Sanskrit

Sanskrit
Sanskrit
संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam
	The word Sanskrit (संस्कृतम्) written in Devanagari.
Region	South Asia
Native speakers	14,000[1] (2001)
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Sanskrit; ; ;
Writing system	No native script.[2]; Today it is usually written in Devanagari, but it was also previously written in various Brāhmī-based scripts.
Official status
Official language in	One of the 22 scheduled languages of India.
Language codes
ISO 639-1	sa
ISO 639-2	san
ISO 639-3	san

Sanskrit is an ancient Indo-Aryan language that originated in the Swat and northern Punjab regions of Pakistan.[3][4] It is considered sacred by Hindus. Many languages in Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh are derived from Sanskrit.[5] Today, only about 14,000 people use it as their daily language.[1] It is also one of the 22 officially recognised languages of India.

Part of a series on

Constitutionally recognised languages of India

Category

Scheduled Languages

A
Assamese
B
Bengali
Bodo
D
Dogri
G
Gujarati
H
Hindi
K
Kannada
Kashmiri
Konkani
M
Maithili
Malayalam
Marathi
Meitei (Manipuri)
N
Nepali
O
Odia (Oriya)
P
Punjabi
S
Sanskrit
Santali
Sindhi
T
Tamil
Telugu
U
Urdu

A Sanskrit script

Sanskrit is a standardized dialect of Old Indo-Aryan and has a linguistic ancestry that can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European. The Indo-European Aryan migration theory proposes that the Indo-Europeans migrated from the Central Asian steppes into South Asia during the early 2nd millennium BC and brought the Indo-European language Sanskrit with them.[6] The main script used to write Sanskrit today is Devanāgarī. Historically, it was also written in the Kharoshti and Brahmic scripts.[7]

William Jones, working as a judge in India in the 18th century, studied Sanskrit and recognised its similarities to Latin, Greek and other European languages. That led to the Indo-European languages being recognised as a group of related languages stretching from Europe to India.

Literature

Sanskrit literature includes poetry and drama and has also scientific, technical, philosophical and religious texts.[8][9] Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals and also some Buddhist and Jain practice in the form of hymns and chants.

Grammar

Sanskrit has a very complex grammar, with eight grammatical cases, three grammatical genders, and three grammatical numbers. Words are also described based on their qualities. Sanskrit is considered highly scientific, words in a sentence can describe the subject's number, gender and action.

References

"Comparative speaker's strength of scheduled languages − 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001". Census of India, 2001. Office of the Registrar and Census Commissioner, India. Retrieved 31 December 2009.
Banerji, Suresh (1971). A companion to Sanskrit literature: spanning a period of over three thousand years, containing brief accounts of authors, works, characters, technical terms, geographical names, myths, legends, and twelve appendices. p. 672. ISBN 978-81-208-0063-2.
Bronkhorst, Johannes (2010). Franco, Eli; Monika, Zin (eds.). "The spread of Sanskrit". From Turfan to Ajanta. Festschrift for Dieter Schlingloff on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday. Lumbini International Research Institute: 117–139 – via University of Lausanne.
mushtaq-soofi (2013-02-15). "Language: Sanskrit and Prakrits!". DAWN.COM. Retrieved 2024-02-01.
"Sanskrit is second official language in Uttarakhand – The Hindustan Times". Hindustantimes.com. 19 January 2010. Archived from the original on 2011-11-02. Retrieved 2012-04-05.
Witzel, Michael 2005. Indocentrism. In Bryant, Edwin & Patton, Laurie L. The Indo-Aryan controversy: evidence and inference in Indian history. London: Routledge.
Brown, W. Norman (1953). "Script Reform in Modern India, Pakistan, and Ceylon". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 73 (1): 1–6. doi:10.2307/595755. ISSN 0003-0279.
Katju, Markandey (9 June 2014). "Sanskrit as a language of science". The Times of India.
Katju, Markandey (5 December 2011). "Markandey Katju: What is India?". The Times of India.

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[Census-1] "Comparative speaker's strength of scheduled languages − 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001". Census of India, 2001. Office of the Registrar and Census Commissioner, India. Retrieved 31 December 2009.

[banerji-2] Banerji, Suresh (1971). A companion to Sanskrit literature: spanning a period of over three thousand years, containing brief accounts of authors, works, characters, technical terms, geographical names, myths, legends, and twelve appendices. p. 672. ISBN 978-81-208-0063-2.

[3] Bronkhorst, Johannes (2010). Franco, Eli; Monika, Zin (eds.). "The spread of Sanskrit". From Turfan to Ajanta. Festschrift for Dieter Schlingloff on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday. Lumbini International Research Institute: 117–139 – via University of Lausanne.

[4] ushtaq-soofi (2013-02-15). "Language: Sanskrit and Prakrits!". DAWN.COM. Retrieved 2024-02-01.

[5] "Sanskrit is second official language in Uttarakhand – The Hindustan Times". Hindustantimes.com. 19 January 2010. Archived from the original on 2011-11-02. Retrieved 2012-04-05.

[6] Witzel, Michael 2005. Indocentrism. In Bryant, Edwin & Patton, Laurie L. The Indo-Aryan controversy: evidence and inference in Indian history. London: Routledge.

[7] Brown, W. Norman (1953). "Script Reform in Modern India, Pakistan, and Ceylon". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 73 (1): 1–6. doi:10.2307/595755. ISSN 0003-0279.

[8] Katju, Markandey (9 June 2014). "Sanskrit as a language of science". The Times of India.

[9] Katju, Markandey (5 December 2011). "Markandey Katju: What is India?". The Times of India.