[Buddha-l] Languages of Buddhist scholarship

[jkirk]

> Dear Kare and Richard,
>
> I also would be very happy to read your work, and an unidiomatic English 
> would do just fine.
> I have often thought about the pros and cons of writing in Italian, i.e. 
> my native language. On the one hand, it seems like it would be a shame if 
> people simply stopped writing academic Italian and chose English instead 
> to reach a wider audience. On the other hand, the vast majority of what 
> Buddhist scholars write in Italian is completely and utterly ignored in 
> the academic world. An advanced PhD student here at the University of 
> Virginia recently asked me if there is such thing as the study of Buddhism 
> in Italy. [But he also had some doubt about Europe in general.] I suppose 
> in part this is a matter of laziness. Anyone who can read French or 
> Spanish fluently can read academic Italian with just a little effort and 
> the occasional use of a dictionary.
>
> So what shall we do? Simply abandon our native languages? Or shall we 
> write in tongues that very few people care to read?
>
> Alberto Todeschini
===========================
No no, please do not abandon writing in native languages.  Especially for 
Anglophones, Italian is a modern descendant of one of English's predecessor 
languages, Latin, right? Ergo (ha ha) all themore reason that we should 
learn to read it even if we must use a dictionary. Many of us already can 
read Spanish with or without a dictionary.

It seems that these days reports surface in various net discussion lists of 
some scholar's student asking for help with a question about which the 
student hasn't done any preliminary research, followed by putting the 
question on a scholarly list asking for bibliography. This practice is 
ludicrous, but also evidence that today's university or college students are 
indeed slothlike. They should not be indulged by their mentors but instead 
told to get themselves to the library and start researching. Of course, the 
business model that prevails today in most universities--that the 
scholar-teachers are employees of the students -- mitigates against taking 
reasonable approaches to student demands.

Now for the obligatory Buddhist content: would Prof. Todeschini consider 
posting for us two or three citations to works on Buddhism in Italian that 
he considers to be the best of the past few years?  We can of course look up 
such publications in Italian, but we have perhaps no basis for judging what 
are best, or at least better than others.

Thanks and best wishes,
Joanna Kirkpatrick