View source for Sanskrit

{{Infobox language
| name             = Sanskrit
| nativename       = {{lang|sa|संस्कृतम्}} ''{{IAST|saṃskṛtam}}''
| region           = [[South Asia]]
| speakers         = 14,000<ref name="Census">{{cite web|url=http://censusindia.gov.in/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Language/Statement5.htm|title=Comparative speaker's strength of scheduled languages − 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001|work=Census of India, 2001|publisher=Office of the Registrar and Census Commissioner, India|accessdate=31 December 2009}}</ref>
| date             = 2001
| familycolor      = Indo-European
| fam2             = [[Indo-Iranian languages|Indo-Iranian]]
| fam3             = [[Indo-Aryan languages|Indo-Aryan]]
| script           = No native script.<ref name="banerji">{{Cite book|last = Banerji|first = Suresh|title = 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|year = 1971|page = 672|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=JkOAEdIsdUs|isbn = 978-81-208-0063-2}}{{Dead link|date=September 2021 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><br/>Today it is usually written in [[Devanagari]], but it was also previously written in various [[Brāhmī script|Brāhmī]]-[[Brahmic family of scripts|based]] scripts.
| nation           = One of the 22 scheduled languages of India.
| iso1             = sa
| iso2             = san
| iso3             = san
| image            = The_word_संस्कृतम्_(Sanskrit)_in_Sanskrit.svg
| imagealt         = The word Sanskrit (संस्कृतम्) written in Sanskrit. Displayed in the Sarai font for [[Devanagari]].
| imagecaption     = The word Sanskrit (संस्कृतम्) written in [[Devanagari]].
| notice           = Indic
}}
{{Constitutionally recognised languages in India}}
[[File:Devimahatmya Sanskrit MS Nepal 11c.jpg|thumb|right|A Sanskrit script]]
'''Sanskrit''' is an ancient [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European language]]. It is considered sacred by [[Hindus]]. Many languages in [[South Asia]] are derived from Sanskrit.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hindustantimes.com/Sanskrit-is-second-official-language-in-Uttarakhand/Article1-499467.aspx |title=Sanskrit is second official language in Uttarakhand – The Hindustan Times |publisher=Hindustantimes.com |date=19 January 2010 |accessdate=2012-04-05 |archive-date=2011-11-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111102132120/http://www.hindustantimes.com/Sanskrit-is-second-official-language-in-Uttarakhand/Article1-499467.aspx |url-status=dead }}</ref> Today, only about 14,000 people use it as their daily language.<ref name="Census" />

Sanskrit is a standardized [[dialect]] of [[Indo-Aryan languages#Old Indo-Aryan|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 Asia]]n steppes into [[South Asia]] during the early 2nd millennium BC and brought the Indo-European language Sanskrit with them.<ref>Witzel, Michael 2005. Indocentrism. In Bryant, Edwin & Patton, Laurie L. ''The Indo-Aryan controversy: evidence and inference in Indian history''. London: Routledge.</ref> The main script used to write Sanskrit today is [[Devanagari|Devanāgarī]]. Historically, it was also written in the Kharoshti and [[Brahmic scripts]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Brown|first=W. Norman|date=1953|title=Script Reform in Modern India, Pakistan, and Ceylon|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/595755|journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society|volume=73|issue=1|pages=1–6|doi=10.2307/595755|issn=0003-0279}}</ref>

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

It is also one of the 22 officially recognised languages of [[India]]. 
{{Cn}}

==Literature==
Sanskrit [[literature]] includes [[poetry]] and [[drama]] and has also scientific, technical, [[Hindu philosophy|philosophical]] and [[dharma|religious]] texts.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/satyam-bruyat/sanskrit-as-a-language-of-science/|title=Sanskrit as a language of science|newspaper=The Times of India |date=9 June 2014 |last1=Katju |first1=Markandey }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Katju |first=Markandey |date=5 December 2011 |title=Markandey Katju: What is India? |url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/What-is-India/articleshow/10994212.cms |newspaper=The Times of India}}</ref> Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial language in [[Hinduism|Hindu]] religious rituals and also some [[Buddhism|Buddhist]] and [[Jainism|Jain]] practice in the form of [[hymn]]s and [[mantra|chant]]s.

==Grammar==
Sanskrit  has a very complex [[grammar]], with eight [[case (grammar)|grammatical cases]], three [[Grammatical gender|grammatical genders]], and three [[grammatical number|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==
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[[Category:Sanskrit| ]]
[[Category:Indo-Aryan languages]]