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Well, we are now familiar with reading and writing, vowels, consonants and compound letters of Sanskrit language. Let us now learn how letters make words. The Sanskrit name for word is Padam o पदम् and the plural is Padani पदानि. Panini the author of Sanskrit grammar text “Ashtadyayi” defines word or पदम् as “Supthingantham Padam or सुप्तिङन्तं पदम्”!
A group of letters ending in a सुप् प्रत्यय: or a तिङ् प्रत्यय: is called a पदम् (Word). This means a word is either in noun form or in verb form. A Noun form is called Subantham सुबन्तपदम् or नामपदम् and a verb form is known as Thigantham तिङन्तपदम् or क्रियापदम्. In this lesson we learn the basic noun forms. We will be learning in detail about noun forms and verb forms in the next module. This lesson focuses on the genders attached to the nouns.
The uniqueness of Sanskrit language is each noun is associated to a Gender Masculine पुल्लिङ्गः, Feminine स्त्रीलिङ्गः or Neuter नपुंसकलिङ्गः. The genders are assigned to the words based on the way they are formed abiding to grammar rules. Hence the association of genders is to the words and not to the persons or objects.
It is necessary to learn the gender when we learn a noun. In this lesson we use pronoun forms अयम्, इयम and इदम् to indicate the gender of the word. These pronouns are used to indicate an object which is near and visible to us.
अयम् or अयं - Masculine Noun पुल्लिङ्गः
इयम or इयं - Feminine Noun स्त्रीलिङ्गः
इदम् or इदं – Neuter Noun नपुंसकलिङ्गः
We have three tables showing Sanskrit words in three genders for some commonly known persons, animals or objects. The names are given with the respective pronouns which indicates their genders. The sentence अयं बालकः is used in the sense “This is a boy”. At the same time the pronoun अयं indicates बालकः is Masculine, पुल्लिङ्गः. In the same way, pronouns इयं and इदं used in इयं बालिका and इदं फलम् indicate the words are respectively of feminine and neuter gender. Tips for identifying the gender from the noun forms are also given as notes.
In this lesson we learned few noun forms (नामपदानि) and the gender associated to them As we move forward we will be learning more nouns and their different declensions and their grammatic significance. Based what we learned in this lesson, it is time to do some exercises.
Identify the gender for the nouns given below and rewrite the words using appropriate pronouns अयम्, इयम् or इदम्.
रामः - अयं रामः
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We move on to learn more Pronouns सर्वनामशब्दाः along with the contexts they are used in the next lesson. Lesson 12: Sanskrit pronouns - सर्वनामशब्दाः
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