Asian Studies 141 - First Year Sanskrit I

Introduction to Sanskrit, the classical language of India. Related to other Indo-European languages (including English) and the ancestor of most of the sixteen major Indian languages (e.g., Hindi), Sanskrit is the medium of the literary classics, and of the texts of the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain religions. The first-semester course covers Sanskrit grammar. The emphasis is on sentence construction, recognition and production of grammatical forms, and translation. Attention is also given to script, chanting, and pronunciation. The goal is proficiency in reading sentences and sustained passages in Sanskrit, in preparation for reading authentic texts in the second semester.