Learning Journal #1
Noun declension has been a really hard part of learning Sanskrit. English doesn’t have this concept, and it’s been really hard to have to memorize so many different noun endings. In English, we just have nouns that are coded for number: the boy or the boys. In Sanskrit, the word “boy” is also coded (declension) for gender, case, and number. So you have to determine is a noun is female, male, or neuter; what case it’s in (you’re probably familiar with subject or object, but Sanskrit also includes concepts like “with” “for” “of” in the noun ending); and the number. Sanskrit accounts for more noun number than English as well: a noun has a different ending if it is singular (the boy) dual (the two boys) or plural (the boys). I still have trouble with cases and have to look back at my declension charts pretty often. For just one noun, there are dozens of options of suffixes that carry so much meaning!
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