A decade and a half ago, I thought it quite possible to read the
Script in just several weeks.
After all, I had just settled back in the UK after more than a decade
in Saudi Arabia, producing Bi-lingual reports for Saudi Telephone, The
National Port Authority, Not to mention MODA (Ministry of Defense and
Aviation - on the Aviation side) - during that time I got to the stage
where I could actually 'read' numbers which was more than what most of
the Europeans - (Austrians, Germans - no Fins) Indians - many of
them! or Americans managed! There were plenty of Egyptians Syrians
Saudi around - including the odd Iraqi at one time.
Anyway, I carefully printed and cut, every one of Wikner's Flash cards
- they are right here, right now on my desk. I began . . . an hour
later I woke up, well, I was tired. A week later (well, I was busy!)
I had another go - after about 10 minutes, I realized I had been
staring out the window, daydreaming, try again - same thing.
About a month later . . . you get the Idea.
Before that , I had an old Windows 3.5 App. It would pop up a
Devnagari letter at random and invite you to click the Latin one. They
all looked the same to me!
But I am persistent . . .
I -can- recognize the script, like a child - if they don't have too
many ligatures.
On the other hand I can (and do), delve into those hexadecimal bits
and bytes, write computer code for hours at a stretch, but please not
Devanagari!
When I can't get to sleep at night for some reason - Maurer's 'The
Sanskrit Language' does the trick in no time - really!
Romanized diacritics are no problem at all, I don't even realize they
are Sanskrit - Camel case letters are something else, like some
teenage hacker has hacked my computer!
I don't need to sing the praises of the Lord, where a miss-pronounced
syllable will earn me eternal damnation in a warm place. I am not a
member of any of the Dead Poets Appreciation Societies. In science a
clay pot is a clay pot, whatever is on the label, it won't jump up and
bite me if I pronounce it klay paurt, claiy putt or whatever.
There are many, many like myself, who don't -need- the script, but
want the text(s) in readable form.
As to Bhoja's stuff I have transliterated the complete text, parsed
it, and marked it up in .htm. After throwing it at the MW for
verification of the hyperlinks I have still a thousand or so root/stem
forms in those links to determine. But have been neglecting this side
of things to work on the computing side. To where I am able, mouse
click on a source- text word, - plain text, rtf or htm, Devanaagarii
or otherwise word, and have the dictionary present the word together
with any inflection information. The machine is immune to sleeping
sickness!
It's alright for you with dozens of case endings in your language. A
mere eight is a piffle!
