Sanskrit primer recommendation?

[Guest guest]

Dear John Landahl,

 

If the publication, The Sanskrit Language : An Introductory Grammar & Reader by

Walter Maurer is so prohibitively expensive why do you want to buy? There are so

many books available for learning Sanskrit at most inexpensive rates that you

don't even need to look for expensive books. Even quality & content-wise there

are still better publications available on the subject. Please visit our MLBD

website listed below & then get back. Amazon.com is anytime far more expensive

than anybody. Regards

 

RP Jain

------------

Motilal Banarsidass Publishers

41, U.A. Bungalow Road, Jawahar Nagar

Delhi-110007, (India)

Tel: (011) 23854826, 23858335, 23851985, 23852747

(011) 25795180, 25793423, 25797356

Fax:(011) 23850689, 25797221

Email: mlbd , mail

Website: www.mlbd.com , www.newagebooksindia.com , www.newagemusik.com

 

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-

John Landahl

INDOLOGY

Tuesday, March 06, 2007 9:57 AM

Re: [Y-Indology] Sanskrit primer recommendation?

 

 

On 3/4/07, Mikael Aktor <aktor wrote:

[...]

> What are your suggestions for a modern primer? What material do you use?

 

As a student who has looked at a few different Sanskrit pedagogical

texts in recent years, I liked _The Sanskrit Language: An Introductory

Grammar and Reader_ by Walter Maurer the best (by far).

Unfortunately, it's insanely expensive for no apparent reason ($305 on

Amazon). Does anyone know why this is the case?

 

John Landahl

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Unsigned wrote:

 

> There are no CDs for Aklujkar's book

There are now. I recently got a set of the books and they were accompanied

by several CDs. The only drawback for me is that the sound files are in MP3

format rather than WAV, but it was quite easy to convert them for portable

convenience. The text books themselves are excellent and contain much

useful material and advice to assist beginners.

 

Best wishes,

Stephen Hodge

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY , Robert Zydenbos <indologist wrote:

 

> I learnt Sanskrit from the original German version:

>

> Gonda, Jan. Kurze Elementar-Grammatik der Sanskrit-Sprache. Leiden/Köln:

> Brill (reprinted often). ISBN: 9004007334.

>

> of which there is an English version too. It is very concise, but I

found it

> clear, and we also use it in Munich.

>

>

 

I've been following this discussion with great interest, and also

discussed the various recommendations with some students around here.

 

To exptend the discussion a little bit - basically, there seem to be

two sorts of primers or textbooks:

 

1) Very systematic ones that are more like grammar books, place

emphasis on drills of forms and completeness of patterns, and start

out with Sandhi and Devanagari (e.g. Gonda, Bühler, Stenzler).

 

2) More " procedural " textbooks that focus on building up vocabulary

and confronting students with a living language, that provide

information on grammar gradually, don't give all Sandhi rules in the

beginning and might even introduce Devanagari ligatures only

gradually, and not all of them (the most important ones) in the

beginning (e.g. Goldman, Killingley).

 

I myself was trained the " old " way, with Gonda and Bühler, and I know

that this is still being done at some universities in Germany.

 

The problems that students have been reporting here with the

procedural approach is that they lose track. They don't get a

systematic grip on declinations and conjugations, and have a hard time

piecing all the information together. Grammatic patterns get stretched

out over various teaching units, and information becomes too

fragmentary for them to handle. The advantage of this approach, on the

other hand, is that students do build up a far broader vocabulary, and

get more experience at actually handling it in context rather than in

artificial drill situations.

 

The " old " way, conversely, had the advantage of providing students

with more of a system, yet at the expense of being rather dry;

learning the language this way was not as much pleasure as it could

have been. Vocabulary, especially active vocabulary, wasn't that well

developed either, as was the feeling that Sanskrit comes in many

different flavours ... in addition, having all the patterns drilled

into one's brain at once is fair enough, but it was difficult to

actually keep them in mind (for me personally, impossible).

 

Needless to say, the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches

also depend on the teacher and his or her didactic skills.

 

Without a teacher, for self-study, I'd probably recommend combining

two textbooks, one each of the above categories: a " procedural " one

for learning, and one that more systematically presents grammar for

easier reference. It also seems to me that Sandhi and Devanagari would

better be studied systematically in the very beginning.

 

Best regards,

 

Birgit Kellner

Department for South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies

University of Vienna

Austria