What is Sanskrit?
Q: What is Sanskrit?
A: Sanskrit is an ancient Indo-European language that is a sacred language of Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism. It is the origin of most Indo-Aryan languages.
Q: How many people use it today?
A: Today, about 14,000 people in India use it as their daily language mostly for religious purposes.
Q: Is Sanskrit related to Dravidian languages?
A: No, the Dravidian languages of South India are separate from Sanskrit and are not derived from it.
Q: Are Hindi and Urdu derived from Sanskrit?
A: Yes, the two primary languages of Pakistan and India, Hindi and Urdu, are mainly derived from Sanskrit.
Q: What script is used to write Sanskrit?
A: The main script used to write Sanskrit is Devanāgarī but it can also be written in the scripts of various other Indian languages or sometimes even in the Latin alphabet. Historically, it was written in the ancient Brāhmī script.
Q: Who recognized similarities between European languages and Sanskrit?
A: William Jones recognized similarities between European languages such as Latin and Greek with Sanskrit while working as a judge in India during the 18th century. This led to recognition of Indo-European languages being related across Europe to India.
Q: What theory explains how Indo-European language came into South Asia? A: The Indo-European Aryan migration theory proposes that early 2nd millennium BC brought Indo-Europeans who migrated from Central Asian steppes into South Asia bringing with them their language -Sanskrit-.
