The next time your teenager complains about having to learn that French vocabulary, tell him it could be a lot worse. It could be Sanskrit.

Since 1948, a group of scholars in Pune, India, have worked to compile the definitive dictionary of this ancient Indian language. It is perhaps the largest lexicographical project ever - and the most difficult. They have just about finished with the letter "A."

Working thus far without computers or much funding, they say it will take another 50 years at the very least. Sanskrit, perhaps Latin's eastern equivalent as a language of priests and scholars, is incredibly complex and rich, with an alphabet of 44 "functional" letters. The compilers describe it as a maze of interlocking meanings and allusions. "Sanskrit has so many shades," project head Vinayaka Bhatta told the Associated Press this week. The story described the team delighting in such discoveries as a pun in the word "anangada."

Why preserve a language that hasn't been in common use for nearly a thousand years? "You have to take care of your culture and your civilization," said grammarian Vinaya Kshirsagar. Its devotees claim it is the world's oldest language. Like Latin - but probably even more so - it is a root language vital to understanding the cultures, history, literature and philosophy that spring from it.

Besides, you never know when an obscure language will come in handy. Navajo code talkers in World War II employed their extremely complex, unwritten language to send American military messages that the Japanese were never able to decipher. In the sci-fi realm, our heroes in the film Independence Day managed to get messages past the alien attackers by using the crude, obsolete "language" of Morse code. Then again, maybe Sanskrit is E.T.'s language.

It also is enjoing a resurgence in India. Government TV and radio offer news in Sanskrit, and many in the younger generation are said to be taking up the language. Its boosters say it could prove an ideal language for the sciences and computing, as it easily allows new words to be built up logically from root syllables.

As for "anangada," the word either stands for an arm bracelet or a Hindu literary hero. This may be hilarious in Sanskrit, but it's, well, Greek to me.

--Ray Cooklis