History Made Of

Accent Main article:  Vedic accent Vedic Sanskrit had  pitch accent : Some syllables had a high tone, and the following syllable a falling tone, though through ellipsis a falling tone may occur elsewhere. Classical Sanskrit ... This list is  incomplete ; you can help by  expanding it . Phonology and sandhi The Sanskrit vowels are as discussed in the section above. The long syllabic l ( ḹ ) is not attested, and is only discussed by grammarians for systematic reasons. Its short counterpart  ḷ  occurs in a single root only,  kḷp  "to order, array". Long syllabic r ( ṝ ) is also quite marginal, occurring in the genitive plural of r-stems (e.g.  mātṛ  "mother" and  pitṛ  "father" have gen.pl.  mātṝṇām  and  pitṝṇām ). i, u, ṛ, ḷ  are vocalic allophones of consonantal  y, v, r, l . There are thus only 5 invariably vocalic  phonemes , a, ā, ī, ū, ṝ . Visarga   ḥ   ः  is a...

Consonants IAST  and  Devanagari  notations are given, with approximate  IPA  values in square brackets. Labial ओष्ठ्य oṣṭhya Dental दन्त्य dantya Retroflex मूर्धन्य mūrdhanya Palatal तालव्य tālavya Velar कण्ठ्य kaṇṭhya Glottal Stop स्पर्श sparśa Unaspirated अल्पप्राण alpaprāṇa p   प   [p] b   ब   [b] t   त   [t̪] d   द   [d̪] ṭ   ट   [ʈ ] ḍ   ड   [ɖ ] c   च   [c͡ç] j   ज   [ɟ͡ʝ] k   क   [k] g   ग   [ɡ] Aspirated महाप्राण mahāprāṇa ph   फ   [pʰ] bh   भ   [bʱ] th   थ   [t̪ʰ] dh   ध   [d̪ʱ] ṭh   ठ   [ʈʰ] ḍh   ढ   [ɖʱ] ch   छ   [c͡çʰ] jh   झ   [ɟ͡ʝʱ] kh   ख   [kʰ] gh   घ   [ɡʱ] Nasal अनुनासिक anunāsika m  म   [m] n   न   [n̪] ṇ   ण   [ɳ ] ( ñ   ञ   [ ɲ] ) ṅ   ङ   [ŋ] Semivowel अन्तस्थ antastha v  व ...

Phonology Further information:  Śikṣā Classical Sanskrit distinguishes about 36  phonemes . There is, however, some  allophony  and the writing systems used for Sanskrit generally indicate this, thus distinguishing 48  sounds . The sounds are traditionally listed in the order  vowels  ( Ach ),  diphthongs  ( Hal ),  anusvara  and  visarga ,  plosives  (Sparśa) and  nasals  (starting in the back of the mouth and moving forward), and finally the  liquids  and  fricatives , written in  IAST  as follows: a ā i ī u ū ṛ ṝ ḷ ḹ  ;  e ai o au ṃ ḥ k kh g gh ṅ; c ch j jh ñ; ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ; t th d dh n; p ph b bh m y r l v ;  ś ṣ s h An alternate traditional ordering is that of the  Shiva Sutra  of  Pāṇini . Vowels The vowels of Classical Sanskrit written in  Devanagari , as a syllable-initial letter and as a  diacritic  mark on the ...

European scholarship See also:  Sanskrit in the West A poem of the ancient Indian poet Vallana (between 900 and 1100 CE) on the side wall of the building at the Haagweg 14 in Leiden, Netherlands . European scholarship in Sanskrit, begun by  Heinrich Roth (1620–1668) and  Johann Ernst Hanxleden  (1681–1731), [38]  is regarded as responsible for the discovery of the Indo-European  language family  by  Sir William Jones . This scholarship played an important role in the development of Western philology , or historical linguistics. [39] Sir William Jones , speaking to  The Asiatic Society  in Calcutta (now  Kolkata ) on 2 February 1786, said: The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the  Greek , more copious than the  Latin , and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in t...

Public education and popularisation Adult and continuing education Attempts at  reviving  the Sanskrit language have been undertaken in the  Republic of India  since its foundation in 1947 (it was included in the 14 original  languages of the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution ). Organisations like the  Samskrta Bharati  are conducting Speak Sanskrit workshops to popularise the language. The "All-India Sanskrit Festival" (since 2002) holds composition contests. The 1991 Indian census  reported 49,736 fluent speakers of Sanskrit.  All India Radio  transmits news bulletins in Sanskrit twice a day across the nation. Besides, Sanskrit learning programmes also feature on the list of most of the AIR broadcasting centres. The  Mattur  village in central  Karnataka  claims to have native speakers of Sanskrit among its population. Inhabitants of all castes learn Sanskrit starting in childhood and converse in the lang...