The Second Life of Sanskrit

#1

Post by bookofjoe » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 6:03 PM UTC

The Second Life of Sanskrit
openthemagazine.com

Re: The Second Life of Sanskrit

#2

Post by alephnerd » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 8:29 PM UTC

Something that isn't called out but is playing a role as well is the rise of humanities and interdisciplinary research in India. 20-30 years ago, specializing in ancient languages and texts from a CompLing perspective or a humanities perspective just didn't occur.

As India grew richer, the newer generation of liberal arts colleges (eg. Ashoka) and humanities programs in public universities (eg. IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur, IIT Hyderabad, JNU) started attracting and hiring Western educated faculty and researchers (Indian as well as Foreigners) to help revitalize interest in humanities and social sciences.

India also now has a new generation philanthropists who are starting to donate to this kind of research (eg. Murthy and the "Murty Classical Library of India" at Harvard).

There is a similar revitalization for older texts in Tamizh, Telugu, Koshur, Pahari, Tibetan, etc as well.

Re: The Second Life of Sanskrit

#3

Post by profsummergig » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 8:31 PM UTC

Taleb says that some languages are only meant for ritual.

IMHO, Sanskrit quotes sound cool to those who know Prakrit languages just like Latin and Greek quotations sound cool to those who know Romance languages (and even to those who know English, like myself).

Yes, there is a revival, and an interest. But Sanskrit has always been known to the "priestly" class even though they never conversed in it. This new revival is not going to lead to actual communication, just a lot of visual art based on the script and quotations. IMHO.

Re: The Second Life of Sanskrit

#4

Post by alephnerd » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 8:36 PM UTC

profsummergig wrote: post #3

Taleb says that some languages are only meant for ritual. IMHO, Sanskrit quotes sound cool to those who know Prakrit languages just like Latin and Greek quotations sound cool to those who know Romance languages (and even to those who know English, like myself). Yes, there is a revival, and an interest. But Sanskrit has always been known to the "priestly" class even though they never conversed in it. This new revival…

> This new revival is not going to lead to actual communication, just a lot of visual art based on the script and quotations

This, but also social sciences and interdisciplinary research (especially in the NLP, CompLing, and ML space).

Re: The Second Life of Sanskrit

#5

Post by smokeyfish » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 8:42 PM UTC

profsummergig wrote: post #3

Taleb says that some languages are only meant for ritual. IMHO, Sanskrit quotes sound cool to those who know Prakrit languages just like Latin and Greek quotations sound cool to those who know Romance languages (and even to those who know English, like myself). Yes, there is a revival, and an interest. But Sanskrit has always been known to the "priestly" class even though they never conversed in it. This new revival…

There's always Lithuanian.

Re: The Second Life of Sanskrit

#6

Post by alephnerd » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 8:45 PM UTC

smokeyfish wrote: post #5

profsummergig wrote: post #3

Taleb says that some languages are only meant for ritual. IMHO, Sanskrit quotes sound cool to those who know Prakrit languages just like Latin and Greek quotations sound cool to those who know Romance languages (and even to those who know English, like myself). Yes, there is a revival, and an interest. But Sanskrit has always been known to the "priestly" class even though they never conversed in it. This new revival…

There's always Lithuanian.

Or Koshur - it still retains archaic word forms, syntax, and roots that fell out of other Indo-Iranian languages.

Re: The Second Life of Sanskrit

#7

Post by throwawayamzn1 » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 9:07 PM UTC

It is caused by the ability of LLM to translate it quite accurately

Re: The Second Life of Sanskrit

#8

Post by selimthegrim » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 9:20 PM UTC

alephnerd wrote: post #2

Something that isn't called out but is playing a role as well is the rise of humanities and interdisciplinary research in India. 20-30 years ago, specializing in ancient languages and texts from a CompLing perspective or a humanities perspective just didn't occur. As India grew richer, the newer generation of liberal arts colleges (eg. Ashoka) and humanities programs in public universities (eg. IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur,…

What about Prakrit and Punjabi? I knew a guy at UCSB, Gurinder Singh Mann who taught me to read Punjabi. Nice guy (to me) but got himself in a lot of trouble for many different reasons.

Re: The Second Life of Sanskrit

#9

Post by Alien1Being » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 9:51 PM UTC

This highly recommended, excellent school in Sydney offers Sanskrit.

"A third elective is chosen from Accelerated Classical Greek/Italian/German, Sanskrit, ..."

https://www.sydgram.nsw.edu.au/life-at-grammar/academic/

My children had a great time there.

Re: The Second Life of Sanskrit

#10

Post by alephnerd » Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 9:51 PM UTC

selimthegrim wrote: post #8

alephnerd wrote: post #2

Something that isn't called out but is playing a role as well is the rise of humanities and interdisciplinary research in India. 20-30 years ago, specializing in ancient languages and texts from a CompLing perspective or a humanities perspective just didn't occur. As India grew richer, the newer generation of liberal arts colleges (eg. Ashoka) and humanities programs in public universities (eg. IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur,…

What about Prakrit and Punjabi? I knew a guy at UCSB, Gurinder Singh Mann who taught me to read Punjabi. Nice guy (to me) but got himself in a lot of trouble for many different reasons.

Yes as well. My list of languages was non-exhaustive.