Sanskrit (संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam, properly saṃskṛtā vāk Vāk or Vāc is the Sanskrit word for "speech", "voice", "talk", or "language", from a verbal root vac- "speak, tell, utter", later also saṃskṛtabhāṣā, "refined speech"), is a historical Indo-Aryan language Geographical distribution of the major Indo-Aryan languages and the primary liturgical language A sacred language, "holy language" , or liturgical language, is a language that is cultivated for religious reasons by people who speak another language in their daily life of Hinduism Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of South Asia. Hinduism is often referred to as Sanātana Dharma by its adherents. Generic "types" of Hinduism that attempt to accommodate a variety of complex views span folk and Vedic Hinduism to bhakti tradition, as in Vaishnavism. Hinduism also includes yogic traditions and Buddhism Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE. He is recognized by adherents as an[note 1]. Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India[2] and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand Uttarakhand is a state located in the northern part of India. It was carved out of Himalayan and adjoining districts of Uttar Pradesh on 9 November 2000, becoming the 27th state of the Republic of India . It borders Tibet on the north, Nepal on the east, the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh to the south, Haryana on the west and Himachal Pradesh on.[3]

Classical Sanskrit is the standard register In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, an English speaker may adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal instead of an alveolar nasal , choose more formal words (e.g. train vs. choo-choo, sodium chloride vs as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini, around the 4th century BCE The 4th century BC started the first day of 400 BC and ended the last day of 300 BC. It is considered part of the Classical era, epoch, or historical period. Its position in the cultures of Greater India The term Greater India refers to the historical spread of the Culture of India beyond the Indian subcontinent proper. This concerns the spread of Hinduism in Southeast Asia in particular, introduced by the Indianized kingdoms of the 5th to 15th centuries, but may also extend to the earlier spread of Buddhism from India to Central Asia and China by is akin to that of Latin Latin or sometimes Roman is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Although often considered a dead language, in view of the fact that it has no native, fluent speakers, Latin continues to be taught in schools and has been, and currently is, used in the process of new word production in modern languages from many and Greek Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning the Archaic , Classical (c. 5th–4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic (c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD) periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek. Its Hellenistic phase is known as Koine (& in Europe and it has significantly influenced most modern languages of the Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent and other terms, is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate south of the Himalayas, forming a land mass which extends southward into the Indian Ocean, particularly in India and Nepal Nepal (pronounced /nəˈpal/ nə-PAHL, /-pal/ -PAWL; Nepali: नेपाल [neˈpal] ), officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a himalayan country in South Asia and, as of 2010, the world's most recent nation to become a republic. It is bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by.[4]

The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit Vedic Sanskrit is an Old Indic language. It is the language of the Vedas, the oldest shruti texts of Hinduism, compiled over the period of 2nd to mid 1st millennium BCE. It is an archaic form of Sanskrit, an early descendant of Proto-Indo-Iranian. It is closely related to Avestan, the oldest preserved Iranian language. Vedic Sanskrit is the oldest, with the language of the Rigveda The Rigveda is an ancient Indian sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns. It is counted among the four canonical sacred texts (śruti) of Hinduism known as the Vedas. Some of its verses are still recited as Hindu prayers, at religious functions and other occasions, putting these among the world's oldest religious texts in continued use being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved, its oldest core dating back to as early as 1500 BCE.[5] This qualifies Rigvedic Sanskrit as one of the oldest attestations of any Indo-Iranian language The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. It consists of three language groups: the Indo-Aryan, Iranian and Nuristani. The term Aryan languages is occasionally still used to refer to the Indo-Iranian languages. The speakers of the Proto-Indo-Iranian language, the, and one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and Southern Asia, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia. With written attestations appearing since the Bronze Age, in the form of the Anatolian languages and Mycenaean, the family which includes English and most European languages.[6]

The corpus of Sanskrit literature Literature in Sanskrit begins with the Vedas, and continues with the Sanskrit Epics of Iron Age India; the golden age of Classical Sanskrit literature dates to late Antiquity . Literary production saw a late bloom in the 11th century before declining after 1100 AD. There are contemporary efforts towards revival, with events like the "All- encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama Indian drama as a distinct genre of Sanskrit literature emerges in the final centuries BC, although its origins date back to the Rigvedic dialogue hymns of the late 2nd millenium BC. Famous Sanskrit dramatists include Śhudraka, Bhasa, Asvaghosa and Kalidasa. Though numerous plays written by these playwrights are still available, little is known as well as scientific Scientific literature comprises scientific publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences, and within a scientific field is often abbreviated as the literature. Academic publishing is the process of placing the results of one's research into the literature. Scientific research on original work, technical, philosophical In Hindu history, the distinction of the six orthodox schools was current in the Gupta period "golden age" of Hinduism. With the disappearance of Vaishshika and Mimamsa, it was obsolete by the later Middle Ages, when the various sub-schools of Vedanta began to rise to prominence as the main divisions of religious philosophy. Nyaya and Hindu religious Literature regarded as central to the Vedic Hindu literary tradition was predominantly composed in Sanskrit, Indeed, much of the morphology and linguistic philosophy inherent in the learning of Sanskrit is inextricably linked to study of the Vedas and other Vedic texts texts. Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals in the forms of hymns In Hinduism, a Stotra is a hymn of praise. These hymns praise aspects of the divine, such as Devi, Siva, or Vishnu. Relating to word "stuti", coming from the same verb, stu , and basically both mean "praise" and mantras A mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that are considered capable of "creating transformation" . Their use and type varies according to the school and philosophy associated with the mantra. Spoken Sanskrit is still in use in a few traditional institutions in India, and there are many attempts at revival Sanskrit revival is the accumulation of attempts at reviving the Sanskrit language that have been undertaken.

Contents

Etymology

The Sanskrit verbal adjective saṃskṛta- may be translated as "put together, well or completely formed, refined, highly elaborated".[7] It is derived from the root saṃ(s)kar- "to put together, compose, arrange, prepare",[8] where saṃ- "together" (as English same) and (s)kar- "do, make". The language referred to as saṃskṛta "the cultured language" has by definition always been a "sacred" and "sophisticated" language, used for religious and learned discourse in ancient India, and contrasted with the languages spoken by the people, prākṛta- Prakrit (Sanskrit: prākṛta प्राकृत (from pra-kṛti प्रकृति)) is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word, derived from its indian root "Parikrit", itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, "natural, artless, normal, ordinary". It is also called dēva-bhāṣā meaning the "divine language" or the "language of devas or demigods".

History

Devimahatmya The Devi Mahatmyam or Devi Mahatmya , or "Glory of the Goddess") is a Hindu text describing the victory of the goddess Durga over the demon Mahishasura. As part of the Markandeya Purana, it is one of the Puranas or secondary Hindu scriptures, and was composed in Sanskrit around c. 400-500 CE, with authorship attributed to the sage manuscript A manuscript or handwrit is a recording of information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way. The term may also be used for information that is hand-recorded in other ways than writing, for example inscriptions that are chiselled upon a hard on palm-leaf, in an early Bhujimol In 2003, a brick was discovered in Kathmandu, in the course of reconstruction of the Dhando Chaitya, bearing inscriptions in both Brahmi and Bhujimol: The upper face is inscribed with Cha Ru Wa Ti in Brahmi, and with Cha Ru Wa Ti Dhande / He Tu Pra Bha in the Newari Bhujimol script. There are Swastika marks at the two ends of the upper face with a script, Bihar Bihar (Hindi: बिहार, Urdu: بہار, pronounced [bɪˈhaːr] ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at 38,202 sq mi (99,200 km²) and 3rd largest by population. Close to 85% of the population lives in villages. Almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25. which is the highest or Nepal Nepal (pronounced /nəˈpal/ nə-PAHL, /-pal/ -PAWL; Nepali: नेपाल [neˈpal] ), officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a himalayan country in South Asia and, as of 2010, the world's most recent nation to become a republic. It is bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by, 11th century.

Sanskrit is a member of the Indo-Iranian The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. It consists of three language groups: the Indo-Aryan, Iranian and Nuristani. The term Aryan languages is occasionally still used to refer to the Indo-Iranian languages. The speakers of the Proto-Indo-Iranian language, the sub-family of the Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and Southern Asia, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia. With written attestations appearing since the Bronze Age, in the form of the Anatolian languages and Mycenaean family of languages. Its closest ancient relatives are the Iranian languages The Iranian languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family and its subfamily, Indo-Iranian. They are spoken by the Iranian peoples. Old Persian is the oldest recorded Iranian language Old Persian The Old Persian language is one of the two attested Old Iranian languages . Old Persian appears primarily in the inscriptions, clay tablets, seals of the Achaemenid era (c. 600 BCE to 300 BCE). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now present-day Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt the most important attestation by far being the contents of and Avestan Avestan is an East Iranian language known only from its use as the language of Zoroastrian scripture, i.e. the Avesta, from which it derives its name. The Yaz culture has been regarded as a likely archaeological reflection of early East Iranian culture as described in the Avesta. Its status as a sacred language has ensured its continuing use for.[9] Within the wider Indo-European language family, Sanskrit shares characteristic sound changes with the Satem The Centum-Satem division is an isogloss of the Indo-European language family, related to the evolution of the three dorsal consonant rows reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European, *kʷ , *k (velars), and *ḱ; (palatovelars). The terms come from the words for the number "one hundred" in representative languages of each group (Latin centum languages (particularly the Slavic The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia and Baltic languages The Baltic languages are a group of related languages belonging to the Indo-European language family and spoken mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. The language group is sometimes divided into two sub-groups: Western Baltic, containing only extinct languages, and Eastern Baltic, containing both), and also with Greek Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of.[10]

In order to explain the common features shared by Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages, many scholars have proposed migration hypotheses Models of the Indo-Aryan migration discuss scenarios of prehistoric migrations of the early Indo-Aryans to their historically attested areas of settlement in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent and from there further across all of North India. Claims of Indo-Aryan migration are primarily drawn from linguistic evidence but also from a asserting that the original speakers of what became Sanskrit arrived in what is now India and Pakistan Pakistan (Urdu pronunciation: [paːkɪsˈtaːn] ( listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Urdu: اسلامی جمہوریہ پاکِستان), is a country in South Asia. It has a 1,046-kilometre (650 mi) coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, and India in the from the north-west some time during the early second millennium BCE.[11] Evidence for such a theory includes the close relationship of the Indo-Iranian tongues with the Baltic and Slavic languages, vocabulary exchange with the non-Indo-European Finno-Ugric languages Finno-Ugric is a group of languages in the Uralic language family, comprising the Finno-Permic and Ugric language families, and the nature of the attested Indo-European words for flora and fauna.[12]

The earliest attested Sanskrit texts are Hindu A Hindu ( pronunciation , Devanagari: हिन्दु) is an adherent of Hinduism, a set of religious, philosophical and cultural systems that originated in the Indian subcontinent. The vast body of Hindu scriptures, divided into Śruti ("revealed") and Smriti ("remembered"), lay the foundation of Hindu beliefs, which texts of the Rigveda The Rigveda is an ancient Indian sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns. It is counted among the four canonical sacred texts (śruti) of Hinduism known as the Vedas. Some of its verses are still recited as Hindu prayers, at religious functions and other occasions, putting these among the world's oldest religious texts in continued use, which date to the mid-to-late second millennium BCE. No written records from such an early period survive. However, scholars are confident that the oral transmission of the texts is reliable: they were ceremonial literature whose correct pronunciation was considered crucial to its religious efficacy.[13]

From the Rigveda until the time of Pāṇini (fl. 4th century BCE) the development of the Sanskrit language may be observed in other Hindu A Hindu ( pronunciation , Devanagari: हिन्दु) is an adherent of Hinduism, a set of religious, philosophical and cultural systems that originated in the Indian subcontinent. The vast body of Hindu scriptures, divided into Śruti ("revealed") and Smriti ("remembered"), lay the foundation of Hindu beliefs, which texts: the Samaveda The Samaveda , is second (in the usual order) of the four Vedas, the ancient core Hindu scriptures. Its earliest parts are believed to date from 1000 BC and it ranks next in sanctity and liturgical importance to the Rigveda. It consists of a collection (samhita) of hymns, portions of hymns, and detached verses, all but 75 taken from the Rigveda,, Yajurveda The Yajurveda is the third of the four canonical texts of Hinduism, the Vedas. By some, it is estimated to have been composed between 1,400 and 1000 BCE, the Yajurveda 'Samhita', or 'compilation', contains the liturgy (mantras) needed to perform the sacrifices of the religion of the Vedic period, and the added Brahmana and Shrautasutra add, Atharvaveda The Atharvaveda (Sanskrit: अथर्ववेदः, atharvaveda, a tatpurusha compound of atharvan, an ancient Rishi, and veda is a sacred text of Hinduism, and one of the four Vedas, often called the "fourth Veda". According to tradition, the Atharvaveda was mainly composed by two groups of rishis known as the Atharvanas and the, Brahmanas The Brāhmaṇas are part of the Hindu śruti literature. They are commentaries on the four Vedas, detailing the proper performance of rituals, and Upanishads. During this time, the prestige of the language, its use for sacred purposes, and the importance attached to its correct enunciation all served as powerful conservative forces resisting the normal processes of linguistic change.[14]

The oldest surviving Sanskrit grammar is Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī ("Eight-Chapter Grammar"). It is essentially a prescriptive grammar, i.e., an authority that defines (rather than describes) correct Sanskrit, although it contains descriptive parts, mostly to account for some Vedic forms the use of which had become rare in Pāṇini's time.

The term "Sanskrit" was not thought of as a specific language set apart from other languages, but rather as a particularly refined or perfected manner of speaking. Knowledge of Sanskrit was a marker of social class and educational attainment in ancient India and the language was taught mainly to members of the higher castes, through close analysis of Sanskrit grammarians such as Pāṇini. Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside the Prakrits (vernaculars), which evolved into the Middle Indic dialects, and eventually into the contemporary modern Indo-Aryan languages.

Vedic Sanskrit

Main article: Vedic Sanskrit

Sanskrit, as defined by Pāṇini, had evolved out of the earlier "Vedic" form. The beginning of Vedic Sanskrit can be traced as early as around 1500 BCE (the accepted date of the Rig-Veda).[citation needed] Scholars often distinguish Vedic Sanskrit and Classical or "Pāṇinian" Sanskrit as separate 'dialects'. Though they are quite similar, they differ in a number of essential points of phonology, vocabulary, grammar and syntax. Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, a large collection of hymns, incantations (Samhitas), theological discussions, and religio-philosophical discussions (Brahmanas, Upanishads) which are the earliest religious texts of the Hindu religion. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Rigveda Samhita to be the earliest, composed by many authors over centuries of oral tradition. The end of the Vedic period is marked by the composition of the Upanishads, which form the concluding part of the Vedic corpus in the traditional compilations. Around the mid 1st millennium BCE, Sanskrit began the transition from a first language to a second language of religion and learning, marking the beginning of the Classical period.

Classical Sanskrit

For nearly 2,000 years, a cultural order existed that exerted influence across South Asia, Inner Asia, Southeast Asia, and to a certain extent, East Asia.[15] A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of the Hindu Epics—the Ramayana and Mahabharata. The deviations from Pāṇini in the epics are generally considered to be on account of interference from Prakrits, or "innovations" and not because they are pre-Paninean.[16] Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations aarsha (आर्ष), or "of the rishis", the traditional title for the ancient authors. In some contexts, there are also more "prakritisms" (borrowings from common speech) than in Classical Sanskrit proper. Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit is a Middle Indic literary language based on early Buddhist prakrit texts which subsequently assimilated to the Classical Sanskrit standard in varying degree.[17]

According to Tiwari (1955), there were four principal dialects of classical Sanskrit: paścimottarī (Northwestern, also called Northern or Western), madhyadeśī (lit., middle country), pūrvi (Eastern) and dakṣiṇī (Southern, arose in the Classical period). The predecessors of the first three dialects are even attested in Vedic Brāhmaṇas, of which the first one was regarded as the purest (Kauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa, 7.6).

Decline

See also: Termination of spoken Sanskrit

There are a number of sociolinguistic studies of spoken Sanskrit which strongly suggests that in this oral use it is limited and is not developing.[18] Based on this, some suggest that Sanskrit has become "dead", but the distinction is not clearly understood, as Pollock (2001) describes it in comparison with the "dead" language of Latin:[19]

Both died slowly, and earliest as a vehicle of literary expression, while much longer retaining significance for learned discourse with its universalist claims. Both were subject to periodic renewals or forced rebirths, sometimes in connection with a politics of translocal aspiration… At the same time… both came to be ever more exclusively associated with narrow forms of religion and priestcraft, despite centuries of a secular aesthetic.

The decline of Sanskrit use in literary and political circles was likely due to a weakening of the political institutions that supported it, and to heightened competition with vernacular languages seeking literary-cultural dignity.[20] There was regional variation in the forcefulness of these vernacular movements and Sanskrit declined in different ways across the subcontinent. For example, in Kashmir, Kashmiri was used alongside Sanskrit as the language of literature after the 13th century, and Sanskrit works from the Vijayanagara Empire failed to circulate outside their place and time of composition. By contrast, works in Kannada and Telugu flourished.[21]

Despite this presumed "death" of Sanskrit and the literary use of vernacular languages, Sanskrit continued to be used in literary cultures in India, and those who could read vernacular languages could also read Sanskrit.[20] It did mean that Sanskrit was not used to express changing forms of subjectivity and sociality embodied and conceptualized in the modern age.[20] Instead, it was reduced to "reinscription and restatements" of ideas already explored, and any creativity in Sanskrit was restricted to religious hymns and verses.[22][23]

European scholarship

See also: Sanskrit in the West and Sanskrit revival

European scholarship in Sanskrit, begun by Heinrich Roth (1620–1668) and Johann Ernst Hanxleden (1681–1731), is regarded as responsible for the discovery of the Indo-European language family by Sir William Jones. This scholarship played an important role in the development of Western linguistics.[citation needed]

Sir William Jones, speaking to the Asiatic Society in Calcutta (now Kolkata) on February 2, 1786, said:

The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.

Phonology

Further information: Śikṣā

Classical Sanskrit distinguishes about 36 phonemes. There is, however, some allophony and the writing systems used for Sanskrit generally indicate this, thus distinguishing 48 sounds.

The sounds are traditionally listed in the order vowels (Ach), diphthongs (Hal), anusvara and visarga, plosives (Sparśa) and nasals (starting in the back of the mouth and moving forward), and finally the liquids and fricatives, written in IAST as follows (see the tables below for details):

a ā i ī u ū ṛ ṝ ḷ ḹ ; e ai o au
ṃ ḥ
k kh g gh ṅ; c ch j jh ñ; ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ; t th d dh n; p ph b bh m
y r l v; ś ṣ s h

An alternate traditional ordering is that of the Shiva Sutra of Pāṇini.

Vowels

See also: R-colored vowel#Vocalic R in Sanskrit

The vowels of Classical Sanskrit with their word-initial Devanagari symbol, diacritical mark with the consonant प् (/p/), pronunciation (of the vowel alone and of /p/+vowel) in IPA, equivalent in IAST and (approximate) equivalents in English are listed below:

Letter प् Pronunciation Pronunciation with /p/ IAST equiv. English equivalent (GA unless stated otherwise)
अ प /ɐ/ or /ə/ /pɐ/ or /pə/ a short near-open central vowel or schwa: u in bunny or a in about
आ पा /ɑː/ /pɑː/ ā long open back unrounded vowel: a in father (RP)
इ पि /i/ /pi/ i short close front unrounded vowel: e in england
ई पी /iː/ /piː/ ī long close front unrounded vowel: ee in feet
उ पु /u/ /pu/ u short close back rounded vowel: oo in foot
ऊ पू /uː/ /puː/ ū long close back rounded vowel: oo in cool
ऋ पृ /ɻ/ /pɻ/ ṛ short retroflex approximant: r in run
ॠ पॄ /ɻː/ /pɻː/ ṝ long retroflex approximant r in run
ऌ पॢ /ɭ/ /pɭ/ ḷ short retroflex lateral approximant (no English equivalent)
ॡ पॣ /ɭː/ /pɭː/ ḹ long retroflex lateral approximant
ए पे /eː/ /peː/ e long close-mid front unrounded vowel: a in bane (some speakers)
ऐ पै /əi/ /pəi/ ai a long diphthong: i in ice, i in kite (Canadian and Scottish English)
ओ पो /oː/ /poː/ o long close-mid back rounded vowel: o in bone (some speakers)
औ पौ /əu/ /pəu/ au a long diphthong: Similar to the ou in house (Canadian English)

The long vowels are pronounced twice as long as their short counterparts. Also, there exists a third, extra-long length for most vowels, called pluti, which is used in various cases, but particularly in the vocative. The pluti is not accepted by all grammarians.

The vowels /e/ and /o/ continue as allophonic variants of Proto-Indo-Iranian /ai/, /au/ and are categorized as diphthongs by Sanskrit grammarians even though they are realized phonetically as simple long vowels. (See above).

Additional points:

Consonants

IAST and Devanagari notations are given, with approximate IPA values in square brackets.

Labial Ōshtya Labiodental Dantōshtya Dental Dantya Retroflex Mūrdhanya Palatal Tālavya Velar Kanthya Glottal
Stop Sparśa Unaspirated Alpaprāna p प [p] b ब [b] t त [t̪] d द [d̪] ṭ ट [ʈ] ḍ ड [ɖ] c च [c͡ç] j ज [ɟ͡ʝ] k क [k] g ग [ɡ]
Aspirated Mahāprāna ph फ [pʰ] bh भ [bʱ] th थ [t̪ʰ] dh ध [d̪ʱ] ṭh ठ [ʈʰ] ḍh ढ [ɖʱ] ch छ [c͡çʰ] jh झ [ɟ͡ʝʱ] kh ख [kʰ] gh घ [ɡʱ]
Nasal Anunāsika m म [m] n न [n̪] ṇ ण [ɳ] ñ ञ [ɲ] ṅ ङ [ŋ]
Semivowel Antastha v व [ʋ] y य [j]
Liquid Drava l ल [l] r र [r]
Fricative Ūshman s स [s̪] ṣ ष [ʂ] ś श [ɕ] ḥ ः [h] h ह [ɦ]

The table below shows the traditional listing of the Sanskrit consonants with the (nearest) equivalents in English (as pronounced in General American and Received Pronunciation) and Spanish. Each consonant shown below is deemed to be followed by the neutral vowel schwa (/ə/), and is named in the table as such.

Plosives – Sprshta
Unaspirated Voiceless Alpaprāna Śvāsa Aspirated Voiceless Mahāprāna Śvāsa Unaspirated Voiced Alpaprāna Nāda Aspirated Voiced Mahāprāna Nāda Nasal Anunāsika Nāda
Velar Kantya क /kə/; English: skip ख /kʰə/; English: cat ग /ɡə/; English: game घ /ɡʱə/; somewhat similar to English: doghouse ङ /ŋə/; English: ring
Palatal Tālavya च /cə/; English: exchange छ /cʰə/; English: church ज /ɟə/; ≈English: jam झ /ɟʱə/; somewhat similar to English: hedgehog ञ /ɲə/; English: bench
Retroflex Mūrdhanya ट /ʈə/; No English equivalent ठ /ʈʰə/; No English equivalent ड /ɖə/; No English equivalent ढ /ɖʱə/; No English equivalent ण /ɳə/; No English equivalent
Apico-Dental Dantya त /t̪ə/; Spanish: tomate थ /t̪ʰə/; Aspirated /t̪/ द /d̪ə/; Spanish: donde ध /d̪ʱə/; Aspirated /d̪/ न /n̪ə/; English: name
Labial Ōshtya प /pə/; English: spin फ /pʰə/; English: pit ब /bə/; English: bone भ /bʱə/; somewhat similar to English: clubhouse म /mə/; English: mine
Non-Plosives/Sonorants
Palatal Tālavya Retroflex Mūrdhanya Dental Dantya Labial/ Glottal Ōshtya
Approximant Antastha य /jə/; English: you र /rə/; English: trip ल /l̪ə/; English: love व (labio-dental) /ʋə/; English: vase
Sibilant/ Fricative Ūshman श /ɕə/; English: ship ष /ʂə/; Retroflex form of /ʃ/ स /s̪ə/; English: same ह (glottal) /ɦə/; English behind

Phonology and Sandhi

The Sanskrit vowels are as discussed in the section above. The long syllabic l (ḹ) is not attested, and is only discussed by grammarians for systematic reasons. Its short counterpart ḷ occurs in a single root only, kḷp "to order, array". Long syllabic r (ṝ) is also quite marginal, occurring in the genitive plural of r-stems (e.g. mātṛ "mother" and pitṛ "father" have gen.pl. mātṝṇām and pitṝṇām). i, u, ṛ, ḷ are vocalic allophones of consonantal y, v, r, l. There are thus only 5 invariably vocalic phonemes,

a, ā, ī, ū, ṝ.

Visarga ḥ ः is an allophone of r and s, and anusvara ṃ, Devanagari ं of any nasal, both in pausa (i.e., the nasalized vowel). The exact pronunciation of the three sibilants may vary, but they are distinct phonemes. An aspirated voiced sibilant /zʱ/ was inherited by Indo-Aryan from Proto-Indo-Iranian but lost shortly before the time of the Rigveda (aspirated fricatives are exceedingly rare in any language). The retroflex consonants are somewhat marginal phonemes, often being conditioned by their phonetic environment; they do not continue a PIE series and are often ascribed by some linguists to the substratal influence of Dravidian[25] or other substrate languages. The nasal [ɲ] is a conditioned allophone of /n/ (/n/ and /ɳ/ are distinct phonemes—aṇu 'minute', 'atomic' [nom. sg. neutr. of an adjective] is distinctive from anu 'after', 'along'; phonologically independent /ŋ/ occurs only marginally, e.g. in prāṅ 'directed forwards/towards' [nom. sg. masc. of an adjective]). There are thus 31 consonantal or semi-vocalic phonemes, consisting of four/five kinds of stops realized both with or without aspiration and both voiced and voiceless, three nasals, four semi-vowels or liquids, and four fricatives, written in IAST transliteration as follows:

k, kh, g, gh; c, ch, j, jh; ṭ, ṭh, ḍ, ḍh; t, th, d, dh; p, ph, b, bh; m, n, ṇ; y, r, l, v; ś, ṣ, s, h

or a total of 36 unique Sanskrit phonemes altogether.

The phonological rules to be applied when combining morphemes to a word, and when combining words to a sentence are collectively called sandhi "composition". Texts are written phonetically, with sandhi applied (except for the so-called padapāṭha).

Writing system

Kashmiri Shaivaite manuscript in the Sharada script (c. 17th century)

Sanskrit was spoken in an oral society, and the oral tradition was maintained through the development of early classical Sanskrit literature.[26] Writing was not introduced to India until after Sanskrit had evolved into the Prakrits; when it was written, the choice of writing system was influenced by the regional scripts of the scribes. As such, virtually all of the major writing systems of South Asia have been used for the production of Sanskrit manuscripts. Since the late 19th century, Devanagari has been considered as the de facto writing system for Sanskrit,[27] quite possibly because of the European practice of printing Sanskrit texts in this script. Devanagari is written from left to right, lacks distinct letter cases, and is recognizable by a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the letters that links them together.

The earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit date to the 1st century BCE.[28] They are in the Brahmi script, which was originally used for Prakrit, not Sanskrit.[29] It has been described as a "paradox" that the first evidence of written Sanskrit occurs centuries later than that of the Prakrit languages which are its linguistic descendants.[28][30] When Sanskrit was written down, it was first used for texts of an administrative, literary or scientific nature. The sacred texts were preserved orally, and were set down in writing, "reluctantly" (according to one commentator), and at a comparatively late date.[29]

Brahmi evolved into a multiplicity of scripts of the Brahmic family, many of which were used to write Sanskrit. Roughly contemporary with the Brahmi, the Kharosthi script was used in the northwest of the subcontinent. Later (around the 4th to 8th centuries CE) the Gupta script, derived from Brahmi, became prevalent. From ca. the 8th century, the Sharada script evolved out of the Gupta script. The latter was displaced in its turn by Devanagari from ca. the 11/12th century, with intermediary stages such as the Siddham script. In Eastern India, the Bengali script and, later, the Oriya script, were used. In the south where Dravidian languages predominate, scripts used for Sanskrit include Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Grantha.

Sanskrit in modern Indian and other Brahmi scripts. May Śiva bless those who take delight in the language of the gods. (Kalidasa)

Romanization

Main article: Devanagari transliteration

Since the late 18th century, Sanskrit has been transliterated using the Latin alphabet. The system most commonly used today is the IAST (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration), which has been the academic standard since 1888/1912. ASCII-based transliteration schemes have evolved due to difficulties representing Sanskrit characters in computer systems. These include Harvard-Kyoto and ITRANS, a transliteration scheme that is used widely on the Internet, especially in Usenet and in email, for considerations of speed of entry as well as rendering issues. With the wide availability of Unicode aware web browsers, IAST has become common online.

It's also possible to type using an alphanumeric keyboard and transliterate to devanagari using software like Mac OS X's international support.

European scholars in the 19th century generally preferred Devanagari for the transcription and reproduction of whole texts and lengthy excerpts. However, references to individual words and names in texts composed in European languages were usually represented with Roman transliteration. From the 20th century onwards, due to production costs, textual editions edited by Western scholars have mostly been in Romanized transliteration.

Grammar

Main article: Sanskrit grammar

Grammatical tradition

Main article: Sanskrit grammarians

Sanskrit grammatical tradition (vyākaraṇa, one of the six Vedanga disciplines) began in late Vedic India and culminated in the Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini, which consists of 3990 sutras (ca. 5th century BCE). After a century Pāṇini (around 400 BCE) Kātyāyana composed Vārtikas on Pāṇinian sũtras. Patañjali, who lived three centuries after Pāṇini, wrote the Mahābhāṣya, the "Great Commentary" on the Aṣṭādhyāyī and Vārtikas. Because of these three ancient Sanskrit grammarians this grammar is called Trimuni Vyākarana. To understand the meaning of sutras Jayaditya and Vāmana wrote the commentary named Kāsikā 600 CE. Pāṇinian grammar is based on 14 Shiva sutras (aphorisms). Here whole Mātrika (alphabet) is abbreviated. This abbreviation is called Pratyāhara.[31]

Verbs

Main article: Sanskrit verbs

Sanskrit has ten classes of verbs divided into in two broad groups: athematic and thematic. The thematic verbs are so called because an a, called the theme vowel, is inserted between the stem and the ending. This serves to make the thematic verbs generally more regular. Exponents used in verb conjugation include prefixes, suffixes, infixes, and reduplication. Every root has (not necessarily all distinct) zero, guṇa, and vṛddhi grades. If V is the vowel of the zero grade, the guṇa-grade vowel is traditionally thought of as a + V, and the vṛddhi-grade vowel as ā + V.

The verb tenses (a very inexact application of the word, since more distinctions than simply tense are expressed) are organized into four 'systems' (as well as gerunds and infinitives, and such creatures as intensives/frequentatives, desideratives, causatives, and benedictives derived from more basic forms) based on the different stem forms (derived from verbal roots) used in conjugation. There are four tense systems:

Nouns

Main article: Sanskrit nouns

Sanskrit is a highly inflected language with three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and three numbers (singular, plural, dual). It has eight cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, instrumental, dative, ablative, genitive, and locative.

The number of actual declensions is debatable. Pāṇini identifies six karakas corresponding to the nominative, accusative, dative, instrumental, locative, and ablative cases.[32] Pāṇini defines them as follows (Ashtadhyayi, I.4.24–54):

  1. Apadana (lit. 'take off'): "(that which is) firm when departure (takes place)." This is the equivalent of the ablative case, which signifies a stationary object from which movement proceeds.
  2. Sampradana ('bestowal'): "he whom one aims at with the object". This is equivalent to the dative case, which signifies a recipient in an act of giving or similar acts.
  3. Karana ("instrument") "that which effects most." This is equivalent to the instrumental case.
  4. Adhikarana ('location'): or "substratum." This is equivalent to the locative case.
  5. Karman ('deed'/'object'): "what the agent seeks most to attain". This is equivalent to the accusative case.
  6. Karta ('agent'): "he/that which is independent in action". This is equivalent to the nominative case. (On the basis of Scharfe, 1977: 94)

Personal Pronouns and Determiners

Main article: Sanskrit pronouns and determiners

Sanskrit pronouns are declined for case, number, and gender. The pronominal declension applies to a few adjectives as well. Many pronouns have alternative enclitic forms.

The first and second person pronouns are declined for the most part alike, having by analogy assimilated themselves with one another. Where two forms are given, the second is enclitic and an alternative form. Ablatives in singular and plural may be extended by the syllable -tas; thus mat or mattas, asmat or asmattas. Sanskrit does not have true third person pronouns, but its demonstratives fulfill this function instead by standing independently without a modified substantive.

There are four different demonstratives in Sanskrit: tat, etat, idam, and adas. etat indicates greater proximity than tat. While idam is similar to etat, adas refers to objects that are more remote than tat. eta, is declined almost identically to ta. Its paradigm is obtained by prefixing e- to all the forms of ta. As a result of sandhi, the masculine and feminine singular forms transform into eṣas and eṣã.

The enclitic pronoun ena is found only in a few oblique cases and numbers. Interrogative pronouns all begin with k-, and decline just as tat does, with the initial t- being replaced by k-. The only exception to this are the singular neuter nominative and accusative forms, which are both kim and not the expected *kat. For example, the singular feminine genitive interrogative pronoun, "of whom?", is kasyãḥ. Indefinite pronouns are formed by adding the participles api, cid, or cana after the appropriate interrogative pronouns. All relative pronouns begin with y-, and decline just as tat does. The correlative pronouns are identical to the tat series.

In addition to the pronouns described above, some adjectives follow the pronominal declension. Unless otherwise noted, their declension is identical to tat.

Compounds

Main article: Sanskrit compounds

One other notable feature of the nominal system is the very common use of nominal compounds, which may be huge (10+ words) as in some modern languages such as German and Finnish. Nominal compounds occur with various structures, however morphologically speaking they are essentially the same. Each noun (or adjective) is in its (weak) stem form, with only the final element receiving case inflection. The four principle categories of nominal compounds are:[33]

Dvandva (co-ordinative)
These consist of two or more noun stems, connected in sense with 'and'. Examples are rāma-lakşmaņau – Rama and Lakshmana, rāma-lakşmaņa-bharata-śatrughnāh – Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata and Satrughna, and pāņipādam – limbs, literally hands and feet, from pāņi = hand and pāda = foot.
Tatpuruṣa (determinative)
There are many tatpuruṣas; in a tatpuruṣa the first component is in a case relationship with another. For example, a doghouse is a dative compound, a house for a dog; other examples include instrumental relationships ("thunderstruck") and locative relationships ("towndwelling").
Karmadhāraya (descriptive)
A compound where the relation of the first member to the last is appositional, attributive or adverbial; e.g., uluka-yatu (owl+demon) is a demon in the shape of an owl. Karmadhārayas are considered by some to be tatpuruṣas.[33]
Bahuvrīhi (possessive/exocentric)
Bahuvrīhi compounds refer to a compound noun that refers to a thing which is itself not part of the compound. For example the word bahuvrīhi itself, from bahu = much and vrīhi = rice, denotes a rich person — one who has much rice.

Syntax

This section requires expansion.

Because of Sanskrit's complex declension system the word order is free.[34] In usage, there is a strong tendency toward Subject Object Verb (SOV), which was the original system in place in Vedic prose. However, there are exceptions when word pairs cannot be transposed.[35]

Numerals

The numbers from one to ten:

  1. éka-
  2. dva-
  3. tri-
  4. catúr-
  5. páñcan-
  6. ṣáṣ-
  7. saptán-
  8. aṣṭá-
  9. návan-
  10. dáśan-

The numbers one through four are declined. Éka is declined like a pronominal adjective, though the dual form does not occur. Dvá appears only in the dual. Trí and catúr are declined irregularly:

Three Four
Masculine Neuter Feminine Masculine Neuter Feminine
Nominative tráyas trī́ṇi tisrás catvā́ras catvā́ri cátasras
Accusative trīn trī́ṇi tisrás catúras catvā́ri cátasras
Instrumental tribhís tisṛ́bhis catúrbhis catasṛ́bhis
Dative tribhyás tisṛ́bhyas catúrbhyas catasṛ́bhyas
Ablative tribhyás tisṛ́bhyas catúrbhyas catasṛ́bhyas
Genitive triyāṇā́m tisṛṇā́m caturṇā́m catasṛṇā́m
Locative triṣú tisṛ́ṣu catúrṣu catasṛ́ṣu

Influence

Modern-day India

Influence on vernaculars

Sanskrit's greatest influence, presumably, is that which it exerted on languages of India that grew from its vocabulary and grammatical base; for instance Hindi, which is a "Sanskritized register" of the Khariboli dialect. However, all modern Indo-Aryan languages as well as Munda and Dravidian languages, have borrowed many words either directly from Sanskrit (tatsama words), or indirectly via middle Indo-Aryan languages (tadbhava words).[4] Words originating in Sanskrit are estimated to constitute roughly fifty percent of the vocabulary of modern Indo-Aryan languages,[36] and the literary forms of (Dravidian) Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada.[4]

Sanskrit is prized as a storehouse of scripture and the language of prayers in Hinduism. Like Latin's influence on European languages and Classical Chinese's influence on East Asian languages, Sanskrit has influenced most Indian languages. While vernacular prayer is common, Sanskrit mantras are recited by millions of Hindus and most temple functions are conducted entirely in Sanskrit, often Vedic in form. Of modern day Indian languages, while Hindi and Urdu tend to be more heavily weighted with Arabic and Persian influence, Nepali, Bengali, Assamese, Konkani and Marathi still retain a largely Sanskrit and Prakrit vocabulary base. The Indian national anthem, Jana Gana Mana, is written in a literary form of Bengali (known as sadhu bhasha), Sanskritized so as to be recognizable, but still archaic to the modern ear. The national song of India Vande Mataram was originally a poem composed by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and taken from his book called 'Anandamath', is in a similarly highly Sanskritized Bengali. Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada also combine a great deal of Sanskrit vocabulary. Sanskrit also has influence on Chinese through Buddhist Sutras. Chinese words like 剎那 chànà (Skt. क्षन kṣana 'instantaneous period of time') were borrowed from Sanskrit.

Revival attempts

Main article: Sanskrit revival

The 1991 and 2001, census of India recorded 49,736 and 14,135 persons, respectively, with Sanskrit as their native language.[1] Since the 1990s, efforts to revive spoken Sanskrit have been increasing. Many organizations like the Samskrta Bharati are conducting Speak Sanskrit workshops to popularize the language. The state of Uttarakhand in India has ruled Sanskrit as its second official language. The CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) of India has made Sanskrit a third language (though it is an option for the school to adopt it or not, the other choice being the state's own official language) in the schools it governs. In such schools, learning Sanskrit is an option for grades 5 to 8 (Classes V to VIII). This is true of most schools affiliated to the ICSE board too, especially in those states where the official language is Hindi. Sudharma, the only daily newspaper in Sanskrit has been published out of Mysore in India since the year 1970. Since 1974, there has been a short daily news broadcast on All India Radio.

In these Indian villages, inhabitants of all castes speak Sanskrit natively since childhood:

  1. Mattur in Karnataka,[37]
  2. Jhiri, District: Rajgadh, Madhya Pradesh,[38]
  3. Ganoda, District: Banswada, Rajasthan,[39]
  4. Bawali, District: Bagapat, Uttar Pradesh
  5. Mohad, District: Narasinhpur, Madhya Pradesh

Symbolic usage

In the Republic of India, in Nepal and Indonesia, Sanskrit phrases are widely used as mottoes for various educational and social organizations (much as Latin is used by some institutions in the West). The motto of the Republic is also in Sanskrit.

Republic of India
'सत्यमेव जयते' Satyameva Jayate "Truth alone triumphs"
Nepal
'जननी जन्मभूमिश्च स्वर्गादपि गरीयसी' Janani Janmabhūmisca Svargādapi garīyasi "Mother and motherland are greater than heaven"
Goa
'सर्वे भद्राणि पश्यन्तु मा कश्चित् दुःखभाग्‌ भवेत्' Sarve Bhadrāni Paśyantu Mā Kaścid Duhkhabhāg bhavet "May all perceive good, may not anyone attain unhappiness"
Life Insurance Corporation of India
'योगक्षेमम् वहाम्यहम्', Yogakshemam Vahāmyaham "I shall take care of welfare" (taken from the Bhagavad Gita)
Indian Navy
'शं नो वरुणः' Shanno Varuna "May Varuna be peaceful to us"
Indian Air Force
'नभःस्पृशं दीप्तम्' Nabhaḥ-Spṛśaṃ Dīptam "Touching the Sky with Glory"[40]
Mumbai Police
'सद्रक्षणाय खलनिग्रहणाय' Sadrakshanaaya Khalanigrahanaaya "For protection of the good and control of the wicked"
Indian Coast Guard
'वयम् रक्षामः' Vayam Rakshāmaha "We protect"
All India Radio
'बहुजनहिताय बहुजन‍सुखाय‌' Bahujana-hitāya bahujana-sukhāya "For the benefit of all, for the comfort of all"
Indonesian Navy
'जलेष्वेव जयामहे' Jalesveva Jayamahe "On the Sea We Are Glorious"
Aceh Province
'पञ्चचित' Pancacita "Five Goals"

Many of the post–Independence educational institutions of national importance in India and Sri Lanka have Sanskrit mottoes. For a fuller list of such educational institutions, see List of educational institutions which have Sanskrit phrases as their mottoes.

Interaction with other languages

Further information: Silk Road transmission of Buddhism, Hinduism in Southeast Asia, Indianized kingdom, and Sanskritisation

Sanskrit and related languages have also influenced their Sino-Tibetan-speaking neighbors to the north through the spread of Buddhist texts in translation.[41] Buddhism was spread to China by Mahayanist missionaries sent by Emperor Ashoka mostly through translations of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit texts, and many terms were transliterated directly and added to the Chinese vocabulary. (Although Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit is not Sanskrit, properly speaking, its grammar and vocabulary are substantially the same, both because of genetic relationship, and because of conscious implementation of Pāṇinian standardizations on the part of composers. Buddhist texts composed in Sanskrit proper were primarily found in philosophical schools like the Madhyamaka.) The situation in Tibet is similar; many Sanskrit texts survive only in Tibetan translation (in the Tanjur).

The Thai language contains many loan words from Sanskrit. For example, in Thai, the Rāvana – the emperor of Sri Lanka is called 'Thosakanth' which is a derivation of his Sanskrit name 'Dashakanth' ("of ten necks"). Many Sanskrit loanwords are also found in traditional Malay, Modern Indonesian, and numerous Philippine languages,[42] Old Javanese language (nearly half)[43] and to a lesser extent, Cambodian, Vietnamese, through Sinified hybrid Sanskrit.

Usage in modern times

See also: Sanskrit in the West

Many of India's and Nepal's scientific and administrative terms are named in Sanskrit, as a counterpart of the western practice of naming scientific developments in Latin or Greek.[citation needed] The Indian guided missile program that was commenced in 1983 by DRDO has named the five missiles (ballistic and others) that it has developed as Prithvi, Agni, Akash, Nag and Trishul. India's first modern fighter aircraft is named HAL Tejas.

Recital of Sanskrit shlokas as background chorus in films, television advertisements and as slogans for corporate organizations has become a trend.

Recently, Sanskrit also made an appearance in Western pop music in two recordings by Madonna. One, "Shanti/Ashtangi", from the 1998 album "Ray of Light", is the traditional Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga chant referenced above set to music. The second, "Cyber-raga", released in 2000 as a B-side to Madonna's single "Music", is a Sanskrit-language ode of devotion to a higher power and a wish for peace on earth. The climactic battle theme of The Matrix Revolutions features a choir singing a Sanskrit prayer from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad in the closing titles of the movie. Composer John Williams also featured a choir singing in Sanskrit for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

The Sky1 version of the title sequence in season one of Battlestar Galactica 2004 features the Gayatri Mantra, taken from the Rig Veda (3.62.10). The composition was written by miniseries composer Richard Gibbs.

Computational linguistics

There have been suggestions to use Sanskrit as a metalanguage for knowledge representation in e.g. machine translation, and other areas of natural language processing because of its relatively high regular structure.[44] This is due to Classical Sanskrit being a regularized, prescriptivist form abstracted from the much more complex and richer Vedic Sanskrit. This leveling of the grammar of Classical Sanskrit began during the Brahmana phase, and had not yet completed by the time of Pāṇini, when the language had fallen out of popular use.[citation needed]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit

References

  1. ^ a b "Comparative speaker's strength of scheduled languages -1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001". Census of India, 2001. Office of the Registrar and Census Commissioner, India. http://censusindia.gov.in/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Language/Statement5.htm. Retrieved 31 December 2009.
  2. ^ Indian Constitution Art.344(1) & Art.345
  3. ^ Sanskrit is second official language in Uttarakhand - The Hindustan Times
  4. ^ a b c Stall 1963, p. 272
  5. ^ Macdonell (2004:?)
  6. ^ Burrow (2001:?)
  7. ^ spokensanskrit.de dictionary, using संस्कृत or samskRta as input, see nouns
  8. ^ Monier-Williams (1898:1120)
  9. ^ Masica, p. 32
  10. ^ Masica, p. 33
  11. ^ Masica, pp. 36–37
  12. ^ Masica, p. 38
  13. ^ * Meier-Brügger, Michael; Matthias Fritz, Manfred Mayrhofer, Charles Gertmenian (trans.) (2003), Indo-European Linguistics, Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 20, ISBN 3110174332, http://books.google.com/?id=49xq3UlKWckC
  14. ^ Keith, Arthur Berriedale (1993), A history of Sanskrit literature, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, pp. 4, ISBN 8120809793, http://books.google.com/?id=GNALtBMVbd0C
  15. ^ Pollock (2001:393)
  16. ^ Oberlies (2003:xxvii-xxix)
  17. ^ Edgerton (1953:?)
  18. ^ Hock, H. "Language death phenomena in Sanskrit" in Studies in the Linguistic Sciences v.13 no.2 1983 Dept. of Linguistics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Dept. of Linguistics
  19. ^ Pollock (2001:415)
  20. ^ a b c Pollock (2001:416)
  21. ^ Pollock (2001:414)
  22. ^ Pollock (2001:398)
  23. ^ A notable exception are the military references of Nīlakaṇṭha Caturdhara's 17th-century commentary on the Mahābhārata, according to Minkowski (2004).
  24. ^ Tiwari (1955:?)
  25. ^ Hamp, Eric P. (Oct-December 1996). "On the Indo-European origins of the retroflexes in Sanskrit". Journal of the American Oriental Society, The. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go2081/is_/ai_n28679333. Retrieved 8 January 2009.
  26. ^ Salomon (1998), p. 7
  27. ^ Whitney (1889:?)
  28. ^ a b Salomon (1998), p. 86
  29. ^ a b Masica (1991:135)
  30. ^ In northern India, there are Brahmi inscriptions dating from the 3rd century BCE onwards, the oldest appearing on the famous Prakrit pillar inscriptions of king Ashoka. The earliest South Indian inscriptions in Tamil Brahmi, written in early Tamil, belong to the same period. Mahadevan (2003:?)
  31. ^ Abhyankar (1986:?)
  32. ^ Utoronto.ca
  33. ^ a b Lennart Warnemyr. An Analytical Cross Referenced Sanskrit Grammar Compounds
  34. ^ Staal, J.F. (1967), Word Order in Sanskrit and Universal Grammar, Springer Science & Business, ISBN 9789027705495, http://books.google.com/?id=VqihQhNkqu4C&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=free+order
  35. ^ Gillon, B.S (March 25, 1996), "Word order in Classical Sanskrit", Indian linguistics 57 (1–4): 1, ISSN 0378-0759, http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=2875140
  36. ^ Chatterji 1942, cited in Stall 1963, p. 272
  37. ^ This village speaks gods language - India - The Times of India
  38. ^ Sanskrit boulevard: Hindustan Times
  39. ^ Chitrapurmath.net Thehindu.com
  40. ^ The IAF Motto, Official website
  41. ^ van Gulik (1956:?)
  42. ^ See this page from the Indonesian Wikipedia for a list
  43. ^ Zoetmulder (1982:ix)
  44. ^ First suggested by Briggs (1985)

Bibliography

Further reading

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Pamir Ishkashimi · Munji · Roshani (Roshni) · Shughni · Sarikoli · Wakhi · Yazgulami · Yidgha
Others Bartangi · Hindukush group · Ishkashmi · Karakoram group · Khufi · Munji · Oroshori · Ossetic · Pashto · Sanglechi · Vanji · Waziri · Yaghnobi · Zebaki
Unclassified Tangshewi
Other Indo-Iranian languages
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Nuristani
Kamkata-viri Kamviri · Kata-vari · Mumviri
Others Askunu · Kalasha-ala · Kamkata-viri · Tregami language · Vasi-vari
Italics indicate extinct languages.
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'Sanskrit' News
Poparazzi | Ink Stain - New York Times (blog)
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Poparazzi | Ink Stain - New York Times (blog)
Tue, 27 Jul 2010 20:53:09 GMT+00:00
New York Times (blog) ... was criticized for misspelling her name in Hindi on a tattoo on his arm, and the singer Rihanna has a reportedly misspelled Sanskrit prayer on her right ...
Google News Search: Sanskrit,
Tue Jul 27 19:03:29 2010
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even Tibetan is not far behind followed by japanese

Yahoo Images Search: Sanskrit,
Wed Jul 28 15:41:14 2010
'Sanskrit' Blogs
Delhi University (DU) MA Sanskrit Entrance Test 2010 Results ...
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Delhi University (DU) MA Sanskrit Entrance Test 2010 Results ...

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Sat, 10 Jul 2010 09:58:24 GM

Delhi University (DU) MA . Sanskrit. Entrance Test 2010 Results The University of Delhi (DU) is a central university situated in Delhi, India and is funded by Government of India. Established in 1922, it offers courses at the undergraduate ...

Google Blogs Search: Sanskrit,
Sun Jul 25 13:54:59 2010
'Sanskrit' Answers
how do we concentrate on the application of Sanskrit for good results?
Q. application of sanskrit is tricky.The indian language requires a practical brain.so,any suggestions on fields such as 'sandhis' and 'prathyayas'?
Asked by sai k - Fri Dec 28 08:54:47 2007 - - 1 Answers - 0 Comments

A. sanskrit is like maths.Just mug up all ROOPS etc then go through.You'll enjoy.
Answered by lav ashok mohyal - Fri Dec 28 09:26:19 2007

Yahoo Answers Search: Sanskrit,
Thu Jul 29 20:31:24 2010
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