From: Charles Wikner <WIKNER@nac.ac.za>
To: Yann.Leglise@wanadoo.fr
Cc: sanskrit@cheerful.com
Subject: Re: French version of Practical Sanskrit Introductory
Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2001 10:23:04 +0200

Greetings Yann,
The Introductory was produced as a service to mankind: so far as I am
concerned, it is freely available in the public domain. As such, you
are of course free to translate it, and you do not require my permission.
Furthermore, I would encourage you to translate it and make it publicly
available. (I would suggest that you forward it directly to the Jaguar
site, as I do not read French.) Having waived all my personal rights,
I am in no position to insist that you make your translation public, but
can only encourage you to do so. I trust that that makes my position
formally and legally clear.

As regards the font, I found -- as you have -- that there was no elegant
font freely available, and so designed one specially for the Introductory.
This font, which is only suitable for use under LaTeX, was also made
available in the public domain, and in response to user requests, has
been greatly expanded over the original. A 35-page PostScript file of
the manual is available at:

ftp://ftp.nac.ac.za/wikner/sktdoc.ps600

The last fourteen pages of the manual list over a thousand samyoga,
which some find an interesting curiosity in itself.

The font files (including the source file of the manual, which may help
to give you a "feel" for LaTeX) are available at:

ftp://ftp.tex.ac.uk/language/sanskrit/

or at the mirror site:

ftp://ftp.dante.de/language/sanskrit/

If you do go the LaTeX route, I could extract much of the formatting
information to save you time and allow you to concentrate on the
translation. You will also find the NewsGroup comp.text.tex very
active and a mine of usefule information and help.

I wish you every success in your endeavours.

May the Light continue to shine upon your studies!

Regards, Charles.


> My name is Yann Leglise. I'm a twenty-six french newbie in sanskrit. I'm
> very intersted in
> this fabulous language, which seems to me so coherent and precise. In
> 1998 I actively
> began to search the Web for some sanskrit course, and I finaly found
> your "Pratical
> Sanskrit Introductory". Since, I began to translate your book in a
> french version, so that
> sanskrit could be accessed by french-speaking people. At the moment, I
> have just
> reached the end of the seventh chapter (Far is the end, but I should
> have more time
> to spend now). When it is finished, I will send it to you so that you
> make it available
> if you feel it's a good idea.
> However, I must admit I sometime meet some difficulties concerning
> devanaagarii script.
> I currently use Word to write the traduction, and the Xdvng font for
> the devanaagarii script,
> and Washington Indic Roman for transliteration script. But .doc format
> isn't a very good
> choice for making a portable document, and Xdvng font doesn't support
> all conjunct
> consonants. So I wanted to know if I should give up Word and use, for
> instance,
> WinGutemberg (A Windows version of Latex) so as to produce a postscript
> output.
> If you think so, I will make an effort to learn Latex, but I will
> probably need help for
> dealing with devanaagarii fonts.=20
> Well, I wish I can collaborate in your project of making sanskrit
> accessible for everyone.
>
> Sincerly yours,
>
> Yann Leglise