Learn Sanskrit!

To learn Sanskrit is to learn one of the great literary and religious languages of the world. It is the mother tongue of modern Hindi, Urdu and other South Asian languages. Part of the Indo-European language family, Sanskrit is more closely related to Greek, Latin and other European languages than its descendant languages. As such, it has many characteristics of European languages which may be familiar to native English speakers, or those who have studied a European language. Its system of verb conjugation is similar as well as some of its core vocabulary. There seem to be more and better resources to learn Sanskrit than there are for other, modern languages of South Asia.


Internet/Free. Sanskrit Documents Very large collection of links for the serious student of Sanskrit. Documents in Sanskrit, software tools, many tutorials and even some entire books that are downloadable for free.

Internet/Free. Acharya Excellent online tutorial for learning basic Sanskrit.

Internet/Free. Ukindia Sanskrit Lessons Learn to read basic Sanskrit

Internet/Free. Learn Sanskrit Tutorial with free downloadable ebooks to learn Sanskrit.

Internet/Free. Sanskrit Language Resources An abundance of links and resources for someone learning Sanskrit or other South Asian languages. Grammars, dialogues, vocabulary and word lists, fonts and other tools, news and other resources.

Book/Audio Combo/Inexpensive
The longstanding Teach Yourself series has always had a wide variety of languages. They even publish a course for Sanskrit, one of the very few easily available. With this ample coursebook, you can get a great introduction to this fascinating language.


In order to streamline your language learning, make sure you're doing everything you can to absorb and use your new language. For more ideas please visit the Learning Tips page. For lots of general resources to help you learn and use languages you are learning be sure to visit the Language Resources page.

"Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests."

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge