| Sanskrit | |
|---|---|
| saṃskṛtam | |
|
The word saṃskṛtam written in Devanagari.
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| Pronunciation |
[sə̃skr̩t̪əm] |
| Region | Greater India |
| Era | ca. 2nd millennium BCE – 600 BCE (Vedic Sanskrit), after which it gave rise to the Middle Indo-Aryan languages. Continues as a liturgical language (Classical Sanskrit). |
| Revival | Attempts at revitalization. Total: 5 million speakers (2001) L1: 14,315 L2: 1,234,931 L3: 3,742,223 |
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Indo-European
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Early forms
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Vedic Sanskrit
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| No native script. Written in various Brahmic scripts. | |
| Official status | |
|
Official language in
|
India |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | sa |
| ISO 639-2 | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | sans1269 |
Sanskrit (English pronunciation:/ˈsænskrɪt/; Sanskrit: संस्कृतम् written in Devanagari script; IAST: Saṃskṛtam;
pronunciation ; IPA: [sə̃skr̩t̪əm] or saṃskṛta, originally saṃskṛtā vāk, "refined speech") is the primary sacred language of Hinduism and Mahāyāna Buddhism, a philosophical language in Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. It was also a literary language that was in use as a lingua franca in ancient and medieval South Asia. It is a standardised dialect of Old Indo-Aryan, originating as Vedic Sanskrit and tracing its linguistic ancestry back to Proto-Indo-Iranian and Proto-Indo-European. Today it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand. As one of the oldest Indo-European languages for which substantial written documentation exists, Sanskrit holds a prominent position in Indo-European studies.