The Punjab The Punjab The Punjab (pronounced or ; Punjabi: ਪੰਜਾਬ, The Punjab (pronounced or ; [[Punjabi language|Punjabi]]: [[Gurmukhī script|ਪੰਜਾਬ]], The Punjab (pronounced or ; [[Punjabi language|Punjabi]]: [[Gurmukhī script|ਪੰਜਾਬ]], [[Shahmukhi script|, ), also spelled Panjab the development of the Sanskrit language may be observed in other
HinduA Hindu 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 and Smriti , lay the foundation of Hindu beliefs which primarily include dhárma, kárma, ahimsa and saṃsāra...
texts: the
SamavedaThe Samaveda , is second 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...
,
YajurvedaThe Yajurveda is the third of the four canonical texts of Hinduism, the Vedas...
,
AtharvavedaThe Atharvaveda is a sacred text of Hinduism, and one of the four Vedas, often called the "fourth Veda"....
, Brahmanas, and Upanishads. During this time, the prestige of the language, its use for sacred purposes, and the importance attached to its correct
enunciationIn phonetics, enunciation is the act of speaking. Good enunciation is the act of speaking clearly and concisely. The opposite of good enunciation is mumbling or slurring. See also "pronunciation" which is a component of enunciation. Pronunciation is to pronounce sounds of words correctly....
all served as powerful conservative forces resisting the normal processes of linguistic change.
The oldest surviving Sanskrit grammar is {{IAST's
{{IAST|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 {{IAST|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 classSocial classes are the hierarchical arrangements of people in society as economic or cultural groups. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political economists and social historians...
and
educationEducation in its broadest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual...
al attainment in ancient India and the language was taught mainly to members of the higher castes, through close analysis of Sanskrit grammarians such as {{IAST|Pāṇini}}. Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside the
PrakritPrakrit is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Classical Sanskrit and other Old Indic dialects. The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular", in contrast to the...
s (vernaculars), which evolved into the Middle Indic dialects, and eventually into the contemporary modern
Indo-Aryan languagesThe Indo-Aryan languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family.SIL International in a 2005 estimate counted a total of 209 varieties, the largest in terms of native speakers being Hindustani , Bengali , Punjabi , Marathi ,...
.
Vedic Sanskrit
{{main|Vedic Sanskrit}}
Sanskrit, as defined by {{IAST|Pāṇini}}, had evolved out of the earlier "Vedic" form. Beginning of Vedic Sanskrit can be traced as early as around 1500 BCE (accepted date of Rig-Veda).{{citation needed|date=October 2007}} Scholars often distinguish
Vedic SanskritVedic Sanskrit is an Old Indic language. It is the language of the Vedas, the oldest shruti texts of Hinduism, compiled over the period of the mid 2nd to mid 1st millennium BC. It is an archaic form of Sanskrit, an early descendant of Proto-Indo-Iranian. It is closely related to Avestan, the...
and Classical or "Paninian" Sanskrit as separate 'dialects'. Though they are quite similar, they differ in a number of essential points of
phonologyPhonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system...
,
vocabularyA person's vocabulary is the set of words they are familiar with in a language. A vocabulary usually grows and evolves with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge.- Knowing and using a word :...
, and
grammarIn linguistics, grammar is the set of logical and structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology,...
and
syntaxIn linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages...
. Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the
VedasThe Vedas are a large body of texts originating in Ancient India. The texts are composed in Vedic Sanskrit and form the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature, and the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism....
, a large collection of hymns, incantations (Samhitas), theological discussions, and religio-philosophical discussions (Brahmanas, Upanishads) which are the earliest religious texts of the
HinduA Hindu 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 and Smriti , lay the foundation of Hindu beliefs which primarily include dhárma, kárma, ahimsa and saṃsāra...
religion. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the
RigvedaThe Rigveda is an ancient Indian sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns. It is counted among the four canonical sacred texts of Hinduism known as the Vedas...
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 AsiaSouth Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries on the west and the east...
,
Inner AsiaInner Asia has a range of meanings among different researchers and in different countries. Denis Sinor defined Inner Asia broadly as the homelands of the Altaic peoples and the Uralic peoples .Russian "Tsentral'naia Aziia" denotes Mongolia and Tibet...
,
Southeast AsiaManila
Bangkok
Ho Chi Minh City
Kuala Lumpur
Singapore
Yangon
Bandung
Hanoi
Surabaya
Taichung
Kaohsiung
Medan|-|}...
, and to a certain extent,
East AsiaEast Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms. Geographically and geo-politically, it covers about , or about 28 percent of the Asian continent, about 15 percent bigger than the area of Europe, though some categorize Tibet, Xinjiang,...
. A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of the Hindu Epics—the
RamayanaThe Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is attributed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon . The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India, the other being Mahabharata...
and
MahabharataThe Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the . The epic is part of the Hindu itihāsa , and forms an important part of Hindu mythology....
. The deviations from {{IAST|Pāṇini}} in the epics are generally considered to be on account of interference from Prakrits, or "innovations" and not because they are pre-Paninean. Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations
aarsha (आर्ष), or "of the
rishiA rishi denotes a poet-sage through whom the Vedic hymns flowed, credited also as divine scribes. According to post-Vedic tradition the rishi is a "seer" or "shaman" to whom the Vedas were "originally revealed" through states of higher consciousness...
s", 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 SanskritBuddhist Hybrid Sanskrit is a modern linguistic category applied to the language used in a class of Indian Buddhist texts, such as the Perfection of Wisdom sutras. BHS is classified as a Middle Indic language...
is a Middle Indic literary language based on early Buddhist
prakritPrakrit is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Classical Sanskrit and other Old Indic dialects. The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular", in contrast to the...
texts which subsequently assimilated to the Classical Sanskrit standard in varying degree.
According to {{Harvcoltxt|Tiwari|1955}}, there were four principal dialects of classical Sanskrit:
{{IAST|paścimottarī}} (Northwestern, also called Northern or Western),
{{IAST|madhyadeśī}} (lit., middle country),
{{IAST|pūrvi}} (Eastern) and
{{IAST|dakṣiṇī}} (Southern, arose in the Classical period). The predecessors of the first three dialects are even attested in Vedic
{{IAST|BrāhmaṇaThe s are part of the Hindu śruti literature. They are commentaries on the four Vedas, detailing the proper performance of rituals....
s}}, of which the first one was regarded as the purest ({{IAST|Kauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa, 7.6}}).
Decline
{{seealso|Termination of spoken Sanskrit}}
There a number of sociolinguistic studies of spoken Sanskrit which strongly suggests that in this oral use it is limited and is not developing. Based on this, some suggest that Sanskrit had become 'dead', but the distinction is not clearly understood, as {{Harvcoltxt|Pollock|2001}} describes it in comparison with the "dead" language of Latin:
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 priestcraftPolitical corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...
, 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. There was regional variation in the forcefulness of these vernacular movements and Sanskrit declined in different ways across the subcontinent. For example, in some areas
KashmiriKashmiri is a language from the Dardic sub-group of the Indo-Aryan group of languages and it is spoken primarily in the Kashmir Valley, in the Indian Administered part of Jammu and Kashmir. There are approximately 5,554,496 speakers in India, according to the Census of 2001...
was used along side of Sanskrit as the language of literature after the 13th century, and Sanskrit works from the
Vijayanagara EmpireThe Vijayanagara Empire referred as the Kingdom of Bisnaga by the Portuguese, was a South Indian empire based in the Deccan Plateau. Established in 1336 by Harihara I and his brother Bukka Raya I, it lasted until 1646 although its power declined after a major military defeat in 1565 by the Deccan...
failed to circulate outside their place and time of composition; by contrast, works in
TeluguTelugu is a Dravidian language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is the official language of Andhra Pradesh, one of the largest states of India. It is also one of the twenty-two scheduled languages of the Republic of India and was conferred the status of a Classical language by the Government...
and
KannadaKannada is one of the major Dravidian languages of India, spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka. Kannada, whose native speakers are called Kannadigas , number roughly 38 million, making it the 27th most spoken language in the world...
flourished.
But 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. But the "death" meant that Sanskrit was not used to express changing forms of subjectivity and sociality embodied and conceptualized in the modern age. Instead, it was reduced to "reinscription and restatements" of ideas already explored, and any creativity in Sanskrit was restricted to religious hymns and verses.
European scholarship
{{see also|Sanskrit in the West|Sanskrit revival}}
European scholarship in Sanskrit, begun by
Heinrich RothHeinrich Roth was a missionary and pioneering Sanskrit scholar.He became a Jesuit in 1639; was assigned to the Ethiopian mission, and arrived at Goa by the land route, via Isfahan. He worked first on the Island of Salsette off Goa, where from time to time he acted as Portuguese interpreter...
(1620–1668) and
Johann Ernst HanxledenJohann Ernst Hanxleden , known as Arnos Paathiri was a German Jesuit priest, missionary in India and a Malayalam/Sanskrit poet, grammarian, lexicographer, and philologist.-Journey to India:After doing philosophical studies in his home...
(1681–1731), is regarded as responsible for the discovery of the
Indo-EuropeanThe Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, Iran, and northern India, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia...
language familyA language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family.As with biological families, the evidence of relationship is observable shared characteristics...
by
Sir William JonesSir William Jones was an English philologist and scholar of ancient India, particularly known for his proposition of the existence of a relationship among Indo-European languages...
. This scholarship played an important role in the development of Western
linguisticsLinguistics is the scientific study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of meaning...
.{{citation needed|date=August 2008}}
Sir William JonesSir William Jones was an English philologist and scholar of ancient India, particularly known for his proposition of the existence of a relationship among Indo-European languages...
, speaking to the
Asiatic SocietyThe Asiatic Society was founded by Sir William Jones on January 15, 1784 in a meeting presided over by Sir Robert Chambers, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court at the Fort William in Calcutta, then capital of the British Raj, to enhance and further the cause of Oriental research. At the time of...
in Calcutta (now
Kolkata, formerly , is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. It is located in eastern India on the east bank of the River Hooghly. When referred to as Calcutta, it usually includes the suburbs, and thus its population exceeds 15 million, making it India's third-largest metropolitan area and...
) on February 2, 1786, said:
The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the GreekGreek , 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...
, more copious than the LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
, 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 philologerPhilology considers both form and meaning in linguistic expression, combining linguistics and literary studies.Classical philology is the philology of the Greek, Latin and Sanskrit languages...
could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common sourceThe Proto-Indo-European language is the unattested, reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans. The existence of such a language has been accepted by linguists for over a century, and there have been many attempts at reconstruction...
, which, perhaps, no longer exists.
Phonology
{{see|Śikṣā}}
Classical Sanskrit distinguishes about 36
phonemeIn a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s. There is, however, some
allophonyIn phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds that belong to the same phoneme. A phoneme is an abstract unit of speech sound that can distinguish words: That is, changing a phoneme in a word can produce another word...
and the writing systems used for Sanskrit generally indicate this, thus distinguishing 48 sounds.
The sounds are traditionally listed in the order
vowelIn phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s (Ach
), diphthongIn phonetics, a diphthong, or , is a contour vowel—that is, a unitary vowel that changes quality during its pronunciation, or "glides", with a smooth movement of the tongue from one articulation to another, as in the English words eye, boy, and cow...
s (Hal),
anusvaraAnusvara is the diacritic used to mark a type of nasalization used in a number of Indic languages. Depending on the location of the anusvara in the word and the language within which it is used, its exact pronunciation can vary greatly....
and
visargaVisarga is a Sanskrit word meaning "sending forth, discharge". In Sanskrit phonology , is the name of a phone, , written as IAST <>, Harvard-Kyoto , Devanagari <>. Visarga is an allophone of and in pausa...
, plosives (Sparśa) and
nasalA nasal consonant is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the lips or tongue...
s (starting in the back of the mouth and moving forward), and finally the liquids and fricatives, written in
IASTThe International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a popular transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic scripts.-Popularity:IAST is the most popular transliteration scheme for romanization of Sanskrit and Pali...
as follows (see the tables below for details):
- {{IAST|a ā i ī u ū ṛ ṝ ḷ ḹ }}; {{IAST|e ai o au}}
- {{IAST|ṃ ḥ}}
- {{IAST|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}}
- {{IAST|y r l v}}; {{IAST|ś ṣ s h}}
An alternate traditional ordering is that of the
Shiva SutraThe Shiva Sutras or Maheshvara Sutras are fourteen verses that organize the phonemes of the Sanskrit language as referred to in the of , the foundational text of Sanskrit grammar...
of {{IAST|Pāṇini}}.
Vowels
{{seealso|R-colored vowel#Vocalic R in Sanskrit}}
The vowels of Classical Sanskrit with their word-initial
DevanagariDevanagari , also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal. It 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. Devanāgarī is the main script used to...
symbol, diacritical mark with the
consonantIn articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx...
{{lang|sa|प्}} ({{IPA|/p/}}), pronunciation (of the vowel alone and of /p/+vowel) in
IPAThe International Phonetic Alphabet
["The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...]
, equivalent in
IASTThe International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a popular transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic scripts.-Popularity:IAST is the most popular transliteration scheme for romanization of Sanskrit and Pali...
and ITRANS and (approximate) equivalents in English are listed below:
| Letter | |sa|प्}} | Pronunciation | |/p/}} | IAST The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a popular transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic scripts.-Popularity:IAST is the most popular transliteration scheme for romanization of Sanskrit and Pali...
equiv. | ITRANS The "Indian languages TRANSliteration" is an ASCII transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly, but not exclusively, for Devanagari . It was developed by Avinash Chopde. The latest version of ITRANS is version 5.30 released in July, 2001...
equiv. | English equivalent (GAGeneral American is an accent of American English. Within American English, General American and accents approximating it are contrasted with Southern American English, several Northeastern accents, and other distinct regional accents and social group accents like African American Vernacular English...
unless stated otherwise) |
|---|
| अ}} |
प}} |
/ɐ/}} or {{IPA|/ə/}} |
/pɐ/}} or {{IPA|/pə/}} |
a |
a |
short near-open central vowel The near-open central vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is 6...
or schwaIn linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
: u in bunny or a in about |
| आ}} |
पा}} |
/ɑː/}} |
/pɑː/}} |
ā |
A |
long open back unrounded vowel The open back unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is A...
: a in father (RPReceived Pronunciation , also called the Queen's English and BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional dialects similar to that of other European languages...
) |
| इ}} |
पि}} |
/i/}} |
/pi/}} |
i |
i |
short close front unrounded vowel 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 this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is i....
: e in england |
| ई}} |
पी}} |
/iː/}} |
/piː/}} |
ī |
I |
long close front unrounded vowel 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 this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is i....
: ee in feet |
| उ}} |
पु}} |
/u/}} |
/pu/}} |
u |
u |
short close back rounded vowel 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 this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u....
: oo in foot |
| ऊ}} |
पू}} |
/uː/}} |
/puː/}} |
ū |
U |
long close back rounded vowel 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 this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u....
: oo in cool |
| ऋ}} |
पृ}} |
/ɻ/}} |
/pɻ/}} |
ṛ}} |
R |
short retroflex approximant The retroflex approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r\`...
: r in burl |
| ॠ}} |
पॄ}} |
/ɻː/}} |
/pɻː/}} |
ṝ}} |
RR |
long retroflex approximant The retroflex approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r\`...
r in burl |
| ऌ}} |
पॢ}} |
/ɭ/}} |
/pɭ/}} |
ḷ}} |
LR |
short retroflex lateral approximant The retroflex lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is l`.-Features:...
(no English equivalent) |
| ॡ}} |
पॣ}} |
/ɭː/}} |
/pɭː/}} |
ḹ}} |
LRR |
long retroflex lateral approximant The retroflex lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is l`.-Features:...
|
| ए}} |
पे}} |
/eː/}} |
/peː/}} |
e |
e |
long close-mid front unrounded vowel -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 International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is e....
: a in bane (some speakers) |
| ऐ}} |
पै}} |
/əi/}} |
/pəi/}} |
ai |
ai |
a long diphthong In phonetics, a diphthong, or , is a contour vowel—that is, a unitary vowel that changes quality during its pronunciation, or "glides", with a smooth movement of the tongue from one articulation to another, as in the English words eye, boy, and cow...
: i in ice, i in kite (Canadian EnglishCanadian English is the variety of English used in Canada. More than 26 million Canadians have some knowledge of English . Approximately 17 million speak English as their native language. Outside Quebec, 76% of Canadians speak English natively...
) |
| ओ}} |
पो}} |
/oː/}} |
/poː/}} |
o |
o |
long close-mid back rounded vowel 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 this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is o.-Features:...
: o in bone (some speakers) |
| औ}} |
पौ}} |
/əu/}} |
/pəu/}} |
au |
au |
a long diphthong In phonetics, a diphthong, or , is a contour vowel—that is, a unitary vowel that changes quality during its pronunciation, or "glides", with a smooth movement of the tongue from one articulation to another, as in the English words eye, boy, and cow...
: Similar to the ou in house (Canadian English) |
The
long vowelsIn linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one such as in Australian English...
are pronounced twice as long as their short counterparts. Also, there exists a third, extra-long length for most vowels, called
plutiPluti is the term for overlong vowels in Sanskrit. Pluti vowels are usually noted with a numeral "3" , , also ....
, which is used in various cases, but particularly in the vocative. The pluti is not accepted by all grammarians.
The vowels {{IPA|/e/}} and {{IPA|/o/}} continue as allophonic variants of Proto-Indo-Iranian {{IPA|/ai/}}, {{IPA|/au/}} and are categorized as diphthongs by Sanskrit grammarians even though they are realized phonetically as simple long vowels. (See above).
Additional points:
- There are some additional signs traditionally listed in tables of the Devanagari script:
- The diacritic {{Unicode|ं}} called anusvāra, (IAST
The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a popular transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic scripts.-Popularity:IAST is the most popular transliteration scheme for romanization of Sanskrit and Pali...
: {{Unicode|ṃ}}). It is used both to indicate the nasalizationIn phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth...
of the vowel in the syllable ({{IPA|[◌̃]}} and to represent the sound of a syllabic {{IPA|/n/}} or {{IPA|/m/}}; e.g. {{Unicode|पं}} {{IPA|/pəŋ/}}.
- The diacritic {{Unicode|ः}} called visarga, represents {{IPA|/əh/}} (IAST
The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a popular transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic scripts.-Popularity:IAST is the most popular transliteration scheme for romanization of Sanskrit and Pali...
: {{Unicode|ḥ}}); e.g. {{Unicode|पः}} {{IPA|/pəh/}}.
- The diacritic {{Unicode|ँ}} 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. {{Unicode|पँ}} {{IPA|/pə̃/}}.
- If a lone consonant needs to be written without any following vowel, it is given a halanta/virāma diacritic below ({{Unicode|प्}}).
- The vowel {{IPA|/aː/}} in Sanskrit is realized as being more central and less back than the closest English approximation, which is {{IPA|/ɑː/}}. But the grammarians have classified it as a back vowel.
- The ancient Sanskrit grammarians classified the vowel system as velars, retroflexes, palatals and plosives rather than as back, central and front vowels. Hence {{Unicode|ए}} and {{Unicode|ओ}} are classified respectively as palato-velar (a+i) and labio-velar (a+u) vowels respectively. But the grammarians have classified them as diphthong
In phonetics, a diphthong, or , is a contour vowel—that is, a unitary vowel that changes quality during its pronunciation, or "glides", with a smooth movement of the tongue from one articulation to another, as in the English words eye, boy, and cow...
s and in prosody, each is given two mātrās. 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 {{IPA|/eː/}} and {{IPA|/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 semivowelSemivowels, also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels, are vowels that form diphthongs with full syllabic vowels. That is, they are vowel-like sounds that do not form the nucleus of a syllable or mora; they are not the most prominent part of the syllable...
s according to sandhiSandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries . Examples include the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words...
rules.
Consonants
IASTThe International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a popular transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic scripts.-Popularity:IAST is the most popular transliteration scheme for romanization of Sanskrit and Pali...
and
DevanagariDevanagari , also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal. It 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. Devanāgarī is the main script used to...
notations are given, with approximate
IPAThe International Phonetic Alphabet
["The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...]
values in square brackets.
| Labial Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips or with the lower lip and the upper teeth...
Ōshtya |
LabiodentalIn phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth. The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
Dantōshtya |
DentalIn linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as , , , and in some languages...
Dantya |
Retroflex In phonetics, retroflex consonants are consonant sounds used in some languages. The tongue articulates with the roof of the oral cavity behind the alveolar ridge, and may even be curled back to touch the palate: that is, they are articulated in the postalveolar to palatal region of the...
Mūrdhanya |
PalatalPalatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
Tālavya |
VelarVelars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
Kanthya |
GlottalGlottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricatives, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
|
Stop
Sparśa |
Unaspirated In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say tore ...
Alpaprāna |
p}} {{Unicode|प}} {{IPA|[p]}} |
b}} {{Unicode|ब}} {{IPA|[b]}} |
|
t}} {{Unicode|त}} {{IPA|[t̪]}} |
d}} {{Unicode|द}} {{IPA|[d̪]}} |
ṭ}} {{Unicode|ट}} {{IPA|[ʈ]}} |
ḍ}} {{Unicode|ड}} {{IPA|[ɖ]}} |
c}} {{Unicode|च}} {{IPA|[c͡ç]}} |
j}} {{Unicode|ज}} {{IPA|[ɟ͡ʝ]}} |
k}} {{Unicode|क}} {{IPA|[k]}} |
g}} {{Unicode|ग}} {{IPA|[g]}} |
|
| Aspirated In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say tore ...
Mahāprāna |
ph}} {{Unicode|फ}} {{IPA|[pʰ]}} |
bh}} {{Unicode|भ}} {{IPA|[bʱ]}} |
|
th}} {{Unicode|थ}} {{IPA|[t̪ʰ]}} |
dh}} {{Unicode|ध}} {{IPA|[d̪ʱ]}} |
ṭh}} {{Unicode|ठ}} {{IPA|[ʈʰ]}} |
ḍh}} {{Unicode|ढ}} {{IPA|[ɖʱ]}} |
ch}} {{Unicode|छ}} {{IPA|[c͡çʰ]}} |
jh}} {{Unicode|झ}} {{IPA|[ɟ͡ʝʱ]}} |
kh}} {{Unicode|ख}} {{IPA|[kʰ]}} |
gh}} {{Unicode|घ}} {{IPA|[gʱ]}} |
|
| Nasal A nasal consonant is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the lips or tongue...
Anunāsika |
m {{Unicode|म}} {{IPA|[m]}} |
|
{{Unicode|n}} {{Unicode|न}} {{IPA|[n̪]}} |
{{Unicode|ṇ}} {{Unicode|ण}} {{IPA|[ɳ]}} |
{{Unicode|ñ}} {{Unicode|ञ}} {{IPA|[ɲ]}} |
{{Unicode|ṅ}} {{Unicode|ङ}} {{IPA|[ŋ]}} |
|
| Semivowel Semivowels, also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels, are vowels that form diphthongs with full syllabic vowels. That is, they are vowel-like sounds that do not form the nucleus of a syllable or mora; they are not the most prominent part of the syllable...
Antastha |
|
v {{Unicode|व}} {{IPA|[ʋ]}} |
|
|
y {{Unicode|य}} {{IPA|[j]}} |
|
|
| Liquid Liquid consonants, or liquids, are trills, taps, or approximant consonants that are not classified as semivowels because they do not correspond phonetically to specific vowels .The class of liquids can be divided into lateral liquids and rhotics...
Drava |
|
|
l {{Unicode|ल}} {{IPA|[l]}} |
r {{Unicode|र}} {{IPA|[r]}} |
|
|
|
| Fricative Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...
Ūshman |
|
|
{{Unicode|s}} {{Unicode|स}} {{IPA|[s̪]}} |
{{unicode|ṣ}} {{Unicode|ष}} {{IPA|[ʂ]}} |
{{unicode|ś}} {{Unicode|श}} {{IPA|[ɕ]}} |
|
{{unicode|ḥ}} {{Unicode|ः}} {{IPA|[h]}} |
{{unicode|h}} {{Unicode|ह}} {{IPA|[ɦ]}} |
The table below shows the traditional listing of the Sanskrit consonants with the (nearest) equivalents in English (as pronounced in
General AmericanGeneral American is an accent of American English. Within American English, General American and accents approximating it are contrasted with Southern American English, several Northeastern accents, and other distinct regional accents and social group accents like African American Vernacular English...
and
Received PronunciationReceived Pronunciation , also called the Queen's English and BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional dialects similar to that of other European languages...
) and Spanish. Each consonant shown below is deemed to be followed by the neutral vowel
schwaIn linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
({{IPA|/ə/}}), and is named in the table as such.
Plosives – Sprshta
|
Unaspirated
VoicelessIn linguistics, the term voiceless describes the pronunciation of sounds when the larynx does not vibrate. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of...
Alpaprāna Śvāsa |
Aspirated In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say tore ...
VoicelessIn linguistics, the term voiceless describes the pronunciation of sounds when the larynx does not vibrate. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of...
Mahāprāna Śvāsa |
Unaspirated
VoicedVirtual Organization for Innovative Conceptual Engineering Design is a virtual organization that promotes innovation in engineering design. This project is the collaborative work of researchers at five universities across the United States, and is funded by the National Science Foundation...
Alpaprāna Nāda |
Aspirated In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say tore ...
VoicedVirtual Organization for Innovative Conceptual Engineering Design is a virtual organization that promotes innovation in engineering design. This project is the collaborative work of researchers at five universities across the United States, and is funded by the National Science Foundation...
Mahāprāna Nāda |
Nasal A nasal consonant is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the lips or tongue...
Anunāsika Nāda |
VelarVelars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
Kantya |
क}}
{{IPA|/kə/}}; English: skip |
ख}}
{{IPA|/kʰə/}}; English: cat |
ग}}
{{IPA|/gə/}}; English: game |
घ}}
{{IPA|/gʱə/}}; somewhat similar to English: doghouse |
ङ}}
{{IPA|/ŋə/}}; English: ring |
Palatal
Tālavya |
च}}
{{IPA|/cə/}}; English: exchange |
छ}}
{{IPA|/cʰə/}}; English: church |
ज}}
{{IPA|/ɟə/}}; ≈English: jam |
झ}}
{{IPA|/ɟʱə/}}; somewhat similar to English: hedgehog |
ञ}}
{{IPA|/ɲə/}}; English: bench |
Retroflex
Mūrdhanya |
ट}}
{{IPA|/ʈə/}}; No English equivalent |
ठ}}
{{IPA|/ʈʰə/}}; No English equivalent |
ड}}
{{IPA|/ɖə/}}; No English equivalent |
ढ}}
{{IPA|/ɖʱə/}}; No English equivalent |
ण}}
{{IPA|/ɳə/}}; No English equivalent |
Apico-DentalIn linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as , , , and in some languages...
Dantya |
त}}
{{IPA|/t̪ə/}}; Spanish: tomate |
थ}}
{{IPA|/t̪ʰə/}}; Aspirated {{IPA|/t̪/}} |
द}}
{{IPA|/d̪ə/}}; Spanish: donde |
ध}}
{{IPA|/d̪ʱə/}}; Aspirated {{IPA|/d̪/}} |
न}}
{{IPA|/n̪ə/}}; English: name |
| Labial Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips or with the lower lip and the upper teeth...
Ōshtya |
प}}
{{IPA|/pə/}}; English: spin |
फ}}
{{IPA|/pʰə/}}; English: pit |
ब}}
{{IPA|/bə/}}; English: bone |
भ}}
{{IPA|/bʱə/}}; somewhat similar to English: clubhouse |
म}}
{{IPA|/mə/}}; English: mine |
Non-Plosives/Sonorants
|
Palatal
Tālavya |
Retroflex
Mūrdhanya |
DentalIn linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as , , , and in some languages...
Dantya |
Labial Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips or with the lower lip and the upper teeth...
/
GlottalGlottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricatives, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
Ōshtya |
Approximant
Antastha |
य}}
{{IPA|/jə/}}; English: you |
र}}
{{IPA|/rə/}}; English: trip (Scottish EnglishScottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland. It may or may not include Scots depending on the observer.The main, formal variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English...
) |
ल}}
{{IPA|/l̪ə/}}; English: love |
व}} (labio-dental)
{{IPA|/ʋə/}}; English: vase |
Sibilant/
Fricative
Ūshman |
श}}
{{IPA|/ɕə/}}; English: ship |
ष}}
{{IPA|/ʂə/}}; Retroflex form of {{IPA|/ʃ/}} |
स}}
{{IPA|/s̪ə/}}; English: same |
ह}} (glottal)
{{IPA|/ɦə/}}; English behind |
Phonology and Sandhi
The Sanskrit vowels are as discussed in the section above. The long syllabic l ({{unicode|ḹ}}) is not attested, and is only discussed by grammarians for systematic reasons. Its short counterpart {{unicode|ḷ}} occurs in a single root only, {{unicode|kḷp}} "to order, array". Long syllabic r ({{unicode|ṝ}}) is also quite marginal, occurring in the genitive plural of r-stems (e.g. {{unicode|mātṛ}}
"mother" and {{unicode|pitṛ}}
"father" have gen.pl. {{unicode|mātṝṇām}}
and {{unicode|pitṝṇām}}). {{unicode|i, u, ṛ, ḷ}} are vocalic allophones of consonantal {{unicode|y, v, r, l}}. There are thus only 5 invariably vocalic
phonemeIn a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s,
- {{unicode|a, ā, ī, ū, ṝ}}.
VisargaVisarga is a Sanskrit word meaning "sending forth, discharge". In Sanskrit phonology , is the name of a phone, , written as IAST <>, Harvard-Kyoto , Devanagari <>. Visarga is an allophone of and in pausa...
{{unicode|ḥ}} {{Unicode|ः}} is an
allophoneIn phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds that belong to the same phoneme. A phoneme is an abstract unit of speech sound that can distinguish words: That is, changing a phoneme in a word can produce another word...
of {{unicode|r}} and {{unicode|s}}, and
anusvaraAnusvara is the diacritic used to mark a type of nasalization used in a number of Indic languages. Depending on the location of the anusvara in the word and the language within which it is used, its exact pronunciation can vary greatly....
{{unicode|ṃ}}, Devanagari {{Unicode| ं}} of any nasal, both in
pausaPausa in linguistics refers to the end of an utterance. Some sound laws specifically operate in pausa only, i.e. certain phonemes are pronounced differently at the end of a word, when no other word follows....
(i.e., the nasalized vowel). The exact pronunciation of the three sibilants may vary, but they are distinct phonemes. An aspirated voiced sibilant {{IPA|/zʱ/}} was inherited by
Indo-AryanThe Indo-Aryan languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family.SIL International in a 2005 estimate counted a total of 209 varieties, the largest in terms of native speakers being Hindustani , Bengali , Punjabi , Marathi ,...
from Proto-Indo-Iranian but lost shortly before the time of the Rigveda (aspirated fricatives are exceedingly rare in any language). The
retroflex consonantIn phonetics, retroflex consonants are consonant sounds used in some languages. The tongue articulates with the roof of the oral cavity behind the alveolar ridge, and may even be curled back to touch the palate: that is, they are articulated in the postalveolar to palatal region of the...
s are somewhat marginal phonemes, often being conditioned by their phonetic environment; they do not continue a
PIEA pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough shell that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients...
series and are often ascribed by some linguists to the
substratalIn linguistics, a stratum or strate is a language that influences, or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum is a language which is influenced by another, while a superstratum is the language that exerts the influence...
influence of
DravidianThe Dravidian family of languages includes approximately 73 languages, spoken by around 200 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and overseas in other...
or other substrate languages. The nasal {{IPA|[ɲ]}} is a conditioned allophone of {{IPA|/n/}} ({{IPA|/n/}} and {{IPA|/ɳ/}} are distinct phonemes—{{unicode|aṇu}} 'minute', 'atomic' [nom. sg. neutr. of an adjective] is distinctive from {{unicode|anu}} 'after', 'along'; phonologically independent {{unicode|/ŋ/}} occurs only marginally, e.g. in {{unicode|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
IASTThe International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a popular transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic scripts.-Popularity:IAST is the most popular transliteration scheme for romanization of Sanskrit and Pali...
transliteration as follows:
- {{unicode|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
phonologicalPhonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system...
rules to be applied when combining morphemes to a word, and when combining words to a sentence are collectively called
sandhiSandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries . Examples include the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words...
"composition". Texts are written phonetically, with sandhi applied (except for the so-called padapā{{Unicode|ṭ}}ha).
Writing system
Sanskrit was spoken in an oral society, and the oral tradition was maintained through the development of early classical
Sanskrit literatureLiterature 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...
. 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,
DevanagariDevanagari , also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal. It 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. Devanāgarī is the main script used to...
has been considered as the de facto writing system for Sanskrit, quite possibly because of the European practice of printing Sanskrit texts in this script.
DevanagariDevanagari , also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal. It 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. Devanāgarī is the main script used to...
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. They are in the Brahmi script, which was originally used for
PrakritPrakrit is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Classical Sanskrit and other Old Indic dialects. The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular", in contrast to the...
, not Sanskrit. 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. 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.
Brahmi evolved into a multiplicity of scripts of the
Brahmic familyThe Brahmic family is a family of abugidas used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central Asia and East Asia, descended from the Brāhmī script.The individual writing systems may be called Brahmic scripts or Indic scripts....
, many of which were used to write Sanskrit. Roughly contemporary with the Brahmi, the
KharosthiThe script, is an ancient abugida used by the Gandhara culture, nestled in the historic northwest Asian subcontinent to write the Gāndhārī and Sanskrit languages. It was in use from the middle of the 3rd century BCE until it died out in its homeland around the 3rd century CE...
script was used in the northwest of the subcontinent. Later (around the 4th to 8th centuries CE) the
Gupta scriptThe Gupta script was used for writing Sanskrit and is associated with the Gupta Empire of India which was a period of material prosperity and great religious and scientific developments. The Gupta script was descended from Brahmi and gave rise to the Nagari, Sharada and Siddham scripts...
, 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
DevanagariDevanagari , also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal. It 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. Devanāgarī is the main script used to...
from ca. the 11/12th century, with intermediary stages such as the Siddham script. In Eastern India, the
BengaliBengali or Bangla is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages....
script and, later, the
Oriya scriptThe Oriya script is used to write the Oriya language, and can be used for several other Indian languages, for example, Sanskrit.- History :...
, were used. In the south where
Dravidian languagesThe Dravidian family of languages includes approximately 73 languages, spoken by around 200 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and overseas in other...
predominate, scripts used for Sanskrit include
KannadaThe Kannada script is a syllabary of the Brahmic family, used primarily to write the Kannada language, one of the Dravidian languages in India. It is also used for Konkani, Tulu, Beary bashe and Kodava languages....
,
TeluguTelugu script, an abugida from the Brahmic family of scripts, is used to write Telugu language, a South Central Dravidian Language found in the Southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh as well as several other neighboring states...
,
TamilThe Tamil script is a script that is used to write the Tamil language as well as other minority languages such as Badaga, Irulas, and Paniya...
,
MalayalamMalayalam is one of the four major Dravidian languages of South India. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India with official language status in the state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Mahé. It is spoken by around 37 million people...
and Grantha.
Romanization
{{main|Devanagari transliteration}}
Since the late 18th century, Sanskrit has been
transliteratedTransliteration is the practice of converting a text from one writing system into another in a systematic way.-Definitions:From an information-theoretical point of view, transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another, word by word, or ideally letter by letter...
using the
Latin alphabetThe Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, and was initially developed by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language.During the...
. The system most commonly used today is the
IASTThe International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a popular transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic scripts.-Popularity:IAST is the most popular transliteration scheme for romanization of Sanskrit and Pali...
(International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration), which has been the academic standard since 1888/1912.
ASCIIThe American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...
-based transliteration schemes have evolved due to difficulties representing Sanskrit characters in computer systems. These include
Harvard-KyotoThe Harvard-Kyoto Convention is a system for transliterating in ASCII the Sanskrit language and other languages that use the Devanāgarī script. It is predominantly used informally in e-mail, and for electronic texts.-Vowels:-Consonants:-See also:...
and
ITRANSThe "Indian languages TRANSliteration" is an ASCII transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly, but not exclusively, for Devanagari . It was developed by Avinash Chopde. The latest version of ITRANS is version 5.30 released in July, 2001...
, 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
UnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard allowing computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
aware web browsers, IAST has become common online.
It's also possible to type using an
alphanumeric keyboardAlphanumeric keyboards include typewriters and computer keyboards. An alphanumeric keyboard is a device with many keys - Computer Keyboards :...
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.
Grammatical tradition
{{main|Sanskrit grammarians}}
Sanskrit grammatical tradition (
{{unicode|vyākaraṇa}}, one of the six
VedangaThe Vedanga are six auxiliary disciplines for the understanding and tradition of the Vedas.#Shiksha : phonetics and phonology #Chandas : meter#Vyakarana : grammar#Nirukta : etymology...
disciplines) began in late Vedic India and culminated in the
{{unicode|Aṣṭādhyāyī}} of {{unicode|Pāṇini}}, which consists of 3990 sutras (
ca.Circa means "in approximately" , referring to a date...
5th century BCE). After a century {{unicode|Pāṇini}} (around 400 BCE) Kātyāyana composed Vārtikas on Pāninian sũtras.
PatañjaliPatañjali is the compiler of the Yoga Sutras, an important collection of aphorisms on Yoga practice, and also the author of the Mahābhāṣya, a major commentary on Panini's Ashtadhyayi...
, who lived three centuries after Pānini, wrote the {{unicode|Mahābhāṣya}}, the "Great Commentary" on the {{unicode|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. Paninian grammar is based on 14
ShivaShiva , also known as Rudra is a major Hindu god and one aspect of Trimurti. In the Shaiva tradition of Hinduism, Shiva is seen as the Supreme God...
sutras (aphorisms). Here whole Mātrika (
alphabetAn alphabet is a standardized set of letters basic written symbols or graphemes each of which roughly represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or...
) is abbreviated. This abbreviation is called Pratyāhara.
Verbs
{{main|Sanskrit verbs}}
Sanskrit has ten classes of
verbkalleah hit meIn syntax, a verb is a word that usually denotes an action , an occurrence , or a state of being . Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice...
s divided into in two broad groups:
athematicIn the Indo-European languages, thematic stems are those roots that have a theme vowel; a vowel sound that is always present between the root of the word and the attached inflections...
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.
ExponentsAn exponent is a phonological manifestation of a morphosyntactic property. In non-technical language, it is the expression of one or more grammatical properties by sound...
used in verb
conjugationIn linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb, noun or adjective from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, voice, or other grammatical categories...
include prefixes,
suffixIn grammar, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
es,
infixAn infix is an affix inserted inside a stem . It contrasts with adfix, a rare term for an affix attached to the outside of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix.-Infixes in English:...
es, and
reduplicationReduplication, in linguistics, is a morphological process by which the root or stem of a word, or part of it, is repeated.Reduplication is used in inflections to convey a grammatical function, such as plurality, intensification, etc., and in lexical derivation to create new words...
. Every root has (not necessarily all distinct) zero,
gu{{Unicode' means 'string' or 'a single thread or strand of a cord or twine'. In more abstract uses, it may mean 'a subdivision, species, kind, quality', or an operational principle or tendency....
, and
v{{UnicodeVriddhi is a Sanskrit word meaning "growth" . In Panini's grammar, it is also a technical term for a group of long vowels. In Indo-European linguistics, it has become a term for the lengthened grade of the ablaut vowel gradation peculiar to the Indo-European languages...
grades. If V is the vowel of the zero grade, the gu{{Unicode|ṇ}}a-grade vowel is traditionally thought of as a + V, and the v{{Unicode|ṛ}}ddhi-grade vowel as ā + V.
The verb
tenseTense may refer to:*Grammatical tense, a temporal linguistic quality expressing the time at, during, or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs...
s (a very inexact application of the word, since more distinctions than simply tense are expressed) are organized into four 'systems' (as well as
gerundIn linguistics, "gerund" is a term used to refer to various non-finite verb forms in various languages:* As applied to English, it refers to the usage of a verb as a noun...
s and
infinitiveIn grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
s, and such creatures as
intensiveIn 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. Intensives are usually lexical formations, but there may be a regular process for forming intensives from a base root...
s/
frequentativeIn grammar, a frequentative form of a word is one which indicates repeated action. The frequentative form can be considered a separate, but not completely independent word, called a frequentative. English frequentative is no longer productive, but in some languages, such as Finnish, it...
s,
desiderativeIn linguistics, a desiderative form is one that has the meaning of "wanting to X". Desiderative forms are often verbs, derived from a more basic verb through a process of morphological derivation .-Sanskrit:...
s,
causativeA 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--salient cause, is an expression of a patient involves in a non-volitional event that registers the changes of its state--salient effect, is an...
s, and
benedictiveThe benedictive mood is found in Sanskrit, although extremely rarely. For verbs in the active voice , it is formed by adding endings very similar to the athematic optative endings directly to the verb root itself. Essentially, the sibilant -s is inserted between the optative marker -yā and the...
s derived from more basic forms) based on the different stem forms (derived from verbal roots) used in conjugation. There are four tense systems:
- Present (Present
The present tense is the tense that may be used to express:* action at the present* a state of being;* an occurrence in the near future; or* an action that occurred in the past and continues up to the present....
, ImperfectThe imperfect tense, in the classical grammar of several Indo-European languages, denotes a past tense with an imperfective aspect. In English, it refers to the tense of a verb for an action or a condition as incomplete, continuous, or coincident with another action.The term comes from the Latin,...
, ImperativeThe imperative mood is a grammatical mood that expresses direct commands or requests. It is also used to signal a prohibition, permission or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :...
, OptativeThe optative mood is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope. It is similar to the cohortative mood, and closely related to the subjunctive mood....
)
- Perfect
In linguistics, the perfect tense is the past tense used to describe completed actions in the past.The perfect can be contrasted to the imperfect tense, which describes incomplete actions in the past...
- Aorist
- Future
The future is a time period commonly understood to contain all events that have yet to occur. It is the opposite of the past, and is the time after the present. In the Occidental view, which uses a linear conception of time, the future is the portion of the projected time line that is anticipated...
(FutureIn 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 , or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future .-Expressions of future tense:Languages can employ various...
, ConditionalConditional may refer to:*Causal conditional, if X then Y, where X is a cause of Y*Conditional mood , a verb form in many languages*Conditional probability, the probability of an event A given that another event B has occurred...
)
Nouns
{{main|Sanskrit nouns}}
Sanskrit is a highly
inflectedIn grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language modifies word forms to handle grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice, aspect , person, number , gender, case . Beside conjugation and declension there is comparison with its maximum category number of two In...
language with three
grammatical genderIn linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
s (masculine, feminine, neuter) and three numbers (singular, plural, dual). It has eight
casesIn grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role of subject, of direct object, or of possessor. Usually a language is said to "have cases" only if nouns change their form to reflect their case. Others indicate cases in...
:
nominativeThe nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments....
,
vocativeThe vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed and/or occasionally the determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence...
,
accusativeThe accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
,
instrumentalThe instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action...
,
dativeThe dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. For example, in "John gave Mary a book"....
,
ablativeIn linguistics, ablative case is a name given to cases in various languages whose common characteristic is that they mark motion away from something, though the details in each language may differ...
,
genitiveIn grammar, the genitive case is the case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
, and
locativeLocative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"...
.
The number of actual
declensionIn linguistics, declension is the occurrence of inflection in nouns, pronouns and adjectives, indicating such features as number , case , gender, and possession. Declension occurs in a great many of the world's languages, and features very prominently in many European languages, but is much less...
s is debatable. Panini identifies six karakas
corresponding to the nominative, accusative, dative, instrumental, locative, and ablative cases. Panini defines them as follows (Ashtadhyayi, I.4.24–54):
-
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.
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.
Karana
("instrument") "that which effects most." This is equivalent to the instrumental case.
Adhikarana
('location'): or "substratum." This is equivalent to the locative case.
Karman
('deed'/'object'): "what the agent seeks most to attain". This is equivalent to the accusative case.
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|Sanskrit pronouns and determiners}}
Sanskrit pronouns are declined for
caseIn grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role of subject, of direct object, or of possessor. Usually a language is said to "have cases" only if nouns change their form to reflect their case. Others indicate cases in...
,
numberIn linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
, and gender. The pronominal
declensionIn linguistics, declension is the occurrence of inflection in nouns, pronouns and adjectives, indicating such features as number , case , gender, and possession. Declension occurs in a great many of the world's languages, and features very prominently in many European languages, but is much less...
applies to a few adjectives as well. Many pronouns have alternative enclitic forms.
The first and second
personGrammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
pronouns are declined for the most part alike, having by
analogyAnalogy is a cognitive process of transferring information from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process...
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 substantiveSubstantive may refer to:* Noun substantive, a.k.a. noun* Verb substantive, a.k.a. verbal nounSee also:* substantive law...
.
There are four different demonstrativeDemonstratives are deictic words that indicate which entities a speaker refers to, and distinguishes those entities from others...
s 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 sandhiSandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries . Examples include the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words...
, the masculine and feminine singular forms transform into {{IAST|eṣas}}
and {{IAST|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 {{IAST|kasyãḥ}}
. Indefinite pronounAn indefinite pronoun is a pronoun that refers to one or more unspecified beings, objects, or places.-List of English indefinite pronouns:Note that many of these words can function as other parts of speech too, depending on context...
s 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 adjectiveIn grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's referent...
s follow the pronominal declension. Unless otherwise noted, their declension is identical to tat
.
eka
: "one", "a certain". (singular neuter nominative and accusative forms are both ekam
)
anya
: "another".
sarva
: "all", "every". (singular neuter nominative and accusative forms are both sarvam
)
para
: "the other". (singular neuter nominative and accusative forms are both param
)
sva
: "self" (a reflexive adjective). (singular neuter nominative and accusative forms are both svam)
Compounds
{{main|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
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
and
FinnishFinnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a Finnish dialect, are spoken...
. 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:
{{unicode|
DvandvaA dvandva or copulative or coordinative compound refers to two or more objects that could be connected in sense by the conjunction 'and'. Dvandvas are common in some languages such as Sanskrit , where the term originates, as well as Chinese and Japanese, but less common in English...
}} (co-ordinative)
- These consist of two or more noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
stems, connected in sense with '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.
{{unicode|
BahuvrīhiA bahuvrīhí , or bahuvrihi compound is a type of nominal compound that refers to something that is not specified by the compound's parts. It is common in compounds referring to a possessor of a specified object: a bahuvrihi compound XY tends to mean someone or something which has a Y, and that Y...
}} (possessive)
- Bahuvrīhi, or "much-rice", denotes a rich person—one who has much rice. Bahuvrīhi compounds refer (by example) to a compound noun with no head{{ndash}} 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".
{{unicode (determinative)
- There are many tatpuru{{Unicode|ṣ}}as (one for each of the nominal cases, and a few others besides); in a tatpuru{{Unicode|ṣ}}a, the first component is in a case relationship with another. For example, a doghouse is a dative compound, a house for a dog. It would be called a "caturtitatpuru{{Unicode|ṣ}}a" (caturti refers to the fourth case—that is, the dative). Incidentally, "tatpuru{{Unicode|ṣ}}a" is a tatpuru{{Unicode|ṣ}}a ("this man"—meaning someone's agent), while "caturtitatpuru{{Unicode|ṣ}}a" is a karmadhāraya, being both dative, and a tatpuru{{Unicode|ṣ}}a. An easy way to understand it is to look at English examples of tatpuru{{Unicode|ṣ}}as: "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").
{{unicode|Karmadhāraya}} (descriptive)
- The relation of the first member to the last is apposition
Apposition is a grammatical construction in which two elements, normally noun phrases, are placed side by side, with one element serving to define or modify the other. When this device is used, the two elements are said to be in apposition...
al, attributive or adverbialIn grammar an adverbial is a word or a group of words that modifies or tells us something about the sentence or the verb. The word adverbial is also used as an adjective, meaning 'having the same function as an adverb'...
; e.g., uluka-yatu (owl+demon) is a demon in the shape of an owl.
{{unicode (iterative)
- Repetition of a word expresses repetitiveness; e.g., dive-dive 'day by day', 'daily'.
Dvigu
Syntax
{{Expand-section|date=June 2008}}
Because of Sanskrit's complex
declensionIn linguistics, declension is the occurrence of inflection in nouns, pronouns and adjectives, indicating such features as number , case , gender, and possession. Declension occurs in a great many of the world's languages, and features very prominently in many European languages, but is much less...
system the
word orderIn linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders...
is free. In usage, there is a strong tendency toward
Subject Object Verb (SOV)In linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb is the type of languages in which the subject, object, and verb of a sentence appear or usually appear in that order...
, which was the original system in place in Vedic prose. However, there are exceptions when word pairs cannot be transposed.
Numerals
The numbers from one to ten:
- {{IAST|éka-}}
- {{IAST|dva-}}
- {{IAST|tri-}}
- {{IAST|catúr-}}
- {{IAST|páñcan-}}
- {{IAST|ṣáṣ-}}
- {{IAST|saptán-}}
- {{IAST|aṣṭá-}}
- {{IAST|návan-}}
- {{IAST|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 |
{{Unicode|triyāṇā́m}} |
tisṛṇā́m}} |
{{Unicode|caturṇā́m}} |
catasṛṇā́m}} |
| Locative |
{{Unicode|triṣú}} |
tisṛ́ṣu}} |
{{Unicode|catúrṣu}} |
catasṛ́ṣu}} |
Influence on vernaculars
Sanskrit's greatest influence, presumably, is that which it exerted on
languages of IndiaThe languages of India belong to several major linguistic families, the two largest being the Indo-European languages—Indo-Aryan —and the Dravidian languages...
that grew from its vocabulary and grammatical base; for instance
HindiStandard Hindi, also known as High Hindi, Nagari Hindi or Literary Hindi is a standardised register of Hindi. It is one of the 22 languages with official status in India, and is used, along with English, for administration of the central government.Standard Hindi is a sanskritised register derived...
, which is a "Sanskritized register" of the Khariboli dialect. However, all modern
Indo-Aryan languagesThe Indo-Aryan languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family.SIL International in a 2005 estimate counted a total of 209 varieties, the largest in terms of native speakers being Hindustani , Bengali , Punjabi , Marathi ,...
as well as
MundaThe Munda languages are a language family spoken by about nine million people in central and eastern India and Bangladesh. They constitute a branch of the Austroasiatic language family, generally placed in opposition to the Mon-Khmer languages of Southeast Asia, which means they are distantly...
and
Dravidian languagesThe Dravidian family of languages includes approximately 73 languages, spoken by around 200 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and overseas in other...
, have borrowed many words either directly from Sanskrit (
tatsamaTatsama are Sanskrit loanwords in modern Indic languages like Bangla or Sinhala. They belong to a higher and more erudite register than common words. That register can be compared to the use of words of Greek origin in English Tatsama are Sanskrit loanwords in modern Indic languages like Bangla or...
words), or indirectly via middle Indo-Aryan languages (tadbhavaTadbhava is one of three etymological classes defined by native grammarians of middle Indo-Aryan languages. A "tadbhava" is a word which had been borrowed from Sanskrit, but which had changed to fit the phonology of the Prakrit or Apabhramsa in question...
words). Words originating in Sanskrit are estimated to constitute roughly fifty percent of the vocabulary of modern Indo-Aryan languages, and the literary forms of (Dravidian) Telugu, Malayalam and
KannadaKannada is one of the major Dravidian languages of India, spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka. Kannada, whose native speakers are called Kannadigas , number roughly 38 million, making it the 27th most spoken language in the world...
.
Sanskrit is prized as a storehouse of scripture and the language of prayers in
HinduismHinduism is the predominant religion of the Indian subcontinent. Hinduism is often referred to as ', a Sanskrit phrase meaning "the eternal law", 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...
. Like
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
'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
mantraFor secular and business interpretation, see Motto.A mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that are considered capable of "creating transformation"...
s 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
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
and
PersianPersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq and Bahrain, and has a status of official language in the first three countries under different names...
influence,
NepaliNepali is a language in the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family.It is official language and de facto lingua franca of Nepal and is also spoken in Bhutan, parts of India and parts of Myanmar...
,
BengaliBengali or Bangla is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages....
,
AssameseAssamese is the easternmost Indo-Aryan language. It is used mainly in the state of Assam in North-East India. It is also the official language of Assam. It is also spoken in parts of Arunachal Pradesh and other northeast Indian states. Small pockets of Assamese speakers can be found in Bhutan...
,
KonkaniKonkani is an Indo-Aryan language belonging to the Indo-European family of languages spoken in the Konkan coast of India...
and Marathi still retain a largely Sanskrit and Prakrit vocabulary base. The Indian national anthem,
Jana Gana ManaJana Gana Mana is the national anthem of India. Written in highly Sanskritized Bengali, it is the first of five stanzas of a Brahmo hymn composed and scored by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. It was first sung at the Calcutta Session of the Indian National Congress on 27 December 1911...
, 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 MataramVande Mataram is the national song of India, distinct from the national anthem of India "Jana Gana Mana". The song was composed by Bankimchandra Chatterjee in a mixture of Bengali and Sanskrit...
was originally a poem composed by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and taken from his book called '
AnandamathAnandamath is a Bengali novel, written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and published in 1882. Set in the background of the Sannyasi Rebellion in the late 1700s, it is considered one of the most important novels in the history of Bengali and Indian literature...
', is in a similarly highly Sanskritized Bengali.
MalayalamMalayalam is one of the four major Dravidian languages of South India. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India with official language status in the state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Mahé. It is spoken by around 37 million people...
,
TeluguTelugu is a Dravidian language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is the official language of Andhra Pradesh, one of the largest states of India. It is also one of the twenty-two scheduled languages of the Republic of India and was conferred the status of a Classical language by the Government...
and
KannadaKannada is one of the major Dravidian languages of India, spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka. Kannada, whose native speakers are called Kannadigas , number roughly 38 million, making it the 27th most spoken language in the world...
also combine a great deal of Sanskrit vocabulary. Sanskrit also has influence on Chinese through
BuddhistBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
Sutras. Chinese words like 剎那 chànà
(Skt. क्षन {{IAST|kṣana}}
'instantaneous period of time') were borrowed from Sanskrit.
Revival attempts
{{main|Sanskrit revival}}
The 1991 Indian census reported 49,736 fluent speakers of Sanskrit. 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 affiliated to the
ICSEICSE may refer to:*Indian Certificate of Secondary Education *International Conference on Software Engineering*International Contract Services Expo...
board too, especially in those states where the official language is
HindiStandard Hindi, also known as High Hindi, Nagari Hindi or Literary Hindi is a standardised register of Hindi. It is one of the 22 languages with official status in India, and is used, along with English, for administration of the central government.Standard Hindi is a sanskritised register derived...
.
SudharmaSudharma is the only daily newspaper published in Sanskrit, a liturgical language for many Indian religions. The paper is published from the city of Mysore in the Indian state of Karnataka...
, the only daily newspaper in Sanskrit has been published out of
MysoreMysore is the second-largest city in the state of Karnataka, India. It is the headquarters of the Mysore district and the Mysore division and lies about southwest of Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka. The name Mysore is an anglicised version of Mahishūru, which means the abode of Mahisha...
in
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
since the year 1970. Since 1974, there has been a short daily news broadcast on All India Radio.
In some Indian villages, inhabitants of all castes speak Sanskrit natively since childhood: these include
MatturMattur is a small village near the city of Shivamogga in Karnataka, southern India. It is on the bank of the Tunga River. In recent times, it has become known for Sanskrit learning...
in
KarnatakaKarnataka is a state in the southern part of India. It was created on November 1, 1956, with the passing of the States Reorganisation Act...
, Jhiri in
Madhya PradeshMadhya Pradesh , often called the Heart of India, is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal. Madhya Pradesh was originally the largest state in India until November 1, 2000 when the state of Chhattisgarh was carved out...
, and Ganoda in
RajasthanRājasthān is the largest state of the Republic of India in terms of area. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with Pakistan...
.
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
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
is used by some institutions in the West). The
mottoA motto is a phrase meant to formally describe the general motivation or intention of a social group or organization. A motto may be in any language, but Latin is the most used...
of the Republic is also in Sanskrit.
Republic of India :
Satyameva Jayate"Satyameva Jayate" is the national motto of India. It is inscribed in Devanagari script at the base of the national emblem, which is an adaptation of the Lion Capital of Asoka at Sarnath, near Varanasi in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The origin of the motto is a well-known mantra...
"Truth alone triumphs"
NepalNepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia and the world's youngest republic. It is bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
: Janani Janmabhūmisca Svargādapi garīyasi
"Mother and motherland are greater than heaven"
GoaGoa is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located on the west coast of India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its western coast.Panaji is...
: Sarve Bhadrāni Paśyantu Mā Kaścid Duhkhabhāg bhavet
"May all perceive good, may not anyone attain unhappiness"
Life Insurance Corporation of IndiaThe Life Insurance Corporation of India is the largest life insurance company in India and also the country's largest investor.; it is fully owned by the Government of India. It also funds close to 24.6% of the Indian Government's expenses.It has assets estimated of 5 Trillion Rupees...
: Yogakshemam Vahāmyaham
"I shall take care of welfare" (taken from the Bhagavad GitaThe Bhagavad Gita is one of the most important Hindu scriptures. It is revered as a sacred scripture of Hinduism, and considered as one of the most important philosophical classics of the world. The Bhagavad Gita comprises 700 verses, and is a part of the Mahabharata...
)
Indian NavyThe Indian Navy is the naval branch of the armed forces of India. It currently has approximately 55,000 personnel on active duty, including 5,000 members of the naval aviation branch and 2,000 marine commandos, making it the world's fifth largest navy...
: Shanno Varuna
"May Varuna be peaceful to us"
Indian Air ForceThe Indian Air Force is the air arm of the armed forces of India. Its primary responsibility is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial warfare during a conflict...
: Nābha Sparsham Dīptam
"Touch the Sky with Glory"
Mumbai PoliceThe Mumbai Police is the police force of the city of Mumbai, India. It has the primary responsibilities of law enforcement and investigation within the Mumbai metropolitan area, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world...
: sadrakshanaaya cahlaaha nighranayah
"For protection of the good and control of the wicked"
Indian Coast GuardThe Indian Coast Guard is one of four branches of the Indian Armed Forces, tasked with the mission to guard the Republic of India's maritime interests. The Indian Coast Guard's organization is similar to that of other Para Military Forces of India. It was created on 18 August 1978 as an...
: Vayam Rakshāmaha
"We protect"
All India RadioAll India Radio , officially known as Akashvani is the radio broadcaster of India and a division of Prasar Bharati , an autonomous corporation of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India...
: Bahujana-hitāya bahujana-sukhāya
"For the benefit of all, for the comfort of all"
Indonesian NavyThe Indonesian Navy is the territorial force responsible for the patrol of Indonesia's immense coastline. The Indonesian Navy has about 74,000 personnel and 136 ships including attack submarines.- History :...
: 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. For a fuller list of such educational institutions, see
List of educational institutions which have Sanskrit phrases as their mottoes.
Interaction with other languages
{{see|Silk Road transmission of Buddhism|Hinduism in Southeast Asia|Indianized kingdom|Sanskritisation}}
Sanskrit and related languages have also influenced their Sino-Tibetan-speaking neighbors to the north through the spread of
BuddhistBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
texts in translation. Buddhism was spread to
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
by
MahayanistMahayana is one of the two main existing branches of Buddhism and a term for classification of Buddhist philosophies and practice. It was founded in India...
missionaries mostly through translations of
Buddhist Hybrid SanskritBuddhist Hybrid Sanskrit is a modern linguistic category applied to the language used in a class of Indian Buddhist texts, such as the Perfection of Wisdom sutras. BHS is classified as a Middle Indic language...
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 Paninian standardizations on the part of composers. Buddhist texts composed in Sanskrit proper were primarily found in philosophical schools like the
MadhyamakaMadhyamaka is a Buddhist Mahāyāna tradition systematized by Nāgārjuna. Nāgārjuna may have arrived at his positions from a desire to achieve a consistent exegesis of the Buddha's doctrine as recorded in the Nikayas...
.) The situation in Tibet is similar; many Sanskrit texts survive only in Tibetan translation (in the Tanjur).
The
Thai languageThai is the national and official language of Thailand and the mother tongue of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Kradai language family. The Kradai languages are thought to have originated in what is now southern China, and are linked to...
contains many loan words from Sanskrit. For example, in Thai, the Rāvana – the emperor of
Sri LankaSri Lanka , officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka , is an island country in South Asia, located about off the southern coast of India...
is called 'Thosakanth' which is a derivation of his Sanskrit name 'Dashakanth' ("of ten necks"). Many Sanskrit loanwords are also found in
traditional MalayMalay is a group of languages closely related to each other to the point of mutual intelligibility but that linguists consider to be separate languages. They are grouped into a group called "Local Malay", part of a larger group called "Malayan" within the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the...
,
Modern IndonesianIndonesian is the official national language of Indonesia. It is based on a version of Classical Malay of the Riau-Johor Sultanate. It was first declared the official language with the declaration of Indonesian independence in 1945, following the 1928 unifying-language declaration in the...
, and numerous
Philippine languagesThe Philippine languages are a 1991 proposal by Robert Blust that all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi—except Sama-Bajaw and a few languages of Palawan—form a family of Austronesian languages...
, Old Javanese language (nearly half) and to a lesser extent,
VietnameseVietnamese , formerly known under French colonization as Annamese , is the national and official language of Vietnam...
, through Sinified hybrid Sanskrit.
Usage in modern times
{{Trivia|date=March 2009}}
{{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|date=October 2008}} 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
PrithviPrithvi is a tactical surface-to-surface, short-range ballistic missile developed by DRDO of India under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Program....
,
AgniThe Agni missile is a family of Medium to Intercontinental range ballistic missiles developed by India under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Program...
,
AkashAkash is India's medium range surface-to-air missile defense system developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation and Bharat Electronics Limited as part of the Integrated Guided Missile Development Program. The missile can target aircraft up to 30 km away, at altitudes up to...
,
NagNag is a third generation "Fire-and-forget" anti-tank missile developed in India. It is one of five missile systems developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Program...
and Trishul. India's first modern fighter
aircraftAn aircraft is a vehicle which is able to fly by being supported by the air, or in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil An aircraft is a vehicle which is able to fly by being supported...
is named
HAL TejasTejas:Tejas may refer to:* Tejas, the Spanish pronunciation for Texas.In an ethnological context, Tejas may also refer to:* a people of the Hasinai confederation of indigenous tribes....
.
Recital of Sanskrit
shlokaThe Sanskrit term ' specifically denotes a metered and often rhymed poetic verse or phrase. Shloka has become equated with Hindu prayer and is often comparable to a proverb and hymn of praise to be sung or chanted in liturgy. Shloka are generally composed in a specified meter, typically part of...
s as background chorus in
filmFilm encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects....
s,
televisionTelevision is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission...
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
MadonnaMadonna is an American recording artist, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, and raised in Rochester Hills, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977, for a career in modern dance...
. One, "Shanti/Ashtangi," from the 1998 album "Ray of Light," is the traditional
Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga-History and legend:The Ashtanga Vinyasa series is said to have its origin in an ancient text called the Yoga Korunta, compiled by Vamana Rishi, which Krishnamacharya received from his Guru Rama Mohan Brahmachari at Mount Kailash...
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 UpanishadThe Upanishad is one of the older, "primary" Upanishads. It is contained within the Shatapatha Brahmana, and its status as an independent Upanishad may be considered a secondary extraction of a portion of the Brahmana text. This makes it one of the old texts of the Upanishad corpus, dating to...
in the closing titles of the movie. Composer
John WilliamsJohn Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career that spans six decades, Williams has composed many of the most famous film scores in Hollywood history, including Star Wars, Superman, Home Alone, the first three Harry Potter movies and all but two of Steven...
also featured a choir singing in Sanskrit for
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom MenaceStar Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is a 1999 space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It was the fourth film to be released in the Star Wars saga and the first in terms of internal chronology. It was also Lucas' first film as a director in 22 years, and only his fourth overall...
.
The Sky1 version of the title sequence in season one of
Battlestar Galactica 2004Battlestar Galactica is a military science fiction serial drama television series and part of the Battlestar Galactica franchise. The show was created by David Eick and Ronald D. Moore as a re-imagining of the Battlestar Galactica television series from 1978 created by Glen A. Larson...
features the
Gayatri MantraThe Gayatri Mantra is a highly revered Sanskrit mantra with origins in the Vedas. It is a verse in the vedic Gayatri metre , consting of 24 syllables, taken from a hymn of the Rigveda . Its recitation is always preceded by and the formula , known as the ...
, taken from the Rig Veda (3.62.10). The composition was written by miniseries composer
Richard GibbsRichard “Ribbs” Gibb is an American film composer and music producer whose credits include the films Sweet Hearts Dance, Dr. Dolittle, Big Momma's House, The Book of Stars, Queen of the Damned and the television series Battlestar Galactica.-Early life:Gibbs was raised in Wooster, Ohio and Daytona...
.
Computational linguistics
There have been suggestions to use Sanskrit as a
metalanguageIn logic and linguistics, a metalanguage is a language used to make statements about statements in another language which is called the object language. It can refer to any terminology or language used to discuss language itself—a written grammar, for example, or a discussion about language use...
for knowledge representation in e.g.
machine translationMachine translation, sometimes referred to by the abbreviation MT, is a sub-field of computational linguistics that investigates the use of computer software to translate text or speech from one natural language to another. At its basic level, MT performs simple substitution of words in one natural...
, and other areas of
natural language processingNatural language processing is a field of computer science and linguistics concerned with the interactions between computers and human languages. Natural language generation systems convert information from computer databases into readable human language...
because of its relatively high regular structure. This is due to Classical Sanskrit being a regularized,
prescriptivistIn linguistics, prescription can refer both to the codification and the enforcement of rules governing how a language ought to be used. These rules can cover such topics as standards for spelling and grammar or syntax, or rules for what is deemed socially or politically correct or proper...
form abstracted from the much more complex and richer
Vedic SanskritVedic Sanskrit is an Old Indic language. It is the language of the Vedas, the oldest shruti texts of Hinduism, compiled over the period of the mid 2nd to mid 1st millennium BC. It is an archaic form of Sanskrit, an early descendant of Proto-Indo-Iranian. It is closely related to Avestan, the...
. 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.{{citation needed|date=March 2009}}
Further reading
Introductions
|isbn=0-944613-40-3
|year=1999
|publisher=Center for South Asia Studies, University of California
|location=Berkeley
}}
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
The Altindische Grammatik is the monumental Sanskrit grammar by Jacob Wackernagel , after his death continued by Albert Debrunner, published in Göttingen between 1896 and 1957. The work presents a full discussion of Sanskrit phonology and nominal morphology, but a treatment of the verb is lacking...
, Göttingen.
- Delbrück, B. Altindische Tempuslehre (1876) http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN1421246880&id=_-9K_xT8OBAC&dq=Altindische
Dictionaries
- Otto Böhtlingk, Rudolph Roth, Petersburger Wörterbuch, 7 vols., 1855–75
- Otto Böhtlingk, Sanskrit Wörterbuch in kürzerer Fassung 1883–86 (1998 reprint, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi)
- Manfred Mayrhofer
Manfred Mayrhofer is an Indo-Europeanist specialized on Indo-Iranian languages. Mayrhofer is professor emeritus at the University of Vienna. He is noted for his etymological dictionary of Sanskrit....
, Kurzgefasstes etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindischen, 1956–76
- Manfred Mayrhofer, Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen, 3 vols., 2742 pages, 2001, ISBN 3-8253-1477-4
External links
{{Interwiki|code=sa}}
{{Wikibooks|Sanskrit}}
Sanskrit documents
Primers
{{Languages of India}}
{{Languages of South Asia}}
{{Indo-Iranian languages}}
{{Buddhism topics}}