I imagine people like you breezing through life maximizing some objective function, never waiting to admire poetry or relish a moment, only to die at the end. Hyper-practical no-nonsense men questioning the value of everything for everyone. (The funny thing is Sanskrit is incredibly practical for lots of reasons.)
>>Sanskrit is incredibly practical for lots of reasons.
Well forget Sanskrit for just one minute. The utility of any language in the modern world today, apart from day-to-day conversation(Which happens only because that's the only language accessible to kids at birth through their parents) by and large depends on what scientific, economic, art and other kind of growth happens in that language.
Nearly all Indian languages lack vocabulary for most common objects. We don't have words for mobile phones, cars, buses, microwave ovens etc.. the list is endless. By and large any Indian language today looks like English words connected through that language's grammar.
Nearly all Indian languages are practically useless for any kind of serious work. You can't do any scientific work in it, no serious text books on any topic are ever written in it, You can't use these languages to get any kind of serious work done. In short these language only work for local communication with the help of English vocabulary added to local language.
I'd completely missed this one. Now that I think of it, my day to day Hindi and Marathi derive heavily from Western vocabulary - in cases even when there is a word for a concept/object we prefer to use the more popular Western words. e.g., no one says संगणक - they stick to "Computer".
(1) You are defusing a bomb, but the wires are tucked behind a casing on which there is a label written in Sanskrit and underlined in red. With only 2 minutes left before the bomb explodes, don't you wish you started the language earlier?
(2) Women love Sanskrit.
(3) You have a dream one day that seems more real than real. In it, you are standing in a desert and are approached by a man who seems intensely familiar. With a shock, you realize this is a flashback from a past life. And you know you would have something incredible to tell yourself... if only both of you spoke Sanskrit.
(4) Academic research.
(5) On a business trip to China, a question emerges about the etymological origins of certain Chinese characters, and whether they entered the language through Middle Indo-Aryan speakers. Flush with the answer from your knowledge of ancient Sanskrit, you are able to impress your hosts and secure the contract.
(6) "Attention passengers, this is the captain speaking. While there is no need to worry, we do have to ask: is there anyone on this plane who happens to be a doctor, and also speaks Sanskrit?"
(7) Your boss has outsourced development work on a new software platform to a team in Uttarakhand. The project was a disaster as predicted, but it is now essential to find someone - anyone - who is both local and able to read the commit log as well as Sanskrit-commented source code.
(8) A software malfunction switches your phone's display and input languages to Sanskrit. Now how exactly are you planning to switch it back? And if you read Sanskrit, why would you ever want to?
(9) You are working for Google, and tasked with organizing ALL of the world's information.
(10) As a member of the TSA working to ensure aviation safety, you are responsible for screening Sanskrit speaking passengers, and conversing with them as part of general counter-terrorism screening measures. Can you really do that with only Pimsleur-level fluency?
Wow, I'm glad I didn't ask for non-practical reasons. IHMO none of these make any sense whatsoever for anyone other than a minority of a minority of people. Those 20 people should go ahead and learn Sanskrit - for the rest of the world its pointless.
