Lesson 2

Simple Sanskrit – Lesson 2

सरलं संस्कृतम् – द्वितीयः पाठः ।

Sentences in the first lesson were simple. Yet simplest sentence in any language is a single-word sentence, which is often in imperative mood. For example ‘Go’. Although it is a sentence with single word, which is a verb, the subject is implicit. “Go” means “(You) go”.

In Sanskrit also, it would be a single-word sentence, गच्छ. But if one is addressing two people to go, one would say गच्छतम् and if one is addressing more than two persons, then गच्छत.

Addressing anybody in the second person is not considered good linguistic etiquette. In Sanskrit there is a respectful pronoun of the second person and it takes verbs in third person ! The pronoun is भवत्. This pronoun also has structuring according to gender and number. So the pronoun-forms become as in Table 1 below.

Table 2-1