That's certainly true. It would be more
correct to say that Classical Sanskrit was _based_ on the Indo-Aryan language of
the "Old" period, which by the way extended over several centuries and was
anything but monolithic. One could compare Indo-Aryan to Latin, also a language
with a complicated history: consider Mediaeval Latin, the European language of
education and scholarly literature, coexisting in time and space with the
Romance languages that had developed from the sermo plebeius of the late Roman
period, and genetically connected but not identical with Classical Latin.
Mediaeval Latin had a strong influence on the vernaculars contemporary
with it; its grammar was simpler and more regular than that of Classical Latin,
new words were coined or adopted on a massive scale, and those of Classical
origin often developed new meanings. Doesn't that ring a bell?
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, August 25, 2002 3:54 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Sanskrit
--- In cybalist@......, Piotr
Gasiorowski <piotr.gasiorowski@......>
wrote:
> Technically, one should refer to Vedic and Classical Sanskrit
as
varieties of Old Indo-Aryan (= Old Indic), a term that covers
both).
But keep in mind that "Old" in the name is a convention. I find it
absurd to refer to, say Vetalapancavimsati, as Old IA and say,
Majjhamanikaya, as Middle IA. This is especially true when referring
to
syntax. Syntax as described by Panini is closer to Brahmana prose
than to
the (Sanskrit) dialog of available dramas.