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The Sanskrit language ( , ) is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and one of the 22 official languages of India. It has a position in culture of South and Southeast Asia similar to that of Latin and Greek in Europe, and is a central part of Hindu tradition and Philosophy. It appears in pre-Classical form as the Chandas language (appearing in the Vedas) with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved. This fact and comparative studies in historical linguistics show that it is from one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family and descends from the same. Today, Sanskrit is used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals in the forms of hymns and mantras. The vast literary tradition of Sanskrit in the form of the Hindu scriptures and the philosophical writings are also studied. The corpus of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and literature, as well as scientific, technical, philosophical and religious texts. The scope of this article is the Classical Sanskrit language as laid out in the grammar of Panini, around 500 BC. History The adjective means "refined, consecrated, sanctified". The language referred to as "the refined language" has by definition always been a "high" language, used for religious and learned discourse and contrasted with the languages spoken by the people. It is also called deva-bhāṣā meaning "language of the gods". The oldest surviving Sanskrit grammar is {{unicode|Pāṇini}}'s {{unicode|Aṣṭādhyāyī}} ("Eight-Chapter Grammar") dating to ca. the 5th century BC. 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 Vedic forms that had already passed out of use in Panini's time. Sanskrit belongs to the Indo-Aryan sub-family of the Indo-European family of languages. Together with the Iranian languages it belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch and as such is part of the Satem group of Indo-European languages, which also includes the Balto-Slavic branch. When the term arose in Southern India, "Sanskrit" was not thought of as a specific language set apart from other languages, but rather as a particularly refined or perfected manner of speaking. Knowledge of Sanskrit was a marker of social class and educational attainment and was taught mainly to Brahmins through close analysis of Sanskrit grammarians such as . Sanskrit as the learned language of Ancient India thus existed alongside the Prakrits (vernaculars), which evolved into the modern Indo-Aryan languages (Hindi/Urdu, Bengali etc.). Most of the Dravidian languages of India, despite being a separate linguistic family by their own right, are highly influenced by Sanskrit, especially in terms of loanwords. Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam have the highest incidence of loans while Tamil has the lowest. This influence of Sanskrit on these languages is recognized by the notions of Tat Sama (equivalent) and Tat Bhava (rooted in). Sanskrit itself has also been exposed to Dravidian substratum influence in ancient times. Vedic Sanskrit Sanskrit, as defined by , had evolved out of the earlier "Vedic" form, and scholars often distinguish Vedic Sanskrit and Classical or "Paninian" Sanskrit as separate dialects. However, they are extremely similar in many ways and differ mostly in a few points of phonology, vocabulary, and grammar. Classical Sanskrit can therefore be considered a seamless evolution of the earlier Vedic language. Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, a large collection of hymns, incantations, and religio-philosophical discussions which form the earliest religious texts in India and the basis for much of the Hindu religion. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Rigveda Samhita to be the earliest, composed by many authors over centuries of oral tradition. The end of the Vedic period is marked by the composition of the Upanishads, which form the concluding part of the Vedic corpus in the traditional compilations. The current hypothesis is that the Vedic form of Sanskrit survived until the middle of the first millennium BC. It is around this time that Sanskrit began the transition from a first language to a second language of religion and learning, marking the beginning of the Classical period. Hinduism believes that the language of the Vedas is eternal and revealed in its wording and word order. Evidence for this belief is found in the Vedas itself, where in the Upanishads they are described as the very "breath of God" (niḥśvāsitam brahma). The Vedas are therefore considered "the language of reality", so to speak, and are unauthored, even by God, the rishis or seers ascribed to them being merely individuals gifted with a special insight into reality with the power of perceiving these eternal sounds. At the beginning of every cycle of creation, God himself "remembers" the order of the Vedic words and propagates them through the rishis. Orthodox Hindus, while accepting the linguistic development of Sanskrit as such, do not admit any historical stratification within the Vedic corpus itself. This belief is of significant consequence in Indian religious history, as the very sacredness and eternality of the language encouraged exact memorization and transmission and discouraged textual learning via written propagation (see: Apaurusheyatva). Each word is believed to have innate and eternal meaning and, when properly pronounced, mystic expressive power. Erroneous learning of repetition of the Veda was considered a grave sin with potentially immediate negative consequences. Consequently, Vedic learning by rote was encouraged and prized, particularly among Brahmins, where learning of one's own Vedic texts was a mandated duty. Vedic Sanskrit differs from Classical Sanskrit to an extent comparable to the difference between Homeric Greek and Classical Greek. Tiwari (1955 2005) lists the following principal differences between the two: Phonology Grammar Vocabulary Classical Sanskrit A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of the Hindu Epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata. The deviations from Pāṇini in the epics are generally due to interference from Prakrits, and not because they are 'pre-Paninean'. "In fact, almost all 'un-Paninean' forms of Epic Sanskrit are innovations" Oberlies, "A Grammar of Epic Sanskrit", p.XXIX, emphasis in the original. Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations aarsha (आर्ष) or "of the rishis", the traditional title for the ancient authors. In some contexts there are also more "prakritisms" (borrowings from common speech) than Classical Sanskrit proper. Finally, there is also a language dubbed "Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit" by scholars, which is actually a prakrit ornamented with Sanskritized elements (see also termination of spoken Sanskrit). According to Tiwari (1955 2004), there were four principal dialects of Sanskrit, viz., (Northwestern, also called Northern or Western), (lit., middle country), (Eastern) and (Southern, arose in the Classical period). The first three are even attested in the Vedic , of which the first one was regarded as the purest (). European scholarship European scholarship in Sanskrit, begun by Heinrich Roth (1620 - 1668) and Johann Ernst Hanxleden (1681 - 1731), led to the proposal of the Indo-European language family by Sir William Jones, and thus played an important role in the development of Western linguistics. Indeed, linguistics (along with phonology, etc.) first arose among Indian grammarians who were attempting to catalog and codify Sanskrit's rules. Modern linguistics owes a great deal to these grammarians, and to this day, for example, key terms for compound analysis such as bahuvrihi are taken from Sanskrit. Phonology and writing system Classical Sanskrit distinguishes 48 sounds. Some of these, are, however, allophones. The number of phonemes is smaller, at about 35, see below. The sounds are traditionally listed in the order vowels, diphthongs, anusvara and visarga, stops and nasals (starting in the back of the mouth and moving forward), and finally the liquids and fricatives, written in IAST as follows (see the tables below for details): ; ; An alternate traditional ordering is that of the Shiva Sutra of . Vowels Devanagari script is the one most popularly associated with Sanskrit, although most other Indic scripts have been and continue to be used to write it. Modern Hindi also uses the Devanagari script (its letters are truly speaking, alpha-syllables). In Devanagari, an abugida script, non-word-initial vowels are expressed by diacritics. The vowels of Classical Sanskrit with their word-initial devanagari symbol, diacritical mark with the consonant (/p/), pronunciation (of the vowel alone and of /p/+vowel) in IPA, equivalent in IAST and ITRANS and (approximate) equivalents in Standard English are listed below: The long vowels are held about twice as long as their short counterparts. Also, there exists a third, extra-long length for most vowels, called pluti, which is used in various cases, but particularly in the vocative. The pluti is not accepted by all grammarians. The vowels and continue as allophonic variants of Proto-Indo-Iranian , , and they are phonologically (conceptually) /ai/ and /au/ still in Sanskrit, and are categorized as diphthongs by Sanskrit grammarians even though they are realized phonetically as simple long vowels. (See above). Additional points: Consonants IAST and Devanagari notations are given, with approximate IPA values in square brackets. The table below shows the traditional listing of the Sanskrit consonants with the (nearest) equivalents in English/Spanish. Each consonant shown below is deemed to be followed by the neutral vowel schwa (), and is named in the table as such. |class="wikitable" |-bgcolor=" |- ! !Unaspirated Voiceless !Aspirated Voiceless !Unaspirated Voiced !Aspirated Voiced !Nasal |-align="center" |Velar | ; English: skip | ; English: cat | ; English: game | ; Aspirated /g/ | ; English: ring |-align="center" |Palatal | ; ≈English: chat | ; Aspirated /c/ | ; ≈English: jam | ; Aspirated | ; English: finch |-align="center" |Retroflex | ; American Eng: hurting | ; Aspirated | ; American Eng: murder | ; Aspirated | ; American Eng: hunter |-align="center" |Apico-Dental | ; Spanish: tomate | ; Aspirated | ; Spanish: donde | ; Aspirated | |class="wikitable" |-bgcolor=" |- ! !Palatal !Retroflex !Dental !Labial/ Glottal |-align="center" |Approximant | ; English: you | ; American Eng: tearing | ; English: love | Phonology The Sanskrit vowels are as discussed in the section above. The long syllabic l () is not attested, and is only discussed by grammarians for systematic reasons. Its short counterpart occurs in a single root only, "to order, array". Long syllabic r () is also quite marginal, occurring in the genitive plural of r-stems (e.g. "mother" and "father" have gen.pl. and ). are vocalic allophones of consonantal . There are thus only 5 invariably vocalic phonemes, . Visarga is an allophone of and , and anusvara , Devanagari of any nasal, both in pausa (ie, the nasalized vowel). The exact pronunciation of the three sibilants may vary, but they are distinct phonemes. An aspirated voiced sibilant was inherited by Indo-Aryan from Proto-Indo-Iranian but lost shortly before the time of the Rigveda (note that aspirated sibilant are exceedingly rare in any language). The retroflex consonants are somewhat marginal phonemes, often being conditioned by their phonetic environment; they do not continue a PIE series and are often ascribed by some linguists to the substratal influence of Dravidian. The nasal is a conditioned allophone of ( and are distinct phonemes - one has to distinguish "minute, atomic" (nom. sg. neutr. of an adjective) from "after, along"; phonologically independent occurs only marginally, e.g. in "directed forwards/towards" (nom. sg. masc. of an adjective) and can thus be omitted). There are thus 31 consonantal or semi-vocalic phonemes, consisting of four/five kinds of stops realized both with or without aspiration and both voiced and voiceless, three nasals, four semi-vowels or liquids, and four fricatives, written in IAST transliteration as follows: or a total of 36 unique Sanskrit phonemes altogether. The phonological rules to be applied when combining morphemes to a word, and when combining words to a sentence are collectively called sandhi "composition". Texts are written phonetically, with sandhi applied (except for the so-called padapāha). Some additional features of the Sanskrit phonological system are given here, as well as some useful tips for those whose native language is English but are interested in learning Sanskrit language. Pitch Vedic Sanskrit is a pitch accent language. Native grammarians define three tones (svara): udātta = 'raised', anudātta = 'not raised', and svarita = 'sounded'. The udātta syllable corresponds to the original Proto-Indo-European stress. The svarita is usually the next syllable after an udātta. Probably when the Rigveda was written down, the pitch of speech rose through the udātta and came back down through the following svarita. A svarita which is not preceded by an udātta is called an "independent svarita". In transliteration udātta is marked with acute accent (´) and independent svarita with a grave accent (`). Independent svarita occurs only where its udātta was lost because of vowel sandhi. Classical Sanskrit is usually pronounced with a stress accent decided by the syllable length pattern of each word. That is, Sanskrit, like Latin, is a syllable-timed language. It is the syllable which forms the basis of Sanskrit prosody. Script Sanskrit has had no single script associated with it, since written Sanskrit was of limited importance in early classical Sanskrit literature. Since the late 19th century the Devanagari script has become the script most widely used for Sanskrit. Sanskrit in modern Indian scripts. May Śiva bless those who take delight in the language of the gods. (Kalidasa) Verbal learning occupied the pride of place in ancient India and bears an influence which can still be felt in Indian schooling today. High value was placed on the memorization of texts, often using sophisticated mnemonic techniques. As such, propagation and learning through writing was correspondingly deemphasized, and it is hypothesized that writing was introduced relatively late to India. Rhys Davids suggests that writing may have been introduced from the Middle East by traders, with Sanskrit remaining a purely oral language until well into India's Classical age. It is interesting to note the importance that Sanskrit orthography and Vedic philosophy of sound play in Hindu symbolism, as the varnamala, or sound-garland/alphabet, of 51 letters is also seen to be represented by the 51 skulls of Kali. In the Upanishads, the transcendent-immanent nature of Brahman is represented by the half-matra, or sphota of sound that is inherent to a beat of sound in the Sanskrit system. Romanization Since the late 18th century, Sanskrit has been transliterated using the Latin alphabet. The system most commonly used today is the IAST (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration), which has been the academic standard since 1912, and which is used in this article. ASCII-based transliteration schemes have evolved due to difficulties representing Sanskrit characters in computer systems. These include Harvard-Kyoto and ITRANS, a lossless transliteration scheme that is used widely on the Internet, especially in Usenet and in email, for considerations of speed of entry as well as rendering issues. With the wide availability of Unicode aware web browsers, IAST has become common also for online articles. For scholarly work, Devanagari in the 19th century was generally preferred for the transcription and reproduction of whole texts and lengthy excerpts also by European scholars; however, references to individual words and names in texts composed in European languages are usually represented using Roman transliteration, and from the mid 20th century, textual editions edited by Western scholars have also been mostly in romanized transliteration. Grammatical tradition Sanskrit grammatical tradition (, one of the six Vedanga disciplines) begins in late Vedic India, and culminates in the of (ca. 5th century BC). Patañjali, who lived several centuries after Panini, is the reputed author of the , the "Great Commentary" on the . Recent work on Sanskrit grammar has been done by Dr. B.P.T. Vagish Shastri. He has developed a mnemonic method VAGYOGA, which proposes learning grammar in a mathematical way. Classification of verbs Sanskrit has ten classes of verbs divided into in two broad groups: athematic and thematic. The thematic verbs are so called because an a, called the theme vowel, is inserted between the stem and the ending. This serves to make the thematic verbs generally more regular. Exponents used in verb conjugation include prefixes, suffixes, infixes, and reduplication. Every root has (not necessarily all distinct) zero, gu{{Unicode|ṇ}}a, and v{{Unicode|ṛ}}ddhi grades. If V is the vowel of the zero grade, the gua-grade vowel is traditionally thought of as a + V, and the vddhi-grade vowel as ā + V. Tense systems The verbs tenses (a very inexact application of the word, since more distinctions than simply tense are expressed) are organized into four 'systems' (as well as gerunds and infinitives, and such creatures as intensives/frequentatives, desideratives, causatives, and benedictives derived from more basic forms) based on the different stem forms (derived from verbal roots) used in conjugation. There are four tense systems: Present system The present system includes the present and imperfect tenses, the optative and imperative moods, as well as some of the remnant forms of the old subjunctive. The tense stem of the present system is formed in various ways. The numbers are the native grammarians' numbers for these classes. For athematic verbs, the present tense stem may be formed through: For thematic verbs, the present tense stem may be formed through: The tenth class described by native grammarians refers to a process which is derivational in nature, and thus not a true tense-stem formation. Perfect system The perfect system includes only the perfect tense. The stem is formed with reduplication as with the present system. The perfect system also produces separate "strong" and "weak" forms of the verb — the strong form is used with the singular active, and the weak form with the rest. Aorist system The aorist system includes aorist proper (with past indicative meaning, e.g. abhū "you were") and some of the forms of the ancient injunctive (used almost exclusively with mā in prohibitions, e.g. mā bhū "don't be"). The principal distinction of the two is presence/absence of an augment - a- prefixed to the stem. The aorist system stem actually has three different formations: the simple aorist, the reduplicating aorist (semantically related to the causative verb), and the sibilant aorist. The simple aorist is taken directly from the root stem (e.g. bhū-: a-bhū-t "he was"). The reduplicating aorist involves reduplication as well as vowel reduction of the stem. The sibilant aorist is formed with the suffixation of s to the stem. Future system The future system is formed with the suffixation of sya or iya and gua. Verbs: Conjugation Each verb has a grammatical voice, whether active, passive or middle. There is also an impersonal voice, which can be described as the passive voice of intransitive verbs. Sanskrit verbs have an indicative, an optative and an imperative mood. Older forms of the language had a subjunctive, though this had fallen out of use by the time of Classical Sanskrit. Basic conjugational endings Conjugational endings in Sanskrit convey person, number, and voice. Different forms of the endings are used depending on what tense stem and mood they are attached to. Verb stems or the endings themselves may be changed or obscured by sandhi. Primary endings are used with present indicative and future forms. Secondary endings are used with the imperfect, conditional, aorist, and optative. Perfect and imperative endings are used with the perfect and imperative respectively. Present system conjugation Conjugation of the present system deals with all forms of the verb utilizing the present tense stem (explained under Tense Stems above). This includes the present tense of all moods, as well as the imperfect indicative. Athematic inflection The present system differentiates strong and weak forms of the verb. The strong/weak opposition manifests itself differently depending on the class: The present indicative takes primary endings, and the imperfect indicative takes secondary endings. Singular active forms have the accent on the stem and take strong forms, while the other forms have the accent on the endings and take weak forms. The optative takes secondary endings. yā is added to the stem in the active, and ī in the passive. The imperative takes imperative endings. Accent is variable and affects vowel quality. Forms which are end-accented trigger gua strengthening, and those with stem accent do not have the vowel affected. Nominal inflection Sanskrit is a highly inflected language with three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and three numbers (singular, plural, dual). It has eight cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, instrumental, dative, ablative, genitive, and locative. The number of actual declensions is debatable. 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): Possessive (Sambandha) and vocative are absent in Panini's grammar. In this article they are divided into five declensions. Which declension a noun belongs to is determined largely by form. The basic declension suffix scheme for nouns and adjectives The basic scheme is given in the table below—valid for almost all nouns and adjectives. However, according to the gender and the ending consonant/vowel of the uninflected word-stem, there are predermined rules of compulsory sandhi which would then give the final inflected word. The parentheses give the case-terminations for the neuter gender, the rest are for masculine and feminine gender. Both devanagari script and IAST transliterations are given. a-stems A-stems () comprise the largest class of nouns. As a rule, nouns belonging to this class, with the uninflected stem ending in short-a (), are either masculine or neuter. Nouns ending in long-A () are almost always feminine. A-stem adjectives take the masculine and neuter in short-a (), and feminine in long-A () in their stems. This class is so big because it also comprises the Proto-Indo-European o-stems. i- and u-stems Long Vowel-stems {{Unicode|ṛ}}-stems -stems are predominantly agental derivatives like dāt 'giver', though also include kinship terms like pit́ 'father', māt́ 'mother', and svás 'sister'. See also Devi inflection, Vrkis inflection. Personal Pronouns and Determiners The first and second person pronouns are declined for the most part alike, having by analogy assimilated themselves with one another. Note: 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. The demonstrative ta, declined below, also functions as the third person pronoun. Compounds One other notable feature of the nominal system is the very common use of nominal compounds, which may be huge (10+ words) as in some modern languages such as German. 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: 1. (co-ordinative) These consist of two or more noun 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. 2. (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 -- 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". 3. {{unicode|Tatpuruṣa}} (determinative) There are many tatpuruas (one for each of the nominal cases, and a few others besides); in a tatpurua, 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 "caturtitatpurua" (caturti refers to the fourth case—that is, the dative). Incidentally, "tatpurua" is a tatpurua ("this man"—meaning someone's agent), while "caturtitatpurua" is a karmadhārya, being both dative, and a tatpurua. An easy way to understand it is to look at English examples of tatpuruas: "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"). 4. (descriptive) The relation of the first member to the last is appositional, attributive or adverbial, e. g. uluka-yatu (owl+demon) is a demon in the shape of an owl. 5. {{unicode|Amreḍita}} (iterative) Repetition of a word expresses repetitiveness, e. g. dive-dive 'day by day', 'daily'. Syntax Because of Sanskrit's complex declension system the word order is free (with tendency toward SOV). Numerals The numbers from one to ten are: 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: Modern-day India Sanskrit's greatest influence, presumably, is that which it exerted on languages that grew from its vocabulary and grammatical base. Especially among élite circles in India, Sanskrit is prized as a storehouse of scripture and the language of prayers in Hinduism. Like Latin's influence on European languages and Classical Chinese's influence on East Asian languages, Sanskrit has influenced most Indian languages. While vernacular prayer is common, Sanskrit mantras are recited by millions of Hindus and most temple functions are conducted entirely in Sanskrit, often Vedic in form. Of modern day Indian languages, while Hindi tends to be more heavily weighted with Arabic and Persian influence, Bengali and Marathi still retain a largely Sanskrit vocabulary base. The national anthem, Jana Gana Mana, is witten in a higher form of Bengali, so Sanskritized as to be archaic. The national song of India Vande Mataram which was originally a poem composed by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and taken from his book called 'Aanandmath', is in highly Sanskritized Bengali. Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada also combine a great deal of Sanskrit vocabulary. Sanskrit is still prized and widespread as a medium of spiritual instruction for Hindus in India. In non-Indian languages Due to common cultural, ethnic and linguistic traditions, Sanskrit words are found in Sinhalese, Nepali, Sindhi and other languages of the Indian subcontinent. Sanskrit words are also found in many other present-day non-Indian languages. For instance, the Thai language contains many loan words from Sanskrit. For example, in Thai, the Rāvana - the emperor of Sri Lanka is called 'Thoskonth' which is a derivation of his Sanskrit name 'Dashakanth' ("of ten necks"). The influence extends as far as the Philippines, e.g., Tagalog 'gurò' from 'Guru', or 'teacher', with the Hindu seafarers who traded there. Many Sanskrit words are also found in modern day Malay 9 10% of the words are Sanskrit), Old Javanese language (close to 50%) and Vietnamese. Attempts at revival Of late, there have been attempts to revive the speaking of this ancient tongue, so that the vast literature available in Sanskrit can be made easily available to everyone. The CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) in India has made Sanskrit a third language (though it is an option for the school to adopt it or not, the other choice being the state's own official language) in the schools it governs. In such schools, learning Sanskrit is an option for grades 5 to 8 (Classes V to VIII). This is true of most schools, including but not limited to Christian missionary schools, affiliated to the ICSE board too, especially in those states where the official language is Hindi. An option between Sanskrit and Hindi (or many other local languages) as a second language exists for grades 9 and 10. Many organizations like the Samskrta Bharati are conducting Speak Sanskrit workshops to popularize the language. About four million people are claimed to have acquired the ability to speak Sanskrit fluently. Sanskrit is spoken natively by the population in Mattur village in central Karnataka. Inhabitants of all castes learn Sanskrit starting in childhood and converse in the language. Even the local Muslims speak and converse in Sanskrit. Historically, the village was given by king Krishnadevaraya of the Vijayanagara Empire to Vedic scholars and their families. People in his kingdom spoke Kannada and Tuluva. Several organizations across India are putting in efforts to revive the language and to preserve oral transmission of the Vedas. Shri Vedabharathi is one such organization based out of Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh that has been digitizing the Vedas through voice recording the recitations of Vedic Pandits. In recent years, there has been an interest with using Sanskrit in computer programming. Because of its syntax, it was believed to be ideal for computer translation.• Interactions with Sino-Tibetan languages Sanskrit and related languages have also influenced their Sino-Tibetan-speaking neighbors to the north through the spread of Buddhist texts in translation. Buddhism was spread to China by Mahayanist missionaries mostly through translations of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit texts, and many terms were transliterated directly and added to the Chinese vocabulary. (Although Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit is not Sanskrit, properly speaking, its vocabulary is substantially the same, both because of genetic relationship, and because of conscious imitation on the part of composers. Buddhist texts composed in Sanskrit proper were primarily found in philosophical schools like the Madhyamaka.) Western vogue for Sanskrit At the end of the introduction to The World as Will and Representation, Arthur Schopenhauer claimed that the rediscovery of the ancient Indian tradition would be one of the great events in the history of the West. Goethe borrowed from Kalidasa for the Vorspiel auf dem Theater in Faust. Goethe and Schopenhauer were riding a crest of scholarly discovery, most notably the work done by Sir William Jones. (Goethe likely read Kalidasa's The Recognition of Sakuntala in Jones' translation.) However, the discovery of the world of Sanskrit literature moved beyond German and British scholars and intellectuals — Henry David Thoreau was a sympathetic reader of the Bhagavad Gita — and even beyond the humanities. In the early days of the Periodic Table, scientists referred to as yet undiscovered elements with the use of Sanskrit prefixes (see Mendeleev's predicted elements). The nineteenth century was a golden age of Western Sanskrit scholarship, and many of the giants of the field (Whitney, Macdonnell, Monier-Williams, Grassmann) knew each other personally. Perhaps the most commonly known example of Sanskrit in the West was also the last gasp of its vogue. T. S. Eliot, a student of Indian Philosophy and Lanham's, ended The Waste Land with Sanskrit: "Shantih Shantih Shantih". Computational linguistics There have been suggestions to use Sanskrit as a metalanguage for knowledge representation in e.g. machine translation, and other areas of natural language processing because of its highly regular structure. This is due to Classical Sanskrit being a regularized, prescriptivist form abstracted from the much more irregular and richer Vedic Sanskrit. This levelling of the grammar of Classical Sanskrit occurred during the Brahmana phase, after the language had fallen out of popular use, arguably qualifying Classical Sanskrit as an early engineered language. See also Dictionaries Primers Grammars rmy:संस्कृतीकानी छीब | |||||||
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