Sanskrit संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam
Pronunciation:	[sə̃skɹ̩t̪əm]
Spoken in:	India, Nepal
Total speakers:	49,736 fluent speakers (1991 Indian census)
Language family:	Indo-European  Indo-Iranian   Indo-Aryan    Sanskrit
Writing system:	Devanāgarī and several other Brāhmī-based scripts
Official status
Official language in:	India (one of the scheduled languages)
Regulated by:	no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	sa
ISO 639-2:	san
ISO 639-3:	san
This page contains Indic text. India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country Nepal (नेपाल) is a Landlocked country in South Asia. The Demographics of India are overall remarkably diverse India's population of approximately 1 List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages The Indo-Aryan languages (within the context of Indo-European studies also Indic) are a branch of the Indo-European language family A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. Brāhmī script refers to the oldest members of the Brahmic family of alphabets. India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country This is a list of bodies that regulate Standard languages Natural languages Auxiliary languages Interlingua The auxiliary language ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages The Brahmic family is a family of syllabaries (writing systems used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central Asia and East Asia, Without rendering support you may see irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. More...

Sanskrit (संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism and other Indian religions,^[1] and one of the 23 scheduled languages in the Indian constitution. Vāk or Vāc (stem vāc-, nominative vāk) is the Sanskrit word for "speech" "voice" "talk" or "language" A classical language, is a language with a Literature that is "classical"&mdashie "it should be ancient it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country A sacred language, or liturgical language, is a Language that is cultivated for religious reasons by people who speak another language in their daily life Hinduism is a religious tradition that originated in the Indian subcontinent. Indian religions, also called Dharmic religions, are the related religious traditions that originated in the Indian subcontinent, namely Hinduism, The Constitution of India envisages Hindi as the primary official language to be used by the Union Government, with English as the subsidiary official language

Its position in the cultures of South and Southeast Asia is akin to that of Latin and Greek in Europe and it has evolved into, as well as influenced, modern-day Indian languages. Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate" generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly A proto-language is a Language which was the common ancestor of related languages that form a Language family. ^[2] It appears in pre-Classical form as Vedic Sanskrit, with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved. Vedic Sanskrit is an ancient Indian language, the language of the Vedas, the oldest Shruti texts of Hinduism. The Rigveda ( Sanskrit sa ऋग्वेद ṛgveda, a compound of ṛc "praise verse" and veda "knowledge" Dating back to as early as 1500 BCE,^[3] Vedic Sanskrit is the earliest attested Indo-Iranian language, and one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family. The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages ^[4]

The corpus of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as scientific, technical, philosophical and Hindu religious texts. Literature in Sanskrit begins with the Vedas, and continues with the Sanskrit Epics of Iron Age India; the golden age of Classical Drama as a distinct genre of Sanskrit literature emerges in the final centuries BC although its exact origins remain unknown Hindu philosophy is divided into six Sanskrit ''{{IAST|āstika}}'') schools of thought or darshanas (literally "views" Sankhya Literature regarded as central to the Hindu literary tradition was predominantly composed in Sanskrit, Indeed much of the morphology and linguistic Today, Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals in the forms of hymns and mantras. In Hinduism a Stotra is a hymn of praise These hymns praise aspects of the divine such as Devi, Siva, or Vishnu. A mantra ( Devanāgarī मन्त्र (or mantram is a religious or mystical syllable or poem typically from the Sanskrit language Spoken Sanskrit is still in use in a few traditional institutions in India, and there are some attempts at revival. Sanskrit revival is the accumulation of attempts at reviving the Sanskrit language that have been undertaken

The scope of this article is the Classical Sanskrit language as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini, around the 4th century BCE. Pāṇini ( IAST: Pāṇini Dēvanāgarī: sa पाणिनि a Patronymic meaning "descendant of {{IAST|Paṇi}} " was an ancient

Etymology

The verbal adjective saṃskṛta- may be translated as "put together, well or completely formed, refined, highly elaborated". It is derived from the root saṃ(s)kar- "to put together, compose, arrange, prepare",^[5] where saṃ- "together" and (s)kar- "do, make". The language referred to as saṃskṛtā vāk "the cultured language" has by definition always been a "high" language, used for religious and learned discourse and contrasted with the languages spoken by the people, prākṛta- "natural, artless, normal, ordinary". Prakrit (also transliterated as Pracrit) ( Sanskrit: prākṛta प्राकृत (from pra-kṛti प्रकृति according to one It is also called deva-bhāṣā meaning "divine language".

History

Devimahatmya manuscript on palm-leaf, in an early Bhujimol script, Bihar or Nepal, 11th century. The Devi Mahatmya ( Sanskrit: devīmāhātmyam, sa देवीमाहात्म्यम् or "Glory of the Goddess " is a Hindu Bhujimol is the name of the most ancient form of the Nepal script. Bihar ( Hindi:बिहार Urdu: بہار bɪhaːr) is a state in eastern India. Nepal (नेपाल) is a Landlocked country in South Asia.

Sanskrit is a member of the Indo-Iranian sub-family of the Indo-European family of languages. The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages It has the characteristic Satem sound changes associated with other members of Indo-Iranian.

The oldest surviving Sanskrit grammar is Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī ("Eight-Chapter Grammar") dating to circa the 4th century BCE. Pāṇini ( IAST: Pāṇini Dēvanāgarī: sa पाणिनि a Patronymic meaning "descendant of {{IAST|Paṇi}} " was an ancient 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 that had already passed out of use 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. Social class refers to the hierarchical distinctions (or stratification) between individuals or groups in Societies or Cultures. Education encompasses both the Teaching and Learning of Knowledge, proper conduct, and technical competency The Sanskrit grammatical tradition of vyākaraṇa is one of the six Vedanga disciplines 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. Prakrit (also transliterated as Pracrit) ( Sanskrit: prākṛta प्राकृत (from pra-kṛti प्रकृति according to one The Middle Indo-Aryan ( Middle Indic) languages are the early medieval dialects of the Indo-Aryan languages, the descendants of the Old Indo-Aryan dialects such as The Indo-Aryan languages (within the context of Indo-European studies also Indic) are a branch of the Indo-European language family

Vedic Sanskrit

Main article: Vedic Sanskrit

Sanskrit, as defined by Pāṇini, had evolved out of the earlier "Vedic" form. Vedic Sanskrit is an ancient Indian language, the language of the Vedas, the oldest Shruti texts of Hinduism. Pāṇini ( IAST: Pāṇini Dēvanāgarī: sa पाणिनि a Patronymic meaning "descendant of {{IAST|Paṇi}} " was an ancient Scholars often distinguish Vedic Sanskrit and Classical or "Paninian" Sanskrit as separate 'dialects'. Vedic Sanskrit is an ancient Indian language, the language of the Vedas, the oldest Shruti texts of Hinduism. Though they are quite similar, they differ in a number of essential points of phonology, vocabulary, and grammar and syntax that make the understanding of Vedic difficult. Phonology ( Greek φωνή (phōnē voice sound + λόγος (lógos word speech subject of discussion is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning The vocabulary of a person is defined either as the set of all Words that are understood by that person or the set of all words likely to be used by that person when constructing Grammar is the field of Linguistics that covers the Rules governing the use of any given natural language. In Linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek grc συν- syn-, "together" and grc τάξις táxis, "arrangement" is the Classical Sanskrit is considered to have descended from Vedic Sanskrit. 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. "Veda" redirects here For other uses see Veda (disambiguation. The Brāhmaṇa s ( Devanagari: sa ब्राह्मणं are part of the Hindu śruti literature A Hindu ( Devanagari: हिन्दू is an adherent of the philosophies and scriptures of Hinduism, a set of religious, Philosophical Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Rigveda Samhita to be the earliest, composed by many authors over centuries of oral tradition. The Rigveda ( Sanskrit sa ऋग्वेद ṛgveda, a compound of ṛc "praise verse" and veda "knowledge" 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. The Upanishads ( Devanagari: उपनिषद् IAST: upaniṣad also spelled "Upanisad" are Hindu scriptures that constitute the core teachings The current hypothesis holds that the Vedic form of Sanskrit survived until the middle of the first millennium BCE. It is around this time that 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 two thousand years, a cultural order existed that exerted influence across South Asia, Inner Asia, Southeast Asia, and to a certain extent, East Asia. ^[6] A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of the Hindu Epics—the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Indian epic poetry is the Epic poetry written in the Indian subcontinent. The Rāmāyaṇa ( Devanāgarī: sa रामायण is an ancient Sanskrit epic attributed to the Hindu sage ( Maharishi) Valmiki 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. Pāṇini ( IAST: Pāṇini Dēvanāgarī: sa पाणिनि a Patronymic meaning "descendant of {{IAST|Paṇi}} " was an ancient ^[7] Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations aarsha (आर्ष), or "of the rishis", the traditional title for the ancient authors. A rishi (ṛṣi denotes a Vedic poet by whom Vedic hymns were composed or according to post-Vedic tradition a "sage" to whom they were "originally revealed" (Ṛṣis In some contexts there are also more "prakritisms" (borrowings from common speech) than in Classical Sanskrit proper. Finally, there is also a language called "Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit" by scholars, which starts out from Buddhist prakrit texts and gradually evolved to various forms of Sanskrit, some more prakritized than the others,^[8] According to Tiwari (1955), there were four principal dialects of classical Sanskrit, viz. Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit ( BHS) is a modern linguistic category applied to the language used in a class of Indian Buddhist texts such as the Perfection Prakrit (also transliterated as Pracrit) ( Sanskrit: prākṛta प्राकृत (from pra-kṛti प्रकृति according to one Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical , 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 are even attested in Vedic Brāhmaṇas, of which the first one was regarded as the purest (Kauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa, 7. The Brāhmaṇa s ( Devanagari: sa ब्राह्मणं are part of the Hindu śruti literature 6).

Decline

See also: Termination of spoken Sanskrit

Exactly how and when Sanskrit became a "dead" language isn't clearly understood, but the process was similar to that of Latin, as Pollock (2001) describes it:^[9]

"Both died slowly, and earliest as a vehicle of literary expression, while much longer retaining significance for learned discourse with its universalist claims. Classical Sanskrit became fixed with the grammar of Panini (roughly 500 BC and remains in use as a learned language until the present day. According to some definitions an extinct language is a Language which no longer has any speakers, whereas a dead language is a language which is no longer spoken Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical 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 the result of a weakening of the political institutions that supported it as well as by heightened competition with vernacular languages seeking literary-cultural dignity. There was regional variation in the forcefulness of these vernacular movements and Sanskrit declined in different ways across the subcontinent. For example, Kashmiri replaced Sanskrit as the language of literature after the thirteenth century and Sanskrit works from the Vijayanagara Empire failed to circulate outside of their place and time of composition while works in Telugu and Kannada flourished. Kashmiri (कॉशुर کٲشُر Koshur) is a Dardic language spoken primarily in the valley of Kashmir, a region situated in the Indian state The Vijayanagara Empire ( Kannada: ವಿಜಯನಗರ ಸಾಮ್ರಾಜ್ಯ Telugu: విజయనగర సామ్రాజ్యము was a South Kannada (kn [[wiktಕನ್ನಡ ಕನ್ನಡ]] Kannaḍa) is one of the major Dravidian languages of India, spoken predominantly in the state ^[10] This "death" of Sanskrit did not mean it fell out of use in literary cultures of India and, despite literary use of vernacular languages, those who could read in vernacular languages could do the same in Sanskrit^[11] (in addition, even Muslim rulers made attempts to revive literary Sanskrit^[12]). What it did mean, though, was that Sanskrit was not used to express changing forms of subjectivity and sociality embodied and conceptualized in the modern age. ^[13] Instead, it was reduced to "reinscription and restatements" of ideas already explored and any creativity in Sanskrit was restricted to religious hymns and verses. ^[14][15]

European Scholarship

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, and played an important role in the development of Western linguistics. Heinrich Roth ( December 18, 1620 in Augsburg Germany – June 20, 1668 in Agra) was a Missionary and pioneering Johann Ernst Hanxleden (1681 at Ostercappeln, near Osnabrück, in Lower Saxony, Germany - 20 March 1732, at Palayur List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family Sir William Jones ( September 28, 1746 &ndash April 27, 1794) was an English philologist and student of ancient India Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields

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. Sir William Jones ( September 28, 1746 &ndash April 27, 1794) was an English philologist and student of ancient India The Asiatic Society was founded by Sir William Jones ( 1746 - 1794) on January 15, 1784 in a meeting presided over by Sir Robert Events 962 - Translatio imperii: Pope John XII crowns Otto I Holy Roman Emperor, the first Holy Roman Emperor Year 1786 ( MDCCLXXXVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. See Comparative linguistics for the narrower field of "comparative philology"

Phonology

Further information: Śikṣā

Classical Sanskrit distinguishes about 36 phonemes. See Shiksha (NGO for the Indian non-governmental organization The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU There is, however, some allophony and the writing systems used for Sanskrit generally indicate this, thus distinguishing 48 sounds. In Phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds ( Phones that belong to the same Phoneme. Within Phonetics, a phone is a speech sound or gesture considered a physical event without regard to its place in the Phonology of a Language

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. In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with Anusvara (Dev अनुस्वार anusvāra) is the diacritic used to mark a type of Nasalization used in a number of Indic languages. Visarga ( visarga) is a Sanskrit word meaning "sending forth discharge" A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the Liquid consonants, or liquids, are Approximant Consonants that are not classified as Semivowels (glides because they do not correspond phonetically Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic The Shiva Sutras ( Sanskrit: Maheśvara sūtra sa महेश्वर सूत्र contain the system of phonemic notation which was used to organize Pāṇini ( IAST: Pāṇini Dēvanāgarī: sa पाणिनि a Patronymic meaning "descendant of {{IAST|Paṇi}} " was an ancient

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 ITRANS and (approximate) equivalents in English are listed below:

The long vowels are pronounced twice as long as their short counterparts. General American is an accent of American English within American English General American and accents approximating it are contrasted with Southern American The near-open central vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that In Linguistics, specifically Phonetics and Phonology, schwa can mean the following An unstressed and toneless neutral The open back unrounded vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet Received Pronunciation ( RP) is a form of Pronunciation of the English language (specifically British English) which has long been perceived as The close front unrounded vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in many spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents The close front unrounded vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in many spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents The close back rounded vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents The close back rounded vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents The retroflex approximant is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that The retroflex approximant is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that The retroflex lateral approximant is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The retroflex lateral approximant is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet Close-mid front unrounded vowel The close-mid front unrounded vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with Canadian English ( CanE, en-CA) is the variety of English used in Canada. The close-mid back rounded vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound Also, there exists a third, extra-long length for most vowels, called pluti, which is used in various cases, but particularly in the vocative. Pluti is the term for overlong vowels in Sanskrit. Pluti vowels are usually noted with a numeral "3" (indicating length of three morae) ā3 ī3 ū3 ṛぃ The vocative case is the case used for a Noun identifying the person (animal object etc 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. Proto-Indo-Iranian, is the reconstructed Proto-language of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European. (See above).

Additional points:

• There are some additional signs traditionally listed in tables of the Devanagari script:
  • The diacritic ं called anusvāra, (IAST: ṃ). The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic It is used both to indicate the nasalization of the vowel in the syllable ([◌̃] and to represent the sound of a syllabic /n/ or /m/; e. g. पं /pəŋ/.
  • The diacritic ः called visarga, represents /əh/ (IAST: ḥ); e. The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic g. पः /pəh/.
  • The diacritic ँ called chandrabindu, not traditionally included in Devanagari charts for Sanskrit, is used interchangeably with the anusvāra to indicate nasalization of the vowel, primarily in Vedic notation; e. g. पँ /pə̃/.
• If a lone consonant needs to be written without any following vowel, it is given a halanta/virāma diacritic below (प्).
• The vowel /aː/ in Sanskrit is realized as being more central and less back than the closest English approximation, which is /ɑː/. But the grammarians have classified it as a back vowel. ^[16].
• The ancient Sanskrit grammarians classified the vowel system as velars, retroflexes, palatals and plosives rather than as back, central and front vowels. Hence ए and ओ are classified respectively as palato-velar (a+i) and labio-velar (a+u) vowels respectively. But the grammarians have classified them as diphthongs and in prosody, each is given two mātrās. In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with This does not necessarily mean that they are proper diphthongs, but neither excludes the possibility that they could have been proper diphthongs at a very ancient stage (see above). These vowels are pronounced as long /eː/ and /oː/ respectively by learned Sanskrit Brahmans and priests of today. Other than the "four" diphthongs, Sanskrit usually disallows any other diphthong—vowels in succession, where they occur, are converted to semivowels according to sandhi rules. Semivowels — also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels —are Vowels that form Diphthongs with full syllabic vowels Sandhi ( Sanskrit saṃdhi sa संधि "joining" is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at Morpheme
• In the Devanagari script used for Sanskrit, whenever a consonant in a word-ending position is without any virāma (freely standing in the orthography: प as opposed to प्), the neutral vowel schwa (/ə/) is automatically associated with it—this is of course true for the consonant to be in any position in the word. In Linguistics, specifically Phonetics and Phonology, schwa can mean the following An unstressed and toneless neutral Word-ending schwa is always short. But the IAST a appended to the end of masculine noun words rather confuses the foreigners to pronounce it as /ɑː/—this makes the masculine Sanskrit words sound like feminine! e. g. , shiva must be pronounced as /ɕivə/ and not as /ɕivɑː/. ^[17] argues that in Vedic Sanskrit, अ indicated short /ɑ/, and became centralized and raised in the era of the Prakrits.

Consonants

IAST and Devanagari notations are given, with approximate IPA values in square brackets. The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic

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. Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips ( bilabial articulation or with the lower lip and the upper teeth ( labiodental articulation In Phonetics, labiodentals are Consonants articulated with the lower Lip and the upper Teeth. In Linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a Consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth such as /t/ /d/ /n/ and In Phonetics, retroflex consonants are Consonant sounds used in some Languages (They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Description Voiceless consonants are produced with the Vocal cords open and voiced consonants are produced when the vocal folds are fractionally closed Description Voiceless consonants are produced with the Vocal cords open and voiced consonants are produced when the vocal folds are fractionally closed A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the Semivowels — also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels —are Vowels that form Diphthongs with full syllabic vowels Liquid consonants, or liquids, are Approximant Consonants that are not classified as Semivowels (glides because they do not correspond phonetically Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together General American is an accent of American English within American English General American and accents approximating it are contrasted with Southern American Received Pronunciation ( RP) is a form of Pronunciation of the English language (specifically British English) which has long been perceived as Each consonant shown below is deemed to be followed by the neutral vowel schwa (/ə/), and is named in the table as such. In Linguistics, specifically Phonetics and Phonology, schwa can mean the following An unstressed and toneless neutral

Phonology and Sandhi

The Sanskrit vowels are as discussed in the section above. A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Description Voiceless consonants are produced with the Vocal cords open and voiced consonants are produced when the vocal folds are fractionally closed Voice or voicing is a term used in Phonetics and Phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless Description Voiceless consonants are produced with the Vocal cords open and voiced consonants are produced when the vocal folds are fractionally closed Voice or voicing is a term used in Phonetics and Phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless Description Voiceless consonants are produced with the Vocal cords open and voiced consonants are produced when the vocal folds are fractionally closed Voice or voicing is a term used in Phonetics and Phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless Description Voiceless consonants are produced with the Vocal cords open and voiced consonants are produced when the vocal folds are fractionally closed Voice or voicing is a term used in Phonetics and Phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth In Phonetics, retroflex consonants are Consonant sounds used in some Languages (They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants In Linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a Consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth such as /t/ /d/ /n/ and Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips ( bilabial articulation or with the lower lip and the upper teeth ( labiodental articulation Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth In Phonetics, retroflex consonants are Consonant sounds used in some Languages (They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants In Linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a Consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth such as /t/ /d/ /n/ and Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips ( bilabial articulation or with the lower lip and the upper teeth ( labiodental articulation Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants Scottish English is the variety of English spoken in Scotland, also called Scottish Standard English. A sibilant is a type of Fricative or Affricate Consonant, made by directing a jet of air through a narrow channel in the Vocal tract towards Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together 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. The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU

Visarga ḥ ः is an allophone of r and s, and anusvara ṃ, Devanagari ं of any nasal, both in pausa (ie, the nasalized vowel). Visarga ( visarga) is a Sanskrit word meaning "sending forth discharge" In Phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds ( Phones that belong to the same Phoneme. Anusvara (Dev अनुस्वार anusvāra) is the diacritic used to mark a type of Nasalization used in a number of Indic languages. See Pausha for the Hindu month Pausa is also the Italian name for a rest in music. 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 Indo-Aryan languages (within the context of Indo-European studies also Indic) are a branch of the Indo-European language family 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 or other substrate languages. In Phonetics, retroflex consonants are Consonant sounds used in some Languages (They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants In Contact linguistics, a substratum ( lat sub: under + stratum: layer → lower layer) is a Language The Dravidian family of languages includes approximately 73 languages (including the four literary languages of Tamil, Telugu, Kannada 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 International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic

The phonological rules to be applied when combining morphemes to a word, and when combining words to a sentence are collectively called sandhi "composition". Phonology ( Greek φωνή (phōnē voice sound + λόγος (lógos word speech subject of discussion is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning Sandhi ( Sanskrit saṃdhi sa संधि "joining" is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at Morpheme Texts are written phonetically, with sandhi applied (except for the so-called padapāṭha).

Palindrome

Sanskrit is famous for certain specialities, one of them being the Palindrome.

As early as the 14th Century, the scholar Dyvagyna Surya Pandita wrote "Ramakrishna Viloma Kavyam," a set of poems that when read forward relate to Rama and the Ramayana, and when read in reverse relate to Krishna and the Mahabharata. The Rāmāyaṇa ( Devanāgarī: sa रामायण is an ancient Sanskrit epic attributed to the Hindu sage ( Maharishi) Valmiki

Writing system

Kashmiri Shaivaite manuscript in the Sharada script (c. This article is about the geographical region of greater Kashmir Shaivism, also spelled "Saivism" names the oldest of the four sects of Hinduism. The Śāradā, or Sharada, script (sa शारदा is an Abugida writing system of the Brahmic family of scripts developed from ca 17th century)

Sanskrit was spoken in an oral society, and the oral tradition was maintained through the development of early classical Sanskrit literature. Literature in Sanskrit begins with the Vedas, and continues with the Sanskrit Epics of Iron Age India; the golden age of Classical ^[18] 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,^[19] quite possibly because of the European practice of printing Sanskrit texts in this script.

The earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit date to the first century BCE. ^[20] They are in the Brahmi script, which was originally used for Prakrit, not Sanskrit. Prakrit (also transliterated as Pracrit) ( Sanskrit: prākṛta प्राकृत (from pra-kṛti प्रकृति according to one ^[21] 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. ^[20][22] 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. ^[21]

Brahmi evolved into a multiplicity of scripts of the Brahmic family, many of which were used to write Sanskrit. The Brahmic family is a family of syllabaries (writing systems used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central Asia and East Asia, Roughly contemporary with the Brahmi, the Kharosthi script was used in the northwest of the subcontinent. The Kharoṣṭhī script, also known as the Gāndhārī script, is an ancient Abugida (an alphasyllabary based on consonants with graphical variations to express Later (ca. 4th to 8th centuries CE) the Gupta script, derived from Brahmi, became prevalent. The Gupta script (or Gupta Brahmi) was used for writing Sanskrit and is associated with the Gupta Empire of India which was a period of material From ca. the 8th century, the Sharada script evolved out of the Gupta script. The Śāradā, or Sharada, script (sa शारदा is an Abugida writing system of the Brahmic family of scripts developed from ca The latter was displaced in its turn by Devanagari from ca. the 11/12th century, with intermediary stages such as the Siddham script. Siddhaṃ ( Sanskrit सिद्धं "accomplished" or "perfected" — is the name of a North Indian script used for writing Sanskrit during the period In Eastern India, the Bengali script and, later, the Oriya script, were used. The Oriya script is used to write the Oriya language, and can be used for several other Indian languages for example Sanskrit. In the south where Dravidian languages predominate, scripts used for Sanskrit include Kannada in Kannada and Telugu speaking regions, Telugu in Telugu and Tamil speaking regions, Malayalam and Grantha in Tamil speaking regions. The Dravidian family of languages includes approximately 73 languages (including the four literary languages of Tamil, Telugu, Kannada The Kannada script is a Syllabary (of the type sometimes called an Abugida) of the Brahmic family, primarily to write the Kannada language Kannada (kn [[wiktಕನ್ನಡ ಕನ್ನಡ]] Kannaḍa) is one of the major Dravidian languages of India, spoken predominantly in the state Telugu script, an Abugida from the Brahmic family of scripts is used to write Telugu language, a Dravidian Language found in the Southern Tamil (ta தமிழ்; t̪əmɨɻ is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. Not to be confused with the Malay language. Malayalam (മലയാളം malayāḷaṁ) is a Dravidian language used Grantha ( Tamil: கிரந்த ௭ழுத்து Bengali: গ্রন্থলিপি Malayalam: ml ഗ്രന്ഥലിപി Sanskrit Tamil (ta தமிழ்; t̪əmɨɻ is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent.

Sanskrit in modern Indian scripts. May Śiva bless those who take delight in the language of the gods. Shiva:(pronunciation; Sanskrit: शिव Śiva, lit "Auspicious one" One of the Trimurtis Shiva is the supreme God in the Shaiva (Kalidasa)

Romanization

Main article: Devanagari transliteration

Since the late 18th century, Sanskrit has been transliterated using the Latin alphabet. "Kalidasa" redirects here For the true bug Genus, see Kalidasa (insect. There are several methods of Transliteration from Devanāgarī into Roman scripts. Transliteration is the practice of Transcribing a Word or text written in one Writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice The system most commonly used today is the IAST (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration), which has been the academic standard since 1888/1912. The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic ASCII-based transliteration schemes have evolved due to difficulties representing Sanskrit characters in computer systems. American Standard Code for Information Interchange ( ASCII) 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. The Harvard-Kyoto Convention is a system for transliterating in ASCII the Sanskrit language and other languages that use the Devanāgarī The " I ndian languages TRANS literation" ( ITRANS) is an ASCII Transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly but With the wide availability of Unicode aware web browsers, IAST has become common online. In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

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. The Sanskrit grammar has a complex verbal system rich nominal Declension, and extensive use of Compound nouns It was studied and codified by The Sanskrit grammatical tradition of vyākaraṇa is one of the six Vedanga disciplines The Vedanga ( vedāṅga, "member of the Veda" are six auxiliary disciplines for the understanding and tradition of the Vedas. The Vedic Period (or Vedic Age) is the period in the History of India during which the Vedas, the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism, were being Pāṇini ( IAST: Pāṇini Dēvanāgarī: sa पाणिनि a Patronymic meaning "descendant of {{IAST|Paṇi}} " was an ancient Pāṇini ( IAST: Pāṇini Dēvanāgarī: sa पाणिनि a Patronymic meaning "descendant of {{IAST|Paṇi}} " was an ancient 5th century BCE). After a century Pāṇini (around 400 BCE) Kātyāyana composed Vārtikas on Pāninian sũtras. Pāṇini ( IAST: Pāṇini Dēvanāgarī: sa पाणिनि a Patronymic meaning "descendant of {{IAST|Paṇi}} " was an ancient Patañjali, who lived three centuries after Pānini, wrote the Mahābhāṣya, the "Great Commentary" on the Aṣṭādhyāyī and Vārtikas. Patañjali ( Devanāgarī पतञ्जलि (fl 150 BCE or 2nd c The Mahābhāṣya ("great commentary" attributed to Patañjali, is a commentary on selected rules of Sanskrit grammar from Pāṇini 's treatise Because of these three ancient Sanskrit grammarians this grammar is called Trimuni Vyākarana. The Sanskrit grammatical tradition of vyākaraṇa is one of the six Vedanga disciplines To understand the meaning of sutras Jayaditya and Vāmana wrote the commentry named Kāsikā 600 CE. Paninian grammar is based on 14 Shiva sutras (aphorisms). Shiva:(pronunciation; Sanskrit: शिव Śiva, lit "Auspicious one" One of the Trimurtis Shiva is the supreme God in the Shaiva Here whole Mātrika (alphabet) is abbreviated. An alphabet is a standardized set of letters basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a Phoneme, a Spoken language, either This abbreviation is called Pratyāhara. ^[23]

Verbs

Main article: Sanskrit verbs

Sanskrit has ten classes of verbs divided into in two broad groups: athematic and thematic. The Sanskrit verbal system is very complex with verbs inflecting for different combinations of tense, aspect, mood, number, and person For English usage of verbs see the wiki article English verbs. In the Indo-European languages, thematic roots are those roots that have a "theme vowel" a Vowel sound that is always present between In Indo-European linguistics, a vowel stem is a Noun or Verb stem that ends in a vowel that appears in or otherwise influences the noun or verb's Inflectional The thematic verbs are so called because an a, called the theme vowel, is inserted between the stem and the ending. In Indo-European linguistics, a vowel stem is a Noun or Verb stem that ends in a vowel that appears in or otherwise influences the noun or verb's Inflectional This serves to make the thematic verbs generally more regular. Exponents used in verb conjugation include prefixes, suffixes, infixes, and reduplication. An exponent is a phonological manifestation of a morphosyntactic property In Linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a Verb, Noun or Adjective from its Principal parts by Inflection An affix is a Morpheme that is attached to a stem to form a word In Grammar, a suffix (also postfix, ending) is an Affix which is placed at the end of a word An infix is an Affix inserted inside a stem (an existing word Reduplication, in Linguistics, is a morphological Process by which the root or stem of a Word, or part of it is repeated Every root has (not necessarily all distinct) zero, guṇa, and vṛddhi grades. The Sanskrit word guṇa has the basic meaning of "string" or "a single thread or strand of a cord or twine" Vrddhi (वृद्धि) is a Sanskrit word meaning "growth" (from) 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. In Linguistics, “gerund” is a term used to refer to various non-finite verb forms in various languages As applied to English, In Grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages In grammar an intensive form of a word is one which denotes stronger or more forceful action as compared with the root on which the intensive is built In Grammar, a frequentative form of a word is one which indicates repeated action In Linguistics, a desiderative form is one that has the meaning of "wanting to X" A causative form in Linguistics, is an expression of an agent causing or forcing a patient to perform an action (or to be in a certain condition The benedictive mood is found in Sanskrit, although extremely rarely There are four tense systems:

• Present (Present, Imperfect, Imperative, Optative)
• Perfect
• Aorist
• Future (Future, Conditional)

Nouns

Sanskrit is a highly inflected language with three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and three numbers (singular, plural, dual). Present Tense is the first Sagittarius album released in 1968 by Columbia Records. The imperfect tense, in the classical grammar of several Indo-European languages, denotes a Past tense with an Imperfective aspect. The imperative mood is a Grammatical mood that expresses direct commands or requests The optative mood is a Grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope The perfect aspect is variously considered either an aspect or tense which calls a listener's attention to the consequences generated by an action rather than the The future is commonly understood to contain all events that have yet to occur In Grammar, the future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet but expected to happen in the future (in an Absolute tense In Grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong Dual is a Grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and Plural. It has eight cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, instrumental, dative, ablative, genitive, and locative. In Grammar, the case of a Noun or Pronoun indicates its Grammatical function in a greater Phrase or Clause; such as the The nominative case is a Grammatical case for a Noun, which generally marks the subject of a Verb, as opposed to its object or other The vocative case is the case used for a Noun identifying the person (animal object etc The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive The instrumental case (also called the eighth case) is a Grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the The dative case is a Grammatical case generally used to indicate the Noun to whom something is given In Linguistics, ablative case ( abbreviated ABL) is a name given to cases in various languages whose common characteristic In Grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a Noun as modifying another Locative (also called the seventh case) is a Grammatical case which indicates a location

The number of actual declensions is debatable. In Linguistics, declension (or declination) is the occurrence of Inflection in Nouns Pronouns and Adjectives indicating Panini identifies six karakas corresponding to the nominative, accusative, dative, instrumental, locative, and ablative cases [1]. Pāṇini ( IAST: Pāṇini Dēvanāgarī: sa पाणिनि a Patronymic meaning "descendant of {{IAST|Paṇi}} " was an ancient Panini 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

The first and second person pronouns are declined for the most part alike, having by analogy assimilated themselves with one another. Sanskrit pronouns are declined for case, number, and gender The pronominal declension applies to a few adjectives as well Analogy is both the cognitive process of transferring Information from a particular subject (the analogue or source to another particular subject (the target and

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. One notable feature of the nominal system of Sanskrit is the very common use of nominal compounds (Samāsa which may be huge (10+ words as in some modern languages such as German The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Finnish ( or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% As of 2006) and by ethnic Finns outside Both, along with Sanskrit, belong to the Agglutinative languages. An agglutinative language is a Language that uses Agglutination extensively most Words are formed by joining Morphemes together 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. Some examples of nominal compounds include:

Dvandva (co-ordinative)

These consist of two or more noun stems, connected in sense with 'and'. A dvandva or copulative or coordinative compound refers to two or more objects that could be connected in sense by the conjunction 'and' There are mainly two kinds of dvandva constructions in Sanskrit. The first is called itaretara dvandva, an enumerative compound word, the meaning of which refers to all its constituent members. The resultant compound word is in the dual or plural number and takes the gender of the final member in the compound construction. e. g. rāma-lakşmaņau – Rama and Lakshmana, or rāma-lakşmaņa-bharata-śatrughnāh – Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata and Satrughna. The second kind is called samāhāra dvandva, a collective compound word, the meaning of which refers to the collection of its constituent members. The resultant compound word is in the singular number and is always neuter in gender. e. g. pāņipādam – limbs, literally hands and feet, from pāņi = hand and pāda = foot. According to some grammarians, there is a third kind of dvandva, called ekaśeşa dvandva or residual compound, which takes the dual (or plural) form of only its final constituent member, e. g. pitarau for mātā + pitā, mother + father, i. e. parents. According to other grammarians, however, the ekaśeşa is not properly a compound at all.

Bahuvrīhi (possessive)

Bahuvrīhi, or "much-rice", denotes a rich person—one who has much rice. A bahuvrīhí (बहुव्रीहि or bahuvrihi compound (also exocentric compound) is a type of nominal compound that refers to something that Bahuvrīhi compounds refer (by example) to a compound noun with no head -- a compound noun that refers to a thing which is itself not part of the compound. For example, "low-life" and "block-head" are bahuvrihi compounds, since a low-life is not a kind of life, and a block-head is not a kind of head. (And a much-rice is not a kind of rice. ) Compare with more common, headed, compound nouns like "fly-ball" (a kind of ball) or "alley cat" (a kind of cat). Bahurvrīhis can often be translated by "possessing. . . " or "-ed"; for example, "possessing much rice", or "much riced".

Tatpuruṣa (determinative)

There are many tatpuruṣas (one for each of the nominal cases, and a few others besides); in a tatpuruṣa, the first component is in a case relationship with another. In Sanskrit grammar a tatpuruṣa (तत्पुरुष compound is a dependent determinative compound, i For example, a doghouse is a dative compound, a house for a dog. It would be called a "caturtitatpuruṣa" (caturti refers to the fourth case—that is, the dative). Incidentally, "tatpuruṣa" is a tatpuruṣa ("this man"—meaning someone's agent), while "caturtitatpuruṣa" is a karmadhārya, being both dative, and a tatpuruṣa. An easy way to understand it is to look at English examples of tatpuruṣas: "battlefield", where there is a genitive relationship between "field" and "battle", "a field of battle"; other examples include instrumental relationships ("thunderstruck") and locative relationships ("towndwelling").

Karmadhāraya (descriptive)

The relation of the first member to the last is appositional, attributive or adverbial, e. A Karmadhāraya is a type of compound in Sanskrit grammar a subtype of the Tatpurusha type ("nominative-tatpurushas" g. uluka-yatu (owl+demon) is a demon in the shape of an owl.

Amreḍita (iterative)

Repetition of a word expresses repetitiveness, e. The Sanskrit grammar has a complex verbal system rich nominal Declension, and extensive use of Compound nouns It was studied and codified by g. dive-dive 'day by day', 'daily'.

Dvigu

Syntax

Because of Sanskrit's complex declension system the word order is free (with a strong tendency toward SOV, which was the original system in place in Vedic prose). A Dvigu is a type of compound in Sanskrit grammar Its first constituent is a numeral in the case of dvigu, itself an example for the type- In Linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the different ways in which languages arrange the constituents of their sentences relative to each other and the systematic In Linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb (SOV is the type of languages in which the subject, object, and Verb of a sentence appear or usually

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:

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. Hindi ( Devanāgarī: hi [[wiktहिन्दी हिन्दी]] or hi [[wiktहिंदी हिंदी]] IAST:, IPA:) is Sanskritisation may also refer to introduction of Sanskrit vocabulary in another language or dialect (such as Khariboli) Khariboli (also Khadiboli, Khadi-Boli, or Khari dialect identified as Hindi by SIL Ethnologue) (/ kʰəɽiː boːliː / Hindi 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). The Indo-Aryan languages (within the context of Indo-European studies also Indic) are a branch of the Indo-European language family The Munda languages are a Language family spoken by about nine million people in central and eastern India and Bangladesh. The Dravidian family of languages includes approximately 73 languages (including the four literary languages of Tamil, Telugu, Kannada Tatsama are Sanskrit Loanwords in modern Indic languages like Bangla or Sinhala. Tadbhava ( Sanskrit tadbhava) is one of three etymological classes defined by native grammarians of Middle Indo-Aryan languages. ^[2] Words originating in Sanskrit are estimated to constitute roughly fifty percent of the vocabulary of modern Indo-Aryan languages,^[24] and the literary forms of (Dravidian) Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. Not to be confused with the Malay language. Malayalam (മലയാളം malayāḷaṁ) is a Dravidian language used Kannada (kn [[wiktಕನ್ನಡ ಕನ್ನಡ]] Kannaḍa) is one of the major Dravidian languages of India, spoken predominantly in the state ^[2]

Especially among élite circles in India, Sanskrit is prized as a storehouse of scripture and the language of prayers in Hinduism. Hinduism is a religious tradition that originated in the Indian subcontinent. Like Latin's influence on European languages and Classical Chinese's influence on East Asian languages, Sanskrit has influenced most Indian languages. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. 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. A mantra ( Devanāgarī मन्त्र (or mantram is a religious or mystical syllable or poem typically from the Sanskrit language 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. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language Nepali is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Nepal, Bhutan, and some parts of India and Myanmar (Burma Assamese (অসমীয়া) (ɔxɔmija is the easternmost Indo-Aryan language, spoken mainly in the state of Assam in North-East Konkani ( Devanāgarī: कोंकणी Roman: Konknni Kannada: ಕೊಂಕಣಿ Malayalam: കൊങ്കണി IAST Marathi (mr मराठी Marāṭhī) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of what is considered western India. The Indian national anthem, Jana Gana Mana, is written in a literary form of Bengali (known as shuddha bhasha), Sanskritized so as to be recognizable, but still archaic to the modern ear. Jana Gana Mana (জন গণ মন Jôno Gôno Mono) is the National anthem of India. 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. Bande Mataram redirects here for other uses of the term see Bande Mataram (disambiguation. Anandamath ( Bangla: আনন্দমঠ Anondomôţh) is a famous Bengali novel written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and published Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada also combine a great deal of Sanskrit vocabulary. Not to be confused with the Malay language. Malayalam (മലയാളം malayāḷaṁ) is a Dravidian language used Kannada (kn [[wiktಕನ್ನಡ ಕನ್ನಡ]] Kannaḍa) is one of the major Dravidian languages of India, spoken predominantly in the state Sanskrit also has influence on Chinese through Buddhist Sutras. Buddhism is a family of beliefs and practices Chinese words like 刹那 chànà (Skt. क्षन kṣana 'instantaneous period of time') were borrowed from Sanskrit.

Revival attempts

Main article: Sanskrit revival

The 1991 Indian census reported 49,736 fluent speakers of Sanskrit. Sanskrit revival is the accumulation of attempts at reviving the Sanskrit language that have been undertaken The Demographics of India are overall remarkably diverse India's population of approximately 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 CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) in 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, including but not limited to Christian missionary schools, affiliated to the ICSE board too, especially in those states where the official language is Hindi. Hindi ( Devanāgarī: hi [[wiktहिन्दी हिन्दी]] or hi [[wiktहिंदी हिंदी]] IAST:, IPA:) is Sudharma, the only daily newspaper in Sanskrit has been published out of Mysore in India since the year 1970. Sudharma is the only daily Newspaper published in Sanskrit, a Liturgical language for many Indian religions Mysore (maɪˈsɔɚ in English; renamed to Mysuru|ಮೈಸೂರು) (ಮೈಸೂರು is the second largest city in the state of Karnataka, India India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country Since 1974, there has been a short daily news broadcast on All India Radio.

Sanskrit is reported to be spoken natively by the population in Mattur village in central Karnataka. Mattur (also spelled Mathur and Matthur) ( Kannada:ಮತ್ತೂರು is a small Village near the city of Shimoga in Karnataka (ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ pronounced) is a state in the southern part of India Allegedly, Inhabitants of all castes learn Sanskrit starting in childhood and converse in the language. [2]

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). Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. The motto of the Republic is also in Sanskrit. A motto (from the Italian word motto, meaning witticism sentence is a phrase meant to formally describe the general motivation or intention of a social group

Republic of India 

Satyameva Jayate "Truth alone triumphs"

Nepal 

Janani Janmabhūmisca Svargād api garīyasi "Mother and motherland are greater than heaven"

Goa 

Sarve Bhadrāni Paśyantu Mā Kaścid Duhkhabhāg bhavet "May all perceive good, may not anyone attain unhappiness"

Life Insurance Corporation of India 

Yogakshemam Vahāmyaham "I shall take care of welfare" (taken from the Bhagavad Gita)

Indian Navy 

Shanno Varuna "May Varuna be peaceful to us"

Indian Air Force 

Nābha Sparsham Dīptam "Touch the Sky with Glory"

Indian Police 

sadrakshanaaya khalah nighranayah "For protection of the good and control of the wicked"

Indian Coast Guard 

Vayam Rakshāmaha "We shall protect"

All India Radio 

Bahujana-hitāya bahujana-sukhāya "For the benefit of all, for the comfort of all"

Indonesian Navy 

Jalesveva Jayamahe "On the Sea We Are Glorious"

Aceh Province 

Pancacita "Five Goals"

Many of the post–Independence educational institutions of national importance in India and Sri Lanka have Sanskrit mottoes. India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country "Satyameva Jayate" ( satyam eva jayate सत्यमेव जयते ( Sanskrit: "Truth Alone Triumphs" is the National motto Nepal (नेपाल) is a Landlocked country in South Asia. Goa ( Konkani: गोंय /ɡɔ̃j/ is India 's smallest state in terms of area and the fourth smallest in terms of population. The Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC is the largest Life insurance company in India and also the country's largest investor The Indian Navy is the naval branch of the armed forces of India. The Indian Air Force (Devanāgarī भारतीय वायु सेना IAST Bhartiya Vāyu Senā is the air arm of the Armed Forces of India and has the Indian police redirects here For other uses see Indian police (disambiguation. The Indian Coast Guard is the fourth service created to guard Republic of India 's vast Coastline. All India Radio (abbreviated as AIR) officially known as Akashvani ( Devanagari: आकाशवाणी ākāshavānī ( Urdu: اکاشوانی The Indonesian Navy (Indonesian Tentara Nasional Indonesia Angkatan Laut, TNI-AL) is the territorial force responsible for the patrol of Indonesia 's immense See also Sultanate of Aceh Aceh (ʔaˈtɕɛh generally anglicized as ˈɑːtʃeɪ is a special territory ( daerah istimewa) of Indonesia For a fuller list of such educational institutions, see List of educational institutions which have Sanskrit phrases as their mottoes. The following is a list of educational institutions that use Sanskrit phrases as their official Mottos All India Institute of Medical Sciences - Shareermadhyam

Interactions with Eastern and Southeastern Asiatic languages

Sanskrit and related languages have also influenced their Sino-Tibetan-speaking neighbors to the north through the spread of Buddhist texts in translation. Buddhism is a family of beliefs and practices ^[25] Buddhism was spread to China by Mahayanist missionaries mostly through translations of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit texts, and many terms were transliterated directly and added to the Chinese vocabulary. China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National Mahayana ( Sanskrit: mahāyāna, Devanagari: महायान 'Great Vehicle' is one of the two main existing schools of Buddhism and a term for Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit ( BHS) is a modern linguistic category applied to the language used in a class of Indian Buddhist texts such as the Perfection (Although Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit is not Sanskrit, properly speaking, its vocabulary is substantially the same, both because of genetic relationship, and because of conscious imitation on the part of composers. Buddhist texts composed in Sanskrit proper were primarily found in philosophical schools like the Madhyamaka. Madhyamaka ( Sanskrit: मध्यमक Madhyamaka,, Pinyin: Zhōngguānzōng; also known as Śunyavada) is a Buddhist ) The situation in Tibet is similar; many Sanskrit texts survive only in Tibetan translation (in the Tanjur). The Tengyur or Tanjur ( Wylie: Bstan-'gyur ('Translation of Treatises' is the Tibetan collection of commentaries to the Buddhist teachings or "Translated Treatises"

The Thai language contains many loan words from Sanskrit. Thai (th ภาษาไทย, transcription: phasa thai, transliteration:; pʰāːsǎːtʰāj is the national and A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation For example, in Thai, the Rāvana – the emperor of Sri Lanka is called 'Thoskanth' which is a derivation of his Sanskrit name 'Dashakanth' ("of ten necks"). For the South Indian film see Ravana (film. Ravanaa, also transliterated as Raavana, Ravan or Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka ( Sinhalese:, இலங்கை known as Ceylon before 1972 is an Island Many Sanskrit loanwords are also found in traditional Malay and Modern Indonesian,^[26] Old Javanese language (nearly half)^[27]) and to a lesser extent, Vietnamese, through Sinified hybrid Sanskrit. The Malay language ( ISO 639-1 code MS is an Austronesian language spoken by the Malay people and people of other ethnic groups who reside in the Indonesian or Bahasa Indonesia, based on the Riau version of Malay language, was declared the official language with the declaration of Old Javanese is the oldest phase of the Javanese language that was spoken in areas in what is now the eastern part of Central Java and the whole of East Vietnamese ( tiếng Việt, or less commonly Việt ngữ) formerly known under French colonization as Annamese ( see Annam)

Sanskrit's usage in modern times

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. 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. The Integrated Guided Missile Development Program (IGMDP was an Indian Ministry of Defence program for the development of a comprehensive range of missiles including The Defence Research and Development Organisation ( DRDO) ( Hindi: रक्षा अनुसंधान एवं विकास संघठन, Prithvi ( Sanskrit: पृथ्वी, {{IAST|pṛthvī}} "Earth") is a tactical surface-to-surface, short-range See also Agni missile system --> The Agni missile ( Sanskrit: अग्नि Akash ( Sanskrit: आकाश Ākāś "Sky") is India 's medium range Surface-to-air missile defense system developed by Integrated Guided Missile Development Program#Nag missile system Nag ( Sanskrit: नाग Nāg "Cobra") is a third generation " The Integrated Guided Missile Development Program (IGMDP was an Indian Ministry of Defence program for the development of a comprehensive range of missiles including 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. A Sanskrit term shloka (श्लोक also spelt sloka specifically denotes a metered and often rhymed poetic verse or phrase Television ( TV) is a widely used Telecommunication medium for sending ( Broadcasting) and receiving moving Images, either monochromatic

Recently, Sanskrit has also made an appearance in Western pop music in recent years, in two recordings by Madonna. Madonna Louise Ciccone Ritchie (born August 16 1958 known as Madonna, is an American One, "Shanti/Ashtangi," from the 1998 album "Ray of Light," is the traditional Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga chant referenced above set to music. Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga is a system of Yoga that has its origins (allegedly in an ancient manuscript known as the Yoga Korunta, compiled by the sage Vamana Rishi 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 Sanskrit prayer (the Gayatri Mantra) in the closing titles of the movie. The Matrix Revolutions is a 2003 Film and the third and final Film in ''The Matrix'' trilogy. This is an article dedicated to Gayatri Mantra or sacred religious chant common to Hinduism and Brahmoism. Composer John Williams also featured a choir singing in Sanskrit for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. John Towner Williams (born February 8 1932) is an American Composer, conductor and Pianist. Star Wars Episode I Phantom Menace is a 1999 military sci-fi film written and directed by George Lucas.

The Sky One version of the title sequence in season one of Battlestar Galactica 2004 features the Gayatri Mantra, taken from the Rig Veda (3. Battlestar Galactica is an Emmy and Peabody Award -winning serial drama Television program created by Ronald D This is an article dedicated to Gayatri Mantra or sacred religious chant common to Hinduism and Brahmoism. The Rigveda ( Sanskrit sa ऋग्वेद ṛgveda, a compound of ṛc "praise verse" and veda "knowledge" 62. 10). The composition was written by miniseries composer Richard Gibbs. Richard “Ribbs” Gibbs (born in 1955 in Bay Village Ohio) is an American film composer and music producer most notable for his film work in Dr

See also: Sanskrit in the West

Computational linguistics

There have been suggestions to use Sanskrit as a metalanguage for knowledge representation in e. At the end of the introduction to the World as Will and Representation, Arthur Schopenhauer claimed that the rediscovery of the ancient Indian tradition would be one of the great In Logic and Linguistics, a metalanguage is a Language used to make statements about statements in another language which is called the Object g. machine translation, and other areas of natural language processing because of its relatively high regular structure. Machine translation, sometimes referred to by the abbreviation Natural language processing ( NLP) is a subfield of Artificial intelligence and Computational linguistics. ^[28] This is due to Classical Sanskrit being a regularized, prescriptivist form abstracted from the much more complex and richer Vedic Sanskrit. Vedic Sanskrit is an ancient Indian language, the language of the Vedas, the oldest Shruti texts of Hinduism. This leveling of the grammar of Classical Sanskrit began during the Brahmana phase, and had not yet completed by the time of Panini, when the language had fallen out of popular use.

See also

• Avestan
• Devanagari
• International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration
• Sanskrit literature
• Sanskrit numerals
• Grantha Script
• Indo-European languages
• Languages of India

Notes

Bibliography

• Abhyankar, Kashinath V. Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical Indonesian Wikipedia is the edition of Wikipedia in the Indonesian language. Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical (1986), written at Baroda, A dictionary of Sanskrit Grammar,, vol. 134, Oriental Institute
• Briggs, Rick (1985), "Knowledge Representation in Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligence", AI Magazine 6 (1)
• Burrow, T. (2001), Sanskrit language, Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 8120817672
• Chatterji, Suniti Kumar (1960), Indo-Aryan and Hindi, Firma K. Suniti Kumar Chatterji ( Bengali: সুনীতিকুমার চট্টোপাধ্যায় Shunitikumar Chôṭṭopaddhae) (1890-1977 was a L. Mukhopadhyay
• Edgerton, F. (1953), written at New Haven, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit grammar and dictionary, Yale University Press
• van Gulik, Robert (1956), written at Nagpur, Siddham; an essay on the history of Sanskrit studies in China and Japan, International Academy of Indian Culture, ISBN 8177420380
• MacDonell, Arthur Anthony (2004), A History Of Sanskrit Literature, Kessinger Publishing, ISBN 1417906197
• Mahadevan, I (2003), written at Chennai/Cambridge, Early Tamil epigraphy from the earliest times to the sixth century Common Era
• Minkowski, Christopher (2004), "Nīlakaṇṭha's instruments of war: Modern, vernacular, barbarous", The Indian Economic and Social History Review 41 (4): 365-385
• Monier-Williams, Monier (1898), A Sanskrit-English Dictionary
• Oberlies, Thomas (2003), A Grammar of Epic Sanskrit, Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 3110144484
• Pollock, Sheldon (2001), "The Death of Sanskrit", Comparative Studies in Society and History 43 (2): 392-426, <http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pollock/sks/papers/death_of_sanskrit.pdf>
• Staal, J.F. (1963), “Sanskrit and Sanskritization”, The Journal of Asian Studies 22 (3): 261-275 
• Tiwari, Bholanath (1955), भाषा विज्ञान (Bhasha Vigyan), ISBN 0-7007-1382-4
• Warder, A.K. (1972), written at Delhi, Indian kāvya Literature, vol. Robert Hans van Gulik (髙羅佩 ( August 9, 1910, Zutphen - September 24, 1967, The Hague) was a highly educated Arthur Anthony Macdonell (1854 - 1930 7th of Lochgarry, was a noted Sanskrit scholar Sir Monier Monier-Williams (1819&ndash1899 studied documented and taught Asian languages in England, and compiled one of the most widely-used Sanskrit Sheldon I Pollock is a scholar of Sanskrit, Indian intellectual and literary history and comparative intellectual history Frits Staal (born 1930 in the Netherlands) is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and South & Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California Berkeley. Anthony Kennedy Warder is a scholar of Indology, mostly in Buddhist studies and related fields such as the Pāli and Sanskrit languages 1, Motilal Banarsidass
• Whitney, William Dwight (1889), Sanskrit Grammar: Including both the Classical Language and the Older Dialects, <http://books.google.com/books?id=VHYKAAAAIAAJ>
• Zoetmulder, Petrus Josephus (1982), written at The Hague, Old Javanese-English dictionary, Nijhoff
• Salomon, Richard (1998). William Dwight Whitney (1827-1894 was an American linguist, Philologist, and Lexicographer who edited The Century Dictionary. Petrus Josephus Zoetmulder SJ ( January 29, 1906 - July 8, 1995) was a Dutch expert in the Old Javanese language. Indian epigraphy: a guide to the study of inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan languages. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195099842.  

Further reading

Introductions

• Cameron, Bruce. Sanskrit Pronunciation.  
• Coulson, M. . Teach Yourself Sanskrit.  
• Goldman, Robert P. . Devavāṇīpraveśikā: An Introduction to the Sanskrit Language.  
• Kale, M. R. . A Higher Sanskrit Grammar.  
• Macdonell, Arthur Anthony. A Sanskrit Grammar for Students.  
• Maurer, Walter Harding. The Sanskrit Language: An Introductory Grammar and Reader.  
• Shastri, Vagish. Conversational Sanskrit.  
• Monier-Williams, Monier (1846). Sir Monier Monier-Williams (1819&ndash1899 studied documented and taught Asian languages in England, and compiled one of the most widely-used Sanskrit A Practical Grammar Of The Sanskrit Language Arranged With Reference To The Classical Languages Of Europe For The Use Of English Students. W. H. Allen & co. .  

Grammars

• Whitney, William Dwight The Roots, Verb-Forms and Primary Derivatives of the Sanskrit Language: (A Supplement to His Sanskrit Grammar)
• Wackernagel, Debrunner, Altindische Grammatik, Göttingen. The Altindische Grammatik is the monumental Sanskrit grammar by Jacob Wackernagel (1853-1938 after his death continued by Albert Debrunner,
  • vol. I. phonology [3] Jacob Wackernagel (1896)
  • vol. Jacob Wackernagel (also Jakob, 1853&ndash1938 was an Indo-Europeanist and scholar of Sanskrit. II. 1. introduction to morphology, nominal composition, Wackernagel (1905) [4]
  • vol. II. 2. nominal suffixes, J. Wackernagel and Albert Debrunner (1954)
  • vol. III. nominal inflection, numerals, pronouns, Wackernagel and Debrunner (1930)
• Delbrück, B. Altindische Tempuslehre (1876) [5]

Dictionaries

• Otto Böhtlingk, Rudolph Roth, Petersburger Wörterbuch, 7 vols. Otto von Böhtlingk ( May 30 1815 - April 1 1904) was a German Indologist and Sanskrit scholar, born in , 1855-75
• Otto Böhtlingk, Sanskrit Wörterbuch in kürzerer Fassung 1883–86 (1998 reprint, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi)
• Manfred Mayrhofer, Kurzgefasstes etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindischen, 1956-76
• Manfred Mayrhofer, Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen, 3 vols. Manfred Mayrhofer (born 26 September 1926 in Linz, Austria) is an Indo-Europeanist specialized on Indo-Iranian languages , 2742 pages, 2001, ISBN 3-8253-1477-4

External links

• Samskrita Bharati
• Sanskrit at Ethnologue
• Transliterator from romanized to Unicode Sanskrit
• Sanskrit transliterator with font conversion to Latin and other Indian Languages
• Sanskrit Alphabet in Devanagari, Gujarati, Bengali, and Thai scripts with an extensive list of Devanagari, Gujarati, and Bengali conjuncts
• Academic Courses on Sanskrit Around The World

Sanskrit Documents

• Sanskrit Documents: Documents in ITX format of Upanishads, Stotras etc. Ethnologue Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics a Christian In Linguistics, romanization (or latinization, also spelled romanisation or latinisation) is the representation of a Word or In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's and a metasite with links to translations, dictionaries, tutorials, tools and other Sanskrit resources.
• Read online Sanskrit text (PDF) of Mahabharata, Upanishada, Bhagavad-Gita, Yoga-Sutra etc. as well as Sanskrit-English spiritual Dictionary
• Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon
• GRETIL: Göttingen Register of Electronic Texts in Indian Languages, a cumulative register of the numerous download sites for electronic texts in Indian languages.
• Gaudiya Grantha Mandira - A Sanskrit Text Repository. This site also provides encoding converter.
• Sanskrit texts at Sacred Text Archive
• Clay Sanskrit Library publishes Sanskrit literature with facing-page text and translation.

Primers

• Sanskrit Self Study by Chitrapur Math
• Discover Sanskrit A concise study of the Sanskrit language
• A Practical Sanskrit Introductory by Charles Wikner.
• A Sanskrit Tutor
• Ancient Sanskrit Online from the University of Texas at Austin

Grammars

• An Analytical Cross Referenced Sanskrit Grammar By Lennart Warnemyr.