Mytholinguistics (Linguistics)

[Hatty]

The concept of the three-legged stool as the basis (scripture, tradition and reason) of the Anglican Church is attributed to an Elizabethan priest, appropriately named Rev. Hooker, though I assume the concept is a nod to triangulation as a surveying method, used in navigation, which would appeal to, err, the ship of state.

Either way the three-legged stool idea only seems to have taken root some three centuries later, popularised in 1899 by Francis Paget, 33rd Bishop of Oxford, in his intro to An introduction to the fifth book of Hooker's treatise Of the laws of ecclesiastical policy . Sounds like he would have been a member of or sympathetic to the Oxford Movement.

[Pete Jones]

(I can’t decide if this AE thing is good for me or not. I was all prepared to talk more about myth and language, when I had to go to AI for background on Sanskrit.)

Consider the following:

- Sanskrit holds a world record: It is said to have the most synonyms of any language. And when you ask the AI robot what language is next in that ranking, you get Tamil. So both are in India. Curious.

- Sanskrit is the language of the world’s first grammarian, Panini (ca 400BC). An Indian with the name of an Italian sandwich.*

- Panini’s grammar textbook was said to be written around the time of Plato and Aristotle.

- When I asked AI “do any of Panini’s writings survive?,” I got this glorious answer (emphasis added0:

[Pete Jones]

The person who told us about Panini’s grammar was Patanjali. And a more interesting cat I can’t imagine.

First, he’s the Father of Yoga—or, at least, he wrote (or maybe only compiled) the Yoga Sutras, the Ur-text of Yoga. Either way, this is the Father Abraham of Yoga. No small feet.

Second, he’s the third of the “Three Sages” of Sanskrit grammar. Not the biggest feat, but still no small feat.

Third, and I quote the AI summary (emphasis added):

[Pete Jones]

So the timeline is:

~2,500 years ago (350-500BC) - Panini develops a grammatical system of rules and "rules for the rules" of the Sanskrit language

~2200 years ago (100-200 BC) - Patanjali documents the system and provides corrections/commentary in his "Great Commentary."

~1000 years ago (1000 AD) - The earliest known manuscript of Patanjali.

~150 years ago (1875 AD) - This earliest manuscript is copied and purchased by a German scholar's local "expert" buyer in the "Benares Manuscript Market." He knows its an 11th century manuscript because the oral tradition says so. The 11th century manuscript does not exist.*

And the general situation is:

- Father of Grammar Panini creates a memorized system

- Another grammarian (Patanjali) writes it down

- A thousand years later, there's allegedly a manuscript (where we first learn about Panini)

- But this is actually ALSO memorized, and isn't written down until 1875.

Meaning the outside world doesn't know about Panini and his system until 1875, when German scholar George Buhler buys the copy of the 11th century memorized work(???)

But what about the Second Sage (I skipped him), and what about his work?

And who is George Buhler?



________________________________________
* AI had this to say about this 11th century Kashmir fragment:

[Mick Harper]

[Pete Jones]

(I decline to believe it, too. But I lost my answer to your question in an internet glitch, so I will retype it forthwith. Your question spurred me to think about this too)


The whole mystery is "why would Sanskrit be so different than other languages?" And I think the answer is, it can't be.

Why does a spoken language require an ancient grammarian to document its rules AND the rules for using the rules? Speakers of languages don't need to even learn its rules to become fluent. It just happens.

And why does Panini's "algorithm" need to be memorized and transmitted, when EVERY speaker does it all naturally?

The whole thing sounds much more like what a modern scholar would need to create for himself in order to decode the varying texts found in this ancient (probably scribal) language.

[Mick Harper]

You mean 'this (possibly ancient) scribal language'.

[Pete Jones]

The synonym thing is greatly overstated. What seems to have happened is a sort of intellectually dishonest three-step process:

1. Find texts in ancient Sanskrit (the most important of which are the Vedic texts, i.e., POETRY)

2. Take all poetic words for different things and enter them in the dictionary.

3. Translators identify these metaphoric or poetic usages and treat them no differently than the regularly used word for the concept.

Presto changeo chauvinisto, you have a very special ancient language you can tell your grandkids about.

As a man who stares at dictionaries, I have seen the Sanskrit thing in action. Here's what the Sanskrit Research Institute's "Sanskrit Synonym Tool" gives you for the word "Circle". You can see the process working out in the three extra synonyms starting with cakra-. Those appear to just be the adding of suffixes:

bhrama
cakra
cakrapala
cakravada
cakravala
gola
kataka
kundalika
mandala
mandalaka
parikarsana
parisad
parivesa
parivesana
sraj
valaya
varnaka
vartula
vrtta

Does English get to count "accountant", "accountman", "accountwoman", and "accountperson" as four separate words?

[Pete Jones]

[Boreades]

There are some important rules about why a memorised system is superior in function to a written system (with no memory).

Sadly, my memory is getting carp, and I can't remember what the rules are anymore.

[Boreades]

But somewhere in that memorised system -v- written system is my concern for colleagues who are using AI to tell them things wholesale. They can copy & paste with no acquired understanding or depth of meaning or learning. It's a bit of a worry.

[Pete Jones]

[Pete Jones]

[Boreades]

[Boreades]

It was from Plato’s Phaedrus, commenting on the invention of writing.