The mystery of joined words in Sanskrit

[Irene Galstian]

Dear all,

As we know, in Sanskrit texts words are often 'glued' together, and so present a difficulty for new learners. Why? Mainly because a learner has an insufficient vocabulary and is unable to recognise words that he has never seen. Because of that he can't look them up in the dictionary. Contrary to a popular belief, sandhi isn't the problem, but the lack of vocabulary certainly is.
Thus, my question to this list. Many of you received traditional education in Sanskrit, taught for many years, and are still teaching. Time and again, you observe your students progressing from not knowing how to read these 'word clusters' to reading them competently.
Could you please share your observations? How does this happen?
If, in addition, anyone is aware of any linguistic research on this, I'd be grateful for the references.

Kind regards,
Irene

[Nagaraj Paturi]

I agree with your observation that knowledge of vocabulary helps in breaking the anughaTaka words of a samAsa however deergha or nibiDa (with sandhis) it is. 

I think even a brain as stupid as that of a computer can (be helped to) identify the anughaTaka words of a samAsa if it has the words in its database from which it can draw /call / query strings and compare with the sequence of syllables /phonemes in the samAsa and stop at an identical or close to identical string being found. 

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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 )

 

 

 

[उज्ज्वल राजपूत]

Why only Sanskrit? In most languages, including English, when listening, we don't get to hear any special sounds that mark the end of individual words. The difference between English and Sanskrit is that when writing English, spaces are used to mark end of words, but not so in Sanskrit. But with Sanskrit, one can read and pronounce the written text and then it becomes same as spoken language and then the learning experience is almost identical to that of learning a language by listening.

[Nagaraj Paturi]

samAsas that too deergha nibiDa samAsas is a feature seldom found in English. 

Speaking-hearing communication is different from writing/printing-reading communication. 

The spaces helping word-splitting in English and absence of such spaces causing difficulty in Sanskrit applies to writing/printing-reading communication.

In speaking-hearing communication, English too has gapless, continuous pronunciation of words in any sentence.

But that is different. 

The issue at hand is deergha nibiDa samAsas of Sanskrit which has no parallel in English. 

 

On Sun, Jan 15, 2017 at 6:29 AM, उज्ज्वल राजपूत <ujjwal....@gmail.com> wrote:

Why only Sanskrit? In most languages, including English, when listening, we don't get to hear any special sounds that mark the end of individual words. The difference between English and Sanskrit is that when writing English, spaces are used to mark end of words, but not so in Sanskrit. But with Sanskrit, one can read and pronounce the written text and then it becomes same as spoken language and then the learning experience is almost identical to that of learning a language by listening.

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[ken p]

For Example:

॥ श्रीमुत्तुकुमारसुब्रह्मण्यमूर्तिसहस्र नामावलिः ॥

॥ śrīmuttukumārasubrahmaṇyamūrtisahasranāmāvaliḥ ॥

॥ શ્રીમુત્તુકુમારસુબ્રહ્મણ્યમૂર્તિસહસ્રનામાવલિઃ ॥

http://sanskritdocuments.org/doc_subrahmanya/kumArasubrahmaNyamUrtisahasranAmAvalI.html?lang=sa

This one is readable and understandable  in unglued words but somehow current Sanskrit teachers /print media  are not willing to challenge Vedic gurus.    

॥ श्री मुत्तु कुमार सुब्रह्मण्य मूर्ति सहस्र नामावलिः ॥

॥ śrī muttu kumāra subrahmaṇya mūrti sahasra nāmāvaliḥ ॥

॥ શ્રીમુત્તુ કુમાર સુબ્રહ્મણ્ય મૂર્તિ સહસ્ર નામાવલિઃ ॥

[Nagaraj Paturi]

Mr Ken,

You are again reducing/ diverting the discussion into written/print-reading communication.

The original discussion is not limited to /concerned with writing /printing conventions.

Your example doesn't have morphophonemic (Sandhi) changes at Samhitaa (parassannikarshah)  points.

The question being addressed is whether these morphophonemic changes or the lack of vocabulary which is causing difficulty to a Sanskrit learner in following long compounds with a big number of Sandhi morphophonemic changes. 

The thread initiator's contention is that the prior knowledge of the words involved in the Sandhi can help the learner split the Sandhi easily.

For example in विद्युच्छक्तिः, if the learner knows that there is a word विदयुत् , he can guess that the विद्यु part of the compound might have got to do with that. Similarly if he knows that there is a word शक्तिः he can guess that the च्छक्तिः part might have got to do with that. 

If he doesn't have such a prior knowledge, he might not even know where to look for the morphophonemic change to have taken place.  

 

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[उज्ज्वल राजपूत]

This one is readable and understandable  in unglued words but somehow current Sanskrit teachers /print media  are not willing to challenge Vedic gurus.    

Why not? Vedic gurus did not use to write with spaces of any kind or parentheses. But in the next paragraph, on the same page-

श्रीवैद्येश्वरमन्दिरस्थित (कुम्भघोणनगरस्य निकटवर्ति (तमिळ् नाडु)
वैत्तीश्वरन् कोविल्) मुत्तुक्कुमारन् सुब्रह्मण्यमूर्तिसहस्रनामावलिः

[Irene Galstian]

Exactly as Nagaraj Paturi put it. 

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[Nagaraj Paturi]

For the learners whose mother tongues or first languages have significant portion of tatsama words (Sanskrit borrowings with change in only the suffix part and no change in the remaining part of the borrowed Sanskrit word), it is easier in this aspect, compared to the learners whose mother tongues or first languages have less or no tatsama words. 

For example, most of my students have Telugu as their mother tongue. Telugu has a high percentage of tatsama words and most of the modern technical terms /neologisms too in this language are tatsamas. 

Many Indian languages have this situation.

Tamil has equally big number of Sanskrit borrowings but most of them are tadbhavas ( Sanskrit borrowings whose non-suffix portion too is adapted as per the phonetic structure of the borrowing language, in this case, Tamil). 

If the learner has a non-Indian, more accurately, non-South Asian language as the mother tongue, this aspect creates a huge challenge in learning. 

Right pedagogical strategy in such a case is to teach sentences without compounds in a big number, to supply as much vocabulary as possible and then teach sentences with compounds.   

[Irene Galstian]

Indeed, it does create a challenge.

However, since sentences contain words, and the recognition of words is what solves the problem of 'decryption', then it's also worth compiling a strategic vocabulary, say 2,000-3,000 words. 

One simple way to do that is to visit a digital corpus and get the most frequent words in 15-20 central texts, eg Mahabharata, Manu, etc. 

But is there a better way, in your opinion?

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[Nagaraj Paturi]

Yes, since technology has come in handy now, we can do it that way. 

Another way is to keep certain long samAsas that the teacher wants to introduce in the later to priliminary classes in mind introduce the component words of those samAsas as vyasta words in the preliminary classes so that the mechanism of splitting the joined words is drilled with confidence. 

Once the sandhi processes are all known, gradually the the number of words and the joined expressions can be increased, yes, keeping the frequency in mind. 

Once the students get the heck of it, they can manage the catch 22 situation better. i.e. they can simultaneously handle the vocabulary learning and sandhi-splittings prioritizing one aspect at a time. Which aspect they prioritize at a given time can be left to them. 

After a certain stage, they reach the stage at which you are now and you know how it works after that.