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More than 2,000 years ago, the Indian grammarian Pāṇini described Sanskrit in nearly 4,000 short rules. His grammar, the Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight Chapters'), orders them so precisely, with symbols and rules about rules, that linguists compare it with modern formal grammars and programming languages.

Pāṇini, Aṣṭādhyāyī

LanguageHistory

The story behind the card

Pāṇini probably lived around the fourth century BC in Gandhara, in what is now north-western Pakistan; tradition names his birthplace as Shalatura. His Aṣṭādhyāyī has 3,959 rules, each so terse that it was learned by heart together with a commentary. The rules build words from roots and endings step by step, and short markers let a single rule cover whole groups of sounds. For more than two thousand years it has been the standard account of correct Sanskrit. In 1967 the computer scientist Peter Ingerman suggested renaming Backus–Naur form, a notation used to define programming languages, 'Pāṇini–Backus form', because Pāṇini had used a comparable method.

Türkçe oku
Hintli dil bilgini Pāṇini, iki bin yılı aşkın süre önce Sanskritçeyi 4.000'e yakın kısa kuralla betimledi. “Sekiz Bölüm” anlamına gelen kitabı Aṣṭādhyāyī, özel işaretleri ve kuralları yöneten üst kurallarıyla o kadar düzenlidir ki dilbilimciler onu bugünün biçimsel dil bilgileri ve programlama dilleriyle karşılaştırır.

Pāṇini büyük olasılıkla MÖ 4. yüzyıl dolaylarında, bugün Pakistan'ın kuzeybatısında kalan Gandhara bölgesinde yaşadı; geleneğe göre doğduğu yer Şalatura'dır. Aṣṭādhyāyī 3.959 kuraldan oluşur; kurallar o kadar kısadır ki bir şerhle birlikte ezberlenirdi. Kitap sözcükleri kök ve eklerden adım adım kurar; kısa işaretler sayesinde tek bir kural bütün bir ses grubunu kapsayabilir. İki bin yılı aşkın süredir doğru Sanskritçenin ölçüsü sayılır. 1967'de bilgisayar bilimci Peter Ingerman, programlama dillerini tanımlamakta kullanılan Backus-Naur gösterimine, Pāṇini benzer bir yöntem kullandığı için “Pāṇini-Backus gösterimi” denmesini önerdi.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Pāṇini
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