HACKER Q&A
📣 trifit

Why do Sanskrit users use Latin script when they have their own?


Case in point - https://youtu.be/RBCk1SyC1PA [the video is titled Main Rang Sharbato Ka - I am a blend of juices] when it could have been written in Urdu or Hindi they chose for it to be in Hinglish? Do other languages do that?


  👤 frogulis Accepted Answer ✓
You seem to be conflating languages and scripts. I'm not sure what language "Main Rang Sharbato Ka" (Hindi?) but as you point out, it could be written in another script, I assume Devanagari or Arabic script. It would still be Hindi(?) though.

Though languages are often associated with one primary writing system, often another can be adapted for use.

Look at how Vietnamese was classically written with a form of Chinese characters, but in modern times is written in Latin script using a system adapted from Portuguese.

I think your question is still a good one (which I don't know the answer to) but it's worth being precise with the terminology :)


👤 adyashakti
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned IAST: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Alphabet_of_Sans...

👤 schoen
By the way, Sanskrit is an ancient Indian language and, while it's still extensively used, it's not a main language of day-to-day communication by Indian people.

The writing system that developed with Sanskrit and that's still used for both Sanskrit and several modern languages of India is called Devanagari.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanagari