|
 |
To learn Sanskrit with Latin, advice pls? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Heinrich S. Groupie Germany Joined 7091 days ago 63 posts - 85 votes  Studies: French | Message 1 of 5 09 May 2011 at 10:57pm | IP Logged |
|
First thanks for your reading & helping (and now some information: my French and German are basically nonexistent.)
I want to learn Sanskrit and Latin: (shared or not shared Indo-European) vocabulary only and pretty much do not care about speaking. It will be hard(?), but I do have one thing going for me, I am passionate. I would love advice, any resources, and anyone's stories of experience. Cheers, Heinrich 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| zyz Newbie United States Joined 5491 days ago 19 posts - 28 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit | Message 2 of 5 10 May 2011 at 12:57am | IP Logged |
|
Hello,
Am I correct in understanding that you want to learn Sanskrit and Latin in a historical-comparative sense rather than for reading fluency? There are several books which teach Latin vocabulary. I've heard good things about Greek & Latin Roots: Keys to Building Vocabulary by Rasinski, Padak, Newton & Newton, though I've never read it. I'm having trouble finding anything that isn't just a bare lexicon for Sanskrit. For comparative PIE vocab. (not exclusive to Latin and Sanskrit), Mallory and Adams' Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture is a pretty fascinating read. Best of luck. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5754 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 3 of 5 10 May 2011 at 8:26am | IP Logged |
|
I would find it extremly boring to learn words of a language without actual texts or Grammar but suum cuique, as one would say in Latin.
Do you want to learn the Sanskrit words written in Devanagari or in a transcription using the latin alphabet and diacritics? There are two very useful books in German to learn that language: 1) Einführung in das klassische Sanskrit: Lehrbuch mit Übungen, written by Eberhard Guhe. E. Guhe was a teacher of mine and is a veritable pandit, what grammar concerns. The sanskrit in his book is written entirely written in Devanagari and he is very grammarorientated (you have to be that, if you want to learn to read, as this language has a extremly sophisticated system of morphology (but a dissapointing use of it to convery meaning). 2) Sanskrit-Kompendium, written by Ulrich Stiehl He teaches you 2240 sentences. A fabulous useful book, if you have the guts to stand such an amount of independent sentences. You could use the "Stiehl" ignoring the grammar and looking only at the words of each sentence. (Every sentence is analysed and each word is given) So you could also get a feeling what the nuances of each lexical item are. One problem: What is a word in Sanskrit? If you learn verbs, you learn roots, which are non-existing entities in reality, but useful to form actual (nearly a thousand) verb forms. You may learn grah to mean "fassen, greifen"; but you may prefer to learn for example gṛhṇāti, which means "er faßt"; the latter is a real verb form, but only one among many, many. What are you going to do with a mere collection of words? You only get acquainted with them really, if you see them in action. Edited by Cabaire on 10 May 2011 at 8:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5754 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 4 of 5 10 May 2011 at 8:43am | IP Logged |
|
For comparative PIE vocab, Mallory and Adams' Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture is a pretty fascinating read.
For that use, I like "The american heritage dictionary of Indo-European roots", written by C. Watkins. You look up a reconstructed indo-european root and it gives you its raw meaning and derived words in many languages, including English, German, Latin and Sanskrit with some explanations. But the focus is English, so only words are given, which you may know as an educated reader of English (loan words, proper nouns etc.) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6449 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 5 of 5 11 May 2011 at 5:40am | IP Logged |
|
You may want to have a look at A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages.
Buy a magnifying glass if you plan to use this book. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2025 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
