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Amala
26 March 2012, 06:20 PM
Namaste,

I would love to see a separate forum just for students of these languages. Anyone else?

I propose a forum Sanskrit & Vedic Language Study with 2 subforums: संस्कृत (saṃskṛta) and वेद (veda). I don't know much about Vedic, so I would leave it to those who study that language to suggest subforums for that one. Under the saṃskṛta subforum, I propose it be divided into Grammar, S'lokas and maybe something separate for mp3s and exercises, websites for study, poetry, and then a heading for purely conversational saṃskṛta, which could include writing letters, for which I know Himanshu Pota is a great source. Of course, the forum should be introduced by a prayer to sarasvatī. :-)

I am currently studying with a scholar and when I have the time, would be overjoyed to share what I get out of those studies with others. The motivation would be to grow together, not to only post perfectly honed saṃskṛta, but to explore together. Post anything, flex your muscles... test your wings... make mistakes and learn togethere. Therein is scholarship. :-)

Love & Peace

Aakriti
26 March 2012, 07:34 PM
Yes! :)

I just recently started organized Sanskrit lessons. (American Sanskrit Insitutute, "Sanskrit by CD," www.americansanskrit.com (http://www.americansanskrit.com)), plus "108 Sanskrit Flash Cards with CD by Nicolai Bachman (which is also available from the American Sanskrit Insitute).

I highly recommend both of these. Not only are they superb for learning Sanskrit (with great attention given to the individual sounds), but this is the best foreign language learning systerm for any language I have ever seen anywhere--or even knew existed.

I really wish this exact same "course" existed for French, Ancient Greek, and Xhosa (a language from South Africa). Plus a few others, too! :D

Xhosa, for example, is a "click" language. Three letters in the Xhosa "alphabet" are different kinds of clicks. It's not so hard to do clicks at the front of a word and at the back of a word, but when the clicks come in the MIDDLE of the word, it's just beastly hard to do if you haven't grown up doing it. (And I'm never sure I'm doing the "beginning" and "ending" clicks well enough, either. Although I can "understand" them, could a native Xhosa speaker understand them? Hmmmmm...probably not. :( )

Sanskrit, for similar but different reasons, is equally difficult (for native English-speakers anyway). Some of the sounds/letters/combinations are very difficult to physically pronounce, but the materials from the American Sanskrit Institute explain EXACTLY how to create these sounds in your mouth (throat, etc.), and how to aspirate properly when you need to aspirate (which is difficult too).

The CD's give wonderful, step-by-step guidance; the diagrams are invaluable; and the color-coded instructional sheets are incredibly helpful.

And though I'm not to the point where I know how to use it yet, the Atlas that they have looks like it will make learning the all-important "endings" as easy as it could ever possibly be.

So yes, I would very much like to see a Sanskrit forum on HDF!

Arjuni
26 March 2012, 09:06 PM
Namasté,

I believe that this is what the "Dharma Lexicon" section of the forum, and particularly the subforum "Nāgarī Corner," address, am I right? Personally, I would love to see more dialogue in these sections! I have coursework currently and cannot yet start on language work in my spare time, but I do read the posts there - and learn from them - when able.

(There is also the "Vedas & Brāhmaṇas" subforum of the "Scriptures" section for discussing aspects of Veda. I'd truly love to participate in more discussions there, as well.)

Indraneela
===
Oṁ Indrāya Namaḥ.
Oṁ Namaḥ Śivāya.

Amala
27 March 2012, 05:13 AM
Namaste,

Those are insufficient for students of the language since in the instance of the "Dharma Lexicon" language study is much more than learning a lexicon and in the "Scriptures" section, it is not devoted to language study, which I'm proposing be the total focus. Thank you for your input, though. :-)


Namasté,

I believe that this is what the "Dharma Lexicon" section of the forum, and particularly the subforum "Nāgarī Corner," address, am I right? Personally, I would love to see more dialogue in these sections! I have coursework currently and cannot yet start on language work in my spare time, but I do read the posts there - and learn from them - when able.

(There is also the "Vedas & Brāhmaṇas" subforum of the "Scriptures" section for discussing aspects of Veda. I'd truly love to participate in more discussions there, as well.)

Indraneela
===
Oṁ Indrāya Namaḥ.
Oṁ Namaḥ Śivāya.

satay
27 March 2012, 01:01 PM
namaskar,
are there any sanskrit students here on the forum? What would be discussed in this forum that cannot be discussed let's say under Lexicon forum?

Sahasranama
27 March 2012, 04:02 PM
I don't feel like I need to discuss Sanskrit on the forum, because most of the Sanskrit discussions here involves a lot of creativity to say it nicely and getting involved in this would only cause more confusion.

yajvan
27 March 2012, 04:51 PM
hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namasté

I consider myself a entry-level student (śiṣya) of saṃskṛtam at best; My studies continue yet my love is not so much in the spoken words of a conversing language but its etymological interpretation (nirukta). It is here ( for me) that the śāstra-s are unravelled. Does every one need to have this passion ? Absolutely not.

Yet that said, if we had a pure saṃskṛtam folder it is my opinion there would be very few experts to really guide us along the way.
I think in the interrim time the 'nāgarī corner' folder may assist. If satay sees the type of activities that this saṃskṛtam forum may take on, done via nāgarī corner' perhaps there would be an appreciation of what is needed and who will participate and what needs to be created from a folder's use.

Now that too said, I have no idea of what a 'vedic' forum would mean. Vedic is from veda and therefore its root 'vid' meaning knowledge.
I thought the sum total of the HDF forum meets this expectation ( not always so, but most of the time).

praṇām

Sahasranama
27 March 2012, 05:00 PM
Now that too said, I have no idea of what a 'vedic' forum would mean. Vedic is from veda and therefore its root 'vid' meaning knowledge.
I thought the sum total of the HDF forum meets this expectation ( not always so, but most of the time).


Vedic is the language of the vedas, as opposed to classical Sanskrit of the post-vedic literature.

Amala
27 March 2012, 06:28 PM
Namaskar,

What I was hoping to see were posts for people of all levels, with topics of grammar, examples of different exercises to practice case endings and sandhi rules... conversations with various levels of interaction... of course there will be errors. People would be advised to cite their sources and understand that it should not be assumed that any of us are qualified to teach. We could share mp3 to help with pronunciation... all sorts of ideas. Where else might one hope to encourage these ancient languages than a site devoted to the thoughts conveyed by them?

But I hear the other considerations and understand the doubts. Majority rules!

:-)




namaskar,
are there any sanskrit students here on the forum? What would be discussed in this forum that cannot be discussed let's say under Lexicon forum?

Sahasranama
27 March 2012, 06:55 PM
I think it is a nice idea, but it is not practical in this environment. HDF is not so much about learning, but about giving a positive representation. If you post the correct meaning of Sanskrit texts here, you risk getting banned

yajvan
27 March 2012, 07:42 PM
hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namasté


Vedic is the language of the vedas, as opposed to classical Sanskrit of the post-vedic literature.
I now see where the conversation was headed ( thank you).
I have been thinking of pāṇini's rule bound approach to saṃskṛtā which some call ~ classical~. This is rules for both spoken (bhāṣā) and compositional (vaidikī). This contrasts to vedic saṃskṛtā , that of the ṛg ved, etc.

praṇām

satay
27 March 2012, 10:21 PM
namaste Sahas,
Is there any point in moping around like this and trolling the thread?

Would you like to take a bitter pill with that attitude? I can make your life easier and end your pain if you would like. Let me know. :cool1:


I think it is a nice idea, but it is not practical in this environment. HDF is not so much about learning, but about giving a positive representation. If you post the correct meaning of Sanskrit texts here, you risk getting banned

devotee
27 March 2012, 10:56 PM
Namaste Amala, Yajvan and all,

I think we have quite a few members here who can help on Samskrit ( I too may help to some extent) though none of us are really "expert".

So, anyone may pose the problem he is facing in Samskrit and I am sure some help will be available.

OM

saidevo
28 March 2012, 02:13 AM
namaste Amala and everyone else.

IMHO, the main objective of saMskRta-shikShaNam--Sanskrit-learning for a sAdhaka--seeker, should be to get at the purport and meaning of Hindu religious and spiritual texts, in a bid to progress his/her sAdhana--spiritual efforts.

• In addition, with some familiarity and comfort level with the language, we could eventually get to read (parts of) the itihAsa-purANa texts as well as Sanskrit secular texts such a KAlidAsa's kAvyas--epics, and enjoy the literary, sensuous and aesthetic nuances in them.

• Although Sanskrit is the spoken language of the entire population of at least two villages in India, GOI regularly broadcasts/telecasts a Sanskrit news bulletins, there are Sanskrit newspapers and magazines, and insitutions like SaMskRta BhArati strive to teach Sanskrit as a spoken language, fluently reading--rather than speaking--Sanskrit could be our main aim, IMO.

I feel that Sanskrit-learning may be done through different threads in the existing nAgarI subforum. I think it could be more helpful to approach learning Sanskrit from the literature to the grammar, rather than the other way around.

• As a first step, we might collect QuickRef tables/flash cards about Sanskrit alphabets, numerals, saMdhi--conjugation, vibhakti--case, and other areas of vyAkaraNam--grammar in a separate thread.

• It would be very difficult to memorize all the rules of grammar before reading any serious text of Sanskrit, so our approach could be to have a glance at them as necessary and start learning by analysing Sanskrit text, starting with simple and popular shlokas and moving on to texts such as the bhagavad-gItA and the upaniShads. Since audio files of most shlokas can be found on the Net, this would take care of the uchchAraNam--pronunciation, part of the texts.

• In all our learning efforts, it is very important that we must strive to read and write Sanskrit using devanAgarI lipi--alphabets, rather than depend on transliteration. As for writing Sanskrit, while we must practice it on paper to get the feel of writing in devanAgarI proper, for typing our posts on the Internet, my recommendation is to use a transliteration scheme which is free of diacritical marks--such as ITRANS or Baraha, since these schemes are closer to the original IMO.

• Baraha is a very good Indian language software, as it facilitates writing in different Indian languages, using a transliteration scheme which is akin to the ITRANS scheme. The package also supports unicode, so it's ideal IMO.
http://www.baraha.com/

• As for Sanskrit unicode fonts, althogh the default Windows font (lathA) is good enough, Sanskrit 2003 is much better.
http://www.sanskritweb.net/itrans/

Let us understand that none of us here in HDF are literate enough to teach Sanskrit, so our learning could only be by interaction, with all members who seek to learn the language to try their hands by asking questions and trying to provide answers.

Amala
12 April 2012, 11:32 AM
Namaste,

I wanted to share something my teacher and I are working on. This is an example of what I'd like to share in a forum here.

http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o115/jampuppy/samskRta/rudraastakam.jpg

Amala
12 April 2012, 01:49 PM
Namaste,

Also, we have been working on reviewing आत्मनेपदिप्रयोगा:, तकारान्त forms which lead into present participles.

The only way to get any language in one's head is repeat repeat repeat... This would be an added place for people to post new sentences that others could practice reading and where questions could be asked about grammar and why do it that way and not another. It's not so much the point to make sure everything is absolutely correct; it's the journey that is the way to scholarship. One must enjoy the study... the more the better.