dictionary of modern words.
"Language is hard to learn when you don't have anyone to practise it with. Nobody talks in the ancient languages. But in India there is this living tradition in Sanskrit. For me this makes learning easier. The Samskrita Bharati organisation actively promote the language. But I found that there is no real dictionary for spoken Sanskrit. There are some very ancient dictionaries in Sanskrit but none for spoken Sanskrit. Vaman Shivram Apte brought out the last one in about 1890. It is very voluminous but does not have modern words like, for example, `photo' (Skrt.: aalokalekham) or `internet' (Skrt.: antarjalam)."
And so Mr. Glashoff's mathematical mind set about putting together a spoken Sanskrit-English dictionary. Being well versed in programming, which is a hobby, made things easier for him as he set up a user-friendly interactive site, like wikipedia.
In Kochi his search for the right people succeeded at the Ramakrishna Ashramam at Kaloor where he met Mr. Narayanaswamy, a retired chemical engineer now into philanthropic services. He, after retirement, began re-learning the language, a language for which his fascination had never ebbed after he heard his Principal, Venkateshwaran Dikshitar, at Bhavan's Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai, deliver a speech in honour of Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, sometime in the 50's. "The speech in chaste Sanskrit was powerful in its words and beautiful in its simplicity that I fell in love with the language. In fact my Principal said that he had spoken in Sanskrit not to demonstrate his knowledge of the language but that it was a language that could be spoken in daily life. This caught my imagination. After retirement I got the chance to re-learn Sanskrit. That's when Klaus came looking for a teacher and so the two of us began a student-teacher friendship. But when he came up with the idea of an online Sanskrit dictionary I put him on to two Sanskrit teachers to help him compile this work and complete this venture."
Says Klaus, "When I began I had come from Hamburg with 500 words but today it has grown to 27,000 entries. Now we are in the process of correcting, editing and of course adding any new words."
Ranjini, part of the team and a teacher at St. Mary's UP School, Njarakal says, "I met Klaus when I was a guest lecturer at Maharaja's College. He had come looking for a Sanskrit teacher. It was that very day that a three month course in Basic Sanskrit was starting at the Ramakrishna Ashramam, conducted by Vishwa Samskritam Pratishtanam. Klaus joined the course and a year later when he came up with the idea of the online spoken Sanskrit dictionary I helped him with collecting Sanskrit words and their English translations."
So did Kavita C.S., a student at Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, Guruvayur Campus, Thrissur. "My contributions to this big venture are very small," says Kavita modestly as she helped with spellings, new words and tenses.
The site
What puzzles Klaus is the number of hits the site receives daily and the number of queries. "People ask for very common words that you need in day-to-day modern living. From the response there are two clear-cut groups of people who access this site. One is a large group of Indo-Americans and the other is people from South India."
"What we need are people who know Sanskrit and English, and who would like to help us with the correction of the dictionary, online at their computer," requests Klaus who proudly says, "I learnt my Sanskrit in Hamburg."
(You can join in with the work on the dictionary by mailing to: klaus.glashoff@spoken-sanskrit.de)
http://www.thehindujobs.com/thehindu/mp/20...12502160100.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Spoken Sanskrit on the web
Spoken Sanskrit? A German, who lives in Kochi has taken the lead in putting up an online dictionary of conversational Sanskrit. PRIYADARSSHINI SHARMA learns from him that the Sanskrit word for Internet is `antarjalam'!Â
Why stop conversing in Sanskrit after the beautiful Sanskrit greeting, `namaskaram'? Well, did you know it is Sanskrit? It is. And they say Sanskrit is a dead, ancient language. No, not so for retired professor of Mathematics, Klaus Glashoff, a German. He, along with three other Kochiites, is putting together an online dictionary of spoken Sanskrit, www.spokensanskrit.de. It is being researched, compiled, edited, and corrected right here. The author, Mr. Glashoff will have you believe that it is a logical process in his career of teaching and learning.
The flow chart of this magnum opus goes like this: After 25years of teaching mathematics at the university of Hamburg, he switched to post-retirement study of logic and its flow into the study of ancient logic, that is, Greek and Sanskrit. He felt the need to learn conversational Sanskrit then, but found there was no proper Sanskrit dictionary of modern words.
"Language is hard to learn when you don't have anyone to practise it with. Nobody talks in the ancient languages. But in India there is this living tradition in Sanskrit. For me this makes learning easier. The Samskrita Bharati organisation actively promote the language. But I found that there is no real dictionary for spoken Sanskrit. There are some very ancient dictionaries in Sanskrit but none for spoken Sanskrit. Vaman Shivram Apte brought out the last one in about 1890. It is very voluminous but does not have modern words like, for example, `photo' (Skrt.: aalokalekham) or `internet' (Skrt.: antarjalam)."
And so Mr. Glashoff's mathematical mind set about putting together a spoken Sanskrit-English dictionary. Being well versed in programming, which is a hobby, made things easier for him as he set up a user-friendly interactive site, like wikipedia.
In Kochi his search for the right people succeeded at the Ramakrishna Ashramam at Kaloor where he met Mr. Narayanaswamy, a retired chemical engineer now into philanthropic services. He, after retirement, began re-learning the language, a language for which his fascination had never ebbed after he heard his Principal, Venkateshwaran Dikshitar, at Bhavan's Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai, deliver a speech in honour of Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, sometime in the 50's. "The speech in chaste Sanskrit was powerful in its words and beautiful in its simplicity that I fell in love with the language. In fact my Principal said that he had spoken in Sanskrit not to demonstrate his knowledge of the language but that it was a language that could be spoken in daily life. This caught my imagination. After retirement I got the chance to re-learn Sanskrit. That's when Klaus came looking for a teacher and so the two of us began a student-teacher friendship. But when he came up with the idea of an online Sanskrit dictionary I put him on to two Sanskrit teachers to help him compile this work and complete this venture."
Says Klaus, "When I began I had come from Hamburg with 500 words but today it has grown to 27,000 entries. Now we are in the process of correcting, editing and of course adding any new words."
Ranjini, part of the team and a teacher at St. Mary's UP School, Njarakal says, "I met Klaus when I was a guest lecturer at Maharaja's College. He had come looking for a Sanskrit teacher. It was that very day that a three month course in Basic Sanskrit was starting at the Ramakrishna Ashramam, conducted by Vishwa Samskritam Pratishtanam. Klaus joined the course and a year later when he came up with the idea of the online spoken Sanskrit dictionary I helped him with collecting Sanskrit words and their English translations."
So did Kavita C.S., a student at Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, Guruvayur Campus, Thrissur. "My contributions to this big venture are very small," says Kavita modestly as she helped with spellings, new words and tenses.
The site
What puzzles Klaus is the number of hits the site receives daily and the number of queries. "People ask for very common words that you need in day-to-day modern living. From the response there are two clear-cut groups of people who access this site. One is a large group of Indo-Americans and the other is people from South India."
"What we need are people who know Sanskrit and English, and who would like to help us with the correction of the dictionary, online at their computer," requests Klaus who proudly says, "I learnt my Sanskrit in Hamburg."
(You can join in with the work on the dictionary by mailing to: klaus.glashoff@spoken-sanskrit.de)
http://www.thehindujobs.com/thehindu/mp/20...12502160100.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->