Talk:Sanskrit
[edit] What do we do in this article that ToW doesn't already do, and better?
Don't get me wrong, this is a nice little article. What does it do that the Wikipedia version doesn't? PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?.
21:42, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
- Just getting started here. Will collect some of the "Sanskrit is the first language of humanity" material and add it once I get a better handle on it; that much is out there. It also seems a reasonable place to cover "om" for the time being. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 21:49, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
- Okay. I have what I imagine is a pretty unpopular opinion about mission creep/mistaking RW for an encyclopedia/the notion that a third to half our articles exist only because they let people write about stuff that they think is cool or happen to know something about and add little value to the project/how RW would be better at its job if we got rid of most everything having to do with general knowledge, or politics, or economics, and focused on a few hundred really really good articles on woo and pseudoscience. But I probably don't want to start that fight today. PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?.
21:54, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
- I'm with PS&L. Don't see how this, or any of Smerdis's other articles about the history of languages, serve our site missions. Щєазєюіδ
Methinks it is a Weasel 22:02, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
- I guess there is something I still am not getting here. There is a minor but real body of woo attached to Sanskrit; Hindu fundamentalists want to claim that Sanskrit is the first language of humanity, the ancestor of all the world's languages, and indigenous to India. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 04:18, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
- So add a paragraph to Hindu nationalism, with links to a couple of good websites. SophieWilder
21:26, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
- It's really about me, isn't it? This sort of thing seems to dog many of the articles I've sought to add. I've yet to derive anything from the discussions, or those at Essay talk:English spelling reform, or Talk:Romanticism, an article created from the to-do list, what exactly are the aspects of these subjects that make them off-mission or off-topic. I'm also a bit confused as to how articles on Latin or British English are judged worthy while an article on Sanskrit, a subject that has in fact drawn more eccentric speculation than either of those does not belong. (Latin has a fair amount of woo attached, actually; I'll dig a bit of it up if my edits are in fact welcome.)
- At any rate, if this article belongs anywhere else, it probably belongs in an article about Indo-European languages, an article I'll wager we don't have. That article could cover a variety of related pseudolinguistic concepts that we probably either don't have articles on (Proto-World, Nostratic hypothesis. Joseph Greenberg) or some small articles that are mostly about Indo-European and related concepts (Aryan, Marija Gimbutas). This would involve creating more articles about the history of languages, though. If you don't want it done, or you just don't want me doing it, let me know. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 04:19, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
- This really isn't a linguistics wiki. I don't foresee any of those things fitting in well here. Wëäŝëïöïď
Methinks it is a Weasel 09:15, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
- Smerdis writed: "It's really about me, isn't it?" No, it really is about the articles. The other language articles the wiki has are of somewhat doubtful "legitimacy" as well.--Weirdstuff (talk) 09:24, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
- I think the problem here is that Smerdis has a tendency to digress, heavily. Sometimes, as here, before even getting to the reason an article exists in the first place.
- Smerdis writed: "It's really about me, isn't it?" No, it really is about the articles. The other language articles the wiki has are of somewhat doubtful "legitimacy" as well.--Weirdstuff (talk) 09:24, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
- This really isn't a linguistics wiki. I don't foresee any of those things fitting in well here. Wëäŝëïöïď
- So add a paragraph to Hindu nationalism, with links to a couple of good websites. SophieWilder
- I guess there is something I still am not getting here. There is a minor but real body of woo attached to Sanskrit; Hindu fundamentalists want to claim that Sanskrit is the first language of humanity, the ancestor of all the world's languages, and indigenous to India. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 04:18, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
- I'm with PS&L. Don't see how this, or any of Smerdis's other articles about the history of languages, serve our site missions. Щєазєюіδ
- Okay. I have what I imagine is a pretty unpopular opinion about mission creep/mistaking RW for an encyclopedia/the notion that a third to half our articles exist only because they let people write about stuff that they think is cool or happen to know something about and add little value to the project/how RW would be better at its job if we got rid of most everything having to do with general knowledge, or politics, or economics, and focused on a few hundred really really good articles on woo and pseudoscience. But I probably don't want to start that fight today. PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?.
- RW exists to debunk. That's our goal; everything else is secondary. Smerdis' articles have a distinct tendency to provide much more background than is necessary. It's hard for us to criticize your work, though, because you really are a terrific writer, and what you write is always interesting and enlightening. I think you should look first at debunking, and reduce the amount of content that isn't relevant to that. In this particular case I agree with Sophie; adding the relevant parts to the page on Hindu nationalism and scrapping the rest makes sense to me. (As much as I as a lover of languages would hate to see it go.) Wehpudicabok [話] [変] 10:09, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
Smerdis: " I'm also a bit confused as to how articles on Latin or British English are judged worthy." I don't think they are worthy, and they should be deleted. PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?.
13:52, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
- I do find it hard to march straight into These writers will take exception to the usual claims of historical linguistics.... without first providing some context as to what those claims are. Debunking the Hindu nationalists is not particularly complicated, but it requires a bit of technical background. I'm also not convinced that a bunch of stuff about centum and satem languages would really read well in Hindu nationalism either. I still think that a page on Indo-European languages would be useful, and that it should go into some detail about encyclopedia stuff concerning the methods of historical linguistics. I don't see a large difference here between talking about creationism, and the evidence that establishes evolution. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 17:00, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
[edit] At this stage, I am damned proud of this....
... and would propose to give it a brainstar. The article as it stands is on mission, establishes the existence of a body of pseudo-lore, and explains the rather complicated and technical evidence that shows why it is wrong in prose that I've done my damnedest to make sure that an educated layperson could follow. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 05:44, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
- This BON agrees. Excellent work. From an insider's view, it is essentially correct (not gonna nitpick on minor details nobody here cares for anyway). Not sure about the outsider's view (the specialist myopia is strong with me), but as far as I can tell, it should make sense to the educated layman, even if it cannot answer all possible objections in detail. --84.151.168.158 (talk) 01:13, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks for the vote of confidence. If you think there's anything technically wrong in there (I'm entirely an amateur at this, and the article pretty much has to paint in broad strokes) this is a wiki, so go ahead and improve it. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 06:13, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
[edit] NASA says Sanskrit is "the ideal language for AI"... not
This story looks suitable for incorporating into the article in some form: http://smritiweb.com/navin/miscellaneous/what-is-so-scientific-about-sanskrit-seriousquestion , since apparently it's been making the rounds for quite some time (example). --ZooGuard (talk) 13:43, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
- Looks interesting, will check it out. Similar claims have been made for Esperanto, I think. - Smerdis of Tlön, A ⇒ ¬A. 18:12, 12 February 2015 (UTC)