Go and see

Now I am a language learner - not Java or C. I consider myself to have mastered all those. No, I am learning human languages.

Oh, I tried it earlier. I tried learning French. Could not pronounce it. Tried learning German. Did not like it.

I hope, this time it is different. Because at least for Sanskrit, I have learning buddies. We discuss the topics twice a week.

Now let us compare the two languages Sanskrit and Latin. Both are dead. Ok, ok, I don't want to offend people. Both languages are no longer spoken in any country. Both are origins for many other languages. Latin for western languages and Sanskrit for Indian languages.

And both are difficult. Quite difficult. (Because there are no IDEs and auto-completes. Right?)

Here are the how verbs change in Sanskrit. Let us take गम - गच्छति

गच्छति   गच्छतः गच्छन्ति     
गच्छसि गच्छथः  गच्छथ
गच्छामि गच्छावः गच्छामः

Oh my god? What are these? Am I writing some type of shloka praying to please walking God (because of my bad knees)?

No, these are how we use the verbs in Sanskrit.

Let me re-write the table with some help.

गच्छति   गच्छतः गच्छन्ति      he/she/it     they both    they
गच्छसि  गच्छथः  गच्छथ         you             you both    you all
गच्छामि गच्छावः गच्छामः       I                 we both     we all


OK, now it makes sense a little bit. So these are how the verb ending change for different numbers and different persons (first person/ second person and third person).  In Sanskrit these are called uttama purusha (I/we),  madhyama purusha (you), prathama purusha (he/she/it/they).

Here is a unique feature of Sanskrit. It has a form called as dvivachana (dual form). So for all three persons mentioned above, there are ekvachana (singular), dvivachana(dual) and bahuvachana(plural)


So here are some examples using the same verb.

रामः गच्छति    Rama goes
सीता गच्छति     Sita goes
वाहनं गच्छति     Vehicle goes
बालौ गच्छतः     Two boys go
बालाः गच्छन्ति   Boys go

अहम् गच्छामि     I go
आवाम  गच्छावः  We both go
वयं गच्छामः        We go

त्वं गच्छसि          You go
युवां  गच्छथः       You both go
यूयं  गच्छथ         You all go

Where is every one going? No idea.

Any way coming back to other language, Latin, the verb forms of Latin are as follows (thank god, I don't have to transliterate. Latin uses same alphabets as English)

video videmus     I see  We see
vides videtis        You see    You all see
videt vident         He/she/it sees    They see

Let us see some examples of seeing

Tuam filiam video  - I see your daughter
Nautam saepe videmus  - we often see the sailor
Casam parvam videt - He sees small house
Insulam vident - they see the island
Tu casam vides -you see a cottage
Insulam videtis - you(plural) see  the island.

Few more sentences from my book, but using habere (have)

Nauta magnam casam habet - sailor has a big cottage
Agricola parvam casam habet - the farmer has a small cottage


Now I am getting all confused. Because I am supposed ask google translate and I am not sure if I am getting good translation.

Anyways.

If the struggle is so much for verb conjugations for simple present tense, will I ever master these (human) languages ever?

I found one similarity.

In latin, the accusative case of noun (the case where noun is object of a sentence) ends with "am"

Nauta casam habet. (Sailor has a cottage)
Nautam videmus. (We see a sailor)

In Sanskrit too, the singular dvitiya vibhakti (accusative case) for akaaraanta pullinga is "am"

अहम् रामम नमामि
विजया  श्लोकं गायति

Hope we will find more similarities like this.