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...features that set them apart as a subgroup of Indo-European. The long and short varieties of the Indo-European vowels e, o, and a, for example, appear as long and short a: Sanskrit manas- “mind, spirit,” Avestan manah-, but Greek ménos “ardour, force.” (In the following examples, a macron (¯) indicates a long...
Ancient Buddhist scripture and doctrine developed in several closely related literary languages of ancient India, especially in Pali and Sanskrit. In this article Pali and Sanskrit words that have gained currency in English are treated as English words and are rendered in the form in which they appear in English-language dictionaries. Exceptions occur in special circumstances—as, for...
...final codification of the language is ascribed to Pāṇini (5th or 6th century bc), whose grammar has remained normative for the correct language ever since. This language is called Sanskrit (Tongue Perfected). Sanskrit has had a scarcely interrupted literature from about 600 bc until today, but its greatest efflorescence was in the classical period, from the 1st to 7th...
...during the 6th century ad from the western branch of the eastern Gupta character. The Siddhamātṛka became the ancestor of the Devanāgarī, or Nāgarī, script (Sanskrit deva [“divine”], nāgarī [“script of the city”]), which is the script used for Sanskrit. It is, therefore, the most important Indian script....
The main impetus for the development of comparative philology came toward the end of the 18th century, when it was...
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