Talk:Sanskrit

Semi-protected edit request on 21 September 2024

Remove note j and its associated reference 121. Note j is irrelevant to its sentence's meaning, and ref 121 has no other usages on the page.

The note's sentence ("...suggests that by the start of the common era, hardly anybody other than learned monks had the capacity to understand the old Prakrit languages...") refers to the "start of the common era", which was a couple millennia ago, but ethnologue.com, the website of ref 121, only documents current language status, which means the reference is irrelevant. Pali's current status says nothing about its status 2000 years ago.

(Side note: ref 121's link is broken, and the correct link for Pali (https://www.ethnologue.com/language/pli/) now lists it as "endangered" instead of "extinct", which means note j is not just irrelevant, but unsupported by its reference.) SashaBerkman (talk) 12:06, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

@SashaBerkman I removed the note. Asteramellus (talk) 12:54, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

 Done Cowboygilbert - (talk) ♥ 02:55, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Introduction

The introduction to the article on Sanskrit is nearly illegible. An introduction should be a concise synthesis -- clear, easy to understand, and memorable -- that prepares the reader for what follows and sparks curiosity to learn more.

Instead, it presents a visually cluttered and dense paragraph, difficult to read and even harder to grasp and retain.

This issue is widespread across Wikipedia. If not addressed, the encyclopedia risks being gradually supplanted by alternatives that offer a better reading experience. 2A01:CB1C:854A:D400:99CA:8F1E:4111:1742 (talk) 00:31, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

If you have suggestions, you can request suggested changes here. Asteramellus (talk) 18:40, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 October 2024

Tamil is the oldest language in the world not sanskrit 94.129.166.246 (talk) 22:54, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

This article doesn't say Sanskrit is the "oldest language in the world". --AntiDionysius (talk) 22:56, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

This article's length

user:W.andrea has brought attention to the length of the article in this notice. I tend to agree with them; it probably is too long at 14,841 words, and inching toward WP:TOOBIG.

• Among featured articles, there aren't too many languages represented (see here), but among the few there are:

• Mayan languages has on 5,724 words.
• Levantine Arabic has 6,806 words, and
• Nahuatl has 6,476 words

• In the category Good Articles: Language and literature:
• English language has 14,401 words. (So, it too is creeping up to overlong status), but
• Biblical Hebrew has 8,415 words and the others have fewer.

I will now look at the history of this article and report back. Thank you user:W.andrea Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:48, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

And here's the history. (I shall be soft pinging various editors by citing their diffs, but no comment on their edit is implied:

• On March 28, 2022, at the time of this edit by user:Dāsānudāsa, the article had 14,876 words.
• Three days before Armistice Day 2019, at the time of this edit by user:Austronesier, the article had 12,460 words
• On Halloween 2018, at the time of this edit by user:Ms Sarah Welch, the article had 12,474 words
• On the day after St Patrick's Day, 2018, the article had 4,140 words
• On April Fool's Day 2017, at the time of this edit by yours truly, the article had 3,950 words, and finally,
• On Boxing Day 2016, at the time of this edit by user:Joshua Jonathan, this article had 3,907 words.

So there seems to have been a jump in 2018. Can someone help with identifying and reducing the additions? Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:15, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Just to mention, you can see a size graph (in bytes) here on Xtools: Page statistics § Year counts. It confirms there was a jump in 2018. — W.andrea (talk) 17:58, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Much of it is related to the overblown sections §Phonology and §Morphology. We have a dedicated article Sanskrit grammar that also includes a phonology section. The two sections in this article should be trimmed to summary size, with the rest merged into the subarticle, ideally with another subarticle about Sanskrit phonology which oddly doesn't exist–with Sanskrit being the first language in the world to be described in a structuralist phonological framework millenia before Trubetzkoy. Apart from the current length issue, this is also a classical case ("aptly" so for a classical language) of unsychronized content forking.

Moving/merging the content will a formidable task. For my part, I have to pass, at least for the near future. –Austronesier (talk) 20:28, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Agree about those two sections, but note that § Writing systems is half again as large as either of them, and has a long § Epigraphy subsection (6.5kb, 1,016 words). Would be nice to summarize it, but there is currently no Sanskrit epigraphy article, but we do have Early Indian epigraphy, with some additional information at Western Satraps, some sources at Prashasti, and bits and pieces of various biographies, such as of John Faithfull Fleet, B. Lewis Rice, K. V. Ramesh, Vasudev Vishnu Mirashi et al., and sources like The Indian Antiquary, Epigraphia Indica and Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum.^[redirect] That ought to be more than enough to spin off a new article and summarize it here. Mathglot (talk) 20:52, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Would you like to bell the cat @Mathglot: or you @W.andrea:? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:31, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

What about @Joshua Jonathan, Ms Sarah Welch, and Dāsānudāsa:? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:35, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I must admit, I'm unsure as to what the problem is here. What's the issue with the article being as long as it is? Is it just a case of being too much information to digest? Or putting strain on the servers? Too long to load? My instinct is that the more detailed it is, the better! Dāsānudāsa (talk) 22:14, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I tagged it primarily because it took a long time to load. I was on a slow connection and it took something like 10 seconds, and all I wanted to know was the ISO 639 code. But also, long articles can have too much information, yeah; WP:SIZESPLIT says Large articles may have readability and technical issues. A page of about 10,000 words takes roughly 40 minutes to read at average speed, which is right on the limit of the average concentration span of 40 to 50 minutes. — W.andrea (talk) 14:53, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think we should be overly concerned about what SIZESPLIT says. It takes more than 40 minutes to read a book and people still buy books. On the flip side, studies have also shown that few people read past the lead of a Wikipedia article, and yet nobody is saying we should chop articles down to four paragraphs. I prefer the portion of the size guideline at WP:HASTE, which says:

"Sometimes an article simply needs to be big to give the subject adequate coverage"

and if Sanskrit isn't one of those subjects, then I don't know what is. I'm all for carefully splitting content to other articles per WP:Summary style—books have chapters, after all, and long chapters have sections—but I don't think we should remove good content that some serious readers might want to read simply to adhere to some idea about average reader behavior. I'm more interested in catering to the curious or passionate reader with some staying power and who can't get enough of the topic. Let the average readers drift off after 40 minutes and go do something else. Mathglot (talk) 19:31, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm less worried about the overall size too (although loading time of large articles can indeed be a pain on mobile browers when the connection is slow), but it's obvious that important pieces of information grow out of sync in multiple articles when there's no hierarchical structure of topics and subtopics. Sanskrit grammar is obviously a notable topic of its own, so anyone who wants to know the details can be guided there with a hatnote, while in this article, we can keep a short outline. And ideally in a less weirdly-written style without all those in-text attributions ("According to Ruppel", "states Jamison"). I've just noticed it now, which perfectly illustrates the point of concentration span ;) –Austronesier (talk) 19:51, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, @Mathglot:, for the insightful analysis. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:38, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Austronesier: for the in-depth suggestions. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:36, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Actually, I've started on it: see Draft:Sanskrit epigraphy. First thing I noticed, is a rather haphazard organization of the existing content, as a mix of timeline-based, and region-based content (and the former is not in chrono order). I will continue for a little bit more, then pause to let anyone jump in; will give you a sign shortly... Mathglot (talk) 21:39, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Great, Mathglot! More power to you. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:55, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Done for now, and released to Sanskrit epigraphy. Section § Epigraphy here has been summarized via excerpts, reducing total length by 14kb. The actual body text has been only very minimally changed, so there is plenty of room for improvement to it. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 04:06, 19 November 2024 (UTC)