Request for Sanskrit language course

[Drogon3106]

Sanskrit, a holy and ancient language, has many present day uses:

1. Programming language basis: The influence of Sanskrit on linguistics, particularly its grammatical structure, has led to discussions on its potential relevance in designing efficient programming languages. It is also argued that studying Sanskrit can enhance logical thinking and linguistic skills, which could indirectly benefit programming.

2. Academic and Research Purposes: Scholars and researchers study Sanskrit to explore ancient texts, philosophy, linguistics, and classical literature. It provides insights into India's cultural and intellectual history.

3. Ayurveda and Yoga: Many foundational texts of Ayurveda (traditional Indian medicine) and Yoga are written in Sanskrit. Knowledge of Sanskrit can deepen understanding in these fields.

4. Cultural Preservation: Sanskrit is integral to preserving India's cultural identity. Efforts are made to document, teach, and promote Sanskrit to ensure its continued existence.

5. Mantras and Chants: Sanskrit mantras and chants are used in meditation, yoga, and spiritual practices worldwide. The resonance and phonetics of Sanskrit are believed to have positive effects on the mind.

6. Liturgical Language: Sanskrit is still used as a liturgical language in various Hindu rituals, ceremonies, and religious chants.

While not a widely spoken language in everyday communication, Sanskrit's influence persists in various domains, reflecting its enduring cultural and historical significance. Your course on Latin is as celebrated as your actions on implementing this language would be, with relevance in many Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist countries and diaspora.

[gmads]

Sanskrit, a holy and ancient language, has many present day uses:

1. Programming language basis: The influence of Sanskrit on linguistics, particularly its grammatical structure, has led to discussions on its potential relevance in designing efficient programming languages. It is also argued that studying Sanskrit can enhance logical thinking and linguistic skills, which could indirectly benefit programming.

What has one thing to do with the other?

Sanskrit is a natural language used for communicating verbally or in written form.

Programing languages (e.g. LISP, FORTRAN, Java, PHP) are artificial languages that use keywords written in a natural language, like English, for example: { goto, for, next }, but that is only coincidental. One would only need to rewrite the compiler for them (the keywords or commands) to be written in whatever natural language one would desire (e.g. Sanskrit, German, Russian). This, however, would not mean that one is then programming in that natural language! One programms in Assembler, not in English; in Prolog, not in English; in Python, not in English…

The grammatical structure of a natural language has naturally developed to fulfill the role of communicating between persons, never to express logical and structured thinking, a role best fulfilled by artificial languages. That is exactly the reason there are so many and varied programming languages, because each one was designed with a specific goal in mind. For example, FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslation) was developed to solve scientific problems; COBOL (Commom Business-Oriented Language), was designed for administrative and business problems; BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), for very simple programs; LISP (LISt Processing), to calculate with symbolic expressions; C++ for object oriented programming, and so on (and let's not get into esoteric languages like Brainf__k ).

Since we are talking about apples and oranges, there's no "potential relevance in designing efficient programming languages" by using one natural language over another because they are only used to label commands, keywords, identifiers, programming structures, etc. What "advantage" would be gained by writing the following brief code in Spanish, Sanskrit or any other natural language?

print 'Enter your name'
input name
for i = 1 to 3
print 'Hello '; name
next i
end

None.

Regarding the "It is also argued that studying Sanskrit can enhance logical thinking and linguistic skills, which could indirectly benefit programming," I'd say: 1) whoever argues that doesn't seem to be very knowledgeable about programming languages; and, 2) it would be best to teach whatever needs to be taught to directly improve programming skills, like logic, structured thinking, problem solving, etc, not a natural language.

[fremanolas]

Your course on Latin is as celebrated as your actions on implementing this language would be, with relevance in many Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist countries and diaspora.

Please be aware that Duome does not belong to Duolingo. Nobody on this forum has any influence on Duolingo's plans for future courses.

[Vincent723412+]

Please make Sanskrit on Duolingo

[Sanskrit4Duolingo]

WE NEED SANSKRIT ON DUOLINGO!!! I AM PASSIONIATE ABOUT LEARNING THE LANGUAGE FOR MY STUDY OF RELIGION CLASS!!! PUT IT ON THERE NOW !!!!!!!!

I LOVE SANSKRIT!

[Thomas.Heiss]

You can save your many exclamation marks for yourself.
There's no need to write this with caps lock permanently turned on either.
Why did you create a dedicated account only to post this?

There's not anybody from DL staff here on the Duome community forum to read your request!
Are you sure that you've already reached the minimum sign up age to join this Duome community forum?

FYI: The volunteer contributor program has ended a longer time ago.
Nobody is working on new languages as this would cost money to hire linguistics/contractors.

DL staff is only focusing their efforts on 8+1 main languages.
And now they've announced on Reddit to break the older EN/ES/FR courses (previous manual work done by employees/contractors, available tips) which are already based on CEFR but have not yet been integrated into their newer AI platform.
New rollouts are already happening (A/B tests, more user accounts are switched over).
This is where all the man power goes into.

I'll repeat: Nobody will be working on new languages if this won't generate a lot of income and higher usage of the app (many ACTIVE users).

[Thomas.Heiss]

Sounds like I'm talking to an Indian user

Try this on the /r/Duolingo Reddit channel and see if you get banned or not or if your post gets flagged (very likely) or removed.

PUT IT ON THERE NOW !!!!!!!!

A Google query says that Sanskrit, like Latin, is now largely a "dead" language:
https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Sanskrit

25,000 speakers/readers (in 2011) doesn't sound that much.

I'm amazed how many millions of Duolingo users are studying Hindi (the number may not be accurate anymore as it wasn't updated and only counted ACTIVE users who at least did 1-n lessons in one year); that was several years ago.

Maybe it would make more sense to introduce a short Sanskrit course on another platform for one of the main Indian languages?!

It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to roll out such of a course worldwide (incl. Europe).

Try to find Anki decks, Memrise user-created courses, other websites...