Newsgroups: talk.religion.buddhism,sci.lang
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From: mcv@inter.NL.net (Miguel Carrasquer)
Subject: Re: Pronunciation of "vipassana"?
Message-ID: <CypzFu.7r8@inter.NL.net>
Organization: NLnet
References: <38jhp5$lav@netnews.upenn.edu> <38olvu$7g9@marge.lerc.nasa.gov> <38qe99$cr5@news.csus.edu> <39bu0n$nii@adam.cc.sunysb.edu>
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 1994 01:43:06 GMT
Lines: 28

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:
>>    kenji@max.physics.sunysb.edu  wrote:
>>> Of course, this is assuming that "vipassana" should be pronounced a
>>> la Sanskrit.  However, since Buddha spoke Pali, it may be that
>>> "vipassana" represents a Pali word. 
>>
>>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].

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