Learning Journal 4
At first I thought I might be able to study Sanskrit by just using the English transliteration, but I’ve quickly realized that it is necessary to learn Devanagari fluently to keep up with the language. Although Sanskrit can be written in any alphabet, the Devanagari system more adequately expresses the sounds of Sanskrit than the English language does, and I find the many diacritics in transliterations distracting. For example, Sanskrit has 4 forms of ‘S’, ‘t’ and ‘d’, and it is important to be able to recognize these letters when they appear. I’ve had familiarity with the alphabet in the past, but a number of letters have been particularly challenging since they look similar to other ones or we just don’t have them in English so I have nothing to compare them to.
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