Language Variant subtags for Sanskrit

[John Cowan]

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.  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.

-- 
We are lost, lost.  No name, no business, no Precious, nothing.  Only empty.
Only hungry: yes, we are hungry.  A few little fishes, nassty bony little
fishes, for a poor creature, and they say death.  So wise they are; so just,
so very just.  --Gollum        cowan at ccil.org  http://ccil.org/~cowan