George L. Hart

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George L. Hart is a professor of Tamil language at the University of California, Berkeley.

Hart received his Ph.D. in Sanskrit from Harvard University and taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before joining the faculty at Berkeley. He has studied Latin and Greek as well as several modern European and Indian languages.

Hart is best-known for his translations of several Tamil epics into English and for asserting that Tamil should be classified as a classical language, which is stated clearly in a letter addressed to Professor Maraimalai on April 11th, 2000. On September 18th, 2004 the Indian Union Cabinet recognized Tamil as a classical language. In 2002, Hart, along with co-author Hank Heifetz, was the recipient of the AAS South Asia Council (SAC) Ramanujan Book Prize. The two produced a volume of translated Tamil poetry entitled Four Hundred Songs of War and Wisdom.

Hart is also the author of several Tamil and Sanskrit textbooks. He is married to Kausalya Hart, herself a professor and Tamil textbook author.

[edit] Works

The Poems of Ancient Tamil, Their Milieu and Their Sanskrit Counterparts
A Rapid Sanskrit Method
The Four Hundred Songs of War and Wisdom: An Anthology of Poems from Classical Tamil, the Purananuru
Poets of the Tamil Anthologies: Ancient Poems of Love and War
The Forest Book of the Ramayana of Kampan