To understand means to simplify. (RussianПонять - значит упростить) [From Strugatsky's SFnovelВолны гасят ветер (Waves blow out the wind, translated to English as The Time Wanderers)]
... Indian grammarians who were attempting to catalog and codify Sanskrit's rules. Modern linguistics, which arose much later in the rest of the world, owes a great deal to the ...