Sanskrit

About Sanskrit

Sanskrit is the classical language of ancient India and the language of the Vedas and of many Hindu, Buddhist and Jain texts. Very few people speak it as a first language today, but it is still used in prayer and ritual, taught in schools and universities and listed among the 22 languages of India's constitution. Many words in yoga and meditation, such as asana and mantra, come from Sanskrit.

Sanskrit is written today mostly in Devanagari, the script also used for Hindi, although in the past it was written in many scripts. In Latin letters a line over a vowel, as in ā, marks a long vowel, and long and short vowels change the meaning of a word. Letters with a dot under them, such as ṭ and ḍ, are said with the tongue curled back, and h after a consonant, as in bh, means a puff of breath. Words for modern things, such as bicycle, are recent coinages and may differ between sources.

FamilyIndo-European, Indo-Aryan
Where usedIndia and Nepal, in religion, scholarship and education
Scriptmostly Devanagari today
Codessa (ISO 639-1), san (ISO 639-3)

Classification: Wikidata. Retrieved 26 September 2026.

Scroll to Top