| Group |
Indic (with Hindi,
Marathi etc.), Old Indic (with Vedic
and Sanskrit) |
| Geography |
One of the main Old Indic languages, Sanskrit is not the direct descendant
of Vedic, as some may suppose. If Vedic was used
only as a dialect of North-Western India, Sanskrit was born in the north,
in the Gang valley, and was used at the time when Vedic still existed.
Sanskrit early became the language of the literature and fell out of use
as a colloquial tongue. It was proclaimed a divine language in India, and
all classical works in science, verse or history were written only in this
language. |
| History |
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| Phonetics |
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| Nominal Morphology |
Nouns have eight cases, all like in Proto-Indo-European, three genders
and three numbers. The verb is characterized by a complicated system of
moods and tenses, has the special derivative conjugation as well. Sanskrit
syntax is not the same in all cases and depends on the type of the text. |
| Verbal Morphology |
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| Lexicon |
Many words in the language are not Indo-European and were borrowed
from aboriginal Dravidian and Munda languages. This makes it farther from
Iranian and other Indo-European languages
than was Vedic. |
| Writing |
Brahmi Script |
| Close Contacts |
Dravidian, Munda; colloquial Middle Indic dialects called Prakrits. |
| Sample |
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| Picture |
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| More info |
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