Sanskrit died out long ago as an actively spoken language. It now only is of scientific value. That is what many people believe, turning their backs on the ancestor of the Indo-European languages.
In India, however, the language is still alive among the descendants of the Brahmins. A young Indian woman told me that her knowledge of Sanskrit actually helps her learn German.
Relationships between Languages
In Germany, we mainly learn other European languages at school. We already notice differences when learning French and English. The European branch of the Indo-European language family has many branches: Romance (e.g. French, Italian, Spanish), Germanic (e.g. German, English). Other branches are the Slavic (e.g. Russian, Polish) and Nordic languages (e.g. Danish, Swedish), as well as Greek and Albanian, which are not related to other languages. These languages are related to other languages of the Indo-Aryan language family as Indo-European languages. These include Hindi and other languages of northern India, Urdu spoken in Pakistan, and Pashto from Afghanistan. All these languages have in common that they have a case system and their verbs change according to person and tense. However, the details of these grammatical rules vary widely. There are languages with nine different cases and a variety of verb forms, or the other extreme of few verb forms and barely recognizable cases. An example of the latter is English.
Sanskrit: first written grammar
Sanskrit is also the first language whose grammatical rules were laid down in writing. The Indian philosopher Panini, who lived in the 4th or 5th century BC, described the grammar of Sanskrit in around 4,000 rules, the correct application of which was intended to function like a language computer. However, until the end of last year, the system remained a mystery. An Indian student solved it: with eight different cases, there are often conflicts as to which rules should be applied. He has now discovered the pattern that resolves these conflicts: the rules for the end of a word take precedence over the rules for the beginning of a word. This meta-rule is now being thouroughly tested. If proven to be correct, it will have a huge influence on the study of Sanskrit texts and Indology.
Grammar: A system as regular as a computer program?
One might think that grammar rules actually function like a computer program for constructing correct sentences and texts. It certainly worked for Sanskrit. But when learning a new language, we have all made quite different experiences. And when we asked the teacher, “Why doesn’t this mean…?” we had to be satisfied with the answer: “That’s an exception.” And in English, there seem to be more exceptions than regularities.
Who isn’t familiar with regular and irregular verbs in various languages… Different verb groups could provide some help in cleaning up the mess. And what about sentence structure? Here, too, different rules apply to declarative sentences, subordinate clauses, interrogative sentences, and imperative sentences…
Unfortunately, when learning foreign languages at school, grammar is presented in small puzzle pieces. It takes several years for students to begin to see the big picture. Some people get frustrated and even give up because they don’t have an overview of how everything fits together.
Grammar at GaLaLea
At GaLaLea, we have recognized this problem. As Vera F. Birkenbihl said: It is not necessary to cram vocabulary and memorize grammar rules. On the one hand, we only offer new vocabulary in the context of a text or dialogue. On the other hand, we guide students to discover the grammar rules themselves using a large number of examples. This also makes clear how things are interrelated. This way, you learn to understand the logics of the new language and can apply it. Language learning then becomes like a journey of discovery. And every new discovery makes learners happy and curious about the next one.