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Comment by r0h1n | Hacker News Reader

There's nearly an infinite amount of knowledge in the world. And each of us has a finite amount of time. Why not is not an answer.

Of what use is Sanskrit to anyone who learns it?

P.S. I say this as a person who was forced to study Sanskrit in school for three years.

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>>>>>>>Why would someone, Indian or not, want to learn Sanskrit online?

>>>>>>>>There's nearly an infinite amount of knowledge in the world. And each of us has a finite amount of time. Why not is not an answer.

You can apply that flawed reasoning to pretty much everything. It would've been a perfectly valid question if you had said "Why would I want to learn Sanskrit?". Please don't universalize your opinion by saying things like why would anyone want to learn Sanskrit online or offline.

I maintain that very few people have a reason to learn Sanskrit. It is a dead/dying language that will add zero value besides the esoteric joy of knowing a language for the sake of knowing it.

If you feel that is not the case, please elucidate your reasons. I'll be happy to be proven wrong.

And very few people have reason to learn LISP or programming languages, for that matter. (If we are generalizing, we might as well go the full length and include the entire world population)

You seem to be mistaken that folks would learn a language for just the sake of knowing it. Far from it. Language is just a tool for communication of ideas. There have been some brilliant treatises, thoughts, ideas, and philosophies expressed in Sanskrit. Folks are more interested in accessing the thoughts and works in Sanskrit as opposed being infatuated with the technical aspects of the language.

As someone whose comparative religion BA was mostly spent comparing flavors of Indian religions, it was very helpful to have a basic understanding of Sanskrit. I don't "use" it now, but knowing it during the research phase of my life sure made the learning process smoother.

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