Sanskrit or Yiddish? What should I learn?
November 6, 2020 4:58 PM Subscribe
I love learning languages in order to be able to read literature in the original. My local university offers language classes via Zoom at the moment and I’m torn between Yiddish and Sanskrit (these are the only two languages I can actually fit into my schedule). Plus we’ve just gone into lockdown #2 in Europe so I thought might be fun to learn something new.
A quick linguistic background: I know the Devanagari script and have decent knowledge of Hindi and have, in the past, enjoyed reading whatever little Sanskrit literature I’ve read in translation (like the 11th century writer Kashmiri writer Kshmendra’s satires).
As for Yiddish, I am a low intermediate level in Hebrew and studied German for two years a decade ago. I haven’t read much Yiddish literature except for Sholem Aleichem and I.L Peretz but I’d love to explore more.
Any suggestions would be welcome!
A quick linguistic background: I know the Devanagari script and have decent knowledge of Hindi and have, in the past, enjoyed reading whatever little Sanskrit literature I’ve read in translation (like the 11th century writer Kashmiri writer Kshmendra’s satires).
As for Yiddish, I am a low intermediate level in Hebrew and studied German for two years a decade ago. I haven’t read much Yiddish literature except for Sholem Aleichem and I.L Peretz but I’d love to explore more.
Any suggestions would be welcome!
Best answer: I've studied some Sanskrit. Knowing Hindi, you have a huge advantage. FWIW (and you probably know this), that will help you a lot with lexicon and not too much with morphology. Sanskrit morphology is huge, and that's before you get to sandhi.
Lots of great things to read though... something for every taste. Poetry, plays (e.g. Kalidasa's), manuals on all sorts of subjects, mathematics, the best premodern grammar in the world (Panini), religious works, and the epics.
posted by zompist at 11:33 PM on November 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
Lots of great things to read though... something for every taste. Poetry, plays (e.g. Kalidasa's), manuals on all sorts of subjects, mathematics, the best premodern grammar in the world (Panini), religious works, and the epics.
posted by zompist at 11:33 PM on November 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Don't know if this speaks to you but with Yiddish you've also got some modern music and there are Yiddish-language theater groups operating today (and a tiny number of Yiddish-language movies and TV shows). Plus a living population of Yiddish speakers.
Yiddish and Sanskrit literature represent different historical periods and cultural contexts, so is there one that feels more potentially informative or interesting to you?
You might get in touch with the university to see what the expected enrollment is for each class. If enrollment in one of them is lower it might get cancelled (so you joining could prevent that), and if enrollment in one is very high you might get less personal practice time. Are both also offered at advanced levels, and are both likely to be offered in future years?
The Yiddish class is likely to focus in part on conversation and modern situations, whereas I'm guessing the Sanskrit class would focus much more on reading comprehension and give you bits of old texts to learn from, which might more directly serve your purposes. You could also ask the teachers what textbook or methods they use to see if you have a preference there.
posted by trig at 1:24 AM on November 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
Yiddish and Sanskrit literature represent different historical periods and cultural contexts, so is there one that feels more potentially informative or interesting to you?
You might get in touch with the university to see what the expected enrollment is for each class. If enrollment in one of them is lower it might get cancelled (so you joining could prevent that), and if enrollment in one is very high you might get less personal practice time. Are both also offered at advanced levels, and are both likely to be offered in future years?
The Yiddish class is likely to focus in part on conversation and modern situations, whereas I'm guessing the Sanskrit class would focus much more on reading comprehension and give you bits of old texts to learn from, which might more directly serve your purposes. You could also ask the teachers what textbook or methods they use to see if you have a preference there.
posted by trig at 1:24 AM on November 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
Best answer: There are for sure lots of reasons to study sanskrit: including that it's gateway to at least a few major religious traditions (I'm thinking Hinduism -- or what we in the West call 'Hinduism' -- and Buddhism -- though the earliest Buddhist texts are written in the related Pali language) and that there is by all accounts terrific literature especially poetry written in Sanskrit. From the few Sanskrit texts I've read in translation I get the impression quite a lot is lost and confused in the process, so having Sanskrit would be just stellar if you plan to immerse yourself in its literature.
The flowering of Yiddish literature was cut short in a well-known horrific way relatively quickly after it began. So there won't be as much to read as in Sanskrit. But -- or maybe therefore -- learning Yiddish would give you a sort of thing Sanskrit can't, which is to be a participant in the effort to keep a threatened language alive, and thereby extend Yiddish culture into the future as a living proposition. (I personally find such efforts emotionally and intellectually exciting and have been studying Welsh partially because it is a language in active revival.)
Best of luck whichever way you go!
posted by bertran at 2:09 AM on November 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
The flowering of Yiddish literature was cut short in a well-known horrific way relatively quickly after it began. So there won't be as much to read as in Sanskrit. But -- or maybe therefore -- learning Yiddish would give you a sort of thing Sanskrit can't, which is to be a participant in the effort to keep a threatened language alive, and thereby extend Yiddish culture into the future as a living proposition. (I personally find such efforts emotionally and intellectually exciting and have been studying Welsh partially because it is a language in active revival.)
Best of luck whichever way you go!
posted by bertran at 2:09 AM on November 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
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