About the Sanskrit language

Summary

This video explores Sanskrit, the ancient language of India, tracing its origins from the Vedas to modern times. It highlights Sanskrit’s significance as a cultural, religious, and literary language, its standardized grammar by Panini, and its rich system for word formation. Despite a decline after the 12th century, Sanskrit continues to survive in small communities, religious practices, and revival initiatives. The video also explains its influence on modern Indian languages, its global impact including English loanwords, and its unique status as a language that is alive yet unchanging, offering a fascinating glimpse into the mother of all languages.

Takeaways

• 📜 Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages in the world and is often called the language of the Gods or the mother of all languages.
• 🇮🇳 It is a scheduled language in India and an official language of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, with around 2.3 million speakers combined in India and Nepal.
• 📚 The oldest surviving Sanskrit texts are the Vedas, dating back around 3,500 years.
• 🌍 Sanskrit belongs to the Indo-European language family and played a key role in the development of the Indo-European language theory.
• 📝 Panini, in 500 BC, standardized Sanskrit by defining 3,959 rules of grammar in his work Ashtadhyayi, creating a perfected language.
• 📖 Sanskrit has been the language of religious, philosophical, and literary texts including the Vedas, Ayurveda, Ramayana, Mahabharata, and main texts of Buddhism and Jainism.
• ⏳ Sanskrit declined from the 12th century due to Persian and Arabic influences but has survived through Hindu religious practices and modern revival initiatives.
• 🗣️ Modern Indian languages, collectively spoken by around 800 million people, have evolved from Sanskrit through Prakrit.
• 🔤 Sanskrit is highly structured with no grammatical exceptions, featuring gender, number, and cases for nouns, and multiple tenses and moods for verbs.
• 🔡 The language allows infinite word formation through roots, affixes, and endings, and has a rich, property-based vocabulary with multiple names for concepts like water and love.
• 🌐 Sanskrit’s influence extends beyond India, with loanwords such as 'avatar,' 'guru,' 'yoga,' 'sugar,' 'orange,' and 'jungle' appearing in European languages.
• 💫 While Sanskrit is not dead—still spoken and studied—it is not evolving in the usual sense, making it unique and special among languages.

Q & A

What is Sanskrit often referred to as and why?

Sanskrit is referred to as the 'language of Gods,' the 'mother of all languages,' and 'the oldest language in the world' because of its ancient origins, systematic grammar, and its influence on many modern languages.

Is Sanskrit considered a dead or living language?

Sanskrit is not dead because it is still used daily in some communities and as a native language by some people. However, it is not evolving in the way modern languages do, so it is also not 'alive' in the common sense of the term.

How many people speak Sanskrit today, and where is it officially recognized?

Around 25,000 people in India and 1,600 in Nepal have registered Sanskrit as their mother tongue, totaling approximately 2.3 million speakers. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and an official language in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

What are the oldest known Sanskrit texts, and how old are they?

The oldest Sanskrit texts are the Vedas, sacred scriptures of Hinduism, which are around 3,500 years old.

Who standardized Sanskrit and what was the result?

The scholar Panini standardized Sanskrit around 500 BC through his text Ashtadhyayi, creating 3,959 rules of syntax, semantics, and morphology, resulting in a perfected and systematic language.

What is the relationship between Sanskrit and modern Indian languages?

Sanskrit is the parent language of Prakrit, which was used by common people. From Prakrit, many modern Indian languages evolved, with a total of around 800 million native speakers today.

Describe some unique features of Sanskrit grammar.

Sanskrit grammar has no exceptions. Nouns have three genders, three numbers, and seven cases. Verbs have gender, number, tense (past, present, future), and six moods, with additional variations in past and future tenses.

How does Sanskrit allow for the creation of an infinite number of words?

Sanskrit words are formed using a root (general meaning), an affix (which narrows meaning), and an ending (grammatical role). Multiple roots can also be combined to create new words, allowing for limitless word formation.

What is meant by Sanskrit being a 'property-based' language?

In Sanskrit, words are often named according to their properties. For example, water has 200 names describing its characteristics, and love has 96 different names.

How has Sanskrit influenced languages outside of India?

Sanskrit has influenced languages across Asia, a phenomenon known as the Sanskrit cosmopolis. Many words entered European languages through Persian and Arabic, including 'avatar,' 'guru,' 'yoga,' 'sugar,' 'orange,' and 'jungle.'

What caused the decline of Sanskrit usage historically?

Sanskrit began to decline in the 12th century AD due to Muslim invasions, which made Persian and Arabic the languages of prestige and high culture. Sanskrit remained mainly in religious and scholarly contexts.

What scripts have been used to write Sanskrit, and which is most common today?

Sanskrit has been written in many scripts, but today it is most commonly written in Devanagari, an abugida where vowels are written as complementary symbols to consonants.