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Background-Throat-88 t1_j0t5qp9 wrote

Reply to comment by atre324 in Ancient Grammatical Puzzle That Has Baffled Scientists for 2,500 Years Solved by Cambridge University Student by Superb_Boss289

Hindi helps a lot in learning sanskrit. They have almost same grammar

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theshredder744 t1_j0tdkaj wrote

Yep. If I'm not mistaken Hindi is the closest related language.

Source: All my North Indian friends had no trouble learning it in school, but as a South Indian I barely passed the class 😭

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Terpomo11 t1_j0tnbml wrote

I would be surprised if it's the closest living language to Sanskrit. Usually the most conservative language varieties are ones spoken in relatively out-of-the-way locations and not the widely-spread lingua francas. Like, say, Lithuanian or Icelandic. That said, it's still much closer to Sanskrit than any Dravidian language.

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AdventurousEarth533 t1_j0ubtq1 wrote

Maybe counter point - I speak Kannada (fluent), Hindi (fluent) and Sanskrit (not fluent). From my experience it depends on which flavour of Hindi you speak. For example, Hindi in (purely for the sake of an example), let’s say Hyderabad, is pretty much Urdu. In that case, my Kannada has a higher overlap with Sanskrit. Hindi is not uniform. It has a lot of regional nuances. Perhaps in certain regions Hindi is closer to Sanskrit, but I’m going to say Kannada (other than the written script) is a heck of a lot closer to Sanskrit than many people realise.

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Shay_throwaway t1_j0uhtg8 wrote

Can confirm, I'm a native Kannada speaker (aren't we all lol?) and I honestly had an easier time taking Sanskrit classes as a kid than Hindi classes.

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Terpomo11 t1_j0wgq6g wrote

Doesn't most of Hindi's core vocabulary descend from Sanskrit? Or are the sound changes enough to obscure it?

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PenPineappleAppleInk t1_j0udpcx wrote

A slight counterpoint to this, I speak Telugu which is also a South Indian language but has more Sanskrit influence. I've found that Sanskrit words are more commonly used in everyday language in Telugu than in Hindi. Hindi does use Sanskrit words as well, but while commonly speaking, we often resort to Pali/Prakrit or Urdu words.

I've also noticed something similar with Marathi. Of course, I grew up in Mumbai so my Hindi wasn't as "pure" as the one spoken in North India.

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theshredder744 t1_j0uz55a wrote

That's interesting. Admittedly, I'm not knowledgeable enough to tell the difference between Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Urdu words in conversations.

But I completely agree about how many Sanskrit words are used in Telugu, Kannada, and even Malayalam to an extent. It's always interesting how some words and phrases are the same across borders.

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