Re: [Samskrita] Sanskrit as official language in US schools

[अभ्यंकरकुलोत्पन्नः श्रीपादः]

Namaste Chitsukha-mahodaya  !

Recognition of a language in schools is an issue, which has practical considerations, especially of availability of teachers with appropriate qualifications and also of adequate interest among students.

सस्नेहम्
अभ्यंकरकुलोत्पन्नः श्रीपादः ।
"श्रीपतेः पदयुगं स्मरणीयम् ।"

[Shreyas P. Munshi]

As far as I know the United States public schooling system does not list Sanskrit (or Hindi) as an official language of study unlike Latin or Chinese. Can the learned members of this group throw some light if there is any way Sanskrit can be introduced into the schooling system

Whle this is worth thinking over, the urgent need is to prevent the departments of Sanskrit in our own Univerities from virtually closing down.

...Shreyas


On Tue, 19 Mar 2013 21:42:50 +0530 wrote
>Namaste!

As far as I know the United States public schooling system does not list Sanskrit (or Hindi) as an official language of study unlike Latin or Chinese. Canthe learned members of this group throw some light if there is any way Sanskrit can be introduced into the schooling system ?

I do not see the reasonhowSanskritis different from Latin for not being an official language.

Regards
Chitsukha



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[kamalesh pathak]

one more reason should not be missed by us , as under.

western countries and u.s .are aimed to mostly professional and less to cultural. it is established fact that chinese economy is a powerful over the globe and indian economy is far behind. this could a prime reason for learning chinese language in u.s. school.

regards,

kamalesh pathak

--
Kamlesh Pathak

[Shreekrishna]

NamassarvEbhyaH,

 

As mentioned by Sri Subhash, there is an effort by Samskrita Bharati USA to bring in Sanskrit into curriculum in US schools. In my brief involvement till date with SAFL (Sanskrit as Foreign Language), I find that many students are very sharp at grasping Sanskrit, thanks to their interest in Math (I guess). There is great interest in attending various camps organized as a part of their curriculum. The response is welcoming! However, I guess that most students currently are of Indian origin (Kids born to Indian parents in the USA).

 

That said, I agree with Sri Shreyas in that, there is a great need to prevent Sanskrit from vanishing from our Indian universities. It finally comes down to incentivizing Sanskrit education. In an era where a BE in Comp. Sci from any engineering college lands one in a reasonably well-paid job, a motivating factor needs to be created for people to prefer alternate careers such as Sanskrit. It is easier said than done, yes.

 

Regards,

Shreekrishna

On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 11:16 AM, Subhash <subh...@gmail.com> wrote:

There is the following effort underway.

 

http://www.samskritabharatiusa.org/index.php/en/safl-overview

 

 

 

- Subhash.

On Wednesday, March 20, 2013 12:03:45 AM UTC-4, Arvind_Kolhatkar wrote:

It is not difficult to understand why Latin and Chinese have the status of languages of study in the US school system.  (I do not know how many students actually use that facility.  I would say not many!)

.

Latin is the acknowledged classical language for all groups who speak European languages - just as Sanskrit in India is for those groups who speak Indian languages.  Hence the status that Latin enjoys in the USA, its main language being English.

For the Chinese, the cause has to be seen in the history of Chinese immigration to the US.  Immigration from China to the US started in the early 19th century, the first immigrants being coolies, brought to work on the railroads that were extended from the East to the West.  The Chinese also did many other types of labor, menial or low-paid jobs, such as laundry.  We all have seen Chinese laundrymen in old Western movies.  I remember that 2002 movie 'Gangs of New York' starring Daniel Day-Lewis (of 'Lincoln' and 'There Will Be Blood' fame) had in it a Chinese Gang along with an Irish Gang.  All major American cities from the East to the West Coast had large China-towns going back to the 19th century.  For more on this, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chinese_Americans

Indian immigration to the US has no such history.  Real immigration from India to the US started just over 50 years ago, when, under Kennedy, the Immigration Laws were eased to allow Asians to immigrate to the US.

On this historical background, it is not difficult to understand why Latin and Chinese have a higher visibility in the US as compared to Sanskrit and other Indian languages.

Yet, those who think that introducing Sanskrit as an official language in the US school system is a worthwhile dream to follow, may continue their efforts.

Arvind Kolhatkar, Toronto, March 20, 2013.

[Greycell Physicists]

Namastey,
Understanding others mindset is the best way to focus on these targeted interventions
These are excellent presentations please watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpwPqK6RUGE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMf0Mau2TzE

Regards

On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 8:23 PM, Chitsukha <san...@gmail.com> wrote:

I deeply appreciate all the responses to my question.

 

The efforts underway to make Sanskrit an official languange in US is commendable and my best wishes for its early success. I think using internet technologies would be the best way to teach Sanskrit owing to the lack of teachers available for the schools. It will also be an encouragement to the existing Sanskrit scholars located in various parts of the world in making them feel needed.

 

Thanks to Prof.Sri.Kohlatkar's insights and encouragement to follow this dream.

 

Namaste!

Chitsukha

[Shreekrishna]

SrIharayE namaH

Dear Sri chitsukha,

I can't agree more regarding the need for wealthy businesses to support Sanskrit. I hope someone, somewhere takes note of this need. There are indeed numerous academic organizations which exist to support and sustain Sanskrit, but there is a need for a fitting response and turnout from intelligentsia as well, which will only arise is they see light at the end of the tunnel. As a 17 year old, I recollect engineering being an obvious choice for me, because the society around me had imprinted a "lack-of-livelihood"ness if anything other than medicine or engineering was pursued as a career choice. The fear of the society, again, is not a bit unfounded. It surely is a chicken and egg problem, but someone needs to pull a chicken out of thin air and then the egg will follow.

As you have rightly remarked, humanities education is little to non-existent in India, especially at the undergraduate level for non-humanities majors. There are indeed efforts from some corners, but very feebly at that. In most IITs, it is required to earn 4 humanities courses enroute to a B.Tech degree. But what I found verily bothersome, is that while their humanities departments offer German, French and English, there is no course offered in Sanskrit! When the creme de la creme of undergrad institutions take no steps, I do not see wherewithal coming forth in other institutions. I see part of the blame resting with MHRD who may fear introducing Sanskrit as a mainstream curriculum at all levels, fear accusations of sectarianism from various anti-Hindu groups.

Regarding the scenario in the USA, I think steps are being taken in the right direction certainly. We are far from it being introduced as a mainstream foreign language in school curriculum across the nation, but there has been positive interest that has been demonstrated in some major metros such as Boston, Washington DC metros, Seattle, SF Bay Area, to name a few. Hopefully, the fragrance of the language will spread quickly and other metros will catch up.

Regards,
Shreekrishna.

On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 12:38 PM, Chitsukha <san...@gmail.com> wrote:

Sri Shreekrishna,

Thanks for your post on this.

 

It will be easier to enrol and thus become more popular among school students if Sanskrit language is offered by the public school system.

 

More non-Indian-origin students would enrol for various reasons all of which me may not know now. For example, I know several Indian and non-Indian origin kids enrolled in Latin for 2 reasons, one of them is they think they can become better at medical terminology by learning Latin as medical terms originate from Latin. For others it is simple fascination due to something they found attractive in the language. For students of Indian origin, most would have heard about the greatness of Sanskrit and exposed to it  somewhere or the other and want to learn it.

 

As regards Sanskrit vanishing from Indian universities, Indian govt., private funding agencies and wealthy businesses have to play a part in rescuing it.  One of the practical reasons I think, for Sanskrit to vanish in Universities is the lack of sufficient number of interested students. Other is the education system in India is not too conducive compared to the US.

 

Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan is a Govt, agency I know of that has a clear curriculum for Sanskrit study from undergraduate to post-doctoral and above at many places in India They provide stipends/scholarships for students which is a motivation especially for economically challenged ones. Other motivations can be job prospects and attractive professions/diverse and interdisciplinary applications that can find use of the knowledge of Sanskrit as you mention. This cannot be revived without efforts from dedicated individuals and wealthy organisations though. For example, some members from the Computer science Dept. of IIT Kanpur have been involved in Sanskrit in a big way, especialy Prof.Vineet Chaitanya and Prof.Rajiv Sangal in relation to natural language processing (NLP) in Artificial Intelligence. There were also related conferences held - e.g. Knowledge Representation and Inference in Samskritam (thought initiated by writings of Prof.Rick Briggs which was referred in an earlier topic in this group). In a similar way Sanskrit scholars have to reach out to other disciplines to explore the applications.

 

Comparing to the US education system, humanities subjects of which Language is a part for example is mandatory for all majors e.g. engineering/medicine/sciences and arts.. Students have to study about 10% of humanities subjects to graduate and students can choose which humanities subject they want to study. This keeps the humanities and languages subjects alive at and after undergraduate level and keeps the demand for teachers fairly consistent. In addition scholarships from rich private individuals and humanities organisations are available for higher studies.

 

Regards

Chitsukha

[Shreekrishna]

Dear Sri Subhash,

 

This is good information. When I studied at IIT Madras, there wasn't any course in Sanskrit. Apologies from my end for not being current about this information. I am not sure if all the IITs have a Sanskrit faculty. A quick search of IIT Madras's Humanities and Social Sciences department showed no Sanskrit faculty there. I'm guessing that this is the case with most IITs, NITs and the like. Unless this becomes a norm, there is little hope to emulate it in other colleges.

 

Regards,

Shreekrishna.

On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 11:11 AM, Subhash <subh...@gmail.com> wrote:

I've reached out to Shri Malhar Kularni @ IIT Mumbai,

and the following is his reply w.r.t Sanskrit being offered at IIT


At IITB, we teach elective courses in the 4th year of the B.Tech
programme. We also teach courses at M.Tech level. We also have a Ph.D.
programme in place. We also interact with other departments in IITB, like
the Computer Science Department, in various projects, like in the field of
Natural Language Processing.

 

- Subhash.

 

 

On Tuesday, March 19, 2013 11:50:47 AM UTC-4, Chitsukha wrote:

Namaste!

 

As far as I know the United States public schooling system does not list Sanskrit (or Hindi) as an official language of study unlike Latin or Chinese. Can the learned members of this group throw some light if there is any way Sanskrit can be introduced into the schooling system ?

 

I do not see the reason how Sanskrit is different from Latin for not being an official language.

 

Regards

Chitsukha

--

[Ramakrishnan D]

 Dear Shreekrishna,

Namaste.   Do you not feel it necessary for the people in India to know the most advanced and oldest language of the country which contains the essence of life for all the human beings irrespective of their caste creed religion and all that depriving the children of this Nation i.e., Bharat.   The MHRD is of course not whole-heartedly supporting the language for fear of secularism and losing support from certain sections of the society.   In that respect foreign countiries like USA, Britain, Germany etc, they encourage Samskrit to be taught at the earlier stages of schooling.

Regards.

D.Ramakrishnan.

[Sai Susarla]

Convincing non-indians to start sanskrit seems an easier task than making Indians do it. We ourselves raise objections to our own causes.
Mera Bharat mahaan.
- Sai.

[Shreekrishna]

Ramakrishna-mahOdaya, abhivAdayE,

Absolutely. It is extremely important for people in India to preserve, learn, foster, cherish and use Samskritam. samskritEna vinA kutaH samskrRutiH! The political factions in India have ensured that while Urdu universities flourish and receive support, centers of Sanskrit Education have been disbanded altogether. It is furthermore depressing that few technical universities support Samskritam and vEdAntic research as a humanities discipline, while European languages and courses are offered. I have little to no hopes in MHRD offering any kind of direction or assistance to revive Samskritam to its rightful status amongst Indian and World languages.

A revolution in such a situation is possible only if the country (at least the Hindu section of the country) takes a pledge at large, to invest time and effort into learning, using and preserving Sanskrit. May Goddess Saraswati bless us all with the sadbuddhi and sadvidyA to enable such a revolution.

Namaste,
Shreekrishna.

[Morgan Morrison]

As the Sanskrit language has been a great influence upon India's and the rest of South Asian civilizations for untold centuries, so it is that the Latin language, the language of the Roman Empire, has greatly influenced most aspects of Western European and North American culture(s) and civilization. One finds Latin inscriptions on public buildings, Roman numerals used in films and in print, Roman Catholic religious services being celebrated in Latin on some occasions, as well as some universities, e.g. Yale University and Harvard University in the U.S. and both Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the U.K., printing their diplomas and degrees in Latin, among many other European and North American higher education institutions. The Latin language and Roman civilization have permeated Western European and North American civilizations for centuries, as has Sanskrit permeated the many civilizations and cultures of India for thousands of years. Because the Latin language is the classical language most associated with European and North American civilizations and institutions, this reason might account for the fact that a knowledge of the Latin language is an essential foundational element of Occidental education and why Latin is still taught in a great number of public and private (independent) schools in North American to this day. A distant second classical language to Latin is classical Greek, which began to disappear from American schools as early as 1910, if classical Greek was ever taught in American schools at all. While Latin is important for the legal professional and for ecclesiastical purposes in the United States, among other uses and elsewhere in North America, a good working knowledge of classical Greek is very helpful for students aspiring to become physicians, since most of the medical terminology is based upon classical Greek, rather than Latin root words. At the present time, the study of Sanskrit is relegated to a relatively few institutions of higher education in the United States and is rarely taught as a secondary school subject in the United States, for better or for worse, I must report. The study of classical Latin and Greek is declining in the United States, so this shrinking of interest in classical languages studies among potential students of classical languages, has reduced the numbers of potential Sanskrit students even more drastically, such that those students interested in Sanskrit usually have to begin their formal studies of Sanskrit at the university level in the United States. 

On a brighter note, there have been many extra-academic organizations that have begun teaching Sanskrit in informal camp settings and other like-minded organizations, which are engaged in the wider dissemination of Sanskrit in North America and elsewhere. Among Indians living in the United States, these efforts have instilled an appreciation of Sanskrit in Indians, residing outside of India, who have been exposed to the very strong forces of acculturation of Western and American culture(s). There also have been a number of mobile "apps" that have been recently developed to teach one how to read and write the Devanagari script in which Sanskrit (as well as some other modern Indian languages) is written, to assist students in reading, speaking and writing Sanskrit, together with a host of other special purpose Sanskrit acquisition "apps" for both mobile "smart" phones and tablet computers. Hopefully, these technologies will make more students aware of the values of the study of Sanskrit and will engender a higher degree of self-study of Sanskrit within the wider community of both students and lifetime learners in the United States and elsewhere, as well.  

The acquisition of modern language proficiency in modern languages by English speaking students, such as Chinese, is done for entirely different reasons. A working knowledge of a modern language, e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Spanish, for example, facilitates communications between speakers of different modern languages, as well as economic activities and commerce between nations. The practical values of such proficiency in modern languages is not lost upon American students, since many of them will either be traveling to or engaging in other cultural exchanges, say, with China and doing so in Chinese. Classical languages, as a rule, such as Greek, Latin and Sanskrit, provide an appreciation and understanding of one's entire civilization and cultural evolution of centuries and millennia, in the case of Sanskrit, while the acquisition of proficiency in a modern language enables a student to communicate to a speaker of a modern language that an English speaking student has studied and provides the English speaking student with some degree of exposure and appreciation of the literature, arts and culture of the modern language that they have studied, usually depending upon how long a student has studied a modern language — the more time for study and communication in the modern language, the better, as a general rule. There have also been a large number of computer and mobile device based technologies that also have made the study of a modern language much more appealing, while reduced the usual drudgery, associated with the acquisition of a modern language to a more manageable set of relatively pleasant, interactive tasks. These language acquisition technologies also capitalize upon the many different learning styles of today's students, making the use of these technologies on mobile devices and computers much more friendly and much more accessible to the modern language learner. Modern language acquisition is propelled by a different set of needs and motivations than those for the study of a classical language, as well as a considerably larger number of modern language learning resources. 

If some of these language acquisition technologies can be adapted for the study of Sanskrit, Sanskrit language study may flourish to a greater degree than it does now in the United States. If not, Sanskrit may simply "fade to black" in the coming decades, as the 21st Century continues to rumble along, accompanied by change and social restructuring, having a magnitude hitherto not seen upon this planet in its very long history.

Geoffrey M. Morrison

Research Professor

Sanskrit Studies Foundation

U.S.A.

[murthy]

Adverting to Prof.Morrison's notings on Latin, even Newton found it necessary to write his "Principia" in Latin as that was the only pan-european language understood by the scholarly. Even in India, Sanskrit played a similar part.

Regards

Murthy

[dileep...@gmail.com]

Hoping to put an end to all such thoughts that Samskrit is not very much being taught in India, we have founded an NGO Cultural India Foundation in Bangalore, Karnataka, India and have implemented "Akshara Dyuti", a Samskrit Learning programme in regular schools from Std 1 to Std 9 across State, ICSE, CBSE schools in Karnataka. Being in the 2nd year, we have been able to get support of several schools in around 21 districts in Karnataka and currently 101 schools are teaching Samskrit for around 22,500 students.

With the encouragement so far, we hope to see Samskrit being learnt by every young student in Karnataka and soon in India !

Interested may visit www.culturalindia.org

Regards,

Dileep Bellave

[nitish chandra]

I don't know about other IITs but IIT Bombay has sanskrit professors

[विश्वासो वासुकिजः]

बहुसन्तोषाय इदम्। सान्-फ़्रान्सिस्को नगरेऽपि संस्कृतशालाप्रारम्भे प्रस्तावः (link योजितम्) कृतः - नैके ईषदासक्तास् सन्तोऽपि न बहुप्रगतिः। संप्रति home schooling द्वारा आबाल्यं संस्कृतबोधनं‌ भवेद् वा इति चिन्त्यते।

[Chitsukha]

I think this is a highly commendable effort. My heartiest congratulations on the achievements and best wishes for its continuation and expansion.

 

regards

Chitsukha

[Chitsukha]

Sorry I had completely missed this post earlier. Appreciate the efforts for the posting. My humble thought still is there has not been sufficient "marketing" efforts to make Sanskrit be known and appreciated by more countries/people to be made as an official language. Not that the language is less richer than Latin, has lesser number of inscriptions on walls than Latin, not that fewer number of people aware of its existence or is less modern than Latin. Marketing and lobbying seem to be the "languages" that reach more people. I also dont believe Chinese became popular, official and modern language on its own without focussed efforts. Hindi is also modern, spoken by many and India (whose main official language is Hindi) is hosting larger number of foreigners than before. I do agree that new technologies will make the learning Sanskrit easier.

 

regards

Chitsukha 

[विश्वासो वासुकिजः]

Website not working..

[Rohini Bakshi]

I have shared the link http://www.culturalindia.org/data/aboutus.asp on Twitter with my followers. All the best for this excellent initiative.

Best regards, rohini

[Vasudeva Kamath]

Namaste,

Foreign language course offering in US public schools is decided by School Districts. I understand a few school districts have recognized the SAFL (Samskrit as a foreign language) Course conducted by Samskrita Bharati USA.  One school district in the San Francisco Bay Area has Panjabi as a foreign language course offered in their high school. We need to continue the efforts to include Samskrit (or at least recognize Samkrita Bharati USA’s SAFL program) in as many US school districts as possible.

Best regards,

Vasudeva Kamath
Fremont, California 

"A drop of practice is better than oceans of theories, advices and good resolutions."
--Sri Aurobindo

Interested may visit http://www.culturalindia.org/

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