31–40 of 154 posts
You mean “What did ancient European languages sound like” perhaps? I would submit that Samskruta (NOT the anclicised Sanskrit) sounds exactly like how it did in ancient times. How come there is no discussion of that at all?
You mean “What did ancient European languages sound like” perhaps? I would submit that Samskruta (NOT the anclicised Sanskrit) sounds exactly like how it did in ancient times. How come there is no discussion of that at all?
No, it doesn't. End of discussion.
You mean “What did ancient European languages sound like” perhaps? I would submit that Samskruta (NOT the anclicised Sanskrit) sounds exactly like how it did in ancient times. How come there is no discussion of that at all?
I agree with the sentiment but ironically your transliteration of the name of that language reveals that it certainly has undergone at least some sound changes. Why do people in the north pronounce the vocalic "r" as "ri" while in the south they use "ru"? Why do people in the north drop word final schwa but in the south they add a nasal bilabial? While it's very easy to pronounce Samskrta in a way similar to what was…
Other topolects such as Cantonese preserved them, which makes it a better correspondence if you care about hearing something closer to the Middle Chinese that Tang poetry was composed in.
How do we know so much about Middle Chinese pronunciation in the present day? Check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME8wzyR6pO8 for a layperson's introduction.
You mean “What did ancient European languages sound like” perhaps? I would submit that Samskruta (NOT the anclicised Sanskrit) sounds exactly like how it did in ancient times. How come there is no discussion of that at all?
While there is an element of truth to that, it's largely because the language was deliberately fossilized for religious reasons, while the "real" language that people actually used day to day continued to evolve around it.
Perhaps this is the right thread to ask the question as to how people figured out what ancient Egyptian words sound. From what I understand Rosetta Stone simply provided a dictionary of sorts, so I can understand how they know which words mean what. But how do they know that a certain combination of hieroglyphs translates into words pronounced as say “Ramses” or “Tutankhamen “ and so on.
https://youtu.be/5NeccdDpO5I I found this to be a great source on the topic. Your question is a great one, and hints as to why Jean-Francois Champollion is hailed as the genius he was. The key insight was essentially the theory that the Coptic language spoken still as the liturgical language of Coptic Christians in Egypt was a modern form of the ancient Egyptian language encoded by Hieroglyphics. Champollion made a k…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While there is an element of truth to that, it's largely because the language was deliberately fossilized for religious reasons, while the "real" language that people actually used day to day continued to evolve around it.
How fossilized? While it is not used as an everyday language, there is a yet growing library of literature, and vigorous philosophical debate that happens in Samskruta. BTW, an unrelated rant, the other thing that grinds on me is that the Ganga river is ALWAYS referred as Ganges (another anglicization)! Ganga is easier to pronounce, so why did that get anglicized, I wonder?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While there is an element of truth to that, it's largely because the language was deliberately fossilized for religious reasons, while the "real" language that people actually used day to day continued to evolve around it.
How fossilized? While it is not used as an everyday language, there is a yet growing library of literature, and vigorous philosophical debate that happens in Samskruta. BTW, an unrelated rant, the other thing that grinds on me is that the Ganga river is ALWAYS referred as Ganges (another anglicization)! Ganga is easier to pronounce, so why did that get anglicized, I wonder?
Obvious example:
Arabic from at least the 7th century AD:
As an Arabic speaker, I can totally read a text the way it was pronounced 14 centuries ago and also perfectly understand it.
You cannot say the same thing for European languages.
Probably the same for sanskrit.
You mean “What did ancient European languages sound like” perhaps? I would submit that Samskruta (NOT the anclicised Sanskrit) sounds exactly like how it did in ancient times. How come there is no discussion of that at all?
I also think this is so because the prevalent narrative is post colonial in nature and the (English) Internet is came out of Anglosphere. This is not a criticism of the prevalent order, it's just the way things have evolved naturally post WW2.