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Archives

Archive 1 (2004—2008)

Untitled

Objectives

• Give an accurate understanding of classical languages
• Give an up-to-date list of the number of classical languages — Preceding unsigned comment added by Avedeus (talk • contribs) 23:22, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Malayalam as a classical language?

• Has not been officially declared yet
• Will not be in the Antiquity category, there are only two ancient classical languages of India: Sanskrit and Tamil
• During the Sangam era, there was little differentiation between Dravidian languages, much less Tamil and Malayalam.

Please discuss further. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Avedeus (talk • contribs) 23:22, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Tamil the only true classical and totally Indian language

Tamil is the first legally recognized Classical Language of India, as formally announced by the then President of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam, in a joint sitting of both houses of Parliament in 2004. The name ‘Tamil’ is an Anglicized version of the native name, the final letter usually transcribed as the lower ‘l’ or ‘zh’.

Origins

A few scholars have linked the origins of Tamil to that of Sanskrit; however, unlike most of the other established literary languages of India, the origins of Tamil are independent of Sanskrit. Tamil has the longest unbroken literary tradition amongst the 4 major Dravidian languages (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam).

Tamil tradition dates the oldest works to several millennia ago; the earliest examples of Tamil writing we have today are in inscriptions from the 3rd century BC, which are written in an adapted form of the Brahmi script (Mahadevan, 2003). Archaeological evidence obtained from inscriptions excavated in 2005 dates the language to around 1000 BC.

Tamil has had its share of borrowing words from other languages, notably that of Sanskrit words during the medieval period. This was, however, removed by many 20th century purists, notably Parithimaar Kalaignar and Maraimalai Adigal. This movement was called ‘thanith thamizh iyakkam’ (meaning, pure Tamil movement). Tamil, thus, in formal documents, public speeches and scientific discourses is largely free of Sanskrit loan words.

While other pre-Aryan languages were happily courting Sanskrit and Prakrit (600 BC-600AD), Old Tamil stood firm in its corner refusing to yield.

Where Tamil is spoken

Tamil is the official language of the state of ‘Tamil Nadu’ in India. It is also widely spoken in other southern Indian states, the Union Territory of Pudhucherry, North east Sri Lanka and Malaysia.

Dialects of the Language and where they are Spoken

Twently-two current dialects of ‘Tamil’ are listed in ‘The Ethnologue’ which include Adi Dravida, Aiyar, Aiyangar, Arava, Burgandi, Kasuva, Kongar, Korava, Korchi, Madrasi, Parikala, Pattapu Bhasha, Sri Lanka Tamil, Malaya Tamil, Burma Tamil, South Africa Tamil, Tigalu, Harijan, Sankethi, Hebbar, Tirunelveli and Madurai. Other known dialects are Kongu and Kumari. Although not a dialect, the Tamil spoken in Chennai (capital of Tamil Nadu) infuses English words and is called ‘Madras Bashai’.

Thirukkural

One of the most notable literary and ethical treatises in the Indian languages, Thirukkural, is written by Thiruvalluvar. There is a general consensus among the historians and literary authorities that Thirukkural was written around 2000 years ago.

Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Nobel Laureate, notes that, “There hardly exists in the literature of the world a collection of maxims in which we find such lofty wisdom as in Thirukkural”

Dr. G. U. Pope, a Christian Missionary and Translator of Thirukkural in English writes, “The Kural is an integral painting of a civilization which is harmonious in itself and which possesses a clearly recognizable unity."

India’s father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, notes, “I wanted to learn Tamil, only to enable me to study Valluvar’s Thirukkural through his mother tongue itself…. It is a treasure of wisdom…”

Interesting Facts about the Language

Classical Hebrew terms like tuki and ahalat are close to the Tamil words tokai and akil respectively. Although English words like 'sandalwood' and 'rice' are borrowed from the Greek language, their origin, some claim, is in fact Tamil.

Even the minutest of fractions have a place in ‘Tamil’ language. Some interesting examples include the term immi referred to the fraction of 1/320 x 1/7, one-seventh of this fraction termed as anu, one-eleventh of an anu as mummi and one ninth of a mummi as kuNam.

Tamil’s Love for the Language

The Tamil speaking people in the state of ‘Tamil Nadu’ in India are very passionate about their language, and feel that if Hindi, the national language of India, enters their land, their classical language and ancient culture/tradition would be no more, citing cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad where the native language is rendered nearly auxiliary.

In an address in 1962, former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, C N Annadurai, made the following statements opposing imposition of Hindi: "It is claimed that Hindi should be common language (in India) because it is spoken by the majority. Why should we then claim the tiger as our national animal instead of the rat which is so much more numerous? Or the peacock as our national bird when the crow is ubiquitous?”

Annadurai kept up the rhetoric in Parliament, saying, "Since every school in India teaches English, why can't it be our link language? Why do Tamils have to study English for communication with the world and Hindi for communication within India? Do we need a big door for the big dog and a small door for the small dog? I say, let the small dog use the big door too!"

The language issue still evokes strong passions among Tamils and the words of Annadurai are fondly remembered.

On Why Tamil is a Classical Language

University of California, Berkeley, holds a ‘Tamil’ Conference annually. Its Chair in Tamil Studies, Prof. George L. Hart, writes, “To qualify as a classical tradition, a language must fit several criteria: it should be ancient, it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own and not as an offshoot of another tradition, and it must have a large and extremely rich body of ancient literature. Unlike the other modern languages of India, Tamil meets each of these requirements. It is extremely old (as old as Latin and older than Arabic); it arose as an entirely independent tradition, with almost no influence from Sanskrit or other languages; and its ancient literature is indescribably vast and rich.” —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.195.13.109 (talk) 07:02, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

However: 1) Linguists don't change their views as a result of political declarations by parliaments. 2) Please don't use any of the above as a basis for putting Tamil before Sanskrit on the list. As has been discussed at extreme length in the archives, the views of scholars would have to change substantially before Tamil could be placed before Sanskrit on the list. AnonMoos (talk) 10:22, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

That being said, Tamil grammar treatise, Tolkappiyam's oldest estimate is older than Panini's treatise on Sanskrit grammar. Furthermore, the classicist nature of Tamil, although recognised by political means, still has extensive support of linguists worldwide. --Avedeus (talk) 12:49, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

2017

Tamil was oldest surviving classical language. Oldest Tamil inscription dated 540 BCE. So Tamil was one of the ancient classical languages of the world.

Other dravidian languages came from Proto-dravidian. But one Language was closer to Proto-dravidian Language. So we can see Tamil was the Proto Dravidian Language.

Tholkappiyam was second Sangam literature. That was also used in third Sangam. Parun3247 (talk) 08:14, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Tamil has more specialities than Sanskrit. Oldest Tamili (Tamil Brahmi ) inscription founded in Porunthal near Palani. That was older than Ashokan brahmi, That was scientifically Proved. Parun3247 (talk) 08:17, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, reputable scholarly sources date the beginning of Tamil literature more like 200 B.C. Since alphabetic writing was introduced to India through the northwest (Punjab etc.), I really don't know why Tamil would be expected to be the first language to be written. AnonMoos (talk) 22:43, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

2018

Oldest Sanskrit inscription dated 1st Century CE! But Sangam literatures like Purananooru dated 400 BCE! First of all Sanskrit ddon't have own script! Oldest Tamil Brahmi inscription found in porunthal and adhichanallur. Those are older than ashokan Brahmi! Ok we will prove that! Parun3247 (talk) 14:55, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

As discussed extensively in the talk page archives of this article, Brahmin priests of the 500 B.C. to early A.D. period didn't think that writing was important, and were sometimes actively opposed to writing down sacred scriptures, since they were worried it might undermine their oral culture. Sanskrit doesn't have an alphabet, since it was written with each of the regional alphabets in just about every region of India. Tamil has an alphabet because it was spoken in one region... AnonMoos (talk) 05:20, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Where is German?

Why is German not listed as a classical language when it is just as old as Celtic and others, even in the formalized sense? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.0.209.200 (talk) 02:56, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Old High German could qualify or come close to qualifying, I guess (not sure what the consensus of scholars is)... AnonMoos (talk) 20:37, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Heavily POV

I've re-edited it, and hope I don't get hate messages. Quite frankly, this list is becoming dumb. Most of the first couple of columns make at least some sense, but then it goes awry. Let us stick to the extremely sensible definition given at the top, and keep to a reasonable definition of 'ancient' - Icelandic (Old Norse still, really, at that stage) and Gaelic are pushing it, and Quechua, Nahuatl should not be there (Quechua was not even written except by the colonisers), and K'iche' and Tupi are just ridiculous. English and Ottoman Turkish should not be there either. This should be languages USUALLY regarded as having had a classical stage - and references, people! If you include them, Old High German should indeed be there, but this will just snowball - what about (gasp!) French, Early Modern Portuguese, Korean, Zulu, Maori, Cree, !Xoon... or every language once spoken by man. And please, don't politicise this - Tamil has every right to be there, and arguably Telugu and Kannada too... but Malayalam no, for the reasons given at the top, and let's not 'rank' languages beyond this based on some stupid North India-South India spat. And don't let this be a forum for people with some obsessively anti-colonial chip-on-the-shoulder axe to grind. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Harsimaja (talk • contribs) 03:26, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

2014

Yep, the list is pretty ridiculous and obviously driven by nationalist POV – everybody wants their language as a classical language on the list. Despite the "Classical" label in "Classical Gaelic", Old Irish fits the idea of classical language much better than "Classical Gaelic"/"Classical Irish" (terms not familiar to me from Celtology), and Classical Mongolian, although not an ancient language, is ignored completely...

A reasonable method would be to prune the list and require citations for entries: only languages and stages described as "classical" in a reliable source should be admitted. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:18, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

An anonymous IP has been adding a lot of entries over the past few months. There may be lax criteria, but there's a lack of single-topic nationalistic tendentious editing of the type which usually creates controversy on this article, so I've been letting them stay in. See this diff to get some idea of the changes... AnonMoos (talk) 04:06, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

If you pay attention to the quite specific criteria at the beginning of the article – it should be ancient, it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own, not as an offshoot of another tradition, and it must have a large and extremely rich body of ancient literature –, Old Saxon definitely does not fit them, as it is almost a fragmentarily attested language (Trümmersprache); apart from the Heliand and Genesis, its monuments are small, consisting of short texts. It is best described as a "small corpus language" (Kleinkorpussprache). Old High German is better attested, but the corpus is still quite limited. Only Old English comes close to the definition, if we are generous. Really, if a language (or language stage) is never really referred to as "Classical " in the first place, it's dubious, as a good rule of thumb. "Classical Hungarian" and "Classical Icelandic" are misleading, and I think these entries are BS, but Early Modern Spanish is sometimes referred to as "Classical Spanish" and associated with a "Golden Age", which makes it an arguable example (even if it is not exactly an ancient language); the same for Early Modern French, though these are so modern it's still a stretch. Not every non-contemporary language (or language stage) with a not entirely insignificant corpus is a classical language, unless you wish to declare pretty much every written and significantly standardised (nor tiny) language current in the 18th/19th century classical, which makes the term pretty meaningless – and, significantly, incompatible with the criteria mentioned in the article itself, which are nowhere near this lax. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:39, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

The influence of petty nationalism can seen in the separate listing of Old East Slavic, Old Ruthenian, Old Bulgarian, Middle Bulgarian and Old Serbian. These are only slightly differing national standards ("redactions"). Church Slavonic in general, on the other hand, is a reasonable candidate for "classical" status. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:48, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

That said, I still think the list is of interest; certainly the listed languages can be said to fulfil analogous roles in their respective literary and cultural traditions to that played, for example, by Classical Greek in the Greek, of Classical Arabic in the Arabic, and of Classical Chinese in the Chinese tradition. Still, I don't feel comfortable dubbing them "classical languages". For example, Middle Scots plays an analogous role in the history of Scots too, but would anyone call Middle Scots a classical language? Hardly. And how can English have as many as three classical stages, including two separate medieval classical stages? The Old English corpus isn't all that large, and the Middle English one isn't either. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:42, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Probably a lot of them are literary norms rather than true classical languages. (For example, many Old English scribes who did not speak a West Saxon dialect nevertheless attempted to write in the West Saxon literary norm, which could be considered the quasi-"standard" form of Old English, or the closest thing to a standard which existed at that time.) Maybe if we had a Literary norm article, many could be moved over there...? -- AnonMoos (talk) 01:37, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

I think that to some extent this kind of languages do fulfil a role that could be called classical – Middle Scots is a "flowering" period following the formative Early Scots period and preceding the increasingly English-influenced Modern Scots period, and it is now looked towards as exemplary within the Scots tradition, so you could speak of "Classical Scots". However, it fits neither of the criteria set out by Hart, and neither do "Classical" Icelandic or "Classical" Catalan. I don't think that "literary norm" quite conveys the intended concept – Old Icelandic, Old Catalan, Old/Middle English and Middle Scots aren't particularly uniform at all (unlike Old Irish, for example, at least dialectally, though not so much in spelling). However, regrettably, I can't come up with anything better, either. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:09, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Old Icelandic was a variant of Old Norse, and could be considered plenty classical as the language of the sagas. "Literary norm" as linguists use it doesn't really mean rigid standardization in the sense of the modern French educational system, but rather a particular dialectal form (or inter-dialectal koine) which attracts speakers of other dialects when writing. There's a lot of dialectal variation in the attested Old English literary corpus, but nevertheless, during a certain period "West Saxon had become a well-established literary dialect, and was used as something of a standard language" (A Campbell's "Old English Grammar", 1959). In Middle English, after the early period a form of London-influenced-by-East-Midlands semi-koine gained increasing predominance, etc. etc. AnonMoos (talk) 07:24, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

2020

"Literary norm" was a redlink when the discussion above took place, but now it links to Linguistic norm. It might be a good idea to transfer languages which are not truly classical to that article... AnonMoos (talk) 22:40, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Languages of India, yet again

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages ISBN 0-521-56256-2 has a lot more scholarly credibility than popular newspaper accounts, or people like Devaneya Pavanar. It has articles on all languages with substantial (non-fragmentary) deciphered texts dating from before about 400 AD, and it does not include Telugu or Kannada (which it dates to the 6th century AD). It does include Tamil, but does not assign its codified literary tradition a date anywhere near what people like Devaneya Pavanar claim. Therefore, assigning pre-500 A.D. dates to Telugu or Kannada would be inappropriate, while placing Tamil before Sanskrit is pretty much pure nonsense (as discussed extensively in the archives of this talk page). AnonMoos (talk) 09:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

We created the classical languages of India redirect to take the political flak off this page. However, this is only going ot work if the ethnic bickerers can find this page, so it should be linked from here. "classical language" has become a political red herring in the RoI during the 2000s. This is a topic of Indian ethnic politics and should not interfere with the discussion of "classicity" as used in the various philologies.

We need a zero tolerance on edits concerning Indian politics on this page. The telltale sign is that an entire language will be declared "classical", while in the sense discussed here, "classical" will refer to a certain stage of a language, contrasting with a non-classical stage.

For example, in Indian politics "Tamil is a classical language", while in philology, "classical Tamil" is the language of the early centuries AD, while, it goes without saying, modern Tamil isn't any more "classical" than modern Italian is "classical" because it derives from Latin. --dab (³) 14:04, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

2013

we are not placing tamil's antiquity before sanskrit but there is no doubt about its classical status.I think work of Kamil Zvelebil a scholar of languages is enough for that.Rajasekar3eg (talk) 17:05, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

The first paragraph of the article is not the place to introduce strikingly extravagant claims which go against general linguistic knowledge ("Appalachian Elizabethan English" on steroids). AnonMoos (talk) 20:32, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Its not extravagant at all My linguistic area is in Tamil,Sanskrit,classical Chinese,Latin and epigraphy of Brahmi script .First of list the properties of classical language.then give your opinions.I went through archives its all of silly arguments who don't know anything about these languages.be systematic.your only reference is that encyclopedia which also mentions Tamil's antiquity.Its like arguing about IVS without knowing what is happening in mainstream and concluding by some articles.I never considered devaneya paavanar's work as I know its Fanaticism.As you seem somewhat logical in archive I am asking you give proper explanation of classical language and then argue.But there is no doubt in Tamil's continuity even now people can clearly understand what is in sangam poetry which is old Tamil(whose status you can see in Ethnologue http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=oty) which is not the case of modern Greek and Latin.One thing I don't understand is whether you doubt about Tamil's continuity or its classical status.In first paragraph only that point of dead language is coming that's why wrote it there.How can write somewhere where it won't be appropriate.Rajasekar3eg (talk) 03:51, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm reading the pages in a book you used for the reference, it says nothing to support your sensationalist claim. Yes, it can be "the only language of contemporary India which is recognizably continuous with a classical past", but it's absolutely not what you wrote. For one thing, it specifically limits the area to India, because Greek is just as remarkable, and I've seen similarly unsupported claims of intelligibility. Languages change; Tamil, just like Greek, shows a number of ancient features, but, just like Greek, it changes with time. 178.94.24.207 (talk) 13:19, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

ok.I accept your point.Rajasekar3eg (talk) 14:00, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Rajasekar3eg -- Tamil has not been attested for "3000 years", but less than 2500 years, and it's implausible in the extreme that the ordinary spoken Tamil of today is exactly the same as the literary Tamil of our earliest records, because that's not how linguistic change works. Take the Icelandic language, for example -- on a remote island, a relatively small population with a traditionally high literacy rate has managed to partially preserve the language such that Icelandic speakers of today can still fairly easily read sagas written 800 or 900 years ago. But even in this very special case, the pronunciation of the Icelandic language of today is very different from the pronunciation of the language of 800 or 900 years ago, and the modern language is not really exactly the same as the language of the sagas.
Since Tamil does not have the special stabilizing factors of Icelandic, and the time separating modern Tamil from earliest attested Tamil is more than twice as long as that separating modern Icelandic from saga-Icelandic, I find it extremely hard to believe that ordinary spoken Tamil has remained almost exactly the same over the whole long period... AnonMoos (talk) 12:53, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

P.S. A Misplaced Pages article is not allowed to use other Misplaced Pages articles as formal sources... AnonMoos (talk) 12:55, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I was looking for some information when I happened to browse through the talk page. It's funny to say the least. It seems more like an Indian article than otherwise. I had personally only heard of Latin, Greek, Sanskrit and Chinese (and sometimes Arabic) as classical languages. This article seems to bordering on the supernatural with so many 'classical languages' and now that I came over to this page, all I see is some sort of linguistic terrorism which explains the pathetic state of the article. p.s. Pali and Tamil seem to have exchanged positions since date cited for Pali is earlier but it is shown below Tamil. One of the two should be wrong. isoham (talk) 13:52, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean -- the "14:12, 27 August 2013" (now current) version of the article does not seem to be dominated by Indian languages. Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Chinese, and Arabic are some of the most prominent "externally classical" languages (i.e. having a broad geographic influence over a long period of time on many who are not native speakers of the language), but many other languages are "internally classical" (having a glorious historical tradition of literature etc.)... AnonMoos (talk) 22:44, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Nevermind. But, I think my point of languages being out of order still stands. In the next subgroup more than one languages are out of order isoham (talk) 09:54, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I really don't know when to date Pali as a quasi-standardized classical language used for the composition of significant texts, and the Pali article doesn't help too much... AnonMoos (talk) 19:25, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

But, what I said is - irrespective of whether we are able to date these languages accurately or not "at times the order of the languages is not the same as the date given for them. e.g. article says that

• Classical Tamil (Sangam literature c. 2nd century BC to 2nd century AD, defined by Tolkappiyam)
• Classical Pali (Buddhist Canon used this language from c. 3rd or 2nd centuries BC)

But Pali is shown below Tamil. Similarly there are many other similar occurrences in the later period languages. Either the dates should be changed or the order should be changed" isoham (talk) 08:16, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I really don't know or understand enough about the dating of Pali language and literature to feel confident about editing the Pali item in any way, sorry... AnonMoos (talk) 22:34, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Again, there has been rigorous vandalism on this page. A series of edits made by 'Sethu.swaminathan' who seems to be blocked already. I'm quite new to Misplaced Pages, but this looks extra-ordinary that a website followed worldwide is subject to such means. Meanwhile, I discovered an article more pathetic than this one - 'Agastya'. Almost everything therein is wrong. Should I undo the changes made by 'Sethu.swaminathan' or should this be brought to the notice of a Misplaced Pages administrator. p.s. both these articles look fit for thorough deletion to me. isoham (talk) 12:57, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Whatever -- This article has been subject to attempted manipulations by people from India with sub-national nationalism motivations for years, but I don't think that they've shaped the article in any significant way. I'm sorry that the latest attempt was not too quickly reverted, but that's hardly grounds for deletion of the article, and if you nominate it for deletion, I will vigorously oppose. If you found it so offensive, why didn't you revert it yourself?? And article Agastya appears to be about religious legends, so I really don't see what it has in common with this one. AnonMoos (talk) 15:42, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

lol.."If you found it so offensive, why didn't you revert it yourself??". You'd've realised that I had in fact said I was new to Misplaced Pages and did not know the procedure of dealing with vandalism and had asked "Should I undo the changes made by 'Sethu.swaminathan' or should this be brought to the notice of a Misplaced Pages administrator". So, that answers your question of I not doing it myself. As regards deletion, that there exists a concept of 'nomination for deletion' that you talked of was not even known to me :P so you can forget about "opposing vigorously" and relax. Anyway, now that I know it's allowed, I'll make the changes. -- Preceding unsigned comment added by ISoham (talk o contribs) 16:29, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Classical Kannada

I reverted the move of Kannada from the "Middle Ages" section to "Antiquity". The subject is well-defined, it belongs to the period when literary works were actively produced; languages ordered by the earliest inscriptions are in List of languages by first written accounts. I also removed the reference for its Indian classical status, it belongs to Classical languages of India and of no value here. 178.94.17.196 (talk) 14:32, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Now the same about Malayalam, for 202.79.203.43: The list of languages by their first written account is a separate article, here you mark the period when the language was actively used for literary works. I myself went to Malayalam article and found one literary work that may imply the beginning of literary tradition, since you all don't seem to grasp the goal here. 178.94.135.200 (talk) 12:40, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry attack on this article

Hopefully the sock-puppet attacks on this article will now cease, since the sockpuppeteer was found to be running about 50 Misplaced Pages accounts!. I've removed my perfunctory discussions (such as they were) with sockpuppet entities from this article talk page since they don't serve any real purpose now... AnonMoos (talk) 12:33, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Old Persian

As you see ,Old persian has not been used in this article. aramic has been used incorrectly instead of old persian . in ancient Iran we had 2 persian empires . Achaemenid (1'st persian empire) and Sasanid (2'd persian empire). their official language was old persian (Achaemenid) and middle persian (Sasanid) in order .So I corrected this mistake . --10:51, 21 October 2020 Amins69

In the Achaemenid empire, Old Persian was used as the language of certain royal inscriptions (the longest and most famous being the Behistun inscription), but Aramaic seems to have been used much more as a language of practical administration for the empire, especially in the areas west of Persia proper. AnonMoos (talk) 21:18, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Fixed Typo

To all the users, still the date the article is lacked two languages (Tamil and Persian) in classical studies section, I updated this. So please don't change the real content. Ram Dhaneesh (talk) 15:00, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately for you, you're confessing to vandalism, since you tampered with a quotation to make Edward Sapir say something which he in fact did NOT say in his 1921 book. I really don't understand what the purpose such quote falsification is thought by anybody to serve. AnonMoos (talk) 08:05, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

P.S. As has been discussed before, Tamil is an "internally" classical language (possessing a long glorious tradition of literature, etc), but is simply not an "externally" classical language (influencing a wide range of other languages over a wide range of time, as was the case with Latin, Greek, Arabic, Sanskrit, or Chinese). With respect to Persian, it's certainly true that in many medieval Muslim realms it was necessary for a gentleman to know Persian to be considered to be fully educated, but Persian was very much second behind Arabic, and was mainly learned in order to read poetry. There are only a relatively few languages which have been heavily influenced by Persian... AnonMoos (talk) 04:22, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

tamil language

is sanskrit older than tamil 2409:4072:6E93:7D9B:980F:97A5:8816:BD4C (talk) 03:46, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

The question is almost meaningless in that form. However, if you ask "Are the earliest-surving Sanskrit texts older than the earliest-surviving Tamil texts?" and/or "Was there an attested standard literary form of Sanskrit before there was an attested standard literary form of Tamil?", then the short answer is "Yes"... AnonMoos (talk) 06:55, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Persian

The citation literally says "There are just five languages that have had an overwhelming significance as carriers of culture. They are classical Chinese, Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, and Latin." but above it is written "Edward Sapir in his book Language would extend the list to include Chinese, Arabic, and Sanskrit:"

Why is Arabic included even it isn't mentioned in Edward Sapir's citation? Why is Persian not mentioned although it is mentioned in Sapir's citation? -- Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.233.35.210 (talk) 11:11, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

It was pure vandalism, of course (though I'm having difficulty figuring out when it was added -- the protection template confused things for the usual page watchers, I guess). For some reason the Sapir quote is a magnet for vandalistic quote falsifiers. The text of Sapir's book is freely available on-line, by the way... AnonMoos (talk) 16:34, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

TYPO -- but it comes straight from Sapir's book

The indented ("blockquote"d) quotation that begins with

When we realize that an educated Japanese can hardly frame a single literary sentence without the use of Chinese resources, that to this day Siamese and Burmese and Cambodgian bear the unmistakable imprint of the Sanskrit and Pali that came in with Hindu Buddhism centuries ago,

and has footnote number "", at the end -- (at least, 'as of' the Latest revision as of 22:49, 22 June 2024 version of the article) -- contains a TYPO. (The letter "g" should not have been included in the word "Cambodgian".

However, after I managed to determine that there does not seem to be some accepted (or ... "other than erroneous") 'alternative spelling' of the word "Cambodian", having a "g" after the "d", and before going further to take steps to try to "fix" that mistake ... I did some checking ... e.g. at

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Language_An_Introduction_to_the_Study_of/6QRzEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%2B%22overwhelming+significance+as++carriers+of+culture%22&pg=PT117&printsec=frontcover

and -- it turns out, that -- the TYPO (typographical error) is actually present in the book ('Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech') by Edward Sapir. That is the book that is listed as a reliable source, in the footnote at the end of that long "quote".

I do not know what should be done. Perhaps an informative "note" to the reader (maybe by using an "{{efn}}" template instance?) should be included? (Maybe saying something like "The TYPO is present in the book by Edward Sapir that is the source for this quotation" -- ? --) Sometimes when someone is "quoting" a source that contains a TYPO, they include the word "(sic)" -- in parentheses -- after the TYPO.

For now, I am not changing that quote. I am just "reporting" it.

. Mike Schwartz (talk) 23:59, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

It's more likely that "Cambodgian" was within the acceptable range of spellings in 1922. At least that's what I always assumed when the issue came up in editing the article in the past. In any case, the "dg" is most definitely present in the book -- I have a physical paper copy of it reprinted long after 1922, and it's right there on page 194. AnonMoos (talk) 07:16, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

I believe Cambodge is the standard French name for the country, fwiw. —Tamfang (talk) 08:29, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

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