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Sanskrit (संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam)
Spoken in:	India and some other areas of South and Southeast Asia; many Buddhist scholars in the countries of East Asia such as China, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam are also able to communicate in Sanskrit.
Total speakers:	6,106 (1981 census) 194,433 second language speakers (1961 census)
Genetic classification:	Indo-European  Indo-Iranian   Indo-Aryan    Sanskrit
Official status
Official language of:	India (one of the scheduled languages)
Regulated by:	no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	sa
ISO 639-2:	san
ISO/DIS 639-3:	san
This page contains Indic text. Without rendering support you may see irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. More...

Sanskrit (saṃskṛtam संस्कृतम्) is a classical language of India and a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It has a position in India and Southeast Asia similar to that of Latin and Greek in Medieval Europe, and is a central part of Hindu tradition. Sanskrit is one of the 22 official languages of India. Sanskrit is taught in schools and households throughout India, as a second language. Some Brahmins even identify it as their mother tongue. According to recent reports, it is being revived as a vernacular in the village of Mattur near Shimoga in Karnataka [1].

Sanskrit is mostly used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals in the forms of hymns and mantras. Its pre-classical form of Vedic Sanskrit, the liturgical language of the Vedic religion, is one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family, its most archaic text being the Rigveda.

The scope of this article is that of Classical Sanskrit as laid out in the grammar of Panini, roughly around 500 BC. Most Sanskrit texts available today were transmitted orally for several centuries before they were written down in medieval India.

Contents 1 History 2 Phonology and writing system 2.1 Simple vowels 2.2 Diphthongs 2.3 Consonants 2.4 Pitch 2.5 Sandhi 2.6 Script 3 Grammar 3.1 Grammatical tradition 3.2 Verbs 3.2.1 Classification of verbs 3.2.2 Tense systems 3.2.2.1 Present system 3.2.2.2 Perfect system 3.2.2.3 Aorist system 3.2.2.4 Future system 3.3 Verbs: Conjugation 3.3.1 Basic conjugational endings 3.3.2 Present system conjugation 3.3.2.1 Athematic inflection 3.4 Nominal inflection 3.4.1 a-stems 3.4.2 i- and u-stems 3.4.3 Long Vowel-stems 3.4.4 ṛ-stems 3.5 Personal Pronouns and Determiners 3.6 Compounds 3.7 Syntax 3.8 Numerals 4 Influences 4.1 Modern-day India 4.1.1 Attempts at revival 4.2 Interactions with Sino-Tibetan languages 4.3 Western vogue for Sanskrit 4.4 Computational linguistics 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

History

The word saṃskṛta means "refined, consecrated, sanctified". The language referred to as saṃskṛtā vāk "the refined language" has by definition always been a 'high' language, used for religious and scientific discourse and contrasted with the languages spoken by the people. The oldest surviving Sanskrit grammar is Pāṇini's Aṣtādhyāyī ("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.

Almost every student of Sanskrit hears the traditional story that Sanskrit was created and then refined over many generations (traditionally more than a thousand years) until it was considered complete and perfect. When the term arose in India, "Sanskrit" was not thought of as a specific language set apart from other languages (the people of the time regarded languages more as dialects), but rather as a particularly refined manner of speaking, bearing a similar relation to common language that "Standard" English bears to dialects spoken in the United Kingdom or United States. Knowledge of Sanskrit was a marker of social class and educational attainment, and was taught through close analysis of Sanskrit grammarians such as Pāṇini. This form of the language evolved out of the earlier "Vedic" form, and scholars often distinguish Vedic Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit as separate languages. However, they are extremely similar in many ways and differ mostly in a few points of phonology, vocabulary, and grammar. But some think that in ancient India there were various dialects of Sanskrit, and Classical Sanskrit is one of these dialects, and Vedic is an earlier stage of another of these dialects; the Vedic dialect had more tendency to change Indo-European [l] into [r]; Vedic changed [d.] and [d.h] into [l.] and [l.h] (with retroflex l) between vowels.

Vedic is the language of the Vedas, the earliest sacred texts of India and the base of the Hindu religion. The earliest of the Vedas, the Rigveda, was composed by many authors over hundreds, and probably thousands of years. Recent scholarship traces the composition of the Rigveda to the 3rd or even 4th millennium BCE at a period before the Saraswati River dried up. The Rigveda mentions the Saraswati as the mightiest of all rivers (RV 7.95.2). By 2,500 BCE it had disappeared. The Vedic form of Sanskrit survived until the middle of the first millennium BC. It is around this time that Sanskrit made the transition from a first language to a second language of religion and learning, marking the beginning of the Classical period. A form of Sanskrit called Epic Sanskrit is seen in the Mahabharata and other Hindu epics. This includes more "prakritisms" (borrowings from common speech) than Classical Sanskrit proper. There is also a language dubbed "Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit" by scholars, which is actually a prakrit ornamented with Sanskritized elements, perhaps for purposes of ostentation (see also termination of spoken Sanskrit).

There is a strong relationship between the various forms of Sanskrit and the Middle Indo-Aryan "Prakrits", or vernacular languages (in which, among other things, most early Jain and Buddhist texts are written), and the modern Indo-Aryan languages. The Prakrits are probably descended from Vedic, and there is mutual interchange between later forms of Sanskrit and various Prakrits. There has also been reciprocal influence between Sanskrit and the Dravidian languages.

European scholarship in Sanskrit, begun by Heinrich Roth and Johann Ernst Hanxleden, 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, key terms for compound analysis are taken from Sanskrit.

Two south Indian languages, Kanada and Telugu, rely on quite a few words from Sanskrit with similar phonetics but their scripts, though similar to each other, are different from Sanskrit.

Phonology and writing system

See also Shiva Sutra.

Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Classical Sanskrit has 48 phonemes (Vedic Sanskrit has 49).

The sounds are described here in their traditional order: vowels, stops and nasals (starting in the back of the mouth and moving forward), and finally the liquids and sibilants.

(Note: The long vowels are held about twice as long as their short counterparts. Also, there exists a third, extra-long length for most vowels, which is used in various cases, but particularly in the vocative.)

Simple vowels

Devanāgarī		IAST	HK	approximate pronunciation
independent	vowel sign			English	IPA
अ		a	a	gut	ʌ or ɐ
आ	ा	ā	A	father	aː
इ	ि	i	i	pin	i
ई	ी	ī	I	pea	iː
उ	ु	u	u	push	u
ऊ	ू	ū	U	moo	uː
ऋ	ृ	ṛ	R	approx. bird or rid	r̩
ॠ	ॄ	ṝ	RR	a longer version ofr̩	r̩ː
ऌ	ॢ	ḷ	L	pickle	l̩
ॡ		ḹ	Ŀ	a longer version of ḷ	l̩ː

Unlike in English, ṛ, ṝ, ḷ and ḹ are treated as vowels. ṝ does occur in the language at a purely phonetic level, as seen in the genitive plural of vocalic-r stems (मातृ mātṛ mother; पितृ pitṛ father; gen.pl.मातॄणाम् and पितॄणाम् mātṝṇām and pitṝṇām etc.).

Diphthongs

Devanāgarī		transliteration	approximate pronunciation
independent	vowel sign		English	IPA
ए	े	e	hay	eː
ऐ	ै	ai	bite	aːɪ
ओ	ो	o	snow	oː
औ	ौ	au	pow	aːu

e and o continue Proto-Indo-Iranian [ai], [au], and they are phonologically /ai/ and /au/ still in Sanskrit, and are categorized as diphtongs by Sanskrit grammarians even though they are realized phonetically as simple long vowels.

Vowels can be nasalized: any nasal phoneme in pausa, and in some instances in composition, results in a nasalization of the preceding vowel. This is indicated with the anusvāra ṃ.

Consonants

		Labial		Labiodental	Dental		Retroflex		Palatal		Velar		Pharyngeal
Stop	Unaspirated	p प	b ब		t त	d द	ṭ (T) ट	ḍ (D) ड	c (ch) च	j ज	k क	g ग
	Aspirated	ph फ	bh भ		th थ	dh ध	ṭh (Th) ठ	ḍh (Dh) ढ	ch (chh) छ	jh झ	kh ख	gh घ
Nasal		m म			n न		ṇ (N) ण		ñ (J) ञ		ṅ (G) ङ
Semivowel				v व					y य
Liquid					l ल		r र
Fricative					s स		ṣ (S) ष		ś (z) श				ḥ (H) ः	h ह

There is also the anusvāra (ṃ (M) ं), which often appears as nasalization of the preceding vowel or as a nasal homorganic to the following consonant.

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.

Sandhi

Sanskrit has an elaborate set of phonological rules called sandhi and samāsā which are expressed in writing (except in so-called pada texts). Sandhi refers to combination of words when they are spoken with each other without a gap. Since the word scheme is based on pronunciation, this is no exception. Sandhi rules define how the entire word or phrase sounds when two words are combined or merged. Almost always, the new word sounds like the two words spoken one after other except for euphonic changes at the point where the first word ends and the second one starts. This change depends on the sound with which the first word ends and the sound with which the second word starts. These sounds also form the basis of classification of sandhis. The effects of Sandhi have been carefully observed and described, leading to codified rules of combination. For example, when saying one word ending in i followed by another starting in u, these will be combined into yu.

These sandhi rules are not always obeyed in the Vedas.

Samāsa is a combination of two or more words, or sometimes even a phrase, like 'newborn' is for 'newly born'. The meaning of a samāsa is normally clear from the samāsa itself, though some of the samāsa have a meaning very different from their constituent words. These are normally used to refer to some personality, deity or thing by one of its well known characteristics. samāsa are also categorized according to the kind of meaning they have and the constituent word that dominates the meaning. Samāsa plays a key role in many cases, especially in certain expressions. Samāsa does not have any distortion in the words, although sometimes prefixes and suffixes are used to impart a certain type of meanings to the words. A sandhi always consists of two meaningful words while all constituent words of a samāsa may not be meaningful individually. A sandhi may be difficult to understand for a person who is inexperienced in Sanskrit or has a poor vocabulary. It is same with samāsa, but they are much easier to understand as they are mostly used in some fixed formats and meanings. Sandhi and samāsa add beauty to the language and are extensively used by poets. When a sandhi can be broken in more than one way or a samāsa can be interpreted in more than one way, they can be used as puns. There are many examples of such uses in Sanskrit literature.

Script

Sanskrit historically has had no single script associated with it. Ashoka used the Brahmi script for his pillar inscriptions (which were not in Sanskrit, but in Prakrit dialects and other languages). Roughly contemporary with the Brahmi, the Kharosthi script was used. Later (ca. 4th to 8th centuries AD) the Gupta script, derived from Brahmi, became prevalent. From ca. the 8th century, the Sharada script evolved out of the Gupta script, and was mostly displaced in its turn by Devanagari from ca. the 12th century, with intermediary stages such as the Siddham script. Other scripts used include Kannada in the South, Grantha in Tamil speaking regions, Bengali, and other North Indian scripts in other regions.

From the late Middle Ages, and especially in modern times, the Devanagari (meaning "as used in the city of the Gods") script has become the most widely used and associated with Sanskrit. Occasionally, in regions of India where Devanagari is not the script of the vernacular (as it is with Hindi or Marathi) one will find texts still written in the local script.

Writing was introduced relatively late to India, and it did not immediately become important since oral learning was the primary means of transmitting knowledge. Rhys Davids suggests that writing may have been introduced from the Middle East by traders, but Sanskrit, which had been used exclusively in sacred contexts, remained 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.

Since the 19th century, Sanskrit has also been transliterated using the Latin alphabet. Most commonly used today is the IAST (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration), which has been the academic standard since 1912. Other transliteration schemes have evolved due to difficulties representing Sanskrit characters in computer systems. These include Harvard-Kyoto that was used earlier, and ITRANS, a lossless transliteration scheme that is used widely on the Internet (especially Usenet).

For scholarly work, Devanagari has generally been preferred for the transcription and reproduction of whole texts and lengthy excerpts; however, references to individual words and names in texts composed in European languages are usually represented using Roman transliteration.

Grammar

Grammatical tradition

Panini (scholar), Shiva Sutra, Astadhyayi, Dhatupatha, Patanjali, Varadaraja, Laghukaumudi.

Verbs

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. Vowel gradation is also very common; 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.

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

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:

• 2) No modification at all, for example ad from ad 'eat'.
• 3) Reduplication prefixed to the root, for example juhu from hu 'sacrifice'.
• 7) Infixion of na or n before the final root consonant (with appropriate sandhi changes), for example rundh or ruṇadh from rudh 'obstruct'.
• 5) Suffixation of nu (guṇa form no), for example sunu from su 'press out'.
• 8) Suffixation of u (guṇa form o), for example tanu from tan 'stretch'. For modern linguistic purposes it is better treated as a subclass of the 5th. tanu derives from tnnu, which is zero-grade for *tannu, because in Indo-European [m] and [n] could be vowels, which in Sanskrit (and Greek) change to [a]. Most members of the 8th class arose this way; kar = "make", "do" was 5th class in Vedic (krnoti = "he makes"), but shifted to the 8th class in Classical Sanskrit (karoti = "he makes")
• 9) Suffixation of nā (zero-grade nī or n), for example krīṇa or krīṇī from krī 'buy'.

For thematic verbs, the present tense stem may be formed through:

• 1) Suffixation of the thematic vowel a with guṇa strengthening, for example, bháva from bhū 'be'.
• 6) Suffixation of the thematic vowel a with a shift of accent to this vowel, for example tudá from tud 'thrust'.
• 4) Suffixation of ya, for example dī́vya from div 'play'.

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. abhūḥ "you were") and some of the forms of the ancient injunctive (used almost exclusively with mā in prohibitions, e.g. mā bhūḥ "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 iṣya and guṇa.

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.

		Active			Middle
		Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
Primary	First Person	mi	vás	más	é	váhe	máhe
	Second Person	si	thás	thá	sé	ā́the	dhvé
	Third Person	ti	tás	ánti, áti	té	ā́te	ánte, áte
Secondary	First Person	am	vá	má	í, á	váhi	máhi
	Second Person	s	tám	tá	thā́s	ā́thām	dhvám
	Third Person	t	tā́m	án, ús	tá	ā́tām	ánta, áta, rán
Perfect	First Person	a	vá	má	é	váhe	máhe
	Second Person	tha	áthus	á	sé	ā́the	dhvé
	Third Person	a	átus	ús	é	ā́te	ré
Imperative	First Person	āni	āva	āma	āi	āvahāi	āmahāi
	Second Person	dhí, hí, —	tám	tá	svá	ā́thām	dhvám
	Third Person	tu	tā́m	ántu, átu	tā́m	ā́tām	ántām, átām

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 root and reduplicating classes (2 & 3) are not modified in the weak forms, and receive guṇa in the strong forms.
• The nasal class (7) is not modified in the weak form, extends the nasal to ná in the strong form.
• The nu-class (5) has nu in the weak form and nó in the strong form.
• The nā-class (9) has nī in the weak form and nā́ in the strong form. nī disappears before vocalic endings.

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.

		Indicative
		Active			Middle
		Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
Present	First Person	dvéṣmi	dviṣvás	dviṣmás	dviṣé	dviṣváhe	dviṣmáhe
	Second Person	dvékṣi	dviṣṭhás	dviṣṭhá	dvikṣé	dviṣā́the	dviḍḍhvé
	Third Person	dvéṣṭi	dviṣṭás	dviṣánti	dviṣṭé	dviṣā́te	dviṣáte
Imperfect	First Person	ádveṣam	ádviṣva	ádviṣma	ádviṣi	ádviṣvahi	ádviṣmahi
	Second Person	ádveṭ	ádviṣṭam	ádvisṭa	ádviṣṭhās	ádviṣāthām	ádviḍḍhvam
	Third Person	ádveṭ	ádviṣṭām	ádviṣan	ádviṣṭa	ádviṣātām	ádviṣata

The optative takes secondary endings. yā is added to the stem in the active, and ī in the passive.

	Optative
	Active			Middle
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
First Person	dviṣyā́m	dviṣyā́va	dviṣyā́ma	dviṣīyá	dviṣīvahi	dviṣīmahi
Second Person	dviṣyā́s	dviṣyā́tam	dviṣyā́ta	dviṣīthās	dviṣīyāthām	dviṣīdhvam
Third Person	dviṣyā́t	dviṣyā́tām	dviṣyus	dviṣīta	dviṣīyātām	dviṣīran

The imperative takes imperative endings. Accent is variable and affects vowel quality. Forms which are end-accented trigger guṇa strengthening, and those with stem accent do not have the vowel affected.

	Imperative
	Active			Middle
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
First Person	dvéṣāṇi	dvéṣāva	dvéṣāma	dvéṣāi	dvéṣāvahāi	dvéṣāmahāi
Second Person	dviḍḍhí	dviṣṭám	dviṣṭá	dvikṣvá	dviṣāthām	dviḍḍhvám
Third Person	dvéṣṭu	dviṣṭā́m	dviṣántu	dviṣṭā́m	dviṣā́tām	dviṣátām

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. In this article they are divided into five declensions. Which declension a noun belongs to is determined largely by form.

a-stems

A-stems comprise the largest class of nominals. As a rule nouns belonging to this class, ending in short-A, are either masculine or neuter. Nouns ending in long-A tend to be feminine. A-stem adjectives take the masculine and neuter in short-A, and feminine in long-A.

	Masculine (kā́ma- 'love')			Neuter (āsya- 'mouth')			Feminine (kānta- 'beloved')
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	kā́maḥ	kā́māu	kā́māḥ	āsyàm	āsyè	āsyā̀ni	kāntā	kānte	kāntāḥ
Accusative	kā́mam	kā́māu	kā́mān	āsyàm	āsyè	āsyā̀ni	kāntām	kānte	kāntāḥ
Instrumental	kā́mena	kā́mābhyām	kā́māiḥ	āsyèna	āsyā̀bhyām	āsyāìḥ	kāntayā	kāntābhyām	kāntābhiḥ
Dative	kā́māya	kā́mābhyām	kā́mebhyaḥ	āsyā̀ya	āsyā̀bhyām	āsyèbhyaḥ	kāntāyai	kāntābhyām	kāntābhyāḥ
Ablative	kā́māt	kā́mābhyām	kā́mebhyaḥ	āsyā̀t	āsyā̀bhyām	āsyèbhyaḥ	kāntāyāḥ	kāntābhyām	kāntābhyāḥ
Genitive	kā́masya	kā́mayoḥ	kā́mānām	āsyàsya	āsyàyoḥ	āsyā̀nām	kāntāyāḥ	kāntayoḥ	kāntānām
Locative	kā́me	kā́mayoḥ	kā́meṣu	āsyè	āsyàyoḥ	āsyèṣu	kāntāyām	kāntayoḥ	kāntāsu
Vocative	kā́ma	kā́mau	kā́māḥ	ā́sya	āsyè	āsyā̀ni	kānte	kānte	kāntāḥ

i- and u-stems

	i-stems
	Masc. and Fem. (gáti- 'gait')			Neuter (vā́ri- 'water')
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	gátis	gátī	gátayas	vā́ri	vā́riṇī	vā́rīṇi
Accusative	gátim	gátī	gátīs	vā́ri	vā́riṇī	vā́rīṇi
Instrumental	gátyā	gátibhyām	gátibhis	vā́riṇā	vā́ribhyām	vā́ribhis
Dative	gátaye, gátyāi	gátibhyām	gátibhyas	vā́riṇe	vā́ribhyām	vā́ribhyas
Ablative	gátes, gátyās	gátibhyām	gátibhyas	vā́riṇas	vā́ribhyām	vā́ribhyas
Genitive	gátes, gátyās	gátyos	gátīnām	vā́riṇas	vā́riṇos	vā́riṇām
Locative	gátāu, gátyām	gátyos	gátiṣu	vā́riṇi	vā́riṇos	vā́riṣu
Vocative	gáte	gátī	gátayas	vā́ri, vā́re	vā́riṇī	vā́rīṇi

	u-stems
	Masc. and Fem. (śátru- 'enemy')			Neuter (mádhu- 'honey')
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	śátrus	śátrū	śátravas	mádhu	mádhunī	mádhūni
Accusative	śátrum	śátrū	śátrūn	mádhu	mádhunī	mádhūni
Instrumental	śátruṇā	śátrubhyām	śátrubhis	mádhunā	mádhubhyām	mádhubhis
Dative	śátrave	śátrubhyām	śátrubhyas	mádhune	mádhubhyām	mádhubhyas
Ablative	śátros	śátrubhyām	śátrubhyas	mádhunas	mádhubhyām	mádhubhyas
Genitive	śátros	śátrvos	śátrūṇām	mádhunas	mádhunos	mádhūnām
Locative	śátrāu	śátrvos	śátruṣu	mádhuni	mádhunos	mádhuṣu
Vocative	śátro	śátrū	śátravas	mádhu	mádhunī	mádhūni

Long Vowel-stems

	ā-stems (jā- 'prodigy')			ī-stems (dhī- 'thought')			ū-stems (bhū- 'earth')
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	jā́s	jāú	jā́s	dhī́s	dhíyāu	dhíyas	bhū́s	bhúvāu	bhúvas
Accusative	jā́m	jāú	jā́s, jás	dhíyam	dhíyāu	dhíyas	bhúvam	bhúvāu	bhúvas
Instrumental	jā́	jā́bhyām	jā́bhis	dhiyā́	dhībhyā́m	dhībhís	bhuvā́	bhūbhyā́m	bhūbhís
Dative	jé	jā́bhyām	jā́bhyas	dhiyé, dhiyāí	dhībhyā́m	dhībhyás	bhuvé, bhuvāí	bhūbhyā́m	bhūbhyás
Ablative	jás	jā́bhyām	jā́bhyas	dhiyás, dhiyā́s	dhībhyā́m	dhībhyás	bhuvás, bhuvā́s	bhūbhyā́m	bhūbhyás
Genitive	jás	jós	jā́nām, jā́m	dhiyás, dhiyā́s	dhiyós	dhiyā́m, dhīnā́m	bhuvás, bhuvā́s	bhuvós	bhuvā́m, bhūnā́m
Locative	jí	jós	jā́su	dhiyí, dhiyā́m	dhiyós	dhīṣú	bhuví, bhuvā́m	bhuvós	bhūṣú
Vocative	jā́s	jāú	jā́s	dhī́s	dhiyāu	dhíyas	bhū́s	bhuvāu	bhúvas

ṛ-stems

ṛ-stems are predominantly agental derivatives like dātṛ 'giver', though also include kinship terms like pitṛ́ 'father', mātṛ́ 'mother', and svásṛ 'sister'.

	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	pitā́	pitárāu	pitáras
Accusative	pitáram	pitárāu	pitṝ́n
Instrumental	pitrā́	pitṛ́bhyām	pitṛ́bhis
Dative	pitré	pitṛ́bhyām	pitṛ́bhyas
Ablative	pitúr	pitṛ́bhyām	pitṛ́bhyas
Genitive	pitúr	pitrós	pitṝṇā́m
Locative	pitári	pitrós	pitṛ́ṣu
Vocative	pítar	pitárāu	pitáras

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.

	First Person			Second Person
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	aham	āvām	vayam	tvam	yuvām	yūyam
Accusative	mām, mā	āvām, nau	asmān, nas	tvām, tvā	yuvām, vām	yuṣmān, vas
Instrumental	mayā	āvābhyām	asmābhis	tvayā	yuvābhyām	yuṣmābhis
Dative	mahyam, me	āvābhyām, nau	asmabhyam, nas	tubhyam, te	yuvābhyām, vām	yuṣmabhyam, vas
Ablative	mat	āvābhyām	asmat	tvat	yuvābhyām	yuṣmat
Genitive	mama, me	āvayos, nau	asmākam, nas	tava, te	yuvayos, vām	yuṣmākam, vas
Locative	mayi	āvayos	asmāsu	tvayi	yuvayos	yuṣmāsu

The demonstrative ta, declined below, also functions as the third person pronoun.

	Masculine			Neuter			Feminine
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	sás	tāú	té	tát	té	tā́ni	sā́	té	tā́s
Accusative	tám	tāú	tā́n	tát	té	tā́ni	sāŕ	té	tā́s
Instrumental	téna	tā́bhyām	tāís	téna	tā́bhyām	tāís	táyā	tā́bhyām	tā́bhis
Dative	tásmāi	tā́bhyām	tébhyas	tásmāi	tā́bhyām	tébhyas	tásyāi	tā́bhyām	tā́bhyas
Ablative	tásmāt	tā́bhyām	tébhyam	tásmāt	tā́bhyām	tébhyam	tásyās	tā́bhyām	tā́bhyas
Genitive	tásya	táyos	téṣām	tásya	táyos	téṣām	tásyās	táyos	tā́sām
Locative	tásmin	táyos	téṣu	tásmin	táyos	téṣu	tásyām	táyos	tā́su

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. Dvandva (co-ordinative)

These consist of two or more noun stems, connected in sense with 'and', e.g. matara-pitara 'Mother and Father'. Due to these compounds having more than one noun in them, they must be in the dual or plural.

2. Bahuvrīhi (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. Tatpuruṣa (determinative)

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

4. Karmadhāraya (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. Amreḍita (iterative)

Repetition of a word expresses repetitiveness, e. g. dive-dive 'day by day', 'daily'.

Syntax

Word order is free with tendency toward SOV.

Numerals

The numbers from one to ten are:

1	éka
2	dví
3	trí
4	catúr
5	pañca
6	ṣáṣ
7	saptá, sápta
8	aṣṭá, áṣṭa
9	náva
10	dáśa

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

Influences

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 elite 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, 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. Most higher forms of Indian vernacular languages like Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu and Hindi, often called 'shuddha' (pure, higher) are much more heavily Sanskritized. Of modern day Indian languages, while Hindi tends to be, in spoken form, 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 higher form of Bengali, so Sanskritized as to be archaic in modern usages. The national song of India Vande Mataram which is originally a poem - composed by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and taken from his book called 'Aanandmath', is in pure Sanskrit. Malayalam, which is spoken in the Kerala state of India, also combines a great deal of Sanskrit vocabulary with Tamil (Dravidian) grammatical structure. Kannada, another South Indian language, also contains Sanskrit vocabulary. But as a medium of spiritual instruction for Hindus in India, Sanskrit is still prized and widespread.

Sanskrit words are 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 clearly a derivation of his Sanskrit name 'Dashakanth' (of ten necks). And ranged as far as the Philippines, e.g., Tagalog 'gurò' from 'Guru', or 'teacher', with the Hindu seafarers who traded there.

Attempts at revival

Of late, there have been attempts to revive the speaking of this ancient tongue among people, so that 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 in the schools it governs. In such schools, learning Sanskrit is an option for grades 5 to 8. 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.

Sanskrit is claimed to be spoken natively by the population in Mattur, a 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.

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

Main article: Sanskrit in the West

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 (The AI Magazine, Spring, 1985 #39). 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

• Akshara
• Devanagari
• Sanskrit literature
• Vrddhi
• Languages of India
• List of national languages of India
• List of Indian languages by total speakers

References

• The Sanskrit Language - T. Burrow - ISBN 8120817672
• Sanskrit Grammar - William D. Whitney - ISBN 8185557594
• Sanskrit Pronunciation - Bruce Cameron - ISBN 1557000212
• "Teach Yourself Sanskrit" - Prof. M. Coulson - ISBN 0340859903
• "A Sanskrit Grammar for Students" - A.A. Macdonell - ISBN 8124600945

External links