Reply to thread

The reason why the Guru's wrote in Gurmukhi was that it was the language of the common man in Punjab:

 

http://www.sikhs.org/gurmukhi.htm

 

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KbWsvR34ax8C&pg=PA15&dq=why+was+the+guru+granth+sahib+written+in+gurmukhi?&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JEcJUMuEHMXXtAbW_pzjCA&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=why%20was%20the%20guru%20granth%20sahib%20written%20in%20gurmukhi%3F&f=false

 

It was the language that Guru Nanak spoke. No common man understood religious texts because they were either in Sanskrit or in the case of Muslim ones Arabic.

 

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qCmfOU6KTxwC&pg=PA362&dq=why+was+the+guru+granth+sahib+written+in+gurmukhi?&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JEcJUMuEHMXXtAbW_pzjCA&ved=0CD4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=why was the guru granth sahib written in gurmukhi?&f=false

 

If they had been brought up in England they would have written in English (around that time it would have been Shakespearean English).

 

Writing the Guru Granth Sahib ji in English or Spanish at that period of time would have made no sense whatsoever. The Guru's wanted to convey the word of God in language that the common man understood in Punjab.

 

In order for people to remember it more easily, they also wrote it to verse and made it rhyme.

 

In terms of translation, Hew Mcleods done a pretty good job as well as Pritam Singh Chahil:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Mj28AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA147&dq=guru+granth+sahib+translation+hew+mcleod&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1UgJUKBxytK0BuXyvJsJ&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=guru granth sahib translation hew mcleod&f=false