Re: the all-from-sanskritists

--- In cybalist@..., "ravichaudhary2000" <ravi9@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@..., Piotr Gasiorowski <piotr.gasiorowski@...>
> wrote:
> > Hmm. Here's the WAVES conference's colourful website:
> > http://www.umassd.edu/indic/waves/announcements.html
> >
> > and the list of abstracts:
> > http://www.umassd.edu/indic/waves/abstracts.htm
> >
> > Unfortunately, there's no Robinson there.
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: richardwordingham
> > To: cybalist@...
> > Sent: Friday, July 12, 2002 10:29 PM
> > Subject: [tied] Re: the all-from-sanskritists
> >
> >
> > I think the posting
> > (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vediculture/message/3170) is a

very

> > clever joke ...
>
>
> While Mr Robinson's paper does not appear,
>
> here is an abstract of one paper from the web site, and I wonder ,

if

> it is possible( to go beyond the author's attempts for linkage of
> Sanskrit as the base for the origin of the French, English scripts
> etc ) to analyse and see if there is any rational basis to these
> papers.

1. With difficulty.
2. Little rational basis in this one.

> Do the mathematical concepts make any sense?.

No.

I think it harsh to judge the other papers by numerological rubbish
such as this one (no. 175). All it tells us is that there is a very
low quality threshold, if any. Ravings have been posted on this
list; this list is rarely moderated.

Detailed comments follow. I use <> to mean not equal to.

Much of what is said in this abstract is incomprehensible as it
stands. Where appropriate, I propose changes so that I have
something comprehensible to comment upon.

> Ravi
>
> 1. Structure of World Scripts in Vedas
>
> Arun Kumar Upadhyay
> IPS, M.Sc., AIFC
> B-9, CB-9, Cantonment Road
> Cuttack - 753001 (Orissa), India
>
> Script is called "Lipi" in Sanskrit meaning a surface layer as it

is

> a means to project speech or language on plane of paper. Its
> individual components are letter or their combinations as words,
> sentences, paras are flexible or "Ksara".

I assume 'while' for 'or'.

Flippant comment:
Are the vowels, anusvaras and visargas to be counted or not? They
are not 'aksara', at least not in parts of Further India. Pitch
markings? Punctuation?

> representation of real world on paper surface, its component

letters

> are in same number as is the classification of real world in

several

> systems.

Do Terry Pratchett's Discworld books describe the _real_ world?

Random letters describe nothing, and the same thing may have
equivalent, different descriptions. Mathematically, we do not have
an isomorphism!

> Plane crystallography theorem in group theory tells that a place
> surface can be fully covered by 17 types of motions of any pattern.
> Three dimensional space can be covered by two such planes
> perpendicular to each other having 17 x 17 motions.

No. There are 230 3-D symmetry groups
(http://www.iucr.org/iucr-top/comm/cteach/pamphlets/21/node4.html).

230 <> 17 x 17.

> So far projecting
> all possible sciences in a single scheme, we need 17 x 17 letters

in

> vedas with 108 vowels, 180 consonants and one undefined letter "OM"-
> called the word in beginning of creation in Bible.

108 + 180 + 1 = 289, not 230.

> Sankhya philosophy has 25 elements - a matrix of 5 x 5 from 5
> tanmatras i.e. 5 basic units of measure in physics. Jyotisa
> (mathematics) is play of numbers (Sankhya) so the script used for
> this purpose has 5 x 5 letters i.e. 5 vowels and 20 consonants.

Why 20 + 5 and not 15 + 10?

> This
> scheme is origin of English and French scripts.

Classical Latin had 23 letters once G, Y and Z had been added. Late
Latin added W, yielding the 24 letter alphabet for mediaeval English
and French. I split to give I and J, and V to give U and V, at the
start of the modern period, yielding 26.

Old English had Classical Latin plus aesc (ligature ae), thorn, eth
(barred d) and wynn (a runic cousin of F, U and Y) making 27 if you
count K, Q and X, which were only used in Latin. Mind you, Z was
very rare. Incidentally, Old English had 7 vowels.

23 <> 25, 24 <> 25, 26 <> 25, 27 <> 25

> Saiva photosophy includes perception (consciousness) and its
> boundaries (maya) having 6 x 6 elements based on 5 basic units and
> one consciousness. For purpose of Yoga, tantra, script of 6 x 6
> letters was used being source of Hebrew, Latin, Persian. 25 letters
> script called "Avakahada" was converted to this by adding 12

appendix

> letters.

25 + 12 <> 36.

For the Latin alphabet, see above.

Hebrew has 22 consonants, 11 vowel signs (counting each hateph as a
single sign), a gemination sign, and three pointings that prevent he
(h) being silent and distinguish sin (s) and shin (sh).

22 + 11 + 1 + 2 (he mappiq and sin) = 36

Arabic has 28 consonants, 3 short vowels and a long vowel for a
defectively written long a, making 32 symbols.
Persian adds <p>, <ch>, <g> and <zh>. This yields 36. However,
this ignores tashdid (a.k.a. shadde), the gemination mark, which
ought to be included if the vowels are, and hamze (the glottal stop
mark), which ought to be included if the vowels are. (I assume the 3
Arabic tenwin should not be included.) Thus, considering Persian in
isolation,

32 consonants + 4 vowels - 36 so far -
+ hamze + tashdid = 38.

(Persian & Arabic banna: 'builder' would need a tashdid.)

Quite why one should count the Hebrew gemination sign but not the
Persian one I don't know.

> Science of Vak (speech) is called Vyakarana (grammer), Vak is

created

> by Vayu (wind, air) whose partitions are called marut having 7 x 7
> components. This has extra dimension of motion. This scheme is

called

> deva-nagari created in grammer of deva-king Indra. With

unclassified

> Om it has 50 letters with 32 internal, 52 other consonants and

vowels.

7 x 7 + 1 = 50 Correct!
I presume 52 is a typo for 18.
Is 50 the traditional count?

For my education, what are the 18? I can make it up in various ways:

Scheme A:
14 vowel initials (a, i, u, r, l, e, o) long and short
h, h., m., Vedic d. (This looks wrong to me.)

Scheme B:
13 vowels (no short a)
1 vowel missing mark
h, h., m.
initial vowel

> Music is an art which has 8 x 8 components with extra dimension of
> harmony (inter connection). This is number of letters in Siksa of
> Panini.
> Speech is described in vedas of thousands of letters (aksara) in
> parama-Vyoma. On earth surface China and Japan are beyond heaven in
> Himalayas.

No comments.

> They use script of many thousand letters where letters and
> words are same.

Not quite true. Chinese has, or had, compound characters, e.g. those
in which one element indicates the meaning and another the sound.

Japanese also has a pair of syllabaries, one for native elements such
as gramatical affixes and another for foreign words spelt
phonetically.

The closest approach of reality to these ideas is matrices of
phonetic features. Even these normally have to be split into
subsystems, though. I have a vague recollection that the Vedic
Sanskrit consonants can be shoehorned into an arrangement of 5 series
of 7 orders (4 plosive, nasal, frictionless continuant (hyrlw),
voiceless fricative (h. + sibilants)), but this gets no mention! Or
has the author misremembered this as a 7 by 7 system? It might even
be possible to squeeze the short vowels in as yet another order. Now
that is neat!

Can we set up sensible features to get the following grid?

k kh g gh ng h. h a
c ch j jh n~ s' y i
t. t.h d. d.h n. s. r r.
t th d dh n s l l.
p ph b bh m w u

I can't see any useful way of fitting in m. e o ai au.

Richard.