SANSKRIT RELATED CONTENT | WIKIPEDIA |
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Sanskrit
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Letter | प् | Pronunciation | Pronunciation with /p/ | IAST equiv. | English equivalent (GA unless stated otherwise) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
अ | प | /ɐ/ or /ə/ | /pɐ/ or /pə/ | a | short near-open central vowel or schwa: u in bunny or a in about |
आ | पा | /ɑː/ | /pɑː/ | ā | long open back unrounded vowel: a in father (RP) |
इ | पि | /i/ | /pi/ | i | short close front unrounded vowel: e in england |
ई | पी | /iː/ | /piː/ | ī | long close front unrounded vowel: ee in feet |
उ | पु | /u/ | /pu/ | u | short close back rounded vowel: oo in foot |
ऊ | पू | /uː/ | /puː/ | ū | long close back rounded vowel: oo in cool |
ऋ | पृ | /ɻ/ | /pɻ/ | ṛ | short retroflex approximant: r in run |
ॠ | पॄ | /ɻː/ | /pɻː/ | ṝ | long retroflex approximant r in run |
ऌ | पॢ | /ɭ/ | /pɭ/ | ḷ | short retroflex lateral approximant (no English equivalent) |
ॡ | पॣ | /ɭː/ | /pɭː/ | ḹ | long retroflex lateral approximant |
ए | पे | /eː/ | /peː/ | e | long close-mid front unrounded vowel: a in bane (some speakers) |
ऐ | पै | /əi/ | /pəi/ | ai | a long diphthong: i in ice, i in kite (Canadian and Scottish English) |
ओ | पो | /oː/ | /poː/ | o | long close-mid back rounded vowel: o in bone (some speakers) |
औ | पौ | /əu/ | /pəu/ | au | a long diphthong: Similar to the ou in house (Canadian English) |
The long vowels are pronounced twice as long as their short counterparts. Also, there exists a third, extra-long length for most vowels, called pluti, which is used in various cases, but particularly in the vocative. The pluti is not accepted by all grammarians.
The vowels /e/ and /o/ continue as allophonic variants of Proto-Indo-Iranian /ai/, /au/ and are categorized as diphthongs by Sanskrit grammarians even though they are realized phonetically as simple long vowels. (See above).
Additional points:
IAST and Devanagari notations are given, with approximate IPA values in square brackets.
Labial Ōshtya | Labiodental Dantōshtya | Dental Dantya | Retroflex Mūrdhanya | Palatal Tālavya | Velar Kanthya | Glottal | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Stop Sparśa | Unaspirated Alpaprāna | p प [p] | b ब [b] | t त [t̪] | d द [d̪] | ṭ ट [ʈ] | ḍ ड [ɖ] | c च [c͡ç] | j ज [ɟ͡ʝ] | k क [k] | g ग [ɡ] | |||
Aspirated Mahāprāna | ph फ [pʰ] | bh भ [bʱ] | th थ [t̪ʰ] | dh ध [d̪ʱ] | ṭh ठ [ʈʰ] | ḍh ढ [ɖʱ] | ch छ [c͡çʰ] | jh झ [ɟ͡ʝʱ] | kh ख [kʰ] | gh घ [ɡʱ] | ||||
Nasal Anunāsika | m म [m] | n न [n̪] | ṇ ण [ɳ] | ñ ञ [ɲ] | ṅ ङ [ŋ] | |||||||||
Semivowel Antastha | v व [ʋ] | y य [j] | ||||||||||||
Liquid Drava | l ल [l] | r र [r] | ||||||||||||
Fricative Ūshman | s स [s̪] | ṣ ष [ʂ] | ś श [ɕ] | ḥ ः [h] | h ह [ɦ] |
The table below shows the traditional listing of the Sanskrit consonants with the (nearest) equivalents in English (as pronounced in General American and Received Pronunciation) and Spanish. Each consonant shown below is deemed to be followed by the neutral vowel schwa (/ə/), and is named in the table as such.
Unaspirated Voiceless Alpaprāna Śvāsa | Aspirated Voiceless Mahāprāna Śvāsa | Unaspirated Voiced Alpaprāna Nāda | Aspirated Voiced Mahāprāna Nāda | Nasal Anunāsika Nāda | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Velar Kantya | क /kə/; English: skip | ख /kʰə/; English: cat | ग /ɡə/; English: game | घ /ɡʱə/; somewhat similar to English: doghouse | ङ /ŋə/; English: ring |
Palatal Tālavya | च /cə/; English: exchange | छ /cʰə/; English: church | ज /ɟə/; ≈English: jam | झ /ɟʱə/; somewhat similar to English: hedgehog | ञ /ɲə/; English: bench |
Retroflex Mūrdhanya | ट /ʈə/; No English equivalent | ठ /ʈʰə/; No English equivalent | ड /ɖə/; No English equivalent | ढ /ɖʱə/; No English equivalent | ण /ɳə/; No English equivalent |
Apico-Dental Dantya | त /t̪ə/; Spanish: tomate | थ /t̪ʰə/; Aspirated /t̪/ | द /d̪ə/; Spanish: donde | ध /d̪ʱə/; Aspirated /d̪/ | न /n̪ə/; English: name |
Labial Ōshtya | प /pə/; English: spin | फ /pʰə/; English: pit | ब /bə/; English: bone | भ /bʱə/; somewhat similar to English: clubhouse | म /mə/; English: mine |
Palatal Tālavya | Retroflex Mūrdhanya | Dental Dantya | Labial/ Glottal Ōshtya | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Approximant Antastha | य /jə/; English: you | र /rə/; English: trip | ल /l̪ə/; English: love | व (labio-dental) /ʋə/; English: vase |
Sibilant/ Fricative Ūshman | श /ɕə/; English: ship | ष /ʂə/; Retroflex form of /ʃ/ | स /s̪ə/; English: same | ह (glottal) /ɦə/; English behind |
The Sanskrit vowels are as discussed in the section above. The long syllabic l (ḹ) is not attested, and is only discussed by grammarians for systematic reasons. Its short counterpart ḷ occurs in a single root only, kḷp "to order, array". Long syllabic r (ṝ) is also quite marginal, occurring in the genitive plural of r-stems (e.g. mātṛ "mother" and pitṛ "father" have gen.pl. mātṝṇām and pitṝṇām). i, u, ṛ, ḷ are vocalic allophones of consonantal y, v, r, l. There are thus only 5 invariably vocalic phonemes,
Visarga ḥ ः is an allophone of r and s, and anusvara ṃ, Devanagari ं of any nasal, both in pausa (i.e., the nasalized vowel). The exact pronunciation of the three sibilants may vary, but they are distinct phonemes. An aspirated voiced sibilant /zʱ/ was inherited by Indo-Aryan from Proto-Indo-Iranian but lost shortly before the time of the Rigveda (aspirated fricatives are exceedingly rare in any language). The retroflex consonants are somewhat marginal phonemes, often being conditioned by their phonetic environment; they do not continue a PIE series and are often ascribed by some linguists to the substratal influence of Dravidian or other substrate languages. The nasal [ɲ] is a conditioned allophone of /n/ (/n/ and /ɳ/ are distinct phonemes—aṇu 'minute', 'atomic' [nom. sg. neutr. of an adjective] is distinctive from anu 'after', 'along'; phonologically independent /ŋ/ occurs only marginally, e.g. in prāṅ 'directed forwards/towards' [nom. sg. masc. of an adjective]). There are thus 31 consonantal or semi-vocalic phonemes, consisting of four/five kinds of stops realized both with or without aspiration and both voiced and voiceless, three nasals, four semi-vowels or liquids, and four fricatives, written in IAST transliteration as follows:
or a total of 36 unique Sanskrit phonemes altogether.
The phonological rules which are applied when combining morphemes to a word, and when combining words to a sentence, are collectively called sandhi "composition". Texts are written phonetically, with sandhi applied (except for the so-called padapāṭha).
Sanskrit was spoken in an oral society, and the oral tradition was maintained through the development of early classical Sanskrit literature. Writing was not introduced to India until after Sanskrit had evolved into the Prakrits; when it was written, the choice of writing system was influenced by the regional scripts of the scribes. As such, virtually all of the major writing systems of South Asia have been used for the production of Sanskrit manuscripts. Since the late 19th century, Devanagari has been considered as the de facto writing system for Sanskrit, quite possibly because of the European practice of printing Sanskrit texts in this script. Devanagari is written from left to right, lacks distinct letter cases, and is recognizable by a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the letters that links them together.
The earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit date to the 1st century BCE. They are in the Brahmi script, which was originally used for Prakrit, 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.[32] 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 family, many of which were used to write Sanskrit. Roughly contemporary with the Brahmi, the Kharosthi script was used in the northwest of the subcontinent. Later (around the 4th to 8th centuries CE) the Gupta script, derived from Brahmi, became prevalent. From ca. the 8th century, the Sharada script evolved out of the Gupta script. The latter was displaced in its turn by Devanagari from ca. the 11/12th century, with intermediary stages such as the Siddham script. In Eastern India, the Bengali script and, later, the Oriya script, were used. In the south where Dravidian languages predominate, scripts used for Sanskrit include Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Grantha.
Since the late 18th century, Sanskrit has been transliterated using the Latin alphabet. The system most commonly used today is the IAST (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration), which has been the academic standard since 1888/1912. ASCII-based transliteration schemes have evolved due to difficulties representing Sanskrit characters in computer systems. These include Harvard-Kyoto and ITRANS, a transliteration scheme that is used widely on the Internet, especially in Usenet and in email, for considerations of speed of entry as well as rendering issues. With the wide availability of Unicode aware web browsers, IAST has become common online.
It is also possible to type using an alphanumeric keyboard and transliterate to devanagari using software like Mac OS X's international support.
European scholars in the 19th century generally preferred Devanagari for the transcription and reproduction of whole texts and lengthy excerpts. However, references to individual words and names in texts composed in European languages were usually represented with Roman transliteration. From the 20th century onwards, due to production costs, textual editions edited by Western scholars have mostly been in Romanized transliteration.
Sanskrit grammatical tradition (vyākaraṇa, one of the six Vedanga disciplines) began in late Vedic India and culminated in the Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini, which consists of 3990 sutras (ca. 5th century BCE). About a century after Pāṇini (around 400 BCE) Kātyāyana composed Vārtikas on Pāṇinian sũtras. Patañjali, who lived three centuries after Pāṇini, wrote the Mahābhāṣya, the "Great Commentary" on the Aṣṭādhyāyī and Vārtikas. Because of these three ancient Sanskrit grammarians this grammar is called Trimuni Vyākarana. To understand the meaning of sutras Jayaditya and Vāmana wrote the commentary named Kāsikā 600 CE. Pāṇinian grammar is based on 14 Shiva sutras (aphorisms). Here whole Mātrika (alphabet) is abbreviated. This abbreviation is called Pratyāhara.
Sanskrit has ten classes of verbs divided into in two broad groups: athematic and thematic. The thematic verbs are so called because an a, called the theme vowel, is inserted between the stem and the ending. This serves to make the thematic verbs generally more regular. Exponents used in verb conjugation include prefixes, suffixes, infixes, and reduplication. Every root has (not necessarily all distinct) zero, guṇa, and vṛddhi grades. If V is the vowel of the zero grade, the guṇa-grade vowel is traditionally thought of as a + V, and the vṛddhi-grade vowel as ā + V.
The verb tenses (a very inexact application of the word, since more distinctions than simply tense are expressed) are organized into four 'systems' (as well as gerunds and infinitives, and such creatures as intensives/frequentatives, desideratives, causatives, and benedictives derived from more basic forms) based on the different stem forms (derived from verbal roots) used in conjugation. There are four tense systems:
Sanskrit is a highly inflected language with three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and three numbers (singular, plural, dual). It has eight cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, instrumental, dative, ablative, genitive, and locative.
The number of actual declensions is debatable. Pāṇini identifies six karakas corresponding to the nominative, accusative, dative, instrumental, locative, and ablative cases. Pāṇini defines them as follows (Ashtadhyayi, I.4.24–54):
Sanskrit pronouns are declined for case, number, and gender. The pronominal declension applies to a few adjectives as well. Many pronouns have alternative enclitic forms.
The first and second person pronouns are declined for the most part alike, having by analogy assimilated themselves with one another. Where two forms are given, the second is enclitic and an alternative form. Ablatives in singular and plural may be extended by the syllable -tas; thus mat or mattas, asmat or asmattas. Sanskrit does not have true third person pronouns, but its demonstratives fulfill this function instead by standing independently without a modified substantive.
There are four different demonstratives in Sanskrit: tat, etat, idam, and adas. etat indicates greater proximity than tat. While idam is similar to etat, adas refers to objects that are more remote than tat. eta, is declined almost identically to ta. Its paradigm is obtained by prefixing e- to all the forms of ta. As a result of sandhi, the masculine and feminine singular forms transform into eṣas and eṣã.
The enclitic pronoun ena is found only in a few oblique cases and numbers. Interrogative pronouns all begin with k-, and decline just as tat does, with the initial t- being replaced by k-. The only exception to this are the singular neuter nominative and accusative forms, which are both kim and not the expected *kat. For example, the singular feminine genitive interrogative pronoun, "of whom?", is kasyãḥ. Indefinite pronouns are formed by adding the participles api, cid, or cana after the appropriate interrogative pronouns. All relative pronouns begin with y-, and decline just as tat does. The correlative pronouns are identical to the tat series.
In addition to the pronouns described above, some adjectives follow the pronominal declension. Unless otherwise noted, their declension is identical to tat.
One other notable feature of the nominal system is the very common use of nominal compounds, which may be huge (10+ words) as in some modern languages such as German and Finnish. Nominal compounds occur with various structures, however morphologically speaking they are essentially the same. Each noun (or adjective) is in its (weak) stem form, with only the final element receiving case inflection. The four principle categories of nominal compounds are:
This section requires expansion. |
Because of Sanskrit's complex declension system the word order is free. In usage, there is a strong tendency toward Subject Object Verb (SOV), which was the original system in place in Vedic prose. However, there are exceptions when word pairs cannot be transposed.
The numbers from one to ten:
The numbers one through four are declined. Éka is declined like a pronominal adjective, though the dual form does not occur. Dvá appears only in the dual. Trí and catúr are declined irregularly:
Three | Four | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | |
Nominative | tráyas | trī́ṇi | tisrás | catvā́ras | catvā́ri | cátasras |
Accusative | trīn | trī́ṇi | tisrás | catúras | catvā́ri | cátasras |
Instrumental | tribhís | tisṛ́bhis | catúrbhis | catasṛ́bhis | ||
Dative | tribhyás | tisṛ́bhyas | catúrbhyas | catasṛ́bhyas | ||
Ablative | tribhyás | tisṛ́bhyas | catúrbhyas | catasṛ́bhyas | ||
Genitive | triyāṇā́m | tisṛṇā́m | caturṇā́m | catasṛṇā́m | ||
Locative | triṣú | tisṛ́ṣu | catúrṣu | catasṛ́ṣu |
Sanskrit's greatest influence, presumably, is that which it exerted on languages of India that grew from its vocabulary and grammatical base; for instance Hindi, which is a "Sanskritized register" of the Khariboli dialect. However, all modern Indo-Aryan languages as well as Munda and Dravidian languages, have borrowed many words either directly from Sanskrit (tatsama words), or indirectly via middle Indo-Aryan languages (tadbhava words). 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 Kannada.
Sanskrit is prized as a storehouse of scripture and the language of prayers in Hinduism. Like Latin's influence on European languages and Classical Chinese's influence on East Asian languages, Sanskrit has influenced most Indian languages. While vernacular prayer is common, Sanskrit mantras are recited by millions of Hindus and most temple functions are conducted entirely in Sanskrit, often Vedic in form. Of modern day Indian languages, while Hindi and Urdu tend to be more heavily weighted with Arabic and Persian influence, Nepali, Bengali, Assamese, Konkani and Marathi still retain a largely Sanskrit and Prakrit vocabulary base. The Indian national anthem, Jana Gana Mana, is written in a literary form of Bengali (known as sadhu bhasha), Sanskritized so as to be recognizable, but still archaic to the modern ear. The national song of India Vande Mataram was originally a poem composed by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and taken from his book called 'Anandamath', is in a similarly highly Sanskritized Bengali. Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada also combine a great deal of Sanskrit vocabulary. Sanskrit also has influence on Chinese through Buddhist Sutras. Chinese words like 剎那 chànà (Skt. क्षन kṣana 'instantaneous period of time') were borrowed from Sanskrit.
The 1991 and 2001, census of India recorded 49,736 and 14,135 persons, respectively, with Sanskrit as their native language. Since the 1990s, efforts to revive spoken Sanskrit have been increasing. Many organizations like the Samskrta Bharati are conducting Speak Sanskrit workshops to popularize the language. The state of Uttarakhand in India has ruled Sanskrit as its second official language. The CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) of India has made Sanskrit a third language (though it is an option for the school to adopt it or not, the other choice being the state's own official language) in the schools it governs. In such schools, learning Sanskrit is an option for grades 5 to 8 (Classes V to VIII). This is true of most schools affiliated to the ICSE board too, especially in those states where the official language is Hindi. Sudharma, the only daily newspaper in Sanskrit has been published out of Mysore in India since the year 1970. Since 1974, there has been a short daily news broadcast on All India Radio.
In these Indian villages, inhabitants of all castes speak Sanskrit natively since childhood:
In the Republic of India, in Nepal and Indonesia, Sanskrit phrases are widely used as mottoes for various educational and social organizations (much as Latin is used by some institutions in the West). The motto of the Republic is also in Sanskrit.
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.
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 sent by Emperor Ashoka mostly through translations of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit texts, and many terms were transliterated directly and added to the Chinese vocabulary. (Although Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit is not Sanskrit, properly speaking, its grammar and vocabulary are substantially the same, both because of genetic relationship, and because of conscious implementation of Pāṇinian standardizations on the part of composers. Buddhist texts composed in Sanskrit proper were primarily found in philosophical schools like the Madhyamaka.) The situation in Tibet is similar; many Sanskrit texts survive only in Tibetan translation (in the Tanjur).
The Thai language contains many loan words from Sanskrit. For example, in Thai, the Rāvana—the emperor of Sri Lanka is called 'Thosakanth' which is a derivation of his Sanskrit name 'Dashakanth' ("of ten necks"). Many Sanskrit loanwords are also found in traditional Malay, Modern Indonesian, and numerous Philippine languages, Old Javanese language (nearly half) and to a lesser extent, Cambodian, Vietnamese, through Sinified hybrid Sanskrit.
Many of India's and Nepal's scientific and administrative terms are named in Sanskrit, as a counterpart of the western practice of naming scientific developments in Latin or Greek. The Indian guided missile program that was commenced in 1983 by DRDO has named the five missiles (ballistic and others) that it has developed as Prithvi, Agni, Akash, Nag and Trishul. India's first modern fighter aircraft is named HAL Tejas.
Recital of Sanskrit shlokas as background chorus in films, television advertisements and as slogans for corporate organizations has become a trend.
Recently, Sanskrit also made an appearance in Western pop music in two recordings by Madonna. One, "Shanti/Ashtangi", from the 1998 album "Ray of Light", is the traditional Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga chant referenced above set to music. The second, "Cyber-raga", released in 2000 as a B-side to Madonna's single "Music", is a Sanskrit-language ode of devotion to a higher power and a wish for peace on earth. The climactic battle theme of The Matrix Revolutions features a choir singing a Sanskrit prayer from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad in the closing titles of the movie. Composer John Williams also featured a choir singing in Sanskrit for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
The Sky1 version of the title sequence in season one of Battlestar Galactica 2004 features the Gayatri Mantra, taken from the Rig Veda (3.62.10). The composition was written by miniseries composer Richard Gibbs.
There have been suggestions to use Sanskrit as a metalanguage for knowledge representation in e.g. machine translation, and other areas of natural language processing because of its relatively high regular structure. This is due to Classical Sanskrit being a regularized, prescriptivist form abstracted from the much more complex and richer Vedic Sanskrit. This leveling of the grammar of Classical Sanskrit began during the Brahmana phase, and had not yet completed by the time of Pāṇini, when the language had fallen out of popular use.
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