Sanskrit In Silicon Valley: NPR Podcast

In the run-up to yesterday’s Diipavali celebrations, NPR did a short special on language and how Sanskrit terms are coming into aspects of American life. The timing of this was very apropos as we recently held our first-ever Sanskrit seminar and talked about these two key points, among many others. First, the existing and growing presence of Sanskrit words in our English language (yoga, mantra, guru, karma, dharma, avatar etc), and the concept that all languages belong to all of humanity. Language itself is but symbolism to express a particular idea. To this end, each and every language has its own unique speciality and value. The more as a humanity we openly embrace all languages, the greater our expression.

While this is a grand topic and can be discussed at length – and of late we have been talking about this at the end of class – this is just a short introduction. I do think you will find this below segment from NPR of interest.

NPR broadcast: Silicon Valley Gets Linguistic Enlightenment

(Note: The portion on Sanskrit is the first 4 – 5 minutes of the segment.)