Syntax

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Irene Galstian

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Jan 20, 2017, 11:12:21 AM1/20/17
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This is a question I had for a while, and a recent comment by Nagaraj Paturi reminded me of it.
Sanskrit sentences often exhibit syntax that is unexpected, and therefore not immediately interpretable by a non-Indian learner. Not just Sanskrit, mind you. When I fist learned that the subject of the sentence can sometimes appear in the accusative in Arabic, it took me a bit of time to get used to it.
In the conversation about Sandhi Nagaraj Paturi explained that for Telugu speakers sandhi is simpler because Telugu language predisposes them to it. But what about syntax? Does the same apply? Or perhaps there is somewhere an extensive exposition of Sanskrit syntax that I ought to read?

Kind regards,
Irene

Taff Rivers

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Jan 20, 2017, 4:40:47 PM1/20/17
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Irene,

==> Or perhaps there is somewhere an extensive exposition of Sanskrit syntax that I ought to read? <==

There certainly is. Read the introduction to get the full picture.

Here's the pdf of a book that should help in understanding those commentators of old,
and especially why they wrote the way they did which was according to a prescribed formula.

There's much more to it than syntax and terse rules of grammar:

Scholastic Sanskrit. A Manual for Students


The PDFshould inspire you to buy the hardback version

Taff Rivers, 


Irene Galstian

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Jan 20, 2017, 6:40:18 PM1/20/17
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Many thanks, Eddie. This looks good. 
Kind regards,
Irene
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Nagaraj Paturi

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Jan 20, 2017, 8:20:24 PM1/20/17
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Dear Mr/Dr/Prof. Irene Galstian,

Since you are teaching students, probably, with a European background, a book dealing with a comparison between Europen language syntax and Sanskrit syntax should be coming in handy for you. 

One aspect of Sanskrit syntax , that might look strange for a European student, not to a student with Telugu or other Dravidian languages as mother tongue or first language, that immediately comes to my mind, is the so called equational or NP-NP sentence which has a Noun Phrase for both subject and predicate. Since this is not found in the other IE languages, historical linguists consider this to be influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit, this is found in Rigveda itself though. 

Bhartrihari in vAkyapadIyam calls these sentences as as'ritakriyAvAkyAh. The term shows that he considers that there is a sentence with a copula verb such as asti/bhavati in its 'ground structure' (in Chomskian parlance) of these as'ritakriyAvAkyAh. 

Case structure is another aspect of syntax which almost universally creates issues for any learner of any language. 

  

On Sat, Jan 21, 2017 at 5:09 AM, Irene Galstian <gnos...@gmail.com> wrote:
Many thanks, Eddie. This looks good. 
Kind regards,
Irene

On 20 Jan 2017, at 20:44, Taff Rivers <eddie...@gmail.com> wrote:

Irene,

==> Or perhaps there is somewhere an extensive exposition of Sanskrit syntax that I ought to read? <==

There certainly is. Read the introduction to get the full picture.

Here's the pdf of a book that should help in understanding those commentators of old,
and especially why they wrote the way they did which was according to a prescribed formula.

There's much more to it than syntax and terse rules of grammar:

Scholastic Sanskrit. A Manual for Students


The PDFshould inspire you to buy the hardback version

Taff Rivers, 


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Nagaraj Paturi
 
Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.
 
Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies
 
FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,
 
(Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )
 
 
 

Irene Galstian

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Jan 20, 2017, 9:28:09 PM1/20/17
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Dear Nagaraj,

God, no. I wouldn't presume to teach anyone other than myself (I've taught Russian, but certainly not Sanskrit). It's best to leave such matters to better qualified people. Coding and mathematics I can manage, but that's it for now. 

The NP-NP construction you mentioned may be unusual in English but it's unsurprising in Russian, for example. In fact, out of all the languages I have come across, Russian is perhaps the most similar to Sanskrit. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a comparative study of Russian and Sanskrit syntax, which would have been supremely useful. 

My next best bet was English (because it's widely used, and for no other reason). Apte's Sanskrit composition book is helpful. I don't have Speijer, so can't comment. 
Rather than engaging in comparison between languages as dissimilar as English and Sanskrit, it would have been useful to have side-by-side versions of nontrivial sentences in the two languages. That would allow the learner to get a feel of how Sanskrit flows. So far Apte is the closest I could find to that. Taff's link looks great though. 

Kind regards,
Irene
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विश्वासो वासुकिजः

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Feb 4, 2017, 7:26:06 PM2/4/17
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Reminds me of a dream: If only we could have sanskrit and english learners get https://www.duolingo.com/ to include Sanskrit!

शुक्रवार, 20 जनवरी 2017 को 6:28:09 अपर UTC-8 को, Irene Galstian ने लिखा:
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Nagaraj Paturi
 
Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.
 
Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies
 
FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,
 
(Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )
 
 
 

Irene Galstian

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Feb 5, 2017, 11:37:36 AM2/5/17
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I do see your point, even though Duolingo's approach seems overly dumbed down, in my opinion.
Have you seen Dr. Narasing Rao's lessons on Youtube? Dr Rao uses Kutumbasastri's Teach Yourself Sanskrit textbook, published by Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan. The book consists of 5 levels. Dr Rao has recently uploaded lesson number 504, from Level 3. Levels 1 and 2 are already complete. 
It's remarkable that Dr Rao and his technical assistant, a young man by the name Srinivas, accomplished more with the aid of a single computer, microphone, webcam, whiteboard, and basic video editing software than many large organisations.
Speaking of Kutumbasastri's book, Levels 1-4 (18 books) seem to be back in stock again at Hindi Granth Karyalay. Level 5 is still unobtainable. If anybody knows how to get the Level 5 books, or has scans of them, or is willing to make scans, please respond.

विश्वासो वासुकिजः (Vishvas Vasuki)

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Feb 5, 2017, 12:09:05 PM2/5/17
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2017-02-05 6:08 GMT-08:00 Irene Galstian <gnos...@gmail.com>:
I do see your point, even though Duolingo's approach seems overly dumbed down, in my opinion.
Have you seen
​​
Dr. Narasing Rao's lessons on Youtube? Dr Rao uses Kutumbasastri's Teach Yourself Sanskrit textbook, published by Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan. The book consists of 5 levels. Dr Rao has recently uploaded lesson number 504, from Level 3. Levels 1 and 2 are already complete. 
​​
​I have glanced at ​Dr. Narasing Rao's lessons on Youtube, but I can hardly bear to watch them at any length since I am already very familiar with the material (sanskrit) and since I prefer instruction in Sanskrit (or atleast an Indian language) by a large margin.

​But, good to know that it benefits anglophones!​ Are you able to use (speak, write, read) the language as a result of following those videos?

Irene Galstian

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Feb 5, 2017, 12:52:47 PM2/5/17
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The purpose of these videos is somewhat different: they help to 'convince' one's mind that Sanskrit is something familiar and regularly repeated. 
If one has access to a teacher, the videos can be used to self-check the exercises against Rao's solutions and hear all the sentences pronounced. The time with the teacher is then used more productively, e.g. by focusing on matters that either remain unclear after watching Rao's lessons, or aren't addressed by Kutumbasastri/Rao at all. 
As the levels progress, Rao increasingly speaks in Sanskrit, and one can pick up potentially useful sentences from that, then proceed to construct one's own by substitution (that's how Samskrta Bharati courses operate too). 
If one has no teacher, it's still possible to get to intermediate level with Rao's videos, assuming the student is disciplined and imaginative. The combination of these two qualities is relatively rare, and so the chances of succeeding are modest, but nonzero. 
A living teacher remains valuable, and  that'll probably always be the case. 

Taff Rivers

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Feb 5, 2017, 1:54:49 PM2/5/17
to samskrita, Eddie Hadley

Make the Duolingo dream a reality (;-)

They have a vacancy....


                  Teaching
                      Writer
                          A smart person excited to create new language content on Duolingo.


    ... But, please consider the Devanagari challenged English speakers and include Romanised transliteration sandhied and unsandhied as well.

That way, the wisdom of the ancients will be of benefit to mankind in general and not become even more of an endangered species than it already is.


Taff Rivers.

    For I am the teacher even of the ancients, being unlimited by time.

I  -  Not the nominative singular pronoun, used by a speaker in referring to himself or herself, but the selfless One.


Irene Galstian

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Feb 5, 2017, 2:03:14 PM2/5/17
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PS If you know of a good video/audio course that teaches Sanskrit via Sanskrit (ie the teacher speaks only in Sanskrit from the very beginning), please mention the details here. I'd love to buy this course, especially its intermediate/advanced levels. It would also be lovely to have more things to listen to/watch in Sanskrit, other than DD News and Iyers' films. 

विश्वासो वासुकिजः (Vishvas Vasuki)

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Feb 5, 2017, 7:25:38 PM2/5/17
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2017-02-05 11:03 GMT-08:00 Irene Galstian <gnos...@gmail.com>:
PS If you know of a good video/audio course that teaches Sanskrit via Sanskrit (ie the teacher speaks only in Sanskrit from the very beginning), please mention the details here.

http://www.digitalsanskritguru.com/ also has useful material, though not all of it is sanskrit medium.​

 
I'd love to buy this course, especially its intermediate/advanced levels. It would also be lovely to have more things to listen to/watch in Sanskrit, other than DD News and Iyers' films. 

There is just lots of it on YouTube - speeches by public figures, well staged dramas (example - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HFn7iL4T0A&list=PL63uIhJxWbgi13qnczu16t2Biv45mwQ4m ), lectures on various advanced shAstra-s (vedanta, nyAya) and kAvya-s (example - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ban9cnVPWt4&list=PLofrqGxIuL6QuV4bV1s66fO8FOYeKz57v&index=5 ) etc.. You just need to look for specific topics, and keep an eye out for announcements in various fora.

​As to the language itself, good videos designed to accompany (not necessarily excellent) school ​textbooks used by some schools in India can be found here - https://www.youtube.com/user/OnlineSamskrTutorial/playlists . There are some kids cartoons and the like as well.

--
--
Vishvas /विश्वासः

Irene Galstian

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Feb 5, 2017, 7:35:14 PM2/5/17
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The theatre productions are brilliant! You're my hero now. :-)
Thank you!!!! 

Manish Modi

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Feb 5, 2017, 11:27:29 PM2/5/17
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Dear Irene,
Jay Jinendra

Level 5 of 'Teach Yourself Sanskrit' has not yet been printed. Trust me, I shall shout from rooftops once it is published! :-)

Dr Ashok Aklujkar has a splendid collection of Sanskrit plays and kavi sammelanas on his laptop. He had shared them with me many years ago, when we had met for the first time. I do not have them now. But you could ask him to email them to you. 

I am sure that he is active on this list. And most likely, you know him. 

In case you do not, here are his contact details:

Dr Ashok Aklujkar
Canada

Best wishes,
Manish



Manish Godara (मनीष गोदारा)

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Feb 8, 2017, 12:43:11 PM2/8/17
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Irene,

If there any Samskrita Bharati classes in your area that would be a good start. Samskrita Bharati also sells many audio and video material (and of course all of that they sell are in Sanskrit only). 

Here's a Kumarasambhavam sarga-05 - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLofrqGxIuL6QW0-Hsu6XkPtkI8qpSdAOb -  taught at the residential camp called Kaveri (conducted every year in the Saratoga, CA during memorial day weekend), conducted by Samskrita Bharati.


On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 11:03 AM, Irene Galstian <gnos...@gmail.com> wrote:
PS If you know of a good video/audio course that teaches Sanskrit via Sanskrit (ie the teacher speaks only in Sanskrit from the very beginning), please mention the details here. I'd love to buy this course, especially its intermediate/advanced levels. It would also be lovely to have more things to listen to/watch in Sanskrit, other than DD News and Iyers' films. 


On 5 Feb 2017, at 17:08, विश्वासो वासुकिजः (Vishvas Vasuki) <vishvas...@gmail.com> wrote:



2017-02-05 6:08 GMT-08:00 Irene Galstian <gnos...@gmail.com>:
I do see your point, even though Duolingo's approach seems overly dumbed down, in my opinion.
Have you seen
​​
Dr. Narasing Rao's lessons on Youtube? Dr Rao uses Kutumbasastri's Teach Yourself Sanskrit textbook, published by Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan. The book consists of 5 levels. Dr Rao has recently uploaded lesson number 504, from Level 3. Levels 1 and 2 are already complete. 
​​
​I have glanced at ​Dr. Narasing Rao's lessons on Youtube, but I can hardly bear to watch them at any length since I am already very familiar with the material (sanskrit) and since I prefer instruction in Sanskrit (or atleast an Indian language) by a large margin.

​But, good to know that it benefits anglophones!​ Are you able to use (speak, write, read) the language as a result of following those videos?

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