Does anyone still speak sanskrit

Sudharma , a daily newspaper written in Sanskrit, has been published in India since Sanskrit is used extensively in the Carnatic and Hindustani branches of classical music, and it continues to be used during worship in Hindu temples as well as in Buddhist and Jain religious practices. Sanskrit is a major feature of the academic linguistic field of Indo-European studies, which focuses on both extinct and current Indo-European languages, and can be studied in major universities around the world.

Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. Search for:. Sanskrit Learning Objective Explain the importance of Sanskrit.

Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, the oldest scriptures of Hinduism. Knowledge of Sanskrit became a marker of high social class during and after the Vedic Period.

Licenses and Attributions. It is also the liturgical language of Hinduism , Buddhism , and Jainism. Scholars distinguish between Vedic Sanskrit and its descendant, Classical Sanskrit, however, these two varieties are very similar and differ mostly in some points of phonology, grammar, and vocabulary.

Originally, Sanskrit was considered not to be a separate language, but a refined way of speaking, a marker of status and education, studied and used by Brahmins. It existed alongside spoken vernaculars , called Prakrits , which later evolved into the modern Indo-Aryan languages.

Sanskrit continued to be used as a first language long after it was no longer spoken. According to the census reported in Ethnologue , it is used as a first language by 14, in India and by 15, worldwide, as well as by , as a second language in India. Even though it is not a spoken language, its significance is such that it is one of the 22 official languages of India.

As an integral part of Hindu tradition and philosophy, Sanskrit is mostly used today as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals. Sanskrit exerted a great deal of influence on all languages and cultures of the Indian subcontinent and beyond it. Sanskrit mantras are recited by millions of Hindus and most temple functions are conducted entirely in Sanskrit, often Vedic in form. The vocabularies of prestige varieties of Indian languages, such as Hindi , Bengali , Gujarati , and Marathi , are heavily Sanskritized.

There have been recent attempts to revive Sanskrit as a spoken language so that the rich Sanskrit literature could become accessible to everyone.

In such schools, the study of Sanskrit is compulsory for grades 5 to 8. An option between Sanskrit and Hindi exists for grades 9 and Classical Sanskrit has 48 phonemes Vedic Sanskrit has Phonemes are sounds that make a difference in word meaning. Classical Sanskrit has a large consonant inventory, although the exact number of consonants is not agreed upon. In the table below, consonants with limited distribution and those that occurred in Vedic Sanskrit but were lost in Classical Sanskrit, are given in parentheses.

The use of consonant clusters is extremely limited. His rules helped systematize Sanskrit grammar. Sanskrit is a highly inflected language which uses prefixes, suffixes, infixes, and reduplication to form words and to represent grammatical categories. Many of these categories have been lost or simplified in the modern Indo-Aryan languages.

There are numerous sandhi forms. The usual word order in Sanskrit sentences places the verb in final position, but there are fewer restrictions on the order of the other elements in the sentence.

Sanskrit vocabulary consists mostly of words of common Indo-European origin. They can be formed by compounding and reduplication, e. Vowels are written differently, depending on whether they are independent or follow a consonant. Sentences are separated by vertical lines. There are several transliteration systems for writing Sanskrit with the Latin script, The following transliteration schemes are the most commonly used:.

All the universities and educational institutions spread across the world consider Sanskrit as the most ancient language. The Sanskrit language has been spoken since 5, years before Christ. Sanskrit is still the official language of India. However, in the present time, Sanskrit has become a language of worship and ritual instead of the language of speech.

All the auspicious works performed in Hindu religion are recited by Veda Mantra, whose language is Sanskrit. Nishtha Kawrani. Akshay G Paraskar. Gaargi Tomar. Abinaya Suresh. Maharshi Ghosh. Sai Prabhas Mallidi. Politics Oldest language of the world. Climate control is future control Akshay G Paraskar November 8, Farmers protest Gaargi Tomar November 7, Recently Joined Bloggers Sofia Jahan. Sanskrit had been criticised as the language of the [upper caste] Brahmins and suddenly displaced from the pedestal with Kannada," said Prof Srinidhi.

It took just two hours daily for 10 days for the entire village to start conversing in Sanskrit," he added. Since then, Sanskrit is being spoken not just by the Sankethi Brahmins of the 3,strong village, but also by communities from the socially and economically underprivileged sections of society.

Sankethis are a small community of Brahmins who originally came from the neighbouring state of Kerala and settled down here centuries ago. There are only around 35, Sankethis in India and their language - also called Sankethi - is a mix of Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam and some bits of Telugu.

Today, of the students in the local Sri Sharada Vilasa school study Sanskrit as the first language, with English as the second language and Kannada or Tamil or any other regional language as their third language.

The school's Sanskrit teacher, Ananthakrishna, asks one of his best students, Imran, a question in Sanskrit. The influence of Sanskrit is, indeed, strong in Mattur. For housewife Lakshmi Keshava, who normally speaks Sankethi at home, shifting automatically to Sanskrit when she gets angry with her son or family members is normal.