Talk:Classical language

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[edit] Change of dates of early Tamil

These were changed from "2nd c. BC to 3rd c. AD" to "5th c. BC to 4th c. BC". Is there any basis for this change, other than a desire to place Tamil before Sanskrit in the list? AnonMoos (talk) 04:10, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Just a case of a former Tamil editor trolling with his ip. I've fixed it now. Sarvagnya 20:02, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Classical Sanskrit 5th cent. AD

Ok, what's your point, AnonMoos? The Vedic texts were orally transmitted until 5th cent. AD. First written form was created in 5th cent AD. A reference will be added in the article. The 5th cent. AD date is the usual proposed date by scientists. Sanskrit was recognised by government of india as classical language only because the government put the minimum date requirement of any classical language to at least 1000 years of age infront. Before that decision, the language and its literature had to be atleast 2000 years old. This was the time, when Tamil was declared as classical language. I know, you will tell me, that Sanskrit would have to be much older. Yes, it is, but the literature was orally transmitted til that time. That's the common agreement of this topic by scientists. The new requirement of 1000 years aged literature will result in more classical languages like Classical Kannada and Classical Telugu. Tamil has to be put up in this rank, because common agreement is, that the 2nd cent. BC is the beginning of Tamil literature. In modern days, scientists put the date back to 3rd cent. BC. The Sangam literature period ends then in 3rd cent. AD to 5th cent. AD. After this time another period of Tamil literature began. --80.108.50.167 (talk) 02:53, 23 March 2008 (UTC) --Thirusivaperur (talk)

Actually, the codification of "Classical" Sanskrit grammar under Panini is generally dated to the 5th or 4th centuries B.C. (and of course, religious compositions in Sanskrit probably predate this classical form of Sanskrit by another 500 years or more). The date when there's evidence for Sanskrit manuscripts being written is almost irrelevant, since for many centuries Sanskrit scholarship was a heavily oral culture, where writing was not particularly valued. Meanwhile, if there's any surviving Tamil literature from before 200 B.C., it's not listed in reference works such as The World's Major Languages (ISBN 0-19-506511-5). AnonMoos (talk) 03:19, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
You have not understood the point. Scientists attests a written Tamil language in 3rd c. BC. Sanskrit is attested 5th c. AD. Stop your POV. It's not irrelevant if scientists attest so. It is common agreed, that Sanskrit's oral tradition lasted long time ago, including any grammar tradition. Oral transmission is not a qualification for written literature. Please stop your POV actions NOW. --80.108.50.167 (talk) 03:27, 23 March 2008 (UTC) --Thirusivaperur (talk)
Do you have any reliable source to backup your claims? Please do not undo other editors' edits without a valid justification, supported by reliable sources. - KNM Talk 05:21, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
You have to backup your claims first. Where is your source, that Sanskrit was definitley written in 4th c. BC? My source of Archeological survey of india shows clearly, that Sanskrit Vedic literature was written first max. 5th c. AD. since inscriptions on stone is not literature. I will add additional sources, if you have sources, that provide your claims exactly. --80.108.50.167 (talk) 16:34, 23 March 2008 (UTC) --Thirusivaperur (talk)
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2006/04/17/stories/2006041707890400.htm A newspaper, which claims, that Sanskrit was declared classical language by indian government, because the date requirement was driven down to 1500 years. --80.108.50.167 (talk) 17:02, 23 March 2008 (UTC) --Thirusivaperur (talk)
Dude, no one has claimed to definitely know that Sanskrit was written in the 4th century B.C. (it's possible it was, but there's no real direct evidence for it). What is claimed is that Panini standardized classical Sanskrit in the 5th or 4th century B.C. regardless of whether there was any writing going on. You can push Tamil literature back to 250 B.C., and try to push Panini forward to the early 3rd century B.C., but it seems that Panini still comes before the earliest known Tamil literature within the commonly accepted dates. And of course pre-Classical Sanskrit literature goes back yet further centuries... AnonMoos (talk) 17:11, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Try to understand. If oral transmission would be accepted by scientists as written literature, then all the language, which are mentioned in this list, has to put it's datings many thousands or even hundred thousand years back! Just take Tamil. It's literature was dated to 10 000 years back! Oral tradition is not written literature! --80.108.50.167 (talk) 17:30, 23 March 2008 (UTC) --Thirusivaperur (talk)
Unfortunately for you, it's widely recognized among reputable scholars, that substantial works were composed at a time when Sanskrit literature was predominantly transmitted orally (though writing was probably known after the mid-1st millennium BC, it was not always highly valued, and for many centuries written texts did not usually take precedence over oral recitations of memorized texts by respected reciters). That's why Panini's grammar is highly-condensed and abbreviated, and cast into epic verse meter -- ease of memorization was placed above ease of understanding. AnonMoos (talk) 22:37, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Oral tradition is irrelevant for this article, as i explained earlier. Stop your POVs finally... --80.108.50.167 (talk) 07:03, 24 March 2008 (UTC) --Thirusivaperur (talk)
If the accepted consensus of reputable scholars considers it relevant, then it simply is relevant, regardless of your declarations. AnonMoos (talk) 23:07, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
The overall consensus of indian scientists on this matter is seen in the declaration of Classical Sanskrit, which was done after the 2000 years requirement was reduced to 1500 years. Don't ignore my references anymore. --80.108.50.167 (talk) 15:51, 25 March 2008 (UTC) --Thirusivaperur (talk)
Here is another reliable source, that sanskrit literature can't be 2000 years old: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/10/28/stories/2005102809281200.htm And again. Stop POV. I will take actions immediately against this kind of behaviour. Give me your sources, that Sanskrit has 2300 years written literature, and i will be satisfied. Not this way! --80.108.50.167 (talk) 17:17, 23 March 2008 (UTC) --Thirusivaperur (talk)
Dude, if you were correct in stating that nothing older than 500 A.D. is reliable, then it's very difficult to see how knowledge of the Sanskrit language would exist at all. Already in the Buddha's lifetime (or soon thereafter), Buddhists made a conscious decision not to use Sanskrit, because Sanskrit was too remote from ordinary daily speech, and the firmly-dated Asoka inscriptions of the 3rd century B.C. reveal several vernacular dialects which are rather distant from Sanskrit. By the 5th century A.D., Pali itself was now a literary language, somewhat removed from ordinary daily speech, and the first round of Prakrits were soon to start to give way to the "Apabhramsas". If nothing older than 500 A.D. is reliable, then why is there any surviving useful information about Sanskrit (whose period as a widely-spoken language of ordinary daily life must have preceded 500 BC by centuries) at all?? AnonMoos (talk) 22:37, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Asoka didn't use a single word in Sanskrit. The edicts inscription were written in 3 languages, Prakrit, Aramaic and Greek. What's all about Pali? You are the first guy here, who's asking this. Very welcomed. Pali maybe not considered with a classical tag in our time, because the "Pali canon" is the only work, which was writtenly delivered by Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka in 1st c. BC in an ancient era. Therefore it has no "vast literature", which would be a must for a qualification for a "classical" tag. Another mystical question is, why Sanskrit's first stone inscriptons in 2nd cent. AD was written in Grantha-script, which is an South Indian Brahmi script variant (Pallava Grantha). The gupta empire loved Sanskrit, so they let decline the Prakrit languages to give the big rise to Sanskrit and Sanskrit literature in about 5th cent. AD Therefore modern science concludes: 1.) Vedic literature can't be older than 5th cent. AD 2.) Most surprisingly for all: The first written Sanskrit was delivered by South Indian Sanskrit users. 3.) The gupta empire was the most important element for the success of Classical Sanskrit. Contemporary Prakrit languages, which were used til the gupta empire were slowly declining because of the rise of Sanskrit. But no Prakrit languages, which were used prior to Sanskrit for any kind of inscriptions, delivered a vast literature like the Sanskrit's ones. The oral tradition of Sanskrit users and the gupta empire made this possible. But where does Sanskrit came from. This is the big 1 million $ question for scientists: Was it the Aryans in 1500 BC or was it the Scythians in 200 BC? Nevertheless, this is not a topic for the article we provide here. --80.108.50.167 (talk) 06:18, 24 March 2008 (UTC) --Thirusivaperur (talk)
Dude, you're evading the main point -- which is that in 500 A.D., the Indians were starting on what was basically the third round of recording previously-unwritten languages in writing because the previously-existing literary languages were then too far removed from ordinary everyday speech. Sanskrit is structurally archaic (by the measures of comparative linguistics), and predates all three rounds aforementioned, so it simply shouldn't exist at all if no reliable information on it were preserved before 500 A.D. To see what this means, look at any book of comparative Indo-European linguistics, and see how much emphasis is placed on Sanskrit, as opposed to Pali, Prakrits, or Apabhramsas, as evidence for reconstructing proto-Indo-European. Furthermore, Scythian is totally irrelevant, since the Scythians spoke an Iranian language. The function of this article is not to be a playground for your historical revisionism... AnonMoos (talk) 23:07, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
P.S. The reason Asoka didn't use Sanskrit was because in his time Sanskrit was narrowly associated with the oral traditions of Brahman priests, and in his inscriptions Asoka wasn't trying to communicate orally with Brahmans in their liturgical language, but rather to communicate in writing with a wide variety of peoples in languages which would be much more accessible to them (i.e. closer to their ordinary daily speech) than Sanskrit was. And of course, the religion Asoka was promoting did not depend on the authority of Brahman priests. AnonMoos (talk) 08:26, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
The reason, why Asoka didn't use Sanskrit was, because, Sanskrit wasn't the predominate language of that time. The people spoke Prakrit, Aramaic and Greek in the north. No Sanskrit. Sanskrit was first invented by Sakas (Scythians) in literary form on stone inscriptions in 2nd AD in Brahmi script. That's the reason, why Scythians are fully involved in this debate. So they are not irrelevant at any case. First written Sanskrit by Scythians. That's what historical evidences tell the epigraphs of today. Sanskrit was then not in use in scriptures til the gupta empire risen up. The guptas promoted Sanskrit in a big way in their era. In south the grantha script was developed to write Sanskrit and in south the Vedas were written by a South Indian in Grantha script in 5. c. AD. 2 centuries later, in 7 c. AD. Sanskrit was written also in north in Brahmi script. Oral tradition is not written literature, as stated before. Predominant languages in Asokas time was Prakrit in north. But nobody would say that Prakrit is a classical language, because nothing no vast literature is found of this language. I'm stating here a very scientific view based on epigraphs and evidences which were actually were found about written Vedas and my view is supported by the government of india which used the classical tag for Sanskrit only due to their decision to move the required age from 2000 years to 1500 years. Refer to the sources i provided here. It doesn't help for you to ignore them. Thank you. --80.108.50.167 (talk) 15:44, 25 March 2008 (UTC) --Thirusivaperur (talk)
That article doesn't support your case. It says it was *also* decided to relax the standards from 2000 years to 1500 years; it does not say that Sanskrit is recognized as classical specifically because of the relaxation. Mindstalk (talk) 17:50, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Please do not feed the trolls. HTH. Sarvagnya 18:20, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
I noticed your work here Sarvagnya. I would say, you are trolling from the beginning here. --80.108.50.167 (talk) 18:27, 23 March 2008 (UTC) --Thirusivaperur (talk)
Oh you dont have to hide behind proxies to troll. You can do it logged in. Dont feel shy. Sarvagnya 20:01, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Sarvagnya, don't take any action, if you have no sources, which were required. --80.108.50.167 (talk) 20:26, 23 March 2008 (UTC) --Thirusivaperur (talk)
Refer to the other source i provided. You must take it in context.. Therefore both sources were added in a row. --80.108.50.167 (talk) 18:08, 23 March 2008 (UTC) --Thirusivaperur (talk)
Another source added, which provides the 5th cent. AD date. --80.108.50.167 (talk) 20:53, 23 March 2008 (UTC) --Thirusivaperur (talk)

[edit] New problem

{{editprotected}}

Some edits were made just before the page was protected which changed the accurate "Classical Sanskrit (defined by Panini's grammar, ca. 4th c. BC)" to the less accurate "Classical Sanskrit (first written form of Vedic literature in ca. 4th c. BC)". This second (and now protected) wording is somewhat unfortunate, since the Vedas must have been substantially composed long before the 4th-century B.C., yet there's no definite concrete evidence of their being written down until long after the 4th-century B.C. Furthermore, Vedic Sanskrit is not actually the same as classical Sanskrit. The original (and long-standing) wording should be restored... AnonMoos (talk) 02:24, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree. It seems like the inaccuracy was sneaked in by the ip and I didnt notice it when I reverted. Lets fix it once the article is unprotected. Sarvagnya 06:05, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
N Not done I think, given that it's only protected for two more days, I'll leave you to work this out. I wouldn't make this edit based on this level of consensus in any case. If you get more support, readd the tag if you want. Happy‑melon 14:09, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Stop this guys. You have to take the consensus of the indian government institutes. Don't make unnecessary work for administrators through your Sanskrit POV. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 16:48, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, the Indian government cannot define historical and linguistic truth through the proclamations of its institutes. AnonMoos (talk) 17:02, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I see... I didn't know, that you guys have SUCH a view on this case. Perhaps, we should ask the next guru, who's right. Here is a list of indian scientists who work in these institutes, who you may ask, why they did their decision against your POV:

Archaelogical Survey of India (ASI) : Headquarters: Office of the Director General Janpath, New Delhi - 110011 / Anshu Vaish Director General Phone: 23013574, 23015954 23019487 Fax directorgeneralasi@gmail.com / Vijay S Madan Additional Director General Phone: 23012058 23014456 Fax Dr. B.R. Mani Joint Director General (M) (World Heritage, Monuments, Publication, Excavation/ Exploration, Conservation) Ph: 23015428 (t-f) / Dr. D.R. Gehlot Joint Director General (G) (Planning, Institute of Archeology, Science Branch, Horticulture Branch, Cultural Exchange programme, Central Archaeological Library, Appellate Authority, RTI) Ph: 23013226 (t-f) / Chander Shekhar Director (admin) Phone: 23018614, 23010789 Fax / Dr. K.P. Poonacha Director (Antiquity & Museum) Phone: 23010822 C. Dorje Director (Monument) Phone: 23013219 / Dr. G.T. Shende Director (Planning) Phone: 23017443 Ram Saran Director (Cultural Exchange Programme) Phone: 23017265, 23387475 / Dr. R.S. Fonia Director (Exploration & Excavation and Publication) Phone: 23015081 / P.B.S. Sengar Director (Institute of Archaeology and Central Archaeological Library) Phone: 23017197 / S.B. Ota Director (National Mission) Phone: 23073837 nationalmission@gmail.com / Dr. A. Banerjee SA (Publication) Phone: 23019108 / Dr. Alok Tripathi SA (Underwater Archaeology) Phone: 23262006 / Shri A.K. Sinha SA (Monument) Phone: 23018848 / Smt. Shubhra Pramanik SA (National Mission) Phone: 23073837 / M.M. Kanade SAE Phone: 23017553 / R.S. Jamwal SAE Phone: 23014465 romeljamwal@sify.com T.J. Poly Deputy Director(A/c) Phone: 23018583 / Smt.Kailash Datta Joint Director (O/L) Phone: 23014460 / Dr. A.R. Siddiqui DSA(M) Phone: 23792949 asiddiqui11@yahoo.com / V.N. Prabhakar DSA(EE) Phone: 23793617 prabhuasi@gmail.com / K. Amarnath Ramakrishana DSA (Museum) Phone: 23012892 / Sunanda Srivastava DSA (Antiquity) Phone: 23015042 / V. Bakshi AD(Mon) Phone: 23013081 / J.D. Namala Photo Officer Phone: 23012892 / Kishan Singh Drawing Officer Phone: 23012892 / CIIL-Classical Tamil: / Prof. K. Ramasamy Professor-cum-Deputy Director Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore. Academic Staff , Prof. A.Dhamotharan Senior Fellow, Prof. P.R.Subramanian Senior Fellow, Prof. Annie Thomas Fellow, Dr. R.Kumaran Fellow, Dr.S.Manoharan Fellow, Prof.P.Marudanayagam Fellow, Dr.Arimalam S.Padmanabhan Fellow, Prof.R.Panneerselvam Fellow, Prof. Sam Mohan Lal Fellow, Dr.K.Umaraj Fellow, Dr.K.G.Venkataraman Fellow, Dr.R.Kothandaraman Fellow, Dr.K.M.Bhuvaneswari Associate, Dr.M.Ramakrishnan Associate / CIIL:, Head : Shri B.G. Manjunath, Shri. P.R.Balakrishnan(including NTS) , Sudha S. Phatak, Shri. Subbaraya, Shri N. Yathiraju, Asiya Jan / Good Luck. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 17:17, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

Please restore the article to this revision: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Classical_language&diff=200373102&oldid=200371906

and put this edit in: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Classical_language&diff=200373102&oldid=200371906

General talk revealed, that the revert-editors have a problem with the decisions of Indian government institutes, which is absolutely inacceptable, because they put their POV over the vast majority of science authorities in India. Please see the current discussion on Talk:Classical_language. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 17:30, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

N Edit declined. Please establish consensus first. Sandstein (talk) 06:31, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
I knew, that this will happen. Bye bye wikipedia. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 07:00, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, i'm back after i discussed the part with Sandstein on his discussion page. I will revert it to the prior version. If you want to push your POV again, i recommend, that you use Wikipedia:Third_opinion instead of reverting the article.. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 17:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, everybody other than you who has expressed an opinion on how the article should be presented seems to disagree with you... AnonMoos (talk) 23:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I never managed to get a North Indian or somebody who likes the Aryan myth so much, to get back to reality. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 08:06, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] oral transmission section

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Should be oral transmission accepted as literature in context of this article? My opinion is, of course not, because for example Latin and Greek were indeed not in use just in 5th c. BC and 1st c. BC, the story of romulus and remus is much older than that. It goes to the beginning of roman civilization. The Vedas were written not prior than 5th century AD as you can see at my sources in the article. Contrary to that, AnonMoos and others failed to accept this truth. In their opinion, Vedas were written in 1500 BC... prior to that they wanted to address the age to 400 BC, the not overall accepted theory of scholars of Paninis lifetime, who has not even written his works, but orally transmitted them. Other scholars prefer his lifetime to be placed at 1st to 2nd cenutry AD. But this date is not acceptable for my counterpart. They prefer the earliest dates, because they are proud of "their" Sanskrit. However, please try to provide a neutral comment and stick to the main question here. Therefore you shouldn't be an Indian or of "proud Aryan race". Thanks for your comments. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 09:07, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Dude, I am not a "Sanskrit chauvinist", and I have never said anything at all about 1500 B.C., so please don't attribute motives to me which are not supported by my pattern of edits. My knowledge of the Sanskrit language itself (outside of certain linguistic patterns used in comparative Indo-European reconstruction) is sketchy at best, and I do not come from any part of the subcontinent or have any close family or personal relationships there. (My language area specialization is actually the Semitic languages.) I have merely been summarizing the general information available in such overall sources as The World's Major Languages edited by Bernard Comrie (1990) ISBN 0-19-506511-5 and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages edited by Roger D. Woodard (2004) ISBN 0-521-56256-2. Both books have individual chapters on Sanskrit and Tamil, and both books place Panini before the beginnings of surviving Tamil literature, and both books place the beginning of surviving Sanskrit literature significantly before Panini (while acknowledging that there is some significant dating uncertainty -- which does not affect Sanskrit only, by the way). Furthermore, your "Scythian" nonsense is far more problematic than the hypothesis that ancient Brahman priests had a strongly oral liturgical/literary culture, and that the introduction of writing did not have a strong impact on the predominantly oral transmission of Sanskrit sacred texts for a number of centuries... AnonMoos (talk) 11:42, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
We have discussed the point over and over in our previous clashes. Nobody denies, that Sanskrit literature was compiled in very ancient days. All scholars agree with that. The matter is, that the texts were orally transmitted through the ages. I think, we have a common consensus about the written time of Vedas (5th century AD), provided by the sources. In this discussion, i want to clarify, if oral transmission should be a criteria for the placement in this article. My opinion is strictly: no. Latin and Classical Greek are also much more ancient than those 3rd and 1st century. The numbers describe the age of the written variants of those literatures. Not the orally transmitted ones. What's so difficult to understand this point? You are pushing the orally transmitted texts in a fully unlogical way. Why don't you push others like classical Greek and Latin in these areas? They are also thought to be from 10 century BC and much prior. Stop your nonsense. I don't know why you are pushing Sanskrit in this way, but it's clearly unfair to other classical languages.
Scythians were the first who used Sanskrit in stone inscriptions in 150 AD. Therefore they can't be attested as nonsense. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 12:25, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
You may consider your point to be obvious, but if the consensus of mainstream linguistic scholarship in the area doesn't accept it, then it won't govern this article, no matter how much you complain about "unlogic". You may set a very high value on writing, but the evidence is that the Brahman priests of 500 B.C. to 500 A.D. set a rather low value on writing. And no, Greek and Latin literature in the form that we have them don't substantially date back to 1000 B.C. The Latin language of even 500 B.C. was very different from the classical Latin language of 0 B.C., and there's little evidence that the Romans used writing for much beyond relatively brief legal and ritual record-keeping and property-marking inscriptions before Rome fell under heavy Hellenistic influence. And in Greece, 1000 B.C. falls into the "Aegean dark ages". While some narrative story arcs, fixed "poetic epithets", and brief snippets of verse may have survived from ca. 1000 B.C. to find a place in Homeric poetry, there's no evidence that any work of Greek literature as we now have it remains substantially unchanged from 1000 B.C. And the nonsense is when you claimed that the Scythian language (which is Persian) had any influence on Sanskrit. AnonMoos (talk) 14:29, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

If you want to discuss epigraphical attestation, you want to look at List of languages by first written accounts. There, indeed, Sanskrit figures just a few decades after Tamil. This is only very tenuously related to this article, since classicity implies literature, not just scattered epigraphy. dab (𒁳) 15:37, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

The data in the article is wrong. The edicts of asoka were only written in Prakrit, Aramaic and Greek, not Sanskrit. The Sanskrit vers was added by the Sakas in 150 AD.--Thirusivaperur (talk) 15:50, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
See comment of "08:26, 25 March 2008" above... AnonMoos (talk) 16:16, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
laughable arguments --Thirusivaperur (talk) 16:22, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
If they, or something much like them, are accepted by the mainstream consensus of linguistic scholars, then the loudness of your laughter is utterly irrelevant to Wikipedia. AnonMoos (talk) 16:47, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

The most funny of all is, that nobody considers, that the oral transmission occured in other languages also and later written down in the Sanskrit language. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 16:27, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Most other languages don't have continuous strong traditions of oral recitation and memorization which persisted for many centuries... AnonMoos (talk) 16:43, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
This is the status quo: there is oral tansmission THEORY... nobody claims that this actually happened as you are trying to impose here... --Thirusivaperur (talk) 16:51, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sanskrit literature timeline

I don't agree with either of your edits:

Thirusivaperur -- 500 A.D. is pretty much completely worthless as a start date for Sanskrit literature, except from the point of view of a peculiar kind of insecure nationalism, which can never rest content in the greatness of the accomplishments of its own civilization unless it has first denigrated and insulted the accomplishments of a rival civilization.

KNM -- Perfectly reputable linguists have tossed around 1500 B.C. as a date which would appropriately correspond to the degree of structural archaism observed in the language of the Rig Veda. However, there are still reasons why the 1500 B.C. date shouldn't be used in this article. For one thing, subsequent authors didn't attempt to compose literature in the language of the Rig Veda. At first, authors composed works in the language that they spoke, which is why the language of the other Vedas differs a little from the language of the Rig Veda, and why the language of the Brahmanas differs a little from the language of these other Vedas, and so on. However, this process stopped with Panini, so that authors who came after Panini tried to write in the language of Panini. This is why the language of Panini (not the language of the Rig Veda) is called "Classical Sanskrit", and why the dating of Panini is more relevant to this article, and so should be used here instead of the dating of the Rig Veda. (Another reason is that the dating of the Rig Veda will never be anything more than a very crude and approximate guesstimate.)

Also, the mention of writing in connection with the 1500 B.C. date is quite inappropriate. There was no writing in India in 1500 B.C. -- at that time, the Indus Valley civilization had pretty much collapsed, and the Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts would not come into existence for almost another millennium (and when writing did come to be known in India, the official guardians of the sanctity of the Sanskrit language were not too enthusiastic about it for a long time, as discussed above on this talk page).

Therefore I'm reverting to the consensus version of this article before March 2008, which has the fewest problems... AnonMoos (talk) 21:03, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with AnonMoos's assessment. Thirusivaperur, do you have any new sources or any other good reason for restarting this edit war? It seems like the version AnonMoos returned to was supported by consensus, and you are the only editor who insists on a different treatment. PubliusFL (talk) 16:53, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, AnonMoos. Thanks for the clarification! - KNM Talk 20:52, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Nice attempt, AnonMoos. Of course the Panini date is quite a guesstimation like the RigVeda one. The RigVedas date of 1500 BC is accepted by scholars, because of the internal evidence of star monitoring. This is btw. the same reason, why ancient Tamil literature is dated 2200 BC and prior. Paninis datings vary extremely from 400 BC to 200 AD. Nobody knows or can give proper information about when (s)he lived, since there is no hint for it. Modern scientists date him maybe to 150 AD. And further on, the Sanskrit's classical tag is not given for Panini's life data, but for the date of the written Vedas. And this was of course not prior than 500 A.D. as the indian government with it's highest reputable scholars explained on its pages. When we talk about classical language, then we talk about a great body of literature, not of life times. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 03:09, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
so? If you want to contribute to the problem of dating these texts, do it at the relevant pages, citing your sources properly. WP:DUE, we give prominence to the mainstream view. dab (𒁳) 07:07, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Take a look at the citations of prior versions. And see this discussion page. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 13:51, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
do you plan on contributing anything useful to Wikipedia any time soon, or are you really just here for general antagonism? --dab (𒁳) 15:07, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm not here only for "general antagonism"... And you stop to revert without any reason. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 15:38, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
You're here strictly for petty local nationalistic reasons (see my coimment at the beginning of this section above), while most of the rest of us are here because of a general interest in linguistic and/or literary history... AnonMoos (talk) 15:55, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Don't worry. I will not accept any of your personal attacks regarding political involvement in future. --Thirusivaperur (talk) 16:15, 14 June 2008 (UTC)