German and Sanskrit Part 2- Few more Similarities and Differences

One interesting point of similarity will be the ordinals and numeric system. German construction is far similar to Sanskrit than to English on this - e.g achtzen (eighteen) and ashtadasan (eighteen), ein und zwanzig (21), zwei und..... drei und....fier und...., eka, dwa, trayo, chatur..binshati, trinshati...etc.  101 is ein und ein hundert... 1001 is ein und ein tausend...compare with Sanskrit eka adhika shatam, eka adhika sahasram etc....

There are few notable similarities as well as differences. 

• Numerals are declined in Sanskrit based on gender - Dau, Dve, Trini Tisrah etc. while in German they do not change based on gender eg. drei Maenner and drei Frauen would be same.
• In Sanskrit the cases are more, combination of the eight cases (including vocative) and the three vacans, along with the three lingas, gives us a very rich vocabulary covering almost everything. German is far poorer. They lack instrumentive (karan), ablasive (pancami), locative (saptami) and vocative (sambodhan) cases. Moreover Germans have the lunxury of not having Dvi Vacan
• Germans, like Sanskrit have a gender for almost every noun. So a German language expert will have to know which noun belongs to which gender. However there is not much defined rule on the gender selection, though some of the nouns may have followed Sanskrit conventions like Kuh (cow, Gau)
• German use article - Der Die Das, etc. (English  The) while Sanskrit  uses none. The articles decline in the same manner as Nouns (based on cases, gender and Singular/Plural)
• Personal pronouns (Mama/Me, Tava/tve, Tasya... and Meiner, Deiner, Seiner) decline in the same manner as Nouns in both the languages
• The adjectives also decline based on Noun
• Verbs - Sanskrit with its ten different types of verbs Present, Past Perfect, Past Aorist, Future, Immediate Future, Immediate Past, Vidhiling, Ashirlang Imperative and the construction with a prefix, root and suffix as well as with the Atmanepad, Ubhayapad and Parasmaipad forms is much superior to other languages in terms of construction. German verbs similar to English are divided into moods and tenses. Moods common to German and Sanskrit are Imperative and Conditional, while Ashirling (benedictive) is absent. German grammar does not distinguish between long past and immediate past and long future and immediate future. Also the concept of Atmanepad and Parasmaipad (thankfully) is absent in German. German has one type of verbs called Modal Auxiliaries which are similar to Vidhiling and Imperative - Ich musse ( I must) and Du Darfst (You should) etc. These modal auxiliaries, like other verbs, are different for different pronoun forms based on 1st, 2nd or 3rd person to which they are associated e.f Ich will (I wish), Wir wollen (we wish). This is similar to Sanskrit where verbs have an ending (suffix) based on  purusha (aham gaccami, tvam gaccasi etc)
• It will be inaccurate to state the Germans lack the Atma or Para distinction. In fact they have something called a reflexive pronoun sich, dich, mir, dir, selbst etc. which performs same function as Atma verbs, although in a more rudimentary way - e.g Ich ziehe mich (I show myself), Sie sitzen sich (You (formal) sit yourself). However they can be used both as Atma or Para depending on whether they use the reflecive pronoun, in that respect we can say that all German verbs are Ubha and the use or non use of the reflexive pronoun determine whether Atma or Para sense are used
• German has a formal and informal You. Formal You is Sie - like Sanskrit Bhavan/Bhavati while informal is Du, like tvam. There is no distinction in terms of gender, i.e. du or Sie can be both male or female while we know that distinction exists in Sanskrit
• If we go deeper into a case, say Dative in German, we'll find that even though conceptually it is similar to Sanskrit, it has a broader utilization, because the number of cases in German are limited. So for instance Locative in Sanskrit  sometimes is represented as Dative in German. A noun indicating a position is Dative in German (while locative/saptami in Sanskrit), and the same noun indicating a change in position or movement is accusative (e.g im Osten Deutschland - dative, while ins Kino - to the Cinema, accusative)
• German prepositions sometimes govern the cases - mit, bei, nach, zu etc, determine whether the case will be dative or accusative. There are some prepositions which can go either way in the sentence construction, depending on certain rules. As far as my knowledge goes, in Sanskrit we follow a completely different set of rules of using the different Karak-Vibhaktis, e.g Dvitiya rule, Tritiya rule..chaturthi rule....Saha is a tritiya (German equivalent - mit, dative)...On a broad sense the rules are different. There may be a few similarities if we go deeper into every rule
• German Sandhi of course does not compare with the rich sandhi rules in Sanskrit, but use of compound words is there in German
• Use of prefixes in German compare with Upasargas in Sanskrit - ent, be, emp, etc.
• Samas is an important area of distinction like Sandhi... Although there are compound words, as far as I know there are no rules governing them in German. Sanskrit Samases are unique
• Pratyays, affixes - Krit and Taddhit..There is no such organization in German... some of them are there in adverbial forms e.g endlich (finally), adding the suffix -- lich to noun end, endung (adding - ung etc.
• Strong and weal declensions in German - some verbs are strong verbs while others are weak verbs. Sanskrit classifies verbs into 10 different Ganas or classes and the verb forms are different in different classes ( Tud-adi, div-adi, va-adi, kra-adi etc.). Each of these classes may be divided into moods and tenses and also into the Atma, Para and Ubha forms

Sanskrit to me is a very beautiful and poetic language. Nowhere else we we find the great linguistic construction. All other languages are at best an attempt to imitate its vastness and greatness of construction. The people who had discovered the rules of such a language must have been phenomenal in their achievements. It is also extremely musical. Moreover great spiritual and literary treasures are buried in the most ancient language. Vedas and Upanishads, the Gita and Brahmasutras, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, the Bhagavatam and other principal Puranas, are gems which are found nowhere else. It is a shame that we Indians neglect our treasure so badly. In the parable of Sri Ramakrishna, neither the vegetable seller, nor the laundry man could recognize the true worth of a diamond. It took a jeweler to understand it. Sadly we have now degenerated ourselves to the state of vegetables sellers and laundry men to appreciate the worth of the valuables left as inheritance by our forefathers and therefore have sunk into such a deep mediocrity and have developed a dismal and dysfunctional social, political, administrative and educational system. 

Popular notion is that Sanskrit is a dead language. But that is what we think. Such a beautiful language cannot remained buried for long and sometime or the other its brilliance will once again dazzle the entire world. Also by forgetting our roots and legacies are we doing something great? Doesn't seem so if we look into the contemporary history. We had intellectual capabilities as long we had a superior language to boast of. Now we have none. And less said about social and educational values that we've imbibed, the better. So we have done nothing great by burying a dead language. Instead we have ended up burying the ancient treasures alongside and are therefore paupers whom none in the world respects.