[INDOLOGY] List of paninian equivalents of western grammatical terms for sanskrit

Thu Sep 5 15:16:29 UTC 2024

Dear Jan and Andrew,

I see no problem with equating, say, dvitīyā with accusative, if all we are doing is comparing case marking and if we are focusing on Sanskrit. Problems arise in two ways: Not every expected case marking in languages like English or German corrrdonds to the same case marking in Sanskrit (as in Jan’s example with yaj-); that’s an inevitable problem in translating (no matter how well we explain things, students have to simply accept that different languages construe things differently). The other issue is that equating accusative with dvitīyā tells only part of the story, since Sanskrit has the sophisticated system of vibhaktis vs kārakas to which there is no precise counterpart in traditional western grammars, and some approaches may even operate either more abstract notions such as logical accusative rather than logical or underlying object, and others try to solve the “problem” by enumerating different “fuctions” of the “accusative”, such as object or adverbial.

So, in short, as long as we don’t expect anything more than corresponding terms for case marking there should be no problem

All the best

Hans Henrich

On Sep 5, 2024, at 08:51, Jan E.M. Houben via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

Dear Andrew,
this is a nice list of approximate equivalents or equivalents under certain conditions.
The list is misleading (in both directions) if the =- signs are taken too literally.
As the list is attached to an online grammar the user should be able to find out that a word ending in dvitīyā may have other functions than the 'accusative' and the 'accusative' may be expressed by other vibhaktis than the second (cp. in classical Sanskrit yaj 'sacrifice' in the sentence indram ajena yajati "to Indra he sacrifices a goat"). And the (partial) equivalence only works if 'accusative' is taken as a flat indication of a case ending, forgetting the conceptual basis of the term 'accusative'. Nor is ṣaṣṭhī simply the 'genitive', etc.  (Mutatis mutandis this applies to terms such as 'optative' etc.).
Among printed Sanskrit grammars for students I believe that Devavāṇīpraveśikā<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://sanskritstudio.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/review-of-devavanipravesika-by-robert-p-goldman/*:*:text=Sutherland*20Goldman*20is*20a*20typical,serve*20as*20a*20reference*20book.__;I34lJSUlJSUlJQ!!DZ3fjg!6DMs1-4qH_cla8XEYi9phkbNO1rPfaa-xhLnVwPVshGCYmE8LlHYGEeRoT5UqUTVaX3KQPqn2kyZmg1-Shp806WANDi6$> by Goldman & Goldman is one of the first to give *again* Sanskrit grammatical terms for Sanskrit students at the introductory level.
*again*: Historically, introductions to Sanskrit since the nineteenth century are rather characterized by gradually filtering out Sanskrit grammatical terms (compare Max Mueller's 1870 Sanskrit grammar for beginners with the "New and abridged edition" of Max Mueller's grammar prepared by Macdonell and published in 1886). R G Bhandarkar in his  First Book of Sanskrit and Second Book of Sanskrit (from 1860s) tried to adopt "the terminology of the English Grammarians of Sanskrit" while "strictly following Panini, as explained by Bhattoji Dikshita in his Siddhantakaumudi" (unfortunately without giving a concordance of English and Sanskrit grammatical terms).

Best,
Jan Houben

On Thu, 5 Sept 2024 at 09:28, Andrew Ollett via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:
It is in no way complete/comprehensive, but I have a list here:

http://prakrit.info/vrddhi/grammar/#glossary<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://prakrit.info/vrddhi/grammar/*glossary__;Iw!!DZ3fjg!6DMs1-4qH_cla8XEYi9phkbNO1rPfaa-xhLnVwPVshGCYmE8LlHYGEeRoT5UqUTVaX3KQPqn2kyZmg1-Shp80wZUCX_z$>

On Thu, Sep 5, 2024 at 3:20 AM rajam via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:
I’m also interested in this endeavor.

I’d like to have a Standard / most used / most needed list of Western Grammatical terms, so I can provide Tolkappiyan (tolkāppiyan) equivalents from the South for interested scholars.

Thanks and regards,
rajam

> On Sep 3, 2024, at 9:58 PM, Harry Spier via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:
>
> Dear list members,
> Have any members made a list of western grammatical terms and their paninian equivalents (preferably a searchable word document).  Abhyankar's Dictionary of Sanskrit Grammar is good for getting the western grammatical terms, when you know the Paninian  term, but I need a list going the other way , where given a western sanskrit grammatical term such as for example: "accusative, gerund, gerundive, optative" etc. etc. you can find the equivalent paninian term .
>
> Thanks,
> Harry Spier
>
>
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--

Jan E.M. Houben

Directeur d'Études, Professor of South Asian History and Philology

Sources et histoire de la tradition sanskrite

École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE, Paris Sciences et Lettres)

Sciences historiques et philologiques

Groupe de recherches en études indiennes (EA 2120)

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