The Roots, Verb-Forms, and Primary Derivatives of the Sanskrit Language: A Supplement to His Sanskrit Grammar...

by William Dwight Whitney

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Genres: Language

270 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

William Dwight Whitney was an American linguist, philologist, and lexicographer known for his work on Sanskrit grammar and Vedic philology as well as his influential view of language as a social institution. He was the first president of the American Philological Association and editor-in-chief of The Century Dictionary.

Whitney revised definitions for the 1864 edition of Webster's American Dictionary, and in 1869 became a founder and first president of the American Philological Association. In the same year he also became Yale's professor of comparative philology. Whitney also gave instruction in French and German in the college until 1867, and in the Sheffield scientific school until 1886. He wrote metrical translations of the Vedas, and numerous papers on the Vedas and linguistics, many of which were collected in the Oriental and Linguistic Studies series (1872–74). He wrote several books on language, and grammar textbooks of English, French, German, and Sanskrit.

His Sanskrit Grammar (1879) is notable in part for the criticism it contains of the Ashtadhyayi, the Sanskrit grammar attributed to Panini. Whitney describes the Ashtadhyayi as "containing the facts of the language cast into the highly artful and difficult form of about four thousand algebraic-like rules (in the statement and arrangement of which brevity alone is had in view at the cost of distinctness and unambiguousness)."

Reviews

[Abdul · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work is excellent for those who are confronting several new roots. It provides the forms, primary conjugations, secondary derivations and some derivatives and connect them with the era of Vedas, Upanishads,Sutras,Jatakas. This is undoubtedly a must have for Sanskrit language lovers.

[Ramesh Abhiraman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Dhaatupatha. No devanagari script, you have to read English transliterated text with diacritical marks. Under each root, the present, perfect, aorist, etc. forms are given, with their English sense. Useful book to reach for to refresh your mind about both the root form to use (compact enough to flip through) and then to read the small paragraph long entry for the correct sanskrit (lut, lot, lat, lung) conjugation or participle.
These Yale Orientology chaps wrote good Sanskrit references.