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Learn Sanskrit Online

learnsanskrit.org

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Re: Learn Sanskrit Online

#31

Post by nkuttler »

angerman wrote: post #16
slaxman wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a ployglot and know several indian and foreign languages. My favourite is Sanskrit. Why? Once I learnt Sanskrit, esp. the grammar, learning other languages was really easy. You easy almost all languages have their roots from Sanskrit. The grammar rules for German and Finnish, for example, are a subset of Sanskrit.

Could you please elaborate on this a little more? How did German and Finnish derive from Sanskrit? Could you give examples?

Derived from Sanskrit is probably wrong, but German, Finnish and Sanskrit belong to the Indo-European language family (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-european). Sanskrit is a very old language in this family tree (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language) and thus very close to the common ancestor. Being close to the ancestor probably means that it shares many traits with it that were inherited by other Indo-European languages.

Kinda like how knowing Latin makes it easier to learn Romanic languages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanic_languages), but Romanic languages were really derived from Latin.

Re: Learn Sanskrit Online

#33

Post by yati »

melling wrote: post #23
yati wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your comments, this is like asking "Why would someone, programmer or not, want to learn Lisp online?". The answer: because they want to, because they might find it interesting. They don't have to ask you. You may not like something, but that is your preference. Don't impose it on us.

You can learn Lisp and do real work with it. It has commercial value. It's not some ancient dead language.

The parent has been commenting asking people why they want to learn Sanskrit when there is "infinitely many other" things to learn about. I bet that you can not learn Lisp and sail through a great programming career. And I really don't think Sanskrit is a "dead" language - it is important to far too many people to be called dead.

Re: Learn Sanskrit Online

#34

Post by ateevchopra »

r0h1n wrote: post #3

Why would someone, Indian or not, want to learn Sanskrit online?

Because they say the knowledge of the whole universe is written in sanskrit in the vedas. Thousands of years the Indian sages researched about almost every topic and wrote this vedas. We would have been many years ahead if we could decode those teachings. Many lost, many still to be decoded. If people learn sanskrit, maybe someone will find its life purpose in this and do a big research on the old knowledge. Just saying. Anything is possible. knowledge is never in vain.

Re: Learn Sanskrit Online

#35

Post by sspiff »

r3m6 wrote: post #27
r0h1n wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "By learning this language, you open the door to more than three thousand years of intellectual history, both in India and beyond." What does that even mean? Indian history, intellectual or not, isn't being held captive behind closed doors waiting for Sanskrit-speaking liberators. As someone who was forced to learn Sanskrit in school for 3 years, I'll repeat: it has zero value unless you happen to be a researcher o…

I am with you - as someone who was forced to learn Latin in school for four years. The reason given to us was exactly the same, just replace "India and beyond" with "Europe and beyond". I'll repeat: it has zero value unless you happen to be a researcher or a linguist.

I studied Latin for six years and I don't remember anything about it anymore, but I'm far removed from the linguistic domain now.

Re: Learn Sanskrit Online

#37

Post by ksk »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #26
r0h1n wrote: post #3

Why would someone, Indian or not, want to learn Sanskrit online?

I imagine people like you breezing through life maximizing some objective function, never waiting to admire poetry or relish a moment, only to die at the end. Hyper-practical no-nonsense men questioning the value of everything for everyone. (The funny thing is Sanskrit is incredibly practical for lots of reasons.)

>The funny thing is Sanskrit is incredibly practical for lots of reasons.

Okay, give me 10 reasons.

Re: Learn Sanskrit Online

#40

Post by Of_Prometheus »

This is a fantastic coincidence. Over the past few weeks, and especially today, my fiancée has been telling me how she has lost her familiarity with Sanskrit after many years. I've already showed her this website. The joy!
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