Talk:Sanskrit phrasebook

Comments

Isn't this more appropriate for wikipedia?--(WT-en) Wandering 20:02, 25 September 2007 (EDT)

Yes! – (WT-en) cacahuate ^talk 13:12, 31 May 2009 (EDT)

But isn't it useful for traveling to this town?  ;) --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 18:32, 31 May 2009 (EDT)

What is the purpose of this?

I thought Sanskrit were a dead language. Do we have a Latin Phrasebook? If not, why do we have one for Sanskrit? Hobbitschuster (talk) 19:32, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I came to this talk page to ask the same question. Some time ago it was discussed whether we should delete the Esperanto phrasebook, which does have a few million speakers as of today. ϒpsilon (talk) 20:39, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Should we also mention the Jamaican Patois Phrasebook? These are really polemic articles for us to keep. Ibaman (talk) 20:48, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I notice that this phrasebook currently has exactly 10 translations, all numbers. Maybe that's because this isn't a language that's useful for travelling. On the other hand, maybe it would be useful for visiting Mattur and Hosahalli in Shimoga (district). (Jamaican Patois, in contrast, has 3 million native speakers according to Wikipedia, so I don't see how it's comparable.) —Granger (talk · contribs) 21:01, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

• My point is, this phrasebook itself recommends "with the strongest caution" that voyagers stick to Standard English. That means the page declares itself redundant. Does such a content deserves an article in Wikivoyage? I wrote a lot of stuff on Roman Empire but would never dream of writing any pompous overfluffy Talk section, much less a Latin phrasebook.Ibaman (talk) 23:33, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps this could be turned into a travel topic or merged into some historical travel article? ϒpsilon (talk) 04:43, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

VfD nom

Sanskrit phrasebook

I quote AndreCarrotflower's statement for the RfD for the Esperanto phrasebook:

All the rationales for deleting the Ido phrasebook apply here: Esperanto has no monolingual speakers, is not the official language of any country, is not terribly useful as an international auxiliary language in a world where English has de facto taken over that function, and the chances of a traveller needing to speak it to get along in a certain place are zero. Therefore, this phrasebook is out of scope and should be deleted. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 15:58, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

And I think the same applies to this as well (except the official language bit which I'm not sure on). I thought Sanskrit was a dead language until I stumbled across this. According to the first line, it says that it's an ancient language in which many Hindu religious texts were written, but it never says that anyone speaks it. Most people who speak Sanskrit can almost always speak another language as well, and I don't think a traveller would ever have to find themselves needing to know Sanskrit is basically 0%. And I should also mention that Esperanto had at least some speakers, albeit not used. Sanskrit is not. Even Esperanto has its own Wikivoyage. Sanskrit doesn't and will probably never get one, since a) it's a dead language, but b) even Norsk was rejected. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 07:01, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Question: "even Norsk was rejected"? To what does this refer? To the Bokmål/Nynorsk split discussion? The reason not to split was simply that the languages are close enough and partly geographically intermingled, so that there is no use carrying two phrasebooks instead of one.

Comment Sanskrit, on the other hand, is "widely taught today at the secondary school level", according to Wikipedia, across language communities I suppose. I don't know how widespread actual (basic) proficiency in Sanskrit is, and whether it is concentrated to certain communities – which could be good or bad for those carrying a Sanskrit phrasebook – but, given the many languages in India, it could be useful in areas for which you don't carry a phrasebook of the local language. You don't need to meet first language speakers, it's enough that you meet people who understand your phrasebook phrases.

–LPfi (talk) 08:32, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm referring that Norsk is well spoken, but yet the proposal was rejected by the language committee. Now at least Norsk is spoken in some areas. Sanskrit is dead. This was just a comparison to the Esperanto language. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 08:38, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Eh? Norsk is Norwegian for Norwegian, and there is both a w:no: (Norwegian, mostly Bokmål) and a w:nn: (Nynorsk). The issue discussed by the language committee, as I understand it, was whether to change w:no into w:nb, i.e. make the "Norsk" WP version officially and clearly Bokmål, and the discussion was about how to treat other variants of Norwegian (such as Riksmål), which can be seen as independent or as variants of Bokmål. Some articles in w:no are written in those variants and perhaps shouldn't be called Bokmål. It was deemed to be enough of a mess that any change to status quo would be a mess too. –LPfi (talk) 08:59, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. First of all, there was no consensus to delete the Esperanto phrasebook, so by current standards, it would not have been deleted (Ido is another matter, only a couple of hundred speakers, none native). Second, I refer you to w:Sanskrit revival:

Sanskrit revival is the accumulation of attempts at reviving the Sanskrit language that have been undertaken. This revival is happening not only in India but also in Western countries like Australia,[1] Germany, the United Kingdom,[2] the United States and in many European countries.[3]

Sanskrit is one of the 22 official languages in India.[4] In 2010, Uttarakhand became the first state in India to have Sanskrit as its second official language.[1] In 2019, Himachal Pradesh became the second state to have Sanskrit as the second official language.[5] There are 2,360,821 total speakers of Sanskrit in India, as of 2011.[6]

w:Sanskrit could be cited for a counterargument: "There are no known native speakers of Sanskrit." But I can't see deleting a phrasebook for a language with well over 2 million speakers. I could see emphasizing ritual language readers might hear in ceremonies, though; that's a different question. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:29, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@Ikan Kekek: if there were no consensus to delete the Esperanto phrasebook, then why was it deleted? Second of all, I'd not think about the rituals because the last and only time I went to India, they refused to let me into three temples (before I gave up) because I was irreligious (meaning only 1.35 billion people would ever have a chance of getting into one) SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:43, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

The policy has been amended since, formerly consensus was needed not to delete. –LPfi (talk) 12:05, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I think number of speakers is the relevant number. Number of native speakers is irrelevant, unless those second language speakers are native speakers of English, which I suppose most aren't. What counts is whether people you want to communicate with understand your phrasebook phrases, and would be inconvenient to communicate with in other ways. –LPfi (talk) 11:40, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

SHB2000, I'm not a Hindu and have visited many Hindu temples, where no-one asked what my religion or beliefs were. Only in Varanasi was I told that non-Hindus couldn't go into temples. Besides, 1.35 billion people is a hell of a large number! Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:17, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Okay, so I guess that it might only be a thing in the south (all three of my attempts were in Mathura and Chennai where all three of those which I tried said that non-Hindus weren't allowed in). Oh, but with the 1.35 billion (or 1.2 billion according to w:Hinduism by country which says 1.35 in the lead paragraph and 1.2 in the Demographic estimates section), almost all of them are in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia. Very few outside those. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:23, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Are you still arguing for deletion? Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:47, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I am. If Esperanto was deleted, so should Sanskrit. If Sanskrit was not deleted, I believe that Esperanto should be restored. Plus, we don't have a Latin phrasebook, and Latin is at least spoken a lot more than Sanskrit and is the official language of the Vatican. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:50, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Do you understand that it didn't take a consensus to delete the Esperanto phrasebook (there was ultimately a slight majority in favor of keeping the Esperanto phrasebook, yet it was deleted per then-existing policy), but it would take a consensus to restore it, and that's why it won't happen? As for Latin, are you seriously arguing that it has over 2 million speakers? Your evidence for that? Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:22, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Also, you're seriously comparing Vatican City, a single neighborhood of Rome, with Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh, which have populations of some 200,000,000 and 6,864,602, respectively? I really think you're wasting your time on this. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:26, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

In fact, there was a strong majority (about 80% of discussion participants if I remember correctly) in favor of keeping the Esperanto phrasebook. —Granger (talk · contribs) 09:38, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

• Keep. From WP, "Sanskrit has been taught in traditional gurukulas since ancient times; it is widely taught today at the secondary school level. The oldest Sanskrit college is the Benares Sanskrit College founded in 1791 during East India Company rule.[44] Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial and ritual language in Hindu and Buddhist hymns and chants." These seem to be good reasons to keep this phrasebook. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 19:22, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - The focus of this phrasebook is clearly wrong, as evidenced by the fact that it remains virtually devoid of content 14 years after its creation; "Stop, thief!", "I plan on staying X nights", and "Do you accept credit cards?" are not sentences a traveller in India will ever need to express in Sanskrit. For those, they'll use English, Hindi or one of the many local languages. Therefore, if the Sanskrit language is widely used in ceremonies, rites and academia, but not at all in everyday life, then a totally different approach needs to be taken compared to all our other phrasebooks in order for it to serve the traveller.

So I guess my question is what would that look like? How do you write a travel phrasebook for a language like Sanskrit that isn't used by travellers to communicate their basic needs or to understand everyday interactions, but nonetheless may be culturally useful or interesting to learn? What types of words and phrases should it cover? If somebody can answer that in a convincing way, then this phrasebook would be worth keeping. But the existing empty shell that, without a change in focus, will probably continue to be an empty shell for the next 14 years doesn't serve the traveller and would be better put out of its misery.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:13, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

What do Indians learn when they study Sanskrit in secondary school? Do they read old ritual texts or do they get proficiency also in everyday language? If the latter, it may be more practical for a traveller to use the Sanskrit phrasebook to ask those everyday questions than to figure out how to ask them in the right one of "the many local languages". Given of course there sometimes is a significant chance a person you need to communicate with (or somebody around) knows Sanskrit better than English.

For a different focus of the phrasebook, we should have somebody to identify key phrases that make it easier for travellers to follow those rituals. Something like "Let us pray", "Hallelujah", "Amen" etc. if it were for Christian services.

–LPfi (talk) 12:16, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Pinging @Rangan Datta Wiki: who might know a bit more. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:25, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

If some people object to deleting this, how about instead of deleting this, making it a travel topic similar to Australian slang (which as Ikan Kekek mentioned, travellers may hear in rituals, ceremonies etc.). Since saying "Stop! Thief!" or "I'm calling the police" isn't exactly in scope, and have little use, and something like what LPfi mentioned except for Hindu services. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 23:07, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

People can hear Australian slang in rituals? ;-) But seriously, that's worth discussing at Talk:Sanskrit phrasebook after the article is kept. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:27, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Of course not ;). I was just using that because that's the only language based travel topic based on a phrasebook (and maybe the Lazymans phrasebook ;)). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 00:33, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

My favourite phrase from a printed phrasebook was in a section called "On the slopes". The expression was "Look out! I've lost control!" Imagine the situation arises, so you pull out your handy phrasebook, flip to page 79, practise the pronunciation a couple of times, and you're all set. A language topic may make more sense than a phrasebook. Ground Zero (talk) 00:44, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Spotted in a Welsh phrasebook, written pre-Internet: "The word I need is not here; this book is bloody awful!"

Replying to user:LPfi, if it really were "more practical for a traveller to use the Sanskrit phrasebook to ask those everyday questions", wouldn't we see other practical Sanskrit phrasebooks out there? Wouldn't the Lonely Planets and the Rough Guides etc dedicate a few pages of their India books to 'colloquial Sanskrit' if such a thing existed? A language-based travel topic, with some words and sentences that the traveller will encounter in the right places, makes infinitely more sense to me than a phrasebook.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:03, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

• Keep Phrasebooks for languages like Sanskritt help travellers understand the culture of places they visit. When more complete these will help a traveller understand a service in a temple, and possibly other cultural events. Similarly you don't need the Māori phrasebook when visiting New Zealand, but it enhances the visit. We don't have a policy requiring phrase books to be complete (or a certain % of phrase complete) within a time limit. (Possibly the list of phrases should be changed for this type of phrasebook, but hat is a separate discussion.) AlasdairW (talk) 21:08, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

  @AlasdairW:, although Maori is a special case. It doesn't have any mention on "stop, thief!" or any of that. Sanskrit is written like an ordinary phrasebook. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:53, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

  I think Sanskrit uses the standard list of phrases in the template. I would support having a different shorter standard list for "cultural phrasebooks". Nobody is going to say "Do you accept British pounds?" in Navajo. AlasdairW (talk) 22:44, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

  That point needs a separate discussion. There is no procedure that I know of to remove unnecessary phrases and add new phrases to individual phrasebooks after they have been added to the template. I think this is a special case of that problem (unless the article is transformed into travel topic); there is no procedure to reinsert a phrase lost because somebody thought it was unnecessary. It is not clear what phrases of the standard list are useful or not useful for "cultural phrasebook". I also assume that varies by language. –LPfi (talk) 08:23, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

The edit would be manual. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:04, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, and I don't think a "cultural phrasebook" template would work, for the reasons given above. Each phrasebook for a language that isn't strictly practical or necessary is going to need its own set of words and sentences.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:36, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

• Keep It is of huge cultural significance to India (and even in many Southeast Asian countries), and you are very likely to encounter Sanskrit in religious ceremony. Also, Sanskrit speakers certainly do exist, and I have personally met someone who is a fluent speaker of Sanskrit, albeit not a native speaker. And also, knowing Sanskrit helps a lot when you want to learn the languages of South Asia and Southeast Asia, since many of them contain many Sanskrit-derived terms. And as a side note, if somebody wants to write a Latin phrasebook, I have no objection to that either. The dog2 (talk) 18:42, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

• Outcome Kept. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 03:50, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Travel topic?

It would really be best to change this from a standard phrasebook to a travel topic concentrating on the kind of ritual language a visitor might be more likely to hear in ceremonies, because although many people speak this language, travelers are most likely to encounter the language in a Hindu religious context. Any volunteers for this task? Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:48, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Ikan Kekek I think you are right. For Classical Meitei, please do the same. But please tell me what will be the page title of it if you will change it into a travel topic? --Haoreima (talk) 10:00, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Support as per the vfd discussion – right now, this page is OOS. Nobody will ever say "Where's the nearest British consulate?" or "Do you accept US dollars?" or "Help! Thief!" in Sanskrit. Nobody.

However, this would need to be done by someone who knows a reasonable amount of Sanskrit. 2006nishan178713, your userpage indicates you have an advanced knowledge of Sanskrit. When you get the time, would you be able to model a travel topic with important phrases travellers will hear in ceremonies and rituals? There's no rush to do this, and real-life comes first, so don't feel pressured to finish this in a certain amount of time. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 13:13, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Sure. And maybe we can also cover to some degree the way Sanskrit has influenced other languages. I just learnt that the Malay word "bahasa" comes from Sanskrit "bhāṣā", and so does the word for "language" in other Southeast Asian languages such as Thai, Khmer, Lao and Burmese. That might be a point of interest for some people. Certainly, knowledge of Sanskrit will make it much easier for you to pick up vocabulary for many Indian and Southeast Asian languages. The dog2 (talk) 14:25, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

The number of borrowings from Sanskrit to Malay is vast and off the top of my head includes nama (name), sama (same), isteri (wife), suami (husband) and many other everyday words, in addition to more formal language. But I don't think that's more than a side point in a travel topic on Sanskrit, just as it would be in a travel topic on the Latin language that there is a huge number of borrowings from Latin in most non-Romance European languages. The main travel-related point would be to cover ritual and religious language a traveler might come across in visits to temples or as a witness or participant in ceremonies (Hindu weddings, etc., etc.). Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:54, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

One more thing I'd want to mention though is that Sanskrit is one of the scheduled languages of the Indian constitution, meaning that civil servants are allowed to write answers for their civil service examinations in Sanskrit, and that the Indian government must be able to provide services in Sanskrit on demand. I guess this is similar to how Latin is the technically official language of the Vatican even though Italian is the main language is practice; you could in theory demand to be served in Latin at government offices in the Vatican, and the Pope always makes formal announcements in Latin. The dog2 (talk) 17:19, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Popes very often make announcements in Italian. Is there some distinction you're making between one type of announcement and another? Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:52, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

well, for the record, every Pope who came to Brazil in my lifetime (Wojtyla, Ratzinger and Bergoglio) was recorded making speeches in Portuguese. I don't see how this would qualify as a yardstick to gauge anything about this topic here in Wikivoyage. Ibaman (talk) 18:00, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi @SHB2000, i surely would have have helped, but as my userpage indicates I am kinda busy. You can see I haven't contributed to any Wikimedia project in a month. Nonetheless, if I get time I will surely help in it. 2006nishan178713^t@lk 15:01, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘I have no objection to converting this to a travel topic. I'm just saying that if you really wanted to speak Sanskrit, you could in theory go to an Indian government office and demand that you be served in Sanskrit, and the Indian government is required by law to oblige on that. Similarly, you could in theory go to the Vatican and demand that you be served in Latin, provided what you are speaking is Ecclesiastical Latin and not Classical Latin. Here's a video of someone trying to speak Latin to the priests in the Vatican. The Pope does often make important announcements in Latin though (such as when Pope Benedict XVI announced his abdication), so knowing Latin will of course allow you to listen to the announcement and understand what is being said before they put out the official translations. The dog2 (talk) 18:20, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Your point is taken that quite a few Indians and Nepalese speak Sanskrit, and that's why this phrasebook wasn't deleted, but it's much more useful as a holy/ritual language today. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:15, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Come to think of it, maybe there should be a travel topic on liturgical languages. Perhaps some people would like to go to some specific place of worship to hear a liturgical language. The dog2 (talk) 17:16, 21 June 2022 (UTC)