“Panini, famous grammarian of the Sanskrit language, lived in India
some time between the 7th and the 4th centuries B.C. Following in the steps
of the Brahmi alphabet makers, he became the most renowned of the grammarians.
His work on Sanskrit, with its 4,168 rules, is outstanding for its highly
systematic methods of analyzing and describing language.
The phrases
which illustrate his grammar are full of good humor:
“a dog old enough
to lift a bone,”
“occupying the whole chariot,”
“an
elephant-faced person,” etc.
The birth of linguistic science
in Western Europe in the 19th century was due largely to the European discovery
of Panini's Sanskrit grammar, making linguistics a science.
The modern
science of linguistics is the basis for producing alphabets for languages
yet unwritten today.”
