An interesting q is "Sanskrit derived" vocabulary. I suspect pop notion of common languages being "derived" from scholarly is 100% backwards
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Modern commoner langs are derived from dead commoner languages. "Sanskritization" is likely 75% shared historic roots rather than "descent"
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Point being, Sanskrit is rich, evil great-uncle not direct ancestor. I suspect same is true of other "classical" elite languages like Latin.
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Do we know that Dravidian languages were in fact "sanskritized"?
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Replying to @nishaspillai @vgr
by "sanskritised" do you mean deliberate and systematic insertion of sanskrit vocabulary?
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Replying to @zem42 @nishaspillai
Yes. For Hindi it was living memory (why Doordarshan Hindi sounds unnatural): an actual committee sat down to purge Urdu/sub Sanskrit origin
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Replying to @vgr @nishaspillai
that's interesting because i've also seen claims that urdu words crept into hindi due to a "high status" perception of urdu as more cultured
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Replying to @zem42 @nishaspillai
Languages of political elites tend to suffer same fate as the political elites themselves. But literary/cultural elite langs retain status
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More basic counterpoint: English in India.
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Replying to @nishaspillai @zem42
You might enjoy this oldie by Abbas Tyrewala (he wrote Munnabhai MBBS and and got famous a few yrs later) http://creative.sulekha.com/so-who-speaks-hindi_98532_blog …
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This Tyrewala essay was in collection I edited for Sulekha. You can sense creative genesis of A+ "living" dialog in Munnabhai, MBBS here
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"yaar Mumbai mein bahut pollution hai. maa nahin dikh rahi aaj." should be carved on a monument somewhere.
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