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youdubdub t1_j0s9lj2 wrote

Reply to comment by zorokash in Ancient Grammatical Puzzle That Has Baffled Scientists for 2,500 Years Solved by Cambridge University Student by Superb_Boss289

Knowing and speaking are two very different things.

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PfizerGuyzer t1_j0scjhl wrote

Not relevant in this case. Dead means no native speakers.

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youdubdub t1_j0scmnx wrote

That was my point. Thanks for the downvote, but we happen to be vigorously agreeing, lol.

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zorokash t1_j0se5fm wrote

People are having conversations in it, writing literature, has a news telecast in Sanskrit, there are drama and theatre , .... what else needs to happen for it to be considered "speaking" it?

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youdubdub t1_j0sj6fj wrote

It should be distinguished from the former language. There is no way the new speakers can discern prior inflection, verbal varieties, etc.

The old version of the language in dead in spite of an attempted revival.

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zorokash t1_j0snvmy wrote

You are literally forgetting how Sanskrit works. There has always been an unbroken line of scholars who have learned the language and have a vast understanding of the inflection and verbal varieties.

There is plenty supporting evidence of how vedas being recited in vedic schools with aid of oral traditions, are reciting in the exact inflection and speech variation as the ancient times. The oral traditions have literally constructed mechanisms to ensure this as a system that is widely studied as well. Sanskrit is not some language that people stopped using it for hundreds of years. Never the case. Infact the last Sanskrit scholar who wrote extensively in the language was no more than a 150 years ago.

There have been several Sanskrit schools of learning before and after that person. You are in denial of how the language actually functions and exists and studied continually. And all of these do cause language variations and trends just as much as any other language, or maybe fewer, but not zero.

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AliMcGraw t1_j0sxf8a wrote

So what you're saying is it's basically exactly the same as Latin and Hebrew?

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