||    Languages: Sanskrit & Tamil -- A perspective    ||

It is very appropriate to have the benefit of some one like Professor Hart, who is " impartial " on the subject . I agree with his assessment. Thanks to Sri Dileepan and Sri Sridhar Srinivasan for helping us to gain a perspective with this scholarly feedback .

I serve in the Language Bank of the Red Cross . I prepared recently in article entitled " Languages : some Facts and Figures " for them .

You might be interested in this collection of facts to gain additional perspective on Tamil in the world assembly of languages that Professor Hart refereed to in his evaluation .

Neither the size of the population speaking a particular language nor the passions of the politicians using their languages to ride on them for their own agenda ( DMK or Basque or Catalan ) affect the affection and reverence for a particularly rich language.

I grew up when Sri EVR turned around out of bitterness against the congress party to form his own DMK . The feelings of resentment among the different groups in tamilnAdu were so high that my family decided that I should take Sanskrit as my second language instead of Tamil at School and College . I never wanted to do anything with Tamil . What a tragedy it would have been , if I had ignored the study of Tamil , which I took up a few years later , after completing my Doctoral studies at MIT . Had I persisted in my attitude of extremism , I would have lost access to all of our kula dhanams in Tamil .

Since Tamil and Sanskrit are very important to our group , We have no doubt about their pre-eminence for our emotional and spiritual well-being . When we compare them against the assembly of world languages , we develop a healthy respect for other languages , while enhancing our reverence and dedication to Sanskrit and Tamil and to "ponderover " works in these two rich languages containig the source granthams of the Ubhaya VedAnthA tradition .

Now coming back to the Facts and Figures on Languages , this is what I wrote based on " Hard Facts " provided by Linguistic Researchers :

**There are 6,700 languages spoken in 228 countries ; there are 39,000 dialects associated with the latter . Based on grammatical and phonological systems ,these form into subgroups ( Viz)., Indo-European,
Semitic et al .

** Linguists recognize that a number of world languages may join the endangered species and are working to preserve them . They have also created many " artificial languages " with their own distinctive grammar .

** Geographic distribution of the number of living languages break down as follows : The Americas/1000; Africa/2,011; Europe /225; Asia /2,165 and the pacific, 1302. The corresponding percentages for these regions are 15, 30 , 3 , 32 and 19 respectively .

The top dozen languages by the size of the speaking populations are:

*** Mandarin Chinese --885 Million (M)
*** English --450M
*** Spanish --266M
*** Hindi --182 M
*** Portugese --175 M ( Brazil+Portugal )
*** Bengali --168M ( Includes Bangla Desh )
*** Russian --160M
*** Japanese--126M
*** French --122 M
***German --118M
*** Wu-Chinese--77M
*** Javanese --75M

*** Under 75 Million and above 50 Million are :
Tamil , Marathi , Telegu , Urudu , Korean , Yue-Chinese, Vietnamese, Turkish , Min-Nan Chinese et al

*** Sanskrit Speakers -- Same category as Latin and classic Greek speakers : dwindling or staying put !

I can imagine in the days of AzhwArs , the Tamil speaking population and for that matter , the Sanskrit speaking population were an order of magnitude less . That is why , it is amazing to see how our predecessors saved the treasures like Vedams thru oral/aural tradition and the Tamil classics and AzhwAr aruliccheyalgaL thru kanta pAtam route and on palm leaves to last out and nourish us even today .

Isvara Samvathsaram , Margahazhi month,
Muppatthu MUvar ThiruppAvai Dinam
The day before Kal Garuda Sevai at NaacchiyAr Koil

Om GaruthmathE Nama: Om Veda PurushAya Nama :
Om Pakshi RaajAya nama:

Oppiliappan Koil VaradAchAri SadagOpan

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