Joanne Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Prema,
>
> I studied Sanskrit for a about 5 minutes (well 3
> months really) a Loooooong time ago. I think I
> still have an old book around here somewhere.

lol. was it five minutes out of three months?!!! lol.

I agree it is not an easy language to catch up with. but, you will find interesting if you watch (bollywood movie?lol) something in hindi and try sanskrit again. I learnt hindi by watching movies (lousy ones and some good entertaining ones with good girls dancing like having rubber hips). But, today's hindi has lot of urdu.

>
> I thought the oldest texts were written in
> Indo-Iranian?

sanskrit was written using few different scripts (Devanagiri is being the popular one). Don't underdstand why though. but, still the language (meaning of the words and sentences) remain same. sanskrit is one of those languages that has undergone minimal changes over time.




>I thought I read that the Sanskrit
> is actually a translation from the older language,
> at least for the oldest texts.

that is still a controversial topic. not settled very well yet. many sanskrit fans beleive that ALL languages evolved from sanskrit.


>
> Thanks for the links. I found Griffith yesterday,
> but I am concerned that his translations are
> outdated.

I know the feeling. I find Pope's thirukkural translations very outdated, bearing no relevance to the original sometimes.


>There's a site that's translated other
> Indo-European language material that I found, but
> they only refer to the RV; they do not provide any
> translation. Maybe someday....
>

Talk to some Indian Brahmins. it is better if they are Tamil brahmins or Kashmiri Brahmins. (Kashmiri is much better). filter out their value-added information. you will be fine.







Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2005 09:42AM by prema1.