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A critique of George Hart (apropos Sanskrit)

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A critique of George Hart (apropos Sanskrit) Empty A critique of George Hart (apropos Sanskrit)

Post by Guest Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:33 pm

When i started reading George Hart's blog i realized that the ideas about tamil vs sanskrit of a few people with who i have discussed this issue are in complete harmony with Hart's, who comes across as highly biased. Here is a sample from Hart:

From the beginning, elegant Tamil has eschewed Sanskrit words and encouraged the use of pure Tamil vocabulary, though of course Tamil has still managed to borrow an enormous number of Sanskrit words (just as Sanskrit has borrowed many Dravidian words). Once, reading a hymn from the Rig Veda, we found that virtually every word is found in modern Tamil...For formal Tamil, one must use words like naṇpaṉ, tūymai, oli, āṇṭu, and these pure Dravidian words impart an elegance that is entirely lacking when Sanskrit words are used.

http://tamil.berkeley.edu/category/blog

What Hart tries to do here is inculcate in a subtle way a contempt for sanskrit when he says that using sanskrit words in tamil diminishes elegance in tamil. Had this really been true, Subramanya Bharati--the greatest tamil poet of 20th century India--would not have freely used sanskrit origin words in his tamil writings. It is ridiculous to conceive that George Hart is a better judge of elegant Tamil than Subramanya Bharati.What Hart wants to do is to continue the hateful purging of words of sanskrit origin from tamil. Secondly, if Hart would have been a genuine scholar he would have given us the specific Rig Vedic Hymn for which he claims almost every word is to be found in modern Tamil. Hart's claim of finding almost all words in a Rig Vedic hymn in modern tamil is pure bunkum--it cannot possibly be true. Thirdly, the Tamil Brahmin dialect is full of words of sanskrit origin. George Hart is clearly implying that he considers the Brahmin dialect Tamil to be inelegant and inferior. This is why i am saddened when i notice a few Tamil Brahmins swallowing George Hart's ridiculous views without doing any critical analysis.

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George Hart writes that Tamil is not in competition with Sanskrit but then he also writes the following mischievous words contradicting himself:

What about Tamil? It had the good fortune to gain an extensive written literature before the Sanskrit juggernaut became irresistible. Its early works owe virtually nothing to Sanskrit, but rather are indebted to the oral traditions of the local countryside. Perhaps this process was helped along by the vast distances between the Tamil areas and North India.....It would, in my view, be a serious mistake to include Sanskrit sounds (except for those in general use, like ஜ்) in Tamil unicode.

--> Notice the attempt to portray Sanskrit as some kind of a North Indian language by George Hart. In this connection, i would like to point out what what Prof D.H.H. Ingalls has written in his introduction to Vidyakara's Subhasitaratnakosa (Harvard Oriental Series Volume 42): in medieval india, women from south indian royal families were taught sanskrit, whereas their counterparts in north india were not. this meant that the kings of south india had a stronger emotional bond and connection with sanskrit than their counterparts in north india because when growing up they would have heard and presumably communicated with their mothers in sanskrit (in addition to the local language).

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A critique of George Hart (apropos Sanskrit) Empty George Hart vs other scholars

Post by Guest Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:44 pm

George Hart writes:

I can attest that the grammar of Sanskrit is no more elegant or perfect
than any other IE language. It very much resembles Russian, Latin, and
Greek (which I have also read) -- to which it is closely akin. To my mind,
Tamil and the other Dravidian languages have much more elegant and logical
structures.


http://www.ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archives/jan98/0017.html

Compare Hart's claim with the following:

A quote from the Constituent Assembly debate that took place on 12.9.1949 in our Constituent Assembly :-

“The Hon’ble Shri Ghanshyam Singh Gupta - We want to hear your views on Sanskrit.

Mr. Naziruddin Ahmed – I am extremely thankful to the Hon’ble Member Mr. Gupta. If you have to adopt any language, why should you not have the world’s greatest language? It is today a matter of great regret that we do not know with what reverence Sanskrit is held in the outside world. I shall only quote a few brief remarks made about Sanskrit to show how this language is held in the civilized world. Mr. W.C. Taylor says “Sanskrit is the language of unrivalled richness and purity”.

Mr. President – I would suggest you may leave that question alone, because I propose to call representatives who have given notice of amendments of a fundamental character and I will call upon a gentleman who has given notice about Sanskrit to speak about it.

Mr. Naziruddin Ahmed – Yes, Sir, I shall not stand in between. I will only give a few quotations. Prof. Max Muller says that “Sanskrit is the greatest language in the world, the most wonderful and the most perfect”. Sir William Jones said “whenever we direct our attention to the Sanskrit Literature the notion of infinity presents itself. Surely the longest life would not suffice for a perusal of works that rise and swell protuberant like the Himalayas above the bulkiest composition of every land beyond the confines of India”. Then Sir W. Hunter says that “the Grammar of Panini stands supreme among the grammars of the world. It stands forth as one of the most splendid achievements of human invention and industry”. Prof. Whitney says “Its unequalled transparency of structure gives it (Sanskrit) undisputable right to the first place amongst the tongues of the Indo-European family”. M. Dukois says “Sanskrit is the origin of the modern languages of Europe”. Prof. Weber says “Panini’s grammar is universally admitted to be the shortest and fullest grammar in the world”. Prof. Wilson says “No nation but the Hindu has yet been able to discover such a perfect system of phonetics”. Prof. Thompson says “The arrangement of consonants in Sanskrit is a unique example of human genius”. Dr. Shahidullah, Professor of Dacca University, who has a world wide reputation as a Sanskrit Scholar, says “Sanskrit is the language of every man to whatever race he may belong”.

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To the above one may add another quote:
Sir William Jones writes that Sanskrit has "a wonderful structure; more perfect than Greek, more copious than Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either".



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