Language Variant subtags for Sanskrit

[Michael Everson]

On 20 Jul 2010, at 12:56, John Cowan wrote:
> Michael Everson scripsit:
> 
>> What is the difference between "Sanskrit" and "Classical Sanskrit",
>> then? Why do you need both? Why not just the three others Vedic,
>> Epic, Buddhist?
> 
> Because "Sanskrit" is the wider term, or hypernym, for which the others
> (including "Classical Sanskrit") are hyponyms.

So we have English and Standard English?

> It sometimes happens that a hypernym has the same phonological and orthographic shape as its hypernym: thus what in English are distinguished as "Turkic" (hypernym) and "Turkish" (hyponym) are the same word in Turkish -- but that does
> not mean that Turks can't tell the difference between Turkish and the other Turkic languages.

I'm not *very* convinced by this analogy. A little.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/