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.
Other Interesting Sections
Composition: This section has many interesting topics or sub-sections like Sanskrit Essays, Proverbs, Axioms and Hymns & Chants. All of these sub-sections have a lot of content which is useful for school students as well as newbie Sanskrit learners. Apart from the content in Sanskrit, Transliteration, meaning in English and Hindi is also given for better understanding and learning.
Vocabulary: When we take up the task of learning a new language either out of interest for that language or for some other reason, we tend to look for options to learn the basics first. This section has posts divided in various topics which help to develop one’s vocabulary in Sanskrit. A list of many such topics is mentioned in the list below.
Blog: Sanskrit is considered to be one of the oldest languages to be in existence. As per the article “Sanskrit & Artificial Intelligence”, which appeared in AI (Artificial Intelligence) magazine in spring of 1985, written by NASA researcher Rick Briggs, it is mentioned that a natural language like Sanskrit can serve as an artificial language also, which can be used for AI programming.
Apart from Sanskrit Grammar, Composition and Vocabulary sections, this section has many articles which talk about the importance of Sanskrit among other things.