Newsgroups: talk.religion.buddhism,sci.lang
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From: mcv@inter.NL.net (Miguel Carrasquer)
Subject: Re: Pronunciation of "vipassana"?
Message-ID: <Cyy9tn.A62@inter.NL.net>
Organization: /etc/organization
References: <38jhp5$lav@netnews.upenn.edu> <39bu0n$nii@adam.cc.sunysb.edu> <CypzFu.7r8@inter.nl.net> <39n42e$3bq@adam.cc.sunysb.edu>
Date: Tue, 8 Nov 1994 13:08:10 GMT
Lines: 38

In article <39n42e$3bq@adam.cc.sunysb.edu>,
Kenji Matsuoka <kenji@lila.physics.sunysb.edu> wrote:
>In article <CypzFu.7r8@inter.nl.net>,
>Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@inter.NL.net> wrote:
>: In article <39bu0n$nii@adam.cc.sunysb.edu>,
>: Kenji Matsuoka <kenji@insti.physics.sunysb.edu> wrote:
>: >In article <38qe99$cr5@news.csus.edu>,
>: >Paul Pederson <pederson@mercury.sfsu.edu> wrote:
>
>: >>I recall reading that the language the Buddha spoke was a forerunner
                                                               ^^^^^^^^^^
>: >>of Sanskrit (actually Sanskrit is a rather formalized, written form
>: >>of spoken language/s) 
>
>: >I've never been able to understand this idea, since the examples I've
>: >seen of Pali (or Bengali) words, compared to their Sanskrit equivalents,
>: >always suggest to me that the former are simplified versions of a
>: >Sanskrit original.
>
>: The situation can be compared with the use of Latin in the
>: Middle Ages:  the literary and scientific folks wrote in Latin,
>: the spoken language was already Romance (French, Italian, Spanish...).
>: Or Germanic of course.  [Sanskrit=Latin; Prakrit=Romance;
>: Dravidian=Germanic].
>
>This was my understanding, but the article I quote says that Buddha
>spoke "a forerunner of Sanskrit."  According to the analogy you give,
>this would be comparable to saying that Dante spoke Italian, "a
>forerunner of Latin."

Yes, now I seee it said "forerunner".  That is so absurd, that
it just didn't register when I read the article the first time.
I parsed that as "afterrunner" :-) 

-- 
Miguel Carrasquer         ____________________  ~~~
Amsterdam                [                  ||]~  
mcv@inter.NL.net         ce .sig n'est pas une .cig 
