Sanskrit in your Sanganaka(computer)



According to Forbes magazine, (July 1987), "Sanskrit is the most convenient language

for computer software programming."



In Sanskrit, every thing is etymological. Every thing is derived from some thing

else by some rule. It was Panini who formalised Sanskrit's grammer and usage about

2500 years ago. No new 'classes' have needed to be added to it since then.

Panini defined all possible ways of generating words to eternity.



Words in Sanskrit are instances of pre-defined classes, a concept that drives

object oriented programming [OOP] today. For example, in English 'cow' is a just

a sound assigned to mean a particular animal. But if you drill down the word 'gau'

-Sanskrit for 'cow'- you will arrive at a broad class 'gam' which means 'to

move. From these derive 'gamanam', 'gatih' etc which are variations of

'movement'.



The word ‘guru’ consisting of the aksharas (alphabet) ‘gu’ and ‘ru’, stands for a

teacher - one who dispels darkness (ignorance) of the mind (person). ‘Gu’ means

darkness and ‘ru’ means the act of removal. This is how Sanskrit works

- by explaining each and every word we use in our day-to-day lives.

Besides, the word also means that the sound of the letter does not ever get

destroyed, signifying the eternal quality of the sound of the letters. It retains

the phonetic characteristics of the language and their individual meanings as well!

Conclusively, the sound of a word is essentially the sound of aksharas in the word

- a concept that will help simplify text to speech applications with computers.



A typical characteristic of the Sanskrit language is its total disregard to ‘syntax’.

Words with their typical case endings may be at any position within sentences without

affecting the meaning or understanding. Take the case of ‘Aham Shalam Gachhami’or

'I go to school’. Play with changing the positions, like ‘Shalam Gachchami Aham’or

‘Gachchami Aham Shalam’. So long as the grammar is perfect, the sentence construction

doesn’t matter.The meaning doesn’t change. Just try doing that in English!



Source: A42, Education Times