Sanskrit is an Indo-European language that was historically used as a liturgical language and for higher education in India, influencing many other Indian languages. Like Latin, it is highly inflected, with words changing form based on grammatical rules. Sanskrit has many cognates with English words due to their shared Proto-Indo-European roots. Pronunciation of Sanskrit words can vary between Indian languages due to India's linguistic diversity.

1. A little background on Sanskrit...
None of this is essential to reading Sanskrit,
but it may help in understanding Sanskrit!

2. Sanskrit is kind of like Latin
Sanskrit shares a lot of features with Latin, especially Latin in the Middle Ages..
1. The language of higher education & religion,
but not generally anyone’s native language.
2. Major influence on the region’s other languages.
Around half of the words in many Indian languages are derived from Sanskrit.
3. Heavily inflected! Words change to fit grammatical use.
English does this with pronouns to show subject/object/possessive (he/him/his),
and verbs to show past/present and number (walk/walked. he walks / they walk).
Sanskrit does this with nearly everything, and has many forms for each thing.

3. Sanskrit is an Indo-European language.
This is why many Sanskrit words sound like related English words, especially
English words derived directly from Latin and Greek roots.
● “pada” (foot) is the same root word found in “pedestrian” and “podiatrist”.
● “janu” (knee) is the same root word found in “genuflect” (to kneel).
● “deva” (god) is from the same root as “divine”.
● “nava” (boat) is from the same root as “navy”.
So at least there is one thing to make Sanskrit a little easier!
And Like Latin, and English...

4. Example:
Comparing the numbers in
various Indo-European
languages shows there is clearly
a relationship.
The connection to the
Germanic-derived words in
English are less obvious,
because their consonants shifted
over time. This is how the Latin
“ped-” became “foot” in English,
and “dec-” became “ten”. It does
follow a clear and fairly
consistent pattern though.
Curious to learn more on that?

5. SIDE NOTE: Language in Modern India
Language is a highly political issue in India. There are 22 officially recognized
languages, and a few hundred smaller languages. Hindi is spoken by around 40%
the population of India, but that is almost entirely concentrated in Northern India.
Southern India is very linguistically diverse, with many different regionally
dominant languages, each with less than 10% of India’s overall population.
English is the most common second language among educated Indians, and is
still used in government. A good deal of higher education in India is in English.
While many Indians study Sanskrit for cultural reasons, it is almost never used
conversationally, except in small groups specifically trying to promote its use.

6. Variations in Pronunciation
The diversity of languages in India is why you hear so much variability in the pronunciation of Sanskrit
words by native Indian speakers, especially when they are speaking freely, rather than reciting or
chanting. They are likely to pronounce the Sanskrit terminology as it is said in their native language
(Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Bengali, etc), rather than strict Sanskrit pronunciation.
The most common sources of confusion have already been mentioned:
1. Silent “a”, especially as final sound in a word
2. Distinct W and V sounds instead of one W/V sound
3. Different S/SH distinction
4. PH and TH pronounced as in English
5. Dot indicating M/N/NG
6. Variation in the neutral (short a) vowel sound
7. Sound shifts in the long vowels.

7. What is a “heavily inflected language”?
Namaste, namaha, namo, namaskar.
All are forms of the same word!
You can easily have 20 different forms of a word,
depending on usage.
In English we primarily use word order (“Sara likes dogs.” “Dogs like Sara.”)
and auxiliary words (“He drove TO HIS office DURING THE rainstorm
BECAUSE OF YOUR letter.”) but we still have some things we indicate by
using different forms of the word, such as: write, writes, written, writer, writers,
writable, writing, wrote, writer’s.

8. How are words “inflected”?
In Sanskrit, so much can be indicated by using different
forms of the word. As in English, Sanskrit word forms are
usually different endings but sometimes vowels or
consonants can shift. Most words follow well defined
patterns, but some do not, and the patterns are complex.
There are so many forms, that at first it is simplest to just
recognize familiar root words, and not worry about learning
all of the exact forms until you have more context.

9. What can an inflected language do?
Because the relationship between the words in a Sanskrit
sentence is shown by the form of the word, the position of
words and phrases can be freely arranged without altering
meaning, giving a great deal of flexibility for composing
poetic verse. (Much of Sanskrit writing is in verse.)
This also allows very long and complex phrasings to be
used. These can be difficult to translate word-for-word.

10. Sanskrit loves prepositional compounds
There is a tendency in Sanskrit to make everything in a
sentence (or paragraph) into a long and complex string of
modifiers and tack the subject on at the end, especially in
poetic verse. For example, instead of something like “She
saw the boy walking home along the road, carrying a
basket of bread.” Sanskrit might use something like “She
saw the bread-basket-carrying, homeward-bound,
road-walking boy.”

11. Letter Combining: Sandhi
Because some sounds are awkward to pronounce in combination, and Sanskrit
has always placed an emphasis on the sound of the spoken/chanted language,
some letter pairs change when they are next to each other.
This is most common with vowels:
paschima + uttanasana = paschimottanasana
Occasionally incompatible consonants will also change
chatur+pada = chatushpada
This is called “sandhi”. It follows a regular, if complicated pattern.