Sanskrit Grammar
Sanskrit is an ancient and beautiful language. Contrary to the perception that people have, its grammar is quite simple and easy to understand.
Learning Sanskrit grammar will help one in understanding Sanskrit literature at its source.
Sanskrit is written in the देवनागरी (devanāgarī) script. In sanskrit words have forms.
Sanskrit Letters | वर्णाः
In Sanskrit, Letters are known as वर्णाः (varṇāḥ).
These are the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet. They are 46 in number. In Sanskrit, there are no capital or small letters.
There are two main types of letters in Sanskrit- the स्वराः (Svarāḥ) which are the 13 vowels and the व्यञ्जनानि (Vyañjanāni) which are the 33 consonants.
A syllable in Sanskrit is the mixture of one vowel and one or more consonants. Also, there are some varṇās which come after a vowel and cannot be pronounced by themselves. These are known as the अयोगवाहाः (ayogavāhāḥ).
Sanskrit Words - पदानि (padāni)
In Sanskrit, there are three grammatical genders (Masculine, Feminine and Neuter), three grammatical numbers (Singular, Dual and Plural) and eight cases (Nominative, Accusative, Instrumental, Dative, Ablative, Genitive, Locative and Vocative).
Verbs in Sanskrit have a root, which is called as a धातुः (Dhātuḥ). Suffixes are added to a root to create a verb. Verbs’ forms are influenced by the type of verb, grammatical number (singular, dual and plural) and grammatical person (third person, second person, first person) and their tense.
sandhiḥ | सन्धिः
सन्धिः (sandhiḥ) is a grammar topic in Sanskrit.
In this, there are two words: The word before and the word after the first one.
In Sandhi, the last letter of the first word and the first letter of the other word are combined together.
samāsaḥ | समासः
समासः (samāsaḥ) is a grammar topic in Sanskrit. In this, words are combined together to form another word.
In samāsaḥ, there are two words- the पूर्वपदम् (pūrvapadam) (the word before) and the उत्तरपदम् (uttarapadam) (the word after). Both of these are combined together to form another word.
Here, the order of words is very important. Samāsaḥ can be categorised into 4 main types depending on which word, importance is given to.