Re: Devanagari (was Re: sorry Mark Lang...)

I stand corrected. I just *assumed* that the Brahmi script had been used,
since Sanskrit didn't exist in his time. There is a big gap between
conjecture and a hypothesis supported by evidence, and I fell into that gap!

I'm glad there are a number of people on this list better-versed in these
languages and scripts. It's all wonderfully interesting.

-- Scott

At 21:26 06/20/2004 +0200, you wrote:
>At 20:45 6/20/2004, Scott Heath wrote:
> >The Indian grammarian Pannini used Brahmi for his writings, including his
> >all-important and rather algebraic Sandhi-- something like Euclid's axioms
> >for Sanskrit morphosyntax.
>
>It is by no means certain that Paa.nini used any writing
>at all, rather the contrary in fact.
>
>Note also that Brahmi was first devised for Middle IndoAryan
>languages (Prakrits), and was rather ill-suited for Sanskrit
>with its many consonant clusters.
>
>In fact the first Prakrit inscriptions predate the first
>Sanskrit inscriptions by several centuries.  It is worthy of
>note that both scholars and clerics in India (which often are
>the same persons) have put great store on learning texts
>orally by heart.  Writing was businessmen's business.
>
>/BP 8^)
>--
>B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@melroch.se (delete X)
>
>         Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
>                                             (Tacitus)