06-19-2008, 06:25 AM
Jun 16, 2008
If the Jews can revive Hebrew, why can't we revive Sanskrit? -- Dr. Arvind Sharma
* Now when I hear people make baby-talk in Hebrew â it's just unbelievable"
* Ya â but in India people still laugh at the idea of Sanskrit.
From: S. Kalyanaraman
Date: Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 7:11 PM
Subject: "...if the Jews can revive Hebrew, why can't we revive Sanskrit?" -- Arvind Sharma
http://hindutva97.blogspot.com/2008/06/if-...hy-cant-we.html
1. A blog entry by Dr. Arvind Sharma
2. A report in Washington Post.
-- Kalyanaraman
* * *
Hebrew â What Has That Got To Do With Sanskrit?
--Arvind Sharma
I was visiting my lawyer friend. As soon as he let me into the chamber I remarked: "Have you decided to grow a beard?" It was an obvious question for a man in his condition.
"You know," he began, after he had offered me a seat and settled into one himself, "I am the member of a theatre group and my role requires a person with a beard. So my director suggested that I grow one, instead of wearing a made-up one."
I began to muse why I hadn't joined an elocution society, I am so dissatisfied at the way I make conversation, when I do, that is. My silent soliloquy ended as he resumed speaking.
"Have you heard of Yiddish?" he suddenly asked.
"A German dialect used by the Jews", I ventured and then bit my tongue. Why didn't I say sociolect? See, I do need those lessons after all.
"Only it was spoken all over â in Germany, Poland, Ukraine â kind of Jewish Lingua Franca", he ever so gently corrected me. "It started along the Rhine around eleventh century. Has a vast literature."
"Have you ever heard of Salinger?"
My thoughts went to a news item about an affair of a famous author with a younger girl â apparently dug out to show Clinton was not reinventing the wheel with Monicaâ¦he used my silence to fill the gap himself.
"He won a Nobel Prize"
I must have looked mildly surprised, for he added: "The only one awarded in Yiddish."
If Yiddish was so well entrenched as a language among the Jews â why Hebrew then?
He read my mind.
"Hebrew of course was there as the language of ritual, but everything else was done in Yiddish. In 1908 a resolution was passed that Yiddish should be the language of Israel."
Was Yiddish like Hindi? His talk flowed on regardless of my self-interrogation.
"Of course, for Theodore Herzl the language could only be German. But history marches to its own drumbeat. It was Hebrew which ended up being Israel's language. It's a miracle."
I had long thought so - reviving a dead language. I finally said: "the first time I learnt of this was as a teenager. An Indian leader returned from a visit to Israel and said: if the Jews can revive Hebrew, why can't we revive Sanskrit?" Then I let out a soft laugh.
"They also laughed when attempts were made to revive the Hebrew language. Then came the first family in which Hebrew was the mother tongue. Now when I hear people make baby-talk in Hebrew â it's just unbelievable"
Ya â but in India people still laugh at the idea of Sanskrit.
Comment:
ushma williams Says:
June 14, 2008 at 3:04 pm
as a recent student of Hinduism I have just started to learn Sanskrit. what I have over the years having gone through a english colonial education in India have just now realised, how much of the intellectual culture of India was unaccessible to me, and how regrettable that was.
All I know that India does not even realise her big loss by losing Sanskrit. the language and its people are so completely interlinked and the Indic worldview cannot be put accross in its entirety in English.
As i teach my own children and others Hinduism for their board exams we have to learn the religion through its Sankrit words, and it is wonderful to see British born childrens amazement at the language of their ancestors ,how proud it makes me to be of this heritage with its long intellectual and spiritual tradition and how easy Sanskrit makes it for me to understand this.Each word opens up the Indic philosophy so ably and precisely is amazing.
If the Jews can revive Hebrew, why can't we revive Sanskrit? -- Dr. Arvind Sharma
* Now when I hear people make baby-talk in Hebrew â it's just unbelievable"
* Ya â but in India people still laugh at the idea of Sanskrit.
From: S. Kalyanaraman
Date: Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 7:11 PM
Subject: "...if the Jews can revive Hebrew, why can't we revive Sanskrit?" -- Arvind Sharma
http://hindutva97.blogspot.com/2008/06/if-...hy-cant-we.html
1. A blog entry by Dr. Arvind Sharma
2. A report in Washington Post.
-- Kalyanaraman
* * *
Hebrew â What Has That Got To Do With Sanskrit?
--Arvind Sharma
I was visiting my lawyer friend. As soon as he let me into the chamber I remarked: "Have you decided to grow a beard?" It was an obvious question for a man in his condition.
"You know," he began, after he had offered me a seat and settled into one himself, "I am the member of a theatre group and my role requires a person with a beard. So my director suggested that I grow one, instead of wearing a made-up one."
I began to muse why I hadn't joined an elocution society, I am so dissatisfied at the way I make conversation, when I do, that is. My silent soliloquy ended as he resumed speaking.
"Have you heard of Yiddish?" he suddenly asked.
"A German dialect used by the Jews", I ventured and then bit my tongue. Why didn't I say sociolect? See, I do need those lessons after all.
"Only it was spoken all over â in Germany, Poland, Ukraine â kind of Jewish Lingua Franca", he ever so gently corrected me. "It started along the Rhine around eleventh century. Has a vast literature."
"Have you ever heard of Salinger?"
My thoughts went to a news item about an affair of a famous author with a younger girl â apparently dug out to show Clinton was not reinventing the wheel with Monicaâ¦he used my silence to fill the gap himself.
"He won a Nobel Prize"
I must have looked mildly surprised, for he added: "The only one awarded in Yiddish."
If Yiddish was so well entrenched as a language among the Jews â why Hebrew then?
He read my mind.
"Hebrew of course was there as the language of ritual, but everything else was done in Yiddish. In 1908 a resolution was passed that Yiddish should be the language of Israel."
Was Yiddish like Hindi? His talk flowed on regardless of my self-interrogation.
"Of course, for Theodore Herzl the language could only be German. But history marches to its own drumbeat. It was Hebrew which ended up being Israel's language. It's a miracle."
I had long thought so - reviving a dead language. I finally said: "the first time I learnt of this was as a teenager. An Indian leader returned from a visit to Israel and said: if the Jews can revive Hebrew, why can't we revive Sanskrit?" Then I let out a soft laugh.
"They also laughed when attempts were made to revive the Hebrew language. Then came the first family in which Hebrew was the mother tongue. Now when I hear people make baby-talk in Hebrew â it's just unbelievable"
Ya â but in India people still laugh at the idea of Sanskrit.
Comment:
ushma williams Says:
June 14, 2008 at 3:04 pm
as a recent student of Hinduism I have just started to learn Sanskrit. what I have over the years having gone through a english colonial education in India have just now realised, how much of the intellectual culture of India was unaccessible to me, and how regrettable that was.
All I know that India does not even realise her big loss by losing Sanskrit. the language and its people are so completely interlinked and the Indic worldview cannot be put accross in its entirety in English.
As i teach my own children and others Hinduism for their board exams we have to learn the religion through its Sankrit words, and it is wonderful to see British born childrens amazement at the language of their ancestors ,how proud it makes me to be of this heritage with its long intellectual and spiritual tradition and how easy Sanskrit makes it for me to understand this.Each word opens up the Indic philosophy so ably and precisely is amazing.