WORKSHOP OF THE SUB-FACULTY OF
INNER AND SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES
Polyglossia
Multilingualism and Language Use in
South Asia and Beyond
Friday 18 May 2012
Oriental Institute
PROGRAMME AND ABSTRACTS
It would be nice if you could join us for dinner after the workshop. We have booked a table at Al-Shami (Walton Crescent)
from 7:00pm.
Session I, 3:00-4:30pm, Lecture Room 1
TEA/COFFEE and more (ca. 4:30-5:00pm)
Elizabeth Tucker: The ‘Ahuric’ and ‘Daēvic’ vocabularies of the
Avesta and their relationship to Vedic
Session II, 5:00-6:30pm, Faculty Room
The Younger Avesta contains a striking example of diglossia, if not
polyglossia. Stated simply, there are two sets of nouns which designate
parts of the body, and two sets of verbs for moving and speaking, which
are employed on the one hand for good and on the other for evil
animate beings. The religious background to the two distinct vocabularies is early Zoroastrian dualism. However, the linguistic origins of this
limited diglossia are not well understood although a number of explanations have been proposed. My talk will discuss the contribution which
comparative evidence from Vedic can make to this question.
Péter Szántó: Registers of Sanskrit in late Tantric Buddhist texts
I wish to address the issue of various registers of Sanskrit in late
Vajrayāna texts, more specifically the yoginītantras. The cover term
'barbaric Sanskrit' has been applied to these idiosyncratic uses of the
language, but in my view even within this territory we may find
significant stylistic differences. The first part of the paper will present
some of these different registers, whereas in the second I shall present
some material concerning the question whether such usages are natural
or deliberate, and if so, what the reason behind this may have been.
Ulrike Roesler: Rgya gar skad du - "in Sanskrit"? Language use in
Indo-Tibetan encounters
The first thing that comes to mind when we think of Indo-Tibetan
interactions will usually be the enormous project of translating the
Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit into Tibetan. However, Tibetan
sources give a much more nuanced picture of translation, oral
communication, and failed dialogues not just in Sanskrit and Tibetan,
but in a much larger variety of languages. This paper will give some
examples that illustrate the varieties of languages used and the
problems encountered by the participants of this cross-Himalayan
dialogue.
Imre Bangha: Viṣṇudās and the first Hindi Rāmāyaṇa adaptation
Viṣṇudās was the first Hindi poet to produce a Ramayana that had the
strength to survive in subsequent transmission. He has received
scholarly attention as an emblematic figure at the beginning of the
Brajbhasha (and indeed Hindi) literary tradition who composed his
vernacular epic in the courtly setting of the Gwalior Tomars in 1442. I
will examine the Sanskrit-Hindi translation techniques used by the poet
and will make an attempt to posit his work within the Hindi and
Apabhramsha literary milieu of Madhyadeśa touching on the question
of the emergence of Hindi as a literary language.
Christopher Minkowski: Sanskrit and Persian, 1350-1750
Persian was the language of the late medieval and early modern state
based in Delhi. There were a series of exchanges between experts in the
knowledge systems communicated in Sanskrit and those communicated
in Persian, some sponsored at the imperial court, others in other
settings. Some experts developed skills in both scientific worlds. A
literature of translation and mutual description was produced that
supported this encounter.
David Taylor: When sacred languages collide: Syriac and Latin in
conflict on the Malabar coast, 16th - 18th centuries
Christianity spread to South India within a few centuries of its
beginnings, and for over a thousand years its local sacred language was
Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic. The arrival of Portuguese Catholic
missionaries in the sixteenth century led to a fierce battle for dominance
between two rival sacred languages, Syriac and Latin, which were also
the vehicles for competing Christian traditions and beliefs. This paper
will outline the development and outcome of this linguistic struggle.