> I just recently learned that Sanskrit was the first language to have its grammar formally specified. Pāṇini in the 4th century BCE wrote down the complete one.
People can say this, but that won't make it true. There are unexaggerated 100% odds that what Pāṇini specified was not a complete description of the speech of his time or any other point in history, just as no complete description of any modern language exists today. It's not for lack of scholastic effort; the idea of completely specifying a human language isn't even well defined.
> I want to know how much of BNF grammar functionality is represented in it. Perhaps BNF is just a rediscovering/reformatting of the Sanskrit grammar?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003GUBIJ8/ describes the style in which Pāṇini's rules are written. (I'm not saying this is the best source to answer that question, just that it's a book I've read and its description is probably enough for your purposes.)
> There are unexaggerated 100% odds that what Pāṇini specified was not a complete description of the speech of his time or any other point in history
That is an odd claim to make because Sanskrit was not a language of day to day speech. Those would be the vernaculars of the time. Sanskrit was very much a crafted language used for much more formal purposes.
> That is an odd claim to make because Sanskrit was not a language of day to day speech.
This is what many folk in Universities want us to believe, but having seen day-to-day language used and taught, I don't think it is, or was ever true. Apparently even the devadasis knew it extremely well back in the day, much as did people from many other 'backward' 'castes'.
It's almost as if a school of people want the tradition dead, because its staying alive is too... erm... worrying ? Lots of complicated power structures hang in the balance, as India's tortuously chooses between its past and the past its master want it to have / have had.
> By the way, knowing a language is very different from use in day to day speech.
I know the difference. Have you ever visited Sanskrit universities/gurukulas in India ? It's simply magical. Sanskrit is taught in the language itself, and students chat with their teachers and amongst themselves in the language. This made me very happy!
This is even acknowledged on various Indology mailing lists, where the western scholars note this, often rather bitterly, often peppering the immediately following sentence with generic insults and racist disdain.
Apologies for getting political here, but I've never understood why the field is so hostile to India (British origins ?). East Asia departments by comparison are filled with Sinophiles/Japanophiles.
Thanks for the video, where is the claim that Sanskrit was a language for day to day speech made. A paper makes it easier than a video.
> I know the difference. Have you ever visited Sanskrit universities/gurukulas in India ?
A personal magical experience has little to do with the fact in contention here -- was Sanskrit a language for day to day conversation among the commons.
Very little in your comment speaks to that claim, nothing in fact, except may be some part of the video. Whether Sanskrit can be picked up as a spoken language by motivated people is not the point of contention. I can point you to many communities that speak in a language that was never used as a language of day to day speech by the commons.
On whether I have visited a Sanskrit university -- Does having a close family member as a Prof in Sanskrit count ?
I'm sure if one were inclined, one could find more material.
> Whether Sanskrit can be picked up as a spoken language by motivated people is not the point of contention. I can point you to many communities that speak in a language that was never used as a language of day to day speech by the commons.
Fair enough. That said, what kind of evidence would 'prove'
the said proposition ? Is there evidence to the contrary which would fit this standard ?
Latin for instance, may not have been spoken in its classical form, but the vulgar form is believed to have been widely spoken.
Similarly, if someone were given freedom to ontologically ground my words (say, 'common' == '> 1e4, of various diversities'; 'sanskrit' == 'paninian grammar'), merely to prove me wrong, the game is not worth playing (which circles back to my first point).
Non English publication would be fine. Its the review process that matters.
I have no problems believing that a colloquial form of Sanskrit was spoken, that would be the very definition of a vernacular. A situation not different from the Latin example you gave.
Records of a direct quote of a protagonist who is commoner, in literature or preferably in royal records etc would be acceptable evidence. Otherwise how can one differentiate it from claims that humans rode dinosaurs with wings.
BTW I don't disagree with you when you state there is a bias against such subject matter (you can look up the issue of Taylor's expansion of trigonometric functions by the Kerala school of mathematicians much before Newton). The way to address this would be do counter that with proper research results and processes.
Thanks for the book recommendation. Too bad the reviews of the electronic version are terrible (apparently terribly scanned/converted, not content issues).
People can say this, but that won't make it true. There are unexaggerated 100% odds that what Pāṇini specified was not a complete description of the speech of his time or any other point in history, just as no complete description of any modern language exists today. It's not for lack of scholastic effort; the idea of completely specifying a human language isn't even well defined.
> I want to know how much of BNF grammar functionality is represented in it. Perhaps BNF is just a rediscovering/reformatting of the Sanskrit grammar?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003GUBIJ8/ describes the style in which Pāṇini's rules are written. (I'm not saying this is the best source to answer that question, just that it's a book I've read and its description is probably enough for your purposes.)