Sanskrit (saṃskṛtam संस्कृतम्) is a classical language of India and a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It has a position in India and Southeast Asia similar to that of Latin and Greek in Medieval Europe, and is a central part of Hindu tradition. Sanskrit is one of the 22 official languages of India. Sanskrit is taught in schools and households th ...

Including:

• Sanskrit - History
• Sanskrit - Vedic Sanskrit
• Sanskrit - Classical Sanskrit
• Sanskrit - European Scholarship
• Sanskrit - Phonology and writing system
• Sanskrit - Vowels
• Sanskrit - Consonants
• Sanskrit - Phonology
• Sanskrit - Pitch
• Sanskrit - Sandhi
• Sanskrit - Script
• Sanskrit - Grammar
• Sanskrit - Grammatical tradition
• Sanskrit - Verbs
• Sanskrit - Verbs: Conjugation
• Sanskrit - Nominal inflection
• Sanskrit - Personal Pronouns and Determiners
• Sanskrit - Compounds
• Sanskrit - Syntax
• Sanskrit - Numerals
• Sanskrit - Influence
• Sanskrit - Modern-day India
• Sanskrit - Interactions with Sino-Tibetan languages
• Sanskrit - Western vogue for Sanskrit
• Sanskrit - Computational linguistics

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Malayalam (മലയാളം malayāḷaṁ) is the language of the state of Kerala, in southern India. It is one of the 22 official languages of India, spoken by around 30 million people. A person who speaks Malayalam is called a "Malayali" (or rarely, a "Keralite"). It belongs to the family of Dravidian languages. Both the language and its writing system are closely related to Tam ...

Including:

• Malayalam language - Evolution
• Malayalam language - Development of literature
• Malayalam language - The script
• Malayalam language - Language variation and external influence
• Malayalam language - Trivia

Read more here: » Malayalam language: Encyclopedia - Malayalam language

Classical Sanskrit distinguishes 48 sounds. Some of these, are, however, allophones. The number of phonemes is smaller, at about 35, see below. The sounds are traditionally listed in the order vowels, diphthongs, anusvara and visarga, stops and nasals (starting in the back of the mouth and moving forward), and finally the liquids and fricatives, written in IAST as follows (see the tables below for details): See also:

Sanskrit, Sanskrit - History, Sanskrit - Vedic Sanskrit, Sanskrit - Classical Sanskrit, Sanskrit - European Scholarship, Sanskrit - Phonology and writing system, Sanskrit - Vowels, Sanskrit - Consonants, Sanskrit - Phonology, Sanskrit - Pitch, Sanskrit - Script, Sanskrit - Grammar, Sanskrit - Grammatical tradition, Sanskrit - Verbs, Sanskrit - Verbs: Conjugation, Sanskrit - Nominal inflection, Sanskrit - Personal Pronouns and Determiners, Sanskrit - Compounds, Sanskrit - Syntax, Sanskrit - Numerals, Sanskrit - Influence, Sanskrit - Modern-day India, Sanskrit - Interactions with Sino-Tibetan languages, Sanskrit - Western vogue for Sanskrit, Sanskrit - Computational linguistics

Read more here: » Sanskrit: Encyclopedia II - Sanskrit - Phonology and writing system

Brahmic scripts are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India, which in turn is believed to be descended from a Semitic script, thus they probably have a common ancestor with the European scripts. However, some academics (see references in Rastogi 1980:88-98) believe that the Viramkhol inscription is conclusive evidence that Brahmi had indigenous origins, probably from the Indus Valley (or Harappan) script. The most prominent member of the family is Devanagari, which is used to write several languages of India and Nepal, inclu ...

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Brahmic family, Brahmic family - History, Brahmic family - List of Brahmic Scripts encoded in Unicode, Brahmic family - Other Brahmic Scripts

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The Tamil alphabet has 12 vowels and 18 consonants. These combine to form 216 compound characters. There is one special character (aaytha ezutthu), giving a total of 247 characters. Tamil language - Vowels. The vowels are called uyir ezhuthu (uyir - life, ezhuthu - letter). The vowels are classified into short and lon ...

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Tamil language, Tamil language - History, Tamil language - Classification, Tamil language - Geographic distribution, Tamil language - Legal status, Tamil language - Spoken and literary variants, Tamil language - Dialects, Tamil language - Writing system, Tamil language - Sounds, Tamil language - Vowels, Tamil language - Consonants, Tamil language - Special character, Tamil language - Phonology, Tamil language - Grammar, Tamil language - Parts of speech, Tamil language - Sentence structure, Tamil language - Vocabulary, Tamil language - Examples

Read more here: » Tamil language: Encyclopedia II - Tamil language - Sounds

Brahmic scripts are descended from the Brāhmī script of ancient India, which in turn is believed to be descended from a Semitic script, thus they probably have a common ancestor with the European scripts. However, some academics (see references in Rastogi 1980:88-98) believe that the Viramkhol inscription is conclusive evidence that Brahmi had indigenous origins, probably from the Indus Valley (or Harappan) script. The most prominent member of the family is Devanagari, which is used to write several languages of India and Nepal, inc ...

See also:

Brahmic family, Brahmic family - History, Brahmic family - List of Brahmic Scripts encoded in Unicode, Brahmic family - Other Brahmic Scripts

Read more here: » Brahmic family: Encyclopedia II - Brahmic family - History

With Tamil, Kota, Kodava Thakk and Kannada, Malayalam belongs to the southern group of Dravidian languages. Its affinity to Tamil is the most striking. Proto-Tamil Malayalam, the common stock of Tamil and Malayalam apparently disintegrated over a period of four of five centuries from the ninth century on, resulting in the emergence of Malayalam as a language distinct from Tamil. As the language of scholarship and administration Tamil greatly influenced the early development of Malayalam. Later the irresistible inroads the Namboothiris made i ...

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Malayalam language, Malayalam language - Evolution, Malayalam language - Development of literature, Malayalam language - The script, Malayalam language - Language variation and external influence, Malayalam language - Trivia

Read more here: » Malayalam language: Encyclopedia II - Malayalam language - Evolution

Classical Sanskrit distinguishes 48 sounds. Some of these, are, however, allophones. The number of phonemes is smaller, at about 35, see below. The sounds are traditionally listed in the order vowels, diphthongs, anusvara and visarga, stops and nasals (starting in the back of the mouth and moving forward), and finally the liquids and fricatives, written in IAST as follows (see the tables below for details): See also:

Sanskrit, Sanskrit - History, Sanskrit - Vedic Sanskrit, Sanskrit - Classical Sanskrit, Sanskrit - European Scholarship, Sanskrit - Phonology and writing system, Sanskrit - Vowels, Sanskrit - Consonants, Sanskrit - Phonology, Sanskrit - Pitch, Sanskrit - Sandhi, Sanskrit - Script, Sanskrit - Grammar, Sanskrit - Grammatical tradition, Sanskrit - Verbs, Sanskrit - Verbs: Conjugation, Sanskrit - Nominal inflection, Sanskrit - Personal Pronouns and Determiners, Sanskrit - Compounds, Sanskrit - Syntax, Sanskrit - Numerals, Sanskrit - Influence, Sanskrit - Modern-day India, Sanskrit - Interactions with Sino-Tibetan languages, Sanskrit - Western vogue for Sanskrit, Sanskrit - Computational linguistics

Read more here: » Sanskrit: Encyclopedia II - Sanskrit - Phonology and writing system

A sample passage in Tamil script with a Romanised transcription: ஆசிரியர் வகுப்பறையுள் நுழைந்தார். அவர் உள்ளே நுழைந்தவுடன் மாணவர்கள் எழுந்தனர். வளவன் மட்டும் தன் அருகில் நின்றுகொண்டிருந்த மாணவி கனிமொழியுடன் பேசிக் கொண்டிருந்தான். நான் அ� ...

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Tamil language, Tamil language - History, Tamil language - Classification, Tamil language - Geographic distribution, Tamil language - Legal status, Tamil language - Spoken and literary variants, Tamil language - Dialects, Tamil language - Writing system, Tamil language - Sounds, Tamil language - Vowels, Tamil language - Consonants, Tamil language - Special character, Tamil language - Phonology, Tamil language - Grammar, Tamil language - Parts of speech, Tamil language - Sentence structure, Tamil language - Vocabulary, Tamil language - Examples

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Modern Tamil vocabulary still retains most of the words from classical Tamil. Due to this and because of the emphasis on learning classical works like Tirukkural, classical Tamil is comprehensible in various degrees to most native speakers of today. However, a number of Sanskrit loan words have been adapted and used commonly in modern Tamil. But, unlike some other Dravidian languages, these words are restricted mainly to spiritual terminology and abstract nouns. Besides Sanskrit, there are a few loan words from Persian and Arabic implying tr ...

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Tamil language, Tamil language - History, Tamil language - Classification, Tamil language - Geographic distribution, Tamil language - Legal status, Tamil language - Spoken and literary variants, Tamil language - Dialects, Tamil language - Writing system, Tamil language - Sounds, Tamil language - Vowels, Tamil language - Consonants, Tamil language - Special character, Tamil language - Phonology, Tamil language - Grammar, Tamil language - Parts of speech, Tamil language - Sentence structure, Tamil language - Vocabulary, Tamil language - Examples

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The earliest written record of Malayalam is the vazhappalli inscription (ca. 830 AD). The early literature of Malayalam comprised three types of composition: Classical songs known as /Pattu/ of the Tamil tradition Manipravalam/ of the Sanskrit tradition, which permitted a generous interspersing of Sanskrit with Malayalam The folk song rich in native elements Malayalam poetry to the late twentieth century betrays varying degrees of the fusion of the three different strands. The oldest examples of /Pattu/ and Manipravalam respectively are /ra ...

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Malayalam language, Malayalam language - Evolution, Malayalam language - Development of literature, Malayalam language - The script, Malayalam language - Language variation and external influence, Malayalam language - Trivia

Read more here: » Malayalam language: Encyclopedia II - Malayalam language - Development of literature

Sanskrit - Grammatical tradition. Main article: Sanskrit grammarians Sanskrit grammatical tradition (vyākaraṇa, one of the six Vedanga disciplines) begins in late Vedic India, and culminates in the See also:

Sanskrit, Sanskrit - History, Sanskrit - Vedic Sanskrit, Sanskrit - Classical Sanskrit, Sanskrit - European Scholarship, Sanskrit - Phonology and writing system, Sanskrit - Vowels, Sanskrit - Consonants, Sanskrit - Phonology, Sanskrit - Pitch, Sanskrit - Script, Sanskrit - Grammar, Sanskrit - Grammatical tradition, Sanskrit - Verbs, Sanskrit - Verbs: Conjugation, Sanskrit - Nominal inflection, Sanskrit - Personal Pronouns and Determiners, Sanskrit - Compounds, Sanskrit - Syntax, Sanskrit - Numerals, Sanskrit - Influence, Sanskrit - Modern-day India, Sanskrit - Interactions with Sino-Tibetan languages, Sanskrit - Western vogue for Sanskrit, Sanskrit - Computational linguistics

Read more here: » Sanskrit: Encyclopedia II - Sanskrit - Grammar

Sanskrit - Modern-day India. Sanskrit's greatest influence, presumably, is that which it exerted on languages that grew from its vocabulary and grammatical base. Especially among elite circles in India, Sanskrit is prized as a storehouse of scripture and the language of prayers in Hinduism. Like Latin's influence on European languages, Sanskrit has influenced most Indian languages. While vernacular prayer is common, Sanskrit mantras are recited by millions of Hindus and most temple functions are conducted entirel ...

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Sanskrit, Sanskrit - History, Sanskrit - Vedic Sanskrit, Sanskrit - Classical Sanskrit, Sanskrit - European Scholarship, Sanskrit - Phonology and writing system, Sanskrit - Vowels, Sanskrit - Consonants, Sanskrit - Phonology, Sanskrit - Pitch, Sanskrit - Script, Sanskrit - Grammar, Sanskrit - Grammatical tradition, Sanskrit - Verbs, Sanskrit - Verbs: Conjugation, Sanskrit - Nominal inflection, Sanskrit - Personal Pronouns and Determiners, Sanskrit - Compounds, Sanskrit - Syntax, Sanskrit - Numerals, Sanskrit - Influence, Sanskrit - Modern-day India, Sanskrit - Interactions with Sino-Tibetan languages, Sanskrit - Western vogue for Sanskrit, Sanskrit - Computational linguistics

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Much of Tamil grammar is extensively described in the oldest available grammar book for Tamil, the Tolkāppiyam. Modern Tamil writing is largely based on the 13th century grammar Naṉṉūl which restated and clarified the rules of the Tolkāppiyam, with some modifications. Traditional Tamil grammar consists of five parts, namely eḻuttu, col, porul, yāppu, aṇi. Of these, the last two are mostly applicable in poetry. Tamil, like other Dravidian languages, is an aggluti ...

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Tamil language, Tamil language - History, Tamil language - Classification, Tamil language - Geographic distribution, Tamil language - Legal status, Tamil language - Spoken and literary variants, Tamil language - Dialects, Tamil language - Writing system, Tamil language - Sounds, Tamil language - Vowels, Tamil language - Consonants, Tamil language - Special character, Tamil language - Phonology, Tamil language - Grammar, Tamil language - Parts of speech, Tamil language - Sentence structure, Tamil language - Vocabulary, Tamil language - Examples

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The adjective saṃskṛta- means "refined, consecrated, sanctified". The language referred to as saṃskṛtā vāk "the refined language" has by definition always been a 'high' language, used for religious and scientific discourse and contrasted with ...

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Sanskrit, Sanskrit - History, Sanskrit - Vedic Sanskrit, Sanskrit - Classical Sanskrit, Sanskrit - European Scholarship, Sanskrit - Phonology and writing system, Sanskrit - Vowels, Sanskrit - Consonants, Sanskrit - Phonology, Sanskrit - Pitch, Sanskrit - Script, Sanskrit - Grammar, Sanskrit - Grammatical tradition, Sanskrit - Verbs, Sanskrit - Verbs: Conjugation, Sanskrit - Nominal inflection, Sanskrit - Personal Pronouns and Determiners, Sanskrit - Compounds, Sanskrit - Syntax, Sanskrit - Numerals, Sanskrit - Influence, Sanskrit - Modern-day India, Sanskrit - Interactions with Sino-Tibetan languages, Sanskrit - Western vogue for Sanskrit, Sanskrit - Computational linguistics

Read more here: » Sanskrit: Encyclopedia II - Sanskrit - History

Variations in intonation patterns, vocabulary, and distribution of grammatical and phonological elements are observable along the parameters of region, religion, community, occupation, social stratum, style and register. Influence of Sanskrit is most prominent in the Hindu high caste dialects and least in the lower caste dialects like most other Indian languages. Loan words from English, Syriac, Hebrew, Latin, and Portuguese abound in the Christian dialects and those from Arabic and Urdu in the muslim dialects. Malayalam has borrowed from Sa ...

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Malayalam language, Malayalam language - Evolution, Malayalam language - Development of literature, Malayalam language - The script, Malayalam language - Language variation and external influence, Malayalam language - Trivia

Read more here: » Malayalam language: Encyclopedia II - Malayalam language - Language variation and external influence

The word saṃskṛta means "refined, consecrated, sanctified". The language referred to as saṃskṛtā vāk "the refined language" has by definition always been a 'high' language, used for religious and scientific discourse and contrasted with the la ...

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Sanskrit, Sanskrit - History, Sanskrit - Vedic Sanskrit, Sanskrit - Classical Sanskrit, Sanskrit - European Scholarship, Sanskrit - Phonology and writing system, Sanskrit - Vowels, Sanskrit - Consonants, Sanskrit - Phonology, Sanskrit - Pitch, Sanskrit - Sandhi, Sanskrit - Script, Sanskrit - Grammar, Sanskrit - Grammatical tradition, Sanskrit - Verbs, Sanskrit - Verbs: Conjugation, Sanskrit - Nominal inflection, Sanskrit - Personal Pronouns and Determiners, Sanskrit - Compounds, Sanskrit - Syntax, Sanskrit - Numerals, Sanskrit - Influence, Sanskrit - Modern-day India, Sanskrit - Interactions with Sino-Tibetan languages, Sanskrit - Western vogue for Sanskrit, Sanskrit - Computational linguistics

Read more here: » Sanskrit: Encyclopedia II - Sanskrit - History

Sanskrit - Grammatical tradition. Sanskrit grammatical tradition (vyākaraṇa, one of the six Vedanga disciplines) begins in late Vedic India, and culminates in the Aṣṭādhyāyī of See also:

Sanskrit, Sanskrit - History, Sanskrit - Vedic Sanskrit, Sanskrit - Classical Sanskrit, Sanskrit - European Scholarship, Sanskrit - Phonology and writing system, Sanskrit - Vowels, Sanskrit - Consonants, Sanskrit - Phonology, Sanskrit - Pitch, Sanskrit - Sandhi, Sanskrit - Script, Sanskrit - Grammar, Sanskrit - Grammatical tradition, Sanskrit - Verbs, Sanskrit - Verbs: Conjugation, Sanskrit - Nominal inflection, Sanskrit - Personal Pronouns and Determiners, Sanskrit - Compounds, Sanskrit - Syntax, Sanskrit - Numerals, Sanskrit - Influence, Sanskrit - Modern-day India, Sanskrit - Interactions with Sino-Tibetan languages, Sanskrit - Western vogue for Sanskrit, Sanskrit - Computational linguistics

Read more here: » Sanskrit: Encyclopedia II - Sanskrit - Grammar

The Unicode range for Tamil is U+0B80 ... U+0BFF. ...

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Tamil script, Tamil script - The Tamil letters, Tamil script - Basic Consonants, Tamil script - Borrowed consonants, Tamil script - Vowels, Tamil script - Tamil in Unicode

Read more here: » Tamil script: Encyclopedia II - Tamil script - Tamil in Unicode

Like the other Dravidian languages, but unlike most of the other established literary languages of India, the origins of Tamil are independent of Sanskrit. Tamil has the longest unbroken literary tradition amongst the Dravidian languages. Tamil tradition dates the oldest works to several millennia ago, but the earliest examples of Tamil writing we have today are in inscriptions from the 3rd century BCE, which are written in an adapted form of the Brahmi script (Mahadevan, 2003), though many linguists see coded Tamil words in deciphering Indu ...

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Tamil language, Tamil language - History, Tamil language - Classification, Tamil language - Geographic distribution, Tamil language - Legal status, Tamil language - Spoken and literary variants, Tamil language - Dialects, Tamil language - Writing system, Tamil language - Sounds, Tamil language - Vowels, Tamil language - Consonants, Tamil language - Special character, Tamil language - Phonology, Tamil language - Grammar, Tamil language - Parts of speech, Tamil language - Sentence structure, Tamil language - Vocabulary, Tamil language - Examples

Read more here: » Tamil language: Encyclopedia II - Tamil language - History

Tamil is a member of the Tamil language family, which includes the Irula, Kaikadi, Betta Kurumba, Sholaga, and Yerukula languages. This group is a subgroup of the Tamil-Malayalam languages, which falls under a subgroup of the Tamil-Kodagu languages, which in turn is a subgroup of the Tamil-Kannada languages. The Tamil-Kannada languages belong to the southern branch of the Dravidian language family. Malayalam, spoken by the people of Kerala state (which borders Tamil Nadu) closely resemble ...

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Tamil language, Tamil language - History, Tamil language - Classification, Tamil language - Geographic distribution, Tamil language - Legal status, Tamil language - Spoken and literary variants, Tamil language - Dialects, Tamil language - Writing system, Tamil language - Sounds, Tamil language - Vowels, Tamil language - Consonants, Tamil language - Special character, Tamil language - Phonology, Tamil language - Grammar, Tamil language - Parts of speech, Tamil language - Sentence structure, Tamil language - Vocabulary, Tamil language - Examples

Read more here: » Tamil language: Encyclopedia II - Tamil language - Classification