[SKT] VEDIC VS CLASSICAL SANSKRIT

Without going into the history of everything, language has this outrageous habit of evolving. Which is one of the reasons why I'm not writing this in Anglo-Frisian or Old Norman French.

Vedic Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit have similar origins, but peaked at different times in history.

A BRIEF TIMELINE OF THINGS

At the beginning of time, there was no language.
There were other things going on. For example, heat. And expansion. Heaps of expansion. But no language.

Then there were some lifeforms.
Eventually, some primitive language.

Someone invented fire.

More things happened.

And then we got this thing called PIE.
PIE stands for Proto-Indo European. Which is a theoretical language that's been pieced together by linguists and scholars. Actual pie was invented later.

Theoretical-language PIE came about by identifying common characteristics across a range of more recent languages. And then making some calculated assumptions about the connections between them. There are heaps of language families that trace back to PIE.
That's a whole separate rabbit-hole that's worth going down at some point.

From PIE we get Vedic Sanskrit.
Then Classical Sanskrit.
After that, Hindi.
Finally someone invents disposable contact lenses.

PĀNINI + CLASSICAL SANSKRIT

A tonne of people existed between fire and disposable contact lenses, but one person worth mentioning is Pānini.

Pānini was an organised man, enthused by grammar. He was a scholar and linguist. And possibly a poet, but that was probably another Pānini.
There's some general agreement across history – and the internet – that Pānini's organisation of Sanskrit grammar was the beginning of "Classical" Sanskrit. He took the grammar and Kondo'd it into an elegant, systematic format.

Everything on this site is Classical Sanskrit.

Because Pānini is a legend? Partly.
And partly because one thing at a time. Classic Sanskrit first, then Vedic Sanskrit.

VEDIC VS CLASSICAL

There's a lot of overlap between Vedic and Classical Sanskrit, but there are also some differences.

IN DOT POINTS

Vedic Sanskrit has some:
- additional characters
- accents
- different vocab
- different word formations
- differing and alternative noun and verb endings
- different sandhi
- additional grammar categories

Basically, there are slight differences in all the possible ways.

IN A BIT MORE DETAIL

ADDITIONAL CHARACTERS

Depending on who you ask, Vedic Sanskrit has somewhere between 42 and 68 total characters. An unhelpful kind of margin.
If we go with a Maharishi Mahesh Yogi estimate, we have four extra characters, compared to Classical Sanskrit (48 characters).
- Two retroflex Ls: ळ and ळह.
- Two variations of visarga: jihvāmūlīya and upadhmānīya.

Fig. 1 Additional Vedic Sanskrit characters: [1] retroflex l, [2] retroflex lh, [3] jihvāmūlīya, [4] upadhmānīya.

RETROFLEX Ls

When retroflex d (ड) has a vowel on both sides, it can become retroflex l (ळ).
When retroflex dh (ढ) has a vowel on both sides, it can become retroflex lh (ळह).

VISARGA SWITCHEROO

Visarga becomes jihvāmūlīya before k/kh (क/ख).
Visarga becomes upadhmānīya before p/ph (प/फ).

Sometimes they're both represented by the x-looking character (figure 1, character [3]).
Sometimes jihvāmūlīya is represented by the x-looking character, while upadhmānīya is represented by the division-looking sign (figure 1, character [4]).

And sometimes they're both represented by visarga (:) and context differentiates (before k/kh or p/ph).

ACCENTS

Accents are represented by a range of tiny lines, dots or numbers above or below the characters.
A bit like diacritical marks.

Fig. 2 Example of tiny-line accents (blue) in Vedic Sanskrit

Fig. 3 Example of tiny-number accents (yellow) in Vedic Sanskrit

Different texts use different conventions to mark accents, but the same set of accents will be used within a single text.

There are also special accents that wrap themselves around visarga and anusvara. But that's a thrill for another time.

For now, we're going to focus on Classical Sanskrit.

If you're learning Vedic Sanskrit, sending you maximum accent-discerning skills. And come back in a couple of years; I may have caught up!

PROCESS