Manalee [AMZ: accent on the middle syllable] Shukla, Director of Programs at Avant, gave a presentation at 1 on Friday 7/31, to an audience of most of the residents at Avant, where I now live: “Traveler’s Quest: Discover India with Manalee” (about her home and family, and about the culture and traditions of the India she grew up in — in Bhopal, in Madhya Pradesh (‘central province’, smack in the middle of the country), before she embarked on a new American life, with two kids and a professional job).
I got some standing with the residents when Manalee introduced me as her special guest, saying I was a linguist who speaks many languages — not really true, but that was sweet of her — and adding that I wrote a PhD dissertation in Sanskrit (a slip: it was on Sanskrit, not in it, and it was about phonology, using Sanskrit data; also, that was 1965, 61 years ago, and I’ve mostly forgotten my Sanskrit — I don’t want to take credit for marvels that I’m entirely incapable of).
Obviously, MS and I were acquaintances, and I’ll tell the story of how we came to meet (but not in this posting). I also intend to tell you more about what she had to say, and show, about her India (but, again, not in this posting; there’s just too much here).
Instead, I’ll start with the glottonym Sanskrit (for a collection of language varieties, the oldest of which goes back to about 1500 years before the Christian era) and use it to riff on common descent with modification, a truly great idea of the 18th century that then became a core principle of Darwinian evolution.
