Richard, It appears that Texas has many talented people, including George W. who has a hidden talent for painting dogs. As far as learning languages are concerned, are you studying these languages on your own or do you have teachers to help you?
JR --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Richard J. Williams" <richard@...> wrote: > > > > > > > Habemus Papam! > > > > > > > Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, ut aliquip ex ea commodo > > > consequat... > > > > John jr_esq: > > We're impressed with your Latin. But what does it say? > > > Thanks, John - Latin, like Sanskrit, is a dead language. > > Currently I am learning not only Latin, but Spanish, French, > Japanese, Sanskrit, Hindi, Tibetan, and Urdu. > > FYI: > > In fact, Sanskrit has never been the spoken language of > any people, anywhere. > > There are no bija mantras mentioned in Rig Veda, and no > bija mantras are found in any Vedic Literature. > > There is a lot of information about Sanskrit coming out > of Texas lately, some of it is true and some of it is > just plain misleading. > > However, in reality, there are not that many ordinary > folks around here who can read Sanskrit or understand it, > much less recite the nicknames of all the devas in a > foreign tongue! > > We depend on hearsay for most of our information, usually > overhearing phrases at camp-meets. A few bhogis like to > read newsgroups on the Internet and post by day, but many > of us adepts do not even like to use overseas languages > for communication among ourselves, preferring instead our > own native Tex-Mex dialect, called Lingo, which is ideally > suited to household life. > > However, a lot of folks around here are bi-lingual to a > certain degree. In fact, San Antonio has been described > as one of the most diverse ethnic cities in the U.S. I > guess that is why they call that amusement park 'Six Flags > Over Texas'. LoL! > > Anyway, we local yokels aproppriate our phrases from Yaqui, > Spanish, English, German, and French words. In addition, > we make use of a lot of place names that we ripped off > from the native indigenous population, such as Pontiac, > Taos, and Milwaukee. > > This notwithstanding, there has been an increased interest > in Oriental vernaculars, such as Hindi and Tibetan, due to > an influx of tourists, immigrants, and International > students. > > The resident Swami here is said to be able to speak five > languages, including fluent English and Urdu. The Swami, > who recently gave a speech in Hindi, has an interesting > habit of omitting certain dipthongs when using Sanskrit > words, e.g. Yog for Yoga, etc. > > In addition, there has been an increased interest in > learning Sanskrit on this very newsgroup. One informant, > sometimes posting under the handle 'Chief Shitting Bull', > claims to have a special apprenticeship with a certain > 'Mullquist', who is reputed to be somewhat of a linguist > somewhere up in Nokialand. > > Apparently, the language called Sanskrit was not spoken > by the Vedic population of ancient India, being a dead > language akin to Latin, and used solely for oral liturgical > purposes by priests during the Homa ceremony. > > Written Sanskrit was invented later by Panini, who lived > long after the Vedas were first recited by the ancient > rishis and sages. It is a fact, that the first known > written vernacular in India is from the pillar of King > Ashoka at Sarnath, and it is not written in Sanskrit. >
