Introduction to Sanskrit, Part 1

I haven't studied Greek or Latin. Like many people I took French in highschool. I'm not a linguist. Sanskrit is the first exposure to a language with so much conjugation tables and so on. The initial learning curve on Sanskrit is painfully steep. Everything is conjugated, including nouns and verbs, and there are seven cases, three genders, and three pluralities (singular, dual and plural). On top of that there are rules for how sounds change when words come together, called sandhi rules, and these sound changes are written.All of this needs to come into play in every sentence you write, no matter how simple, like, "The man goes to the village." First you find the singular masculine nomitive of "man". Then you find the accusative singular of "village". Then you conjugate "goes". Then you put them together and see if sandhi rules apply where the words come together. Oh and you have to write this all in Devanagari script, and Devanagari has about 45 basic letters which can combine together into about 200 variations.Finally, Sandhi rules often join two words together when written so very often not only has a word's spelling changed, but it's now joined to the following word(s).So there's no easy way to get started in simple Sanskrit. Everything you write must go through the process of conjugation and sandhi formation. It's not like learning Spanish where you can start saying basic things correctly in the first chapter and start making basic correct sentences within a couple of weeks. No, not at all.No matter what you do, it's not going to be easy.And with this book, I was able to get going, without a teacher or class and it's not painful. It's slow and takes effort but it works. If any book can achieve that, for a language with the difficulties that are present in Sanskrit, I think that speaks very highly of the book. That's why I'm giving this five stars.I think this book may be unsatisfactory for someone who already speaks Latin or ancient Greek, because you've already seen all these conjugation tables and Sanskrit conjugations will not be totally unfamiliar to you. It's an Indo-European languages and you can see similarities to English and other European languages everywhere.I also think that this book will be overwhelming and overkill for someone who does yoga and wants to get a few Sanskrit words and phrases as an addition to the yoga practice. If that's what you want, find the phrases or words you want to learn and learn them, but don't try to get into the overwhelming complexities of Sanskrit grammar / declension / sandhi / devanagari which you need to master in order to say anything at all.Expect to spend a couple of years of study of this book and Part II to be able to read and write in Sanskrit.

Sanskrit is naturally of interest to anyone who is fascinated by the Indo-European (IE) language group, as it was the discovery of Sanskrit that first brought the common features of IE languages into focus. The Sanskrit numbers for 1-10 (eke, dvi, tri, catur, panca, sas, sapta, asta, nava, and dasa) echo their equivalents in French, German, Russian (odin, dva, tri, chitire, pyat, sest, sem, vosem, devit, decit), and English. The author gives a clear introduction to the Devanagari alphabet (which means "city of the gods" in Sanskrit), which is also the alphabet used in the modern Indian language Hindu.Sanskrit grammar is complex, with noun declension encompassing eight cases (nominative, accusative, instrumental, dative, ablative, genitive, locative, and instrumental), so the author really has his work cut out him for him--but he introduces this difficult grammar in well measured lessons so that the student is not unduly intimidated. There is a list of vocabulary for each of the eighteen chapters of this book. There are also exercises with a complete set of answers at the back of the book. The book itself has a large footprint, which allows for a large typeface that facilitates the reading of the somewhat ornate and unfamiliar Devanagari alphabet.In addition to the usual grammatical complexities that one encounters in a foreign language, Sanskrit has a function that I have not seen elsewhere, the explicit modification of the spelling of the end of a word in order to blend easily with the sound of the word following it--which in Sanskrit is called "sandhi", which means something like "combination" or "joining point." The author begins the discussion of sandhi in Chapter 8, which is before even half of the text of the 18 Chapters has passed.It is also worth noting that appendices constitute one third of the pages of the book. I regard this as a very good feature, as tables, indexes, and the answers to exercises in most books seem like little more than an afterthought. Such is not the case here, however, so that the student can easily find what he is looking for and refresh his memory without having to laboriously thumb through previous chapters.

Egenes' Introduction to Sanskrit, Part I is a well-written primer for the study of Sanskrit. I bought this item as a relearning tool for learning Sanskrit, which I studied in college. When I took Sanskrit on the University level, I had a relatively difficult time learning the language in the classroom setting. As I picked up this book, I really needed something that would really lay out the best possible way to self-study an historical language.The good:- 18 lessons lined out in a clear and concise way.- List of relevant vocabulary and aligned gramamar.- Much assistance with the formation of the "devanagari" script.- List of exercises covering the grammar and vocabulary of chapter with answers given in the back of the book.- A summary list of grammar and vocabulary learned in culminating chapters given after most lessons (1-10).The bad:- Many of the exercises have answers given in the back of the book that can have multiple answers or answers, which may need more explanation to them. For self-study, this can be challenging, as you may be confused on whether or not your answer to the exercise is also correct. If you have a teacher, this may not be so much of an issue, but when you only have the book as a reference, it may be difficult.- May be somewhat difficult to use if you do not have exposure to other historical language, such as Latin and Greek.Overall, I am pleased with this book and recommend it for someone, who would like to learn this beautiful language.

A mixture that is of the over-simplification of grammatical analysis yet with an insistence on presenting that very analysis through traditional terms, layout and concepts used by the Indian grammarians across the centuries. And it adopts a stern didactic approach in its teaching methods - this is certainly no exhaustive reference book but rather a school/college course written in accordance with Egenes' own views on how the subject-matter should be prioritized and communicated.It is both a course ( there is a separate Part 2 on sale ) for beginners and yet not for beginners - if that is not too paradoxical ! I mean this is light-years away from learning Spanish or German - or even beginning Latin. I would not recommend for personal tuition without the benefit of class support and teacher feedback.Two final observations (i) the devanagari script is large indeed and very clear but (ii) there are sadly quite a few bad spelling errors within the English text - I believe the book is printed in India and may not have been evenly proof-read.

Mr Egenes has produced a superb introduction to this difficult language. The nagari alphabet and sandhi are introduced slowly and almost painlessly over 18 skilfully consructed chapters each one containing easily assimilable sections on grammar, alphabet, and vocabulary. The reason behind sandhi is explained so that it becomes possible to forecast some of the phonetic changes for yourself without referring to the text (always best to check at first though!). Learing Sanskrit will never be easy but this introduction is unlikely to be surpassed and having completed it you will be equipped to use all those other Sanskrit books that you found too difficult as well as moving on to Mr Egenes' "Introduction to Sanskrit, Pt 2" which goes deeper into the grammar by studying a different part of the Bhagavad Gita in each chapter.

I found this book easy to use and have improved my Sanskrit knowledge from it. Each chapter introduces new material in realistic steps. The biggest challenge is to learn the Devanagari script early on, as you need to know it from Chapter 7, which is after the 1st quarter of the book.The book is also valuable as a reference and I will probably make use of this book for as long as I am interested in Sanskrit. Therefore it is a good investment for anyone interested in Sanskrit.

I love this book. I have tried to study Sanskrit before but always found it too difficult. With the help of this book I can see myself going through with the learning. The one thing that is missing is a CD with reading of the text to help with pronunciation.

Sanskrit is hard. You would need to supplement this book with tuition or online help.