Information about Sanskrit
| class="infobox" style="width:22em; margin-top:0.75em; background:#f4f4f4; text-align:left; font-size:90%;" cellpadding="2"
! colspan="3" style="text-align: center; font-size:120%; color: black; background-color: lawngreen;" |Sanskrit
संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" | Pronunciation: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |[sə̃skɹ̩t̪əm] | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |Spoken in: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |India, Nepal | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |Total speakers: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |49,736 fluent speakers (1991 Indian census) | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |Language family: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em; text-align: left;" | }}}
Indo-Iranian
Indo-Aryan
Sanskrit}}} | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" | Writing system: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;" | Devanāgarī and several other Brāhmī-based scripts ! colspan="3" style="text-align: center; color: black; background-color: lawngreen;"|Official status | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |Official language of: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;"| India (one of the scheduled languages), | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |Regulated by: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;"|no official regulation ! colspan="3" style="text-align: center; color: black; background-color: lawngreen;" |Language codes | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |ISO 639-1: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |sa | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |ISO 639-2: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |san | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |ISO 639-3: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |san
|}
Sanskrit (संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is an ancient Indo-European classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism and Buddhism primarily, and utilised occasionally in Jainism. It is one of the 22 official languages of India, and an ancestor of the modern Indo-Aryan languages. It has the same status in Nepal as well.
Its position in the cultures of South and Southeast Asia is akin to that of Latin and Greek in Europe and it has evolved into as well as influenced many modern-day languages of the world. It appears in pre-Classical form as Vedic Sanskrit, with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved. Dating back to as early as 1700 BC, Vedic Sanskrit is the earliest attested Indo-Aryan language, and one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family.
The corpus of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as scientific, technical, philosophical and religious texts. Today, Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals in the forms of hymns and mantras. Spoken Sanskrit is still in use in a few traditional institutions in India, and there are some attempts at revival.
The scope of this article is the Classical Sanskrit language as laid out in the grammar of Panini, around 500 BC.
The language name saṃskṛtam is derived from the past participle saṃskṛtaḥ 'self-made, self-done' of the verb saṃ(s)kar- 'to make self', where saṃ- 'with, together, self' and (s)kar- 'do, make'. In modern usage, the verbal adjective saṃskṛta- has come to mean "cultured". The language referred to as saṃskṛtā vāk "the language of cultured" has by definition always been a "high" language, used for religious and learned discourse and contrasted with the languages spoken by the people. It is also called deva-bhāṣā meaning "language of the gods". The oldest surviving Sanskrit grammar is Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī ("Eight-Chapter Grammar") dating to circa the 5th century BC. It is essentially a prescriptive grammar, i.e., an authority that defines (rather than describes) correct Sanskrit, although it contains descriptive parts, mostly to account for Vedic forms that had already passed out of use in Panini's time.
Sanskrit belongs to the Indo-Iranian sub-family of the Indo-European family of languages. As such, it is part of the Satem group of Indo-European languages, which also includes the Balto-Slavic branch.
When the term arose in India, "Sanskrit" was not thought of as a specific language set apart from other languages, but rather as a particularly refined or perfected manner of speaking. Knowledge of Sanskrit was a marker of social class and educational attainment and the language was taught mainly to members of the higher castes, through close analysis of Sanskrit grammarians such as Pāṇini. Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside the Prakrits (vernaculars), which evolved into the modern Indo-Aryan languages (Hindi, Nepali, Assamese, Marathi, Konkani, Urdu, Bengali etc.)
Sir William Jones, speaking to the Asiatic Society in Calcutta (now Kolkata) on February 2, 1786, said:
The sounds are traditionally listed in the order vowels (Ach), diphthongs (Hal), anusvara and visarga, plosives (Sparśa) and nasals (starting in the back of the mouth and moving forward), and finally the liquids and fricatives, written in IAST as follows (see the tables below for details):
The vowels of Classical Sanskrit with their word-initial Devanagari symbol, diacritical mark with the consonant प् (/p/), pronunciation (of the vowel alone and of /p/+vowel) in IPA, equivalent in IAST and ITRANS and (approximate) equivalents in English are listed below:
The long vowels are pronounced twice as long as their short counterparts. Also, there exists a third, extra-long length for most vowels, called pluti, which is used in various cases, but particularly in the vocative. The pluti is not accepted by all grammarians.
The vowels /e/ and /o/ continue as allophonic variants of Proto-Indo-Iranian /ai/, /au/ and are categorized as diphthongs by Sanskrit grammarians even though they are realized phonetically as simple long vowels. (See above).
Additional points:
The table below shows the traditional listing of the Sanskrit consonants with the (nearest) equivalents in English/Spanish. Each consonant shown below is deemed to be followed by the neutral vowel schwa (/ə/), and is named in the table as such.
संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" | Pronunciation: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |[sə̃skɹ̩t̪əm] | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |Spoken in: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |India, Nepal | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |Total speakers: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |49,736 fluent speakers (1991 Indian census) | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |Language family: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em; text-align: left;" | }}}
Indo-Iranian
Indo-Aryan
Sanskrit}}} | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" | Writing system: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;" | Devanāgarī and several other Brāhmī-based scripts ! colspan="3" style="text-align: center; color: black; background-color: lawngreen;"|Official status | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |Official language of: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;"| India (one of the scheduled languages), | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |Regulated by: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;"|no official regulation ! colspan="3" style="text-align: center; color: black; background-color: lawngreen;" |Language codes | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |ISO 639-1: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |sa | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |ISO 639-2: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |san | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |ISO 639-3: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;" |san
|}
Sanskrit (संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is an ancient Indo-European classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism and Buddhism primarily, and utilised occasionally in Jainism. It is one of the 22 official languages of India, and an ancestor of the modern Indo-Aryan languages. It has the same status in Nepal as well.
Its position in the cultures of South and Southeast Asia is akin to that of Latin and Greek in Europe and it has evolved into as well as influenced many modern-day languages of the world. It appears in pre-Classical form as Vedic Sanskrit, with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved. Dating back to as early as 1700 BC, Vedic Sanskrit is the earliest attested Indo-Aryan language, and one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family.
The corpus of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as scientific, technical, philosophical and religious texts. Today, Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals in the forms of hymns and mantras. Spoken Sanskrit is still in use in a few traditional institutions in India, and there are some attempts at revival.
The scope of this article is the Classical Sanskrit language as laid out in the grammar of Panini, around 500 BC.
History
)
The language name saṃskṛtam is derived from the past participle saṃskṛtaḥ 'self-made, self-done' of the verb saṃ(s)kar- 'to make self', where saṃ- 'with, together, self' and (s)kar- 'do, make'. In modern usage, the verbal adjective saṃskṛta- has come to mean "cultured". The language referred to as saṃskṛtā vāk "the language of cultured" has by definition always been a "high" language, used for religious and learned discourse and contrasted with the languages spoken by the people. It is also called deva-bhāṣā meaning "language of the gods". The oldest surviving Sanskrit grammar is Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī ("Eight-Chapter Grammar") dating to circa the 5th century BC. It is essentially a prescriptive grammar, i.e., an authority that defines (rather than describes) correct Sanskrit, although it contains descriptive parts, mostly to account for Vedic forms that had already passed out of use in Panini's time.
Sanskrit belongs to the Indo-Iranian sub-family of the Indo-European family of languages. As such, it is part of the Satem group of Indo-European languages, which also includes the Balto-Slavic branch.
When the term arose in India, "Sanskrit" was not thought of as a specific language set apart from other languages, but rather as a particularly refined or perfected manner of speaking. Knowledge of Sanskrit was a marker of social class and educational attainment and the language was taught mainly to members of the higher castes, through close analysis of Sanskrit grammarians such as Pāṇini. Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside the Prakrits (vernaculars), which evolved into the modern Indo-Aryan languages (Hindi, Nepali, Assamese, Marathi, Konkani, Urdu, Bengali etc.)
Vedic Sanskrit
Classical Sanskrit
A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of the Hindu Epics—the Ramayana and Mahabharata. The deviations from Pāṇini in the epics are generally considered to be on account of interference from Prakrits, or "innovations"[1]. and not because they are pre-Paninean." Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations aarsha (आर्ष), or "of the rishis", the traditional title for the ancient authors. In some contexts there are also more "prakritisms" (borrowings from common speech) than in Classical Sanskrit proper. Finally, there is also a language dubbed "Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit" by scholars, which is actually a prakrit ornamented with Sanskritized elements (see also termination of spoken Sanskrit). According to Tiwari ([1955] 2004), there were four principal dialects of Sanskrit, viz., paścimottarī (Northwestern, also called Northern or Western), madhyadeśī (lit., middle country), pūrvi (Eastern) and dakṣiṇī (Southern, arose in the Classical period). The first three are even attested in the Vedic Brāhmaṇas, of which the first one was regarded as the purest (''Kauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa, 7.6).European Scholarship
European scholarship in Sanskrit, begun by Heinrich Roth (1620–1668) and Johann Ernst Hanxleden (1681–1731), is regarded as responsible for the discovery of the Indo-European language family by Sir William Jones, and played an important role in the development of Western linguistics.Sir William Jones, speaking to the Asiatic Society in Calcutta (now Kolkata) on February 2, 1786, said:
- The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.
Phonology
- Further information: Śikṣā
The sounds are traditionally listed in the order vowels (Ach), diphthongs (Hal), anusvara and visarga, plosives (Sparśa) and nasals (starting in the back of the mouth and moving forward), and finally the liquids and fricatives, written in IAST as follows (see the tables below for details):
- a ā i ī u ū ṛ ṝ ḷ ḹ; e ai o au
- ṃ ḥ
- k kh g gh ṅ; c ch j jh ñ; ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ; t th d dh n; p ph b bh m
- y r l v; ś ṣ s h
Vowels
- See also: R-colored vowel#Vocalic R in Sanskrit
| Letter | Diacritical mark with “प्” | Pronunciation | Pronunciation with /p/ | IAST equiv. | ITRANS equiv. | English equivalent (GA unless stated otherwise) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| अ | प | /ɐ/ or /ə/ | /pɐ/ or /pə/ | a | a | short near-open central vowel or schwa: u in bunny or a in about |
| आ | पा | /aː/ | /paː/ | ā | A | long open back unrounded vowel: a in father (RP |
| इ | िप | /i/ | /pi/ | i | i | short close front unrounded vowel: i in fin |
| ई | पी | /iː/ | /piː/ | ī | I | long close front unrounded vowel: ee in feet |
| उ | पु | /u/ | /pu/ | u | u | short close back rounded vowel: oo in foot |
| ऊ | पू | /uː/ | /puː/ | ū | U | long close back rounded vowel: oo in cool |
| ऋ | पृ | /ɻ/ | /pɻ/ | ṛ | R | short retroflex approximant: r in burl |
| ॠ | पॄ | /ɻː/ | /pɻː/ | ṝ | RR | long retroflex approximant r in burl |
| ऌ | पॢ | /ɭ/ | /pɭ/ | ḷ | LR | short retroflex lateral approximant (no English equivalent) |
| ॡ | पॣ | /ɭː/ | /pɭː/ | ḹ | LRR | long retroflex lateral approximant |
| ए | पे | /eː/ | /peː/ | e | e | long close-mid front unrounded vowel: a in bane (some speakers) |
| ऐ | पै | /əi/ | /pəi/ | ai | ai | a long diphthong: i in ice, i in kite (Canadian English) |
| ओ | पो | /oː/ | /poː/ | o | o | long close-mid back rounded vowel: o in bone (some speakers) |
| औ | पौ | /əu/ | /pəu/ | au | au | a long diphthong: Similar to the ou in house (Canadian English) |
The long vowels are pronounced twice as long as their short counterparts. Also, there exists a third, extra-long length for most vowels, called pluti, which is used in various cases, but particularly in the vocative. The pluti is not accepted by all grammarians.
The vowels /e/ and /o/ continue as allophonic variants of Proto-Indo-Iranian /ai/, /au/ and are categorized as diphthongs by Sanskrit grammarians even though they are realized phonetically as simple long vowels. (See above).
Additional points:
- There are some additional signs traditionally listed in tables of the Devanagari script:
- The diacritic ं called anusvāra, (IAST: ṃ). It is used both to indicate the nasalization of the vowel in the syllable ([◌̃] and to represent the sound of a syllabic /n/ or /m/; e.g. पं /pəŋ/.
- The diacritic ः called visarga, represents /əh/ (IAST: ḥ); e.g. पः /pəh/.
- The diacritic ँ called chandrabindu, not traditionally included in Devanagari charts for Sanskrit, is used interchangeably with the anusvāra to indicate nasalization of the vowel, primarily in Vedic notation; e.g. पँ /pə̃/.
- If a lone consonant needs to be written without any following vowel, it is given a halanta/virāma diacritic below (प्).
- The vowel /aː/ in Sanskrit is realized as being more central and less back than the closest English approximation, which is /ɑː/. But the grammarians have classified it as a back vowel. (Tiwari, [1955] 2004).
- The ancient Sanskrit grammarians classified the vowel system as velars, retroflexes, palatals and plosives rather than as back, central and front vowels. Hence ए and ओ are classified respectively as palato-velar (a+i) and labio-velar (a+u) vowels respectively. But the grammarians have classified them as diphthongs and in prosody, each is given two mātrās. This does not necessarily mean that they are proper diphthongs, but neither excludes the possibility that they could have been proper diphthongs at a very ancient stage (see above). These vowels are pronounced as long /eː/ and /oː/ respectively by learned Sanskrit Brahmans and priests of today. Other than the "four" diphthongs, Sanskrit usually disallows any other diphthong—vowels in succession, where they occur, are converted to semivowels according to sandhi rules.
- In the Devanagari script used for Sanskrit, whenever a consonant in a word-ending position is without any virāma (freely standing in the orthography: प as opposed to प्), the neutral vowel schwa (/ə/) is automatically associated with it—this is of course true for the consonant to be in any position in the word. Word-ending schwa is always short. But the IAST a appended to the end of masculine noun words rather confuses the foreigners to pronounce it as /ɑː/—this makes the masculine Sanskrit words sound like feminine! e.g., shiva must be pronounced as /ɕivə/ and not as /ɕivɑː/. Tiwari ([1955] 2004) argues that in Vedic Sanskrit, अ indicated short /ɑ/, and became centralized and raised in the era of the Prakrits.
Consonants
IAST and Devanagari notations are given, with approximate IPA values in square brackets.| Labial Ōshtya |
Labiodental Dantōshtya |
Dental Dantya |
Retroflex Mūrdhanya |
Palatal Tālavya |
Velar Kanthya |
Glottal | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop Sparśa |
Unaspirated Alpaprāna | p प [p] | b ब [b] | t त [t̪] | d द [d̪] | ṭ ट [ʈ] | ḍ ड [ɖ] | c च [c͡ç] | j ज [ɟ͡ʝ] | k क [k] | g ग [g] | |||
| Aspirated Mahāprāna | ph फ [pʰ] | bh भ [bʱ] | th थ [t̪ʰ] | dh ध [d̪ʱ] | ṭh ठ [ʈʰ] | ḍh ढ [ɖʱ] | ch छ [c͡çʰ] | jh झ [ɟ͡ʝʱ] | kh ख [kʰ] | gh घ [gʱ] | ||||
| Nasal Anunāsika |
m म [m] | n न [n̪] | ṇ ण [ɳ] | ñ ञ [ɲ] | ṅ ङ [ŋ] | |||||||||
| Semivowel Antastha |
v व [ʋ] | y य [j] | ||||||||||||
| Liquid Drava |
l ल [l] | r र [r] | ||||||||||||
| Fricative Ūshman |
s स [s̪] | ṣ ष [ʂ] | ś श [ɕ] | ḥ ः [h] | h ह [ɦ] | |||||||||
The table below shows the traditional listing of the Sanskrit consonants with the (nearest) equivalents in English/Spanish. Each consonant shown below is deemed to be followed by the neutral vowel schwa (/ə/), and is named in the table as such.
| Unaspirated Voiceless Alpaprāna Śvāsa |
Aspirated Voiceless Mahāprāna Śvāsa |
Unaspirated Voiced Alpaprāna Nāda |
Aspirated Voiced Mahāprāna Nāda |
Nasal Anunāsika Nāda | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Velar Kantya | क /kə/; English: skip | ख /kʰə/; English: cat | ग /gə/; English: game | घ /gʱə/; somewhat similar to English: doghouse | ङ /ŋə/; English: ring |
| Palatal Tālavya | च /cə/; English: exchange | छ /cʰə/; English: church | ज /ɟə/; ≈English: jam | झ /ɟʱə/; somewhat similar to English: hedgehog | ञ /ɲə/; English: bench |
| Retroflex Mūrdhanya | ट /ʈə/; No English equivalent | ठ /ʈʰə/; No English equivalent | ड /ɖə/; No English equivalent | ढ /ɖʱə/; No English equivalent | ण /ɳə/; No English equivalent |
| Apico-Dental Dantya | त /t̪ə/; Spanish: tomate | थ /t̪ʰə/; Aspirated /t̪/ | द /d̪ə/; Spanish: donde | ध /d̪ʱə/; Aspirated /d̪/ | }|}|}|}|}|}|}
References International Phonetic Alphabet Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. The International Phonetic Alphabet History Nonstandard symbols Extended IPA Naming conventions IPA for English The ..... Click the link for more information. This page is currently protected from editing until disputes have been resolved. Protection is not an endorsement of the current [ version] ([ protection log]). ..... Click the link for more information. Motto जननी जन्मभूमिष्च स्वर्गादपि गरीयसी (Sanskrit) ..... Click the link for more information. 19th century - 20th century - 21st century 1960s 1970s 1980s - 1990s - 2000s 2010s 2020s 1988 1989 1990 - 1991 - 1992 1993 1994 Year 1991 (MCMXCI ..... Click the link for more information. A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language. As with biological families, the evidence of relationship is observable shared characteristics. ..... Click the link for more information. Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. It consists of four language groups: the Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Nuristani, and Dardic. ..... Click the link for more information. Indo-Aryan languages form a subgroup of the Indo-Iranian languages, which belong to the Indo-European family of languages. The term "Indic" refers to the same group without what some see as the negative connotations of "Aryan". ..... Click the link for more information. writing system is a type of symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in language. General propertiesWriting systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that one must usually understand something of the..... Click the link for more information. This page is currently protected from editing until disputes have been resolved. Protection is not an endorsement of the current [ version] ([ protection log]). ..... Click the link for more information. This article or section needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Alone, primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of this article are not sufficient for an accurate encyclopedia article. ..... Click the link for more information. This is a list of bodies that regulate standard languages. Afrikaans Die Taalkommissie, South Africa Arabic Academy of the Arabic Language (مجمع اللغة العربية, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, ..... Click the link for more information. ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. It consists of 136 two-letter codes used to identify the world's major languages. These codes are a useful international shorthand for indicating languages. ..... Click the link for more information. ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. The three-letter codes given for each language in this part of the standard are referred to as "Alpha-3" codes. There are 464 language codes in the list. ..... Click the link for more information. ISO 639-3 is an international standard for language codes. It extends the ISO 639-2 alpha-3 codes with an aim to cover all known natural languages. The standard was published by ISO on 5 February 2007[1]. ..... Click the link for more information. A classical language, is a language with a literature that is "classical"—ie, "it should be ancient, it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own, not as an offshoot of another tradition, and it must have a large and extremely rich body of ancient ..... Click the link for more information. This page is currently protected from editing until disputes have been resolved. Protection is not an endorsement of the current [ version] ([ protection log]). ..... Click the link for more information. A sacred language, or liturgical language, is a language, frequently a dead language, that is cultivated for religious reasons by people who speak another language in their daily life. ..... Click the link for more information. Hinduism (known as Hindū Dharma in modern Indian languages[1] ..... Click the link for more information. Buddhism is often described as a religion[1] and a collection of various philosophies, based initially on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, known as Gautama Buddha. ..... Click the link for more information. This page contains Indic text. Without rendering support, you may see irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. More... "Jain" and "Jaina" redirect here. For other uses, see Jain (disambiguation) and Jaina (disambiguation). ..... Click the link for more information. This article or section needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Alone, primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of this article are not sufficient for an accurate encyclopedia article. ..... Click the link for more information. Indo-Aryan refers to:
..... Click the link for more information. Motto जननी जन्मभूमिष्च स्वर्गादपि गरीयसी (Sanskrit) ..... Click the link for more information. Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate,") generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significant importance. ..... Click the link for more information. South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is a southern geopolitical region of the Asian continent comprising territories on and in proximity to the Indian subcontinent. It is surrounded by (from west to east) Western Asia, Central Asia, Eastern Asia, and Southeastern Asia. ..... Click the link for more information. Southeast Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, and north of Australia. ..... Click the link for more information. Latin}}} Official status Official language of: Vatican City Used for official purposes, but not spoken in everyday speech Regulated by: Opus Fundatum Latinitas Roman Catholic Church Language codes ISO 639-1: la ISO 639-2: lat ..... Click the link for more information. Greek}}} Writing system: Greek alphabet Official status Official language of: Greece Cyprus European Union recognised as minority language in parts of: European Union Italy Turkey Regulated by: ..... Click the link for more information. Europe is one of the seven traditional continents of the Earth. Physically and geologically, Europe is the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, west of Asia. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Sea, ..... Click the link for more information. For the primitive form of communication, see . A proto-language is a language which was the common ancestor of related languages that form a language family...... Click the link for more information. This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License. Herod_Archelaus
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