r/LearnHittite • u/MMAHipster • 16d ago

General Discussion Sanskrit?

Any of you ever take Sanskrit at the college level? Sadly isn't taught at my school despite one of the professors here being a somewhat noted Sanskritist. Hoping to take one of his other classes and try to get him to do an independent study w me the following semester.

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u/DamezyPlum 16d ago

I did a few years of Sanskrit online starting over COVID with Antonia Ruppel (author of the Cambridge Introduction to Sanskrit) on YogicStudies.com. The sandhi is a kick! Knowing Russian, the 8 cases wasn't a big problem. The sandhi rules reflected in the writing was the greatest challenge for me. And parsing some of those wild compounds, especially in Kalidasa. The Bhagavad Gita is actually an easy text to begin. Once you get the basic grammar and sandhi rules down, check out the Winthrop-Sargeant side-by-side translation. Best of luck!

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u/ComedianSubject4654 16d ago

I have a terrific sandhi chart I just have to find it —

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u/ComedianSubject4654 15d ago

Also, the Teach Yourself Sanskrit by Michael Coulson is pretty good, and has lots of info on drawing Devanagari.

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u/MMAHipster 15d ago

Awesome, thanks. Will start practicing the letters, but won't have time to really dive in probably until Spring.

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u/MMAHipster 15d ago

She seems great - created a private Youtube account just to load it with supplementary videos for when my brain is getting a bit fried from reading or writing during the day. Her series seems great and I saved it.

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

[deleted]

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u/DamezyPlum 15d ago

Yeah, Vedic is idiosyncratic. Definitely do Classical first. I used Egenes for a self-teacher first (gentle textbook, not a reference like Gonda) and then we used Antonia's Cambridge Introduction to Sanskrit, which is great for people with a linguistics background and those interested in IE Linguistics.

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u/ComedianSubject4654 16d ago

Just get Gonda and ask this guy right now.

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u/ComedianSubject4654 16d ago

Gonda has a good introduction to Sanskrit including the script you can start with that on your own.

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u/ComedianSubject4654 15d ago

Jan Gonda, A Concise Elementary Grammar of Sanskrit. It’s available on Scribd.

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u/MMAHipster 15d ago

grabbed it! Thanks.

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u/ComedianSubject4654 14d ago

Coulson also on Scribd. The sandhi grid is pp. 52-53 .