Sanskrit Alphabet, Pronunciation and Language
Sanskrit Alphabet, Pronunciation and Language
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Sanskrit ( )
Sanskrit is the classical language of Indian and the liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It is
also one of the 22 official languages of India. The name Sanskrit means "refined", "consecrated" and "sanctified".
It has always been regarded as the 'high' language and used mainly for religious and scientific discourse.
Vedic Sanskrit, the pre-Classical form of the language and the liturgical language of the Vedic religion, is one of
the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family. The oldest known text in Sanskrit, the
Rigveda, a collection of over a thousand Hindu hymns, composed during the 2nd millenium BC.
Today Sanskrit is used mainly in Hindu religious rituals as a ceremonial language for hymns and mantras. Efforts
are also being made to revive Sanskrit as an everyday spoken language in the village of Mattur near Shimoga in
Karnataka. A modern form of Sanskrit is one of the 17 official home languages in India.
Since the late 19th century, Sanskrit has been written mostly with the Devangar alphabet. However it has also
been written with all the other alphabets of India, except Gurmukhi and Tamil, and with other alphabets such as
Thai and Tibetan. The Grantha, Sharda and Siddham alphabets are used only for Sanskrit.
Since the late 18th century, Sanskrit has also been written with the Latin alphabet. The most commonly used
system is the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST), which was been the standard for
academic work since 1912.
Consonants
Conjunct consonants
There are about a thousand conjunct consonants, most of which combine two or three consonants. There are
also some with four-consonant conjuncts and at least one well-known conjunct with five consonants. Here's a
selection of commonly-used conjuncts:
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Sanskrit alphabet, pronunciation and language http://www.omniglot.com/writing/sanskrit.htm
You can find a full list of conjunct consonants used for Sanskrit at:
http://sanskrit.gde.to/learning_tutorial_wikner/P058.html
Numerals
Transliteration
Sarv mnav svatantr samutpann vartant api ca, gauravadr adhikradr ca samn va vartant.
t sarv ctan-tarka-aktibhy susampann santi. Api ca, sarvpi bandhutva-bhvanay paraspara
vyavaharantu.
Translation
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience
and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
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Sanskrit alphabet, pronunciation and language http://www.omniglot.com/writing/sanskrit.htm
http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/DBLM/olcourse/sanskrit.htm
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/vedol-0-X.html
http://www.elportaldelaindia.com/El_Portal_de_la_India_Antigua/Snscrito.html
Sanskrit Academy
http://www.samskrtam.org/
Sanskrit Library - contains digitized Sanskrit texts and various tools to analyse them
http://sanskritlibrary.org/
Samskrita Bharati - an organisation established as an experiment in 1981 in Bangalore to bring Sanskrit back
into daily life: http://www.samskrita-bharati.org/
Sanskrit Studies
http://www.sanskritstudies.org
An archive of Sanskrit dictionaries, readers & grammars in German, English & Russian. (circa 4000 Mb Book
Scans, devanagari fonts): http://groups.google.com/group/Nagari
Download free devanagari fonts & transliteration macros. History and hi-res scans of Indian typography:
http://nagari.southindia.ru
ALPHABETUM - a Unicode font specifically designed for ancient scripts, including classical & medieval Latin,
ancient Greek, Etruscan, Oscan, Umbrian, Faliscan, Messapic, Picene, Iberian, Celtiberian, Gothic, Runic, Old
& Middle English, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Old Nordic, Ogham, Kharosthi, Glagolitic, Old Cyrillic, Phoenician,
Avestan, Ugaritic, Linear B, Anatolian scripts, Coptic, Cypriot, Brahmi, Old Persian cuneiform:
http://guindo.pntic.mec.es/~jmag0042/alphabet.html
Indo-Aryan languages
Awadhi, Assamese, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Chakma, Dhivehi, Gujarati, Hindi, Kashmiri, Konkani, Kotia, Kutchi,
Maithili, Marathi, Marwari, Modi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Romany, Saraiki, Sindhi, Sinhala,
Sourashtra, Sugali, Sylheti, Urdu
Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Hindi, Kashmiri, Konkani, Kurukh, Maithili, Marathi, Marwari, Mundari, Nepal Bhasa / Newari,
Nepali, Pali, Rajasthani, Sanskrit, Saraiki, Sindhi, Sylheti
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