Intermediate Level of Spoken Sanskrit

The knowledge of Sanskrit is very helpful for anyone who is interested in delving into the original texts relating to various subjects from the Indian traditional knowledge systems. This language, however, is often presented as a difficult language to learn for many and moreover as a classical language of the past that is of no special relevance in the contemporary world. Those who have been exposed to it in school often regard it as nothing more than a scoring subject and have little appreciation for the various dimensions of the language. The first part of this course titled ‘Introduction to Basic Spoken Sanskrit’ was offered in August 2018, which generated sufficient interest in the students, many of whom, requested for a follow up class. The objective of this course is to give students a more elaborate foundation of Sanskrit as a living language. It will introduce them to further grammatical structures that will facilitate their understanding of simple texts as well as allow them to use it in daily life. It also seeks to give provide them with a deeper appreciation of the beauty of the different aspects of this language from its sounds to its rich content so that they feel enthused enough to delve further into it.   INTENDED AUDIENCE: This is a language course and therefore it would be relevant for students from different disciplinary backgrounds of science, technology, computer sciences and humanities and social sciences PREREQUISITES:Knowledge of basic Sanskrit OR those who have completed the course on Introduction to Basic Spoken Sanskrit  

COURSE LAYOUT Week 1: Introduction: Some Unique characteristics of Sanskrit,Revision of the main features of Part 1 of Introductionto Basic Spoken Sanskrit,Different verb forms,Daily vocabulary Week 2,3: Introduction of different declensions in the plural and tenses – 1,Daily Vocabulary,Poetic verses, conversations and stories Week 4: Practice with various verbs in different moods and tenses,Summary of the Sentence structures using the plural with different questions Week 5: Introduction of a few more words ending with consonants and their declensions,An Alternative Conjugation of verbs,Dailyvocabulary,Poetic verses, conversations and stories Week 6: Introduction to their different declensions in singular, dual and plural,New verb forms,Daily Vocabulary,Poetic verses, conversationsand stories Week 7: Introduction to Sandhi,Vowel with vowel / Vowel with consonant / Consonant with consonant / Aspirant with vowel or consonant,Poeticverse, reading and comprehension, conversations Week 8: Practice with a variety of word endings, various verbs in different moods and tenses,Summary of the Sentence structures usingthe plural with different questions