Sanskrit

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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->in the recent past ( 3000 years ? ) sanskrit has not been doing good in the masses...why ? <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Amarnath, That argument is often repeated. But without a proper context and perspective is meaningless.

For an idea of the context, just answer this, which language in the whole world has done as well or better than Sanskrit for the last 3000 years?

Only mention can be made of Chinese. (Latin is not that old, and Greek pretty much petered out in productivity millenia ago). But even with chinese, it is the 'characters' that have had the permanence, not the language itself. Amongst the Indian languages mention can be made of Tamil which has been a highly succesful and ancient language. But in overall corpus, literary and geographic breadth and influence Sanskrit far surpasses all Indian languages including Tamil.

IMHO only ancient language that has done well and over the longest period of time continuously is Sanskrit.

Regarding the question of the masses, they were mostly illiterate all over the world. I don't think common englishmen lined up to learn, or were even admitted to the acdemies to learn, Latin when it was their official language.

Not too long ago, India's official buisiness was conducted in Persian (Farsi). Mughals ruled India for hundreds of years with such a difficult and foreign language. Farsi never became the commen peoples' language. But every court or official business was conducted in it. So did British with the foreign language of English.. Even though Englih seems to be there everywhere in India, only a tiny percentage of pupulation understands it. This is no different than the days of the Mughals. And for all their glory and power, the days of Mughals and Farsi did come to an end. And I am confident in next couple of centuries days of English will end too.

It is for the long term that I say that Sanskrit is our one true linguistic treasure. No other Indian language has the expressivity and breadth of Sanskrit and that has influenced so many modern languages of India.