2020-10-14

Languages of India

I sometimes study languages of India (Bhārat).  My primal encounter was with Sanskrit in the mid-1990's.  I was interested in Northern Buddhism, as well as Hinduism.  Sanskrit is a liturgical language for both religions.  I remember the Seattle area, because returning from Japan, I purchased a Sanskrit study book in a bookstore there in 1994.  Back in Canada, I encountered Pali, the liturgical language of Southern Buddhism.  It was a Thai Buddhist temple, Wat Yanviriya, in East Vancouver, BC.  We meditators learned chanting in Pali.  Back in Lulu Island, BC, after 2006, I briefly looked at Hindi and Punjabi.  I like the Tamil script, and unlike the rest that I have mentioned, Tamil is not Indo-European, but Dravidian, the family of Veddoid Australoids originally, perhaps.  Outside of Bhārat, Tamil is popular in Singapore.  Tamil people eat with their hands on banana leaves.

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