Sanskrit
Here I will put material, links that I used, made, am making while learning
Sanskrit (an ongoing process). Will try to emphasize aspects I was most interested in, but
found rather difficult to get standard sources to tell me quickly.
At least some of the programs need a unicode aware browser.
Transliteration key used in my programs and
a program to practise transliteration
.
My Lingua::SA
(version 0.08) perl module used by most of my programs here
(example scripts and their output).
Nouns (saJjJA)
Noun declinations make word positions (mostly) immaterial.
- Their exist seven cases (vibhakti) besides the sambodhana. These are prathamA,
dvitIyA, tRtIyA, chaturthI, paJchamI, ShaShThI and saptamI. For pronouns
there is no sambodhana.
- Besides the usual eka- (singular) and bahu-
(plural) a third vachan viz. dvi- (two) exists (just like oldtime German).
- There are three genders viz. puM-, strI- and napuMsakaliGga
- Not all genders have
their nouns ending in all possible -kaars (a (अ), A (आ), i
(इ), I (ई), u (उ), U (ऊ), R (ऋ) etc.).
Masculine
nouns end in a (अ), A (आ), i (इ), u (उ), or R
(ऋ), [there apparently exist exceptions ending in I (ई), and U
(ऊ)]
Feminine in A (आ), i (इ), I (ई), u (उ), U
(ऊ), or R (ऋ), and
Neuter in a (अ), i (इ), u (उ), or Ri (ऋ)
And then there are several that end in consonants (halant)
- Quiz yourself
on Sanskrit nouns and their declinations
- Select
Nouns and their declinations
Verbs (dhAtu)
- Sanskrit divides its verbs in to 10 classes (gaNa).
gaNa 1, 4, 6, 10 have their stems ending in a and the others in non-a
Together the a-ending verbs account for almost 90% of the total ~2000
verbs.
- The tenses are denoted by lakaar. There are 10 of these as well.
- The verbs are divided in to three catagories which while not completely
random, are not fully deterministic. These are aatmanepadi, parasmaipadi and
ubhayapadi (i.e. aatmanepadi and parasmaipadi).
- There are three persons viz. uttama (first), madhyama (second) and
prathama (third) just like in English.
-
Select Verbs and their inflections
Indeclinables (avyaya)
These don't change with tense (lakaar), puruSha (person), liGga (gender),
vachan (plurality) etc.
Examples are: ch (and), na (no), api (also), adya (today), atra (here) and
lots more
mAheshvarANi sUtrANi
(माहेश्वराणि
सूत्राणि)
This is the ingenious rearrangement of the alphabet to allow their clustering
so that such clusters can be referred to in very succinct grammar rules.
- a iuN (अइउण्)
- RlRk
(ऋऌक् )
- eoG
(एओङ् )
- aiauch
(ऐऔच् )
- hayavaraT
(हयवरट् )
- laCBaN
(लँण् )
- JamaGaNanam
(ञमङणनम् )
- jhabhaJ
(झभञ् )
- ghaDhadhaS
(घढधष् )
- jabagaDadash
(जबगडदश् )
- khaphaChaThathachaTatav
(खफछठथचटतव् )
- kapay
(कपय् )
- shaSasar
(शषसर् )
- hal
(हल् )
Prefixes (upasarga)
There are 22 of these. They modify the meaning in various fixed ways.
- pra (प्र)
- parA (परा)
- apa (अप)
- sam (सम्)
- anu (अनु)
- ava (अव)
- nis (निस्)
- nir (निर्)
- dus (दुस्)
- dur (दुर्)
- vi (वि)
- A (आ)
- ni (नि)
- adhi (अधि)
- ati (अति)
- api (अपि)
- su (सु)
- abhi (अभि)
- prati (प्रति)
- pari (परि)
- upa (उप)
- ud (उद्)
Samaas
This is the juxtaposition of two terms/words to create an entirely different
word, much like compound words.
Sandhi
The joining of words so they sound correct (least effort) is the most
fascinating aspect for me.
Bit of Life of Brian
Useful links
- Monier-William's dictionary: Searchable - English,
Scanned, Searchable -
devanaagarI
- Wikner's tutorial
- Sringeri Vidya Bharati tutorials (first couple problematic, but you don't
miss much): 0,
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12,
13,
14,
15,
16.
- Ganakashtadhyayi
- Indian Language
Converter
- Many other
- Sanskrit documents
- Sanskrit Heritage
Dictionary (see also he links at the bottom of that page - some stuff in
French)
- NCERT textbooks
- Sanskrit daily audio news
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