RTFMmmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 5

cute animals

abbreviations

about boxes

about arrows

parens show labels

ignore the purple questions

blue letters

about 'he' 'she' 'it' 'the' 'a' and other useless words

Difference between 'I write' and 'I am writing'.

about sexism

Back to contents .

cute animalsmmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 6

(Technically these are called "navigation icons", but most look like cartoons of cute animals.)

On top of every article you can see --

svastika -- when you click this one, it moves itself to the top of the page

cat -- takes to the CAT-alog page

book -- list of all article headers, in roughly alphabetical order. Use control-f to find there whatever you want to find.

grid -- rules in the pANini order, grouped by chapters

AZ -- rules in alphabetical order. Useful if you dont know if you need rosupi or rossupi.

rabbit -- list of all boxed words. See about boxes for details.

example-finder hedgehogs -- use these pages when you remember that you read the example word cintayati in a rule yesterday, but you forgot how to get to that rule.

turtle and spider -- ignore these two. These are scaffolding and I'm using them myself while I build the website. I'll remove them when it's finished.

abbreviationsmmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 7

afaik "as far as i know"

ceteris paribus = "everything else being the same"

eg = exempli gratia = for instance

etc. = et caetera = and so on

ff = and following, and others

idk = "I have no clue, sorry"

ie = id est = in other words

mutatis mutandis = "after making the necessary changes"

WAFTI = We Apologize For The Inconvenience

WTF = kaSTanM dhik

Back to RTFM .

about boxesmmmmmmmmm ^ M- C+ 8

This website has lots of strange words like the " chop", " wordfinal", and " cluster" at rule chop wordfinal cluster . I call these "jargon" words, or terms. They do not have the ordinary meanings used in normal English, but special meanings used only when talking grammar.

To find out the meaning of "chop", click the BOXED word chop. This will take you to a page that explains the meaning of "chop".

If you want to check the meaning of "chop", but you see no boxed "chop" nearby, click the rabbit. That shows a list of all boxed words.

about arrowsmmmmmmmmm ^ M- C+ 9

Arrows show that some rule changed something. For instance, if I write --

vRt + ta → vRt + zap + ta → vRt + zap + te → vart + zap + te

This means that some rule changed vRt into vRt + zap, then some rule changed ta into te, then some rule changed vRt into vart.

PLAIN ARROWS

Plain arrows just mean that something changed because of a rule, but they don't show what rule made the change. for instance, here some rule changed ta into te''' --

As + ta → Aste

WIGGLY ARROWS

Wiggly arrows just mean that something changed because of more than one rule, but they don't show what rules are those.

bhU + @hard liG tip bhavet

bhU + @soft liG tip bhUyAt

CIRCLED ARROWS

Click a circled arrow to get to the rule that made that change.

As + ta →Tita Aste

RED ARROWS

A red arrow means that the rule that we are explaining right now made that change.

For instance, inside rule Tita, you can see this example --

As + ta Aste

Here red arrow shows that rule Tita worked. There is not a circle because we don't have to go elsewhere to see the explanation of Tita, we are already reading it.

COSMETIC ARROWS

Sometimes I use an arrow just because I am removing plus signs, spaces and labels, even though no rule is making any actual change. So here --

pac + zap + tip → pacati "he cooks"

no rule is actually removing anything. It's just that I wrote the labels z p t p at the left (so that you can click them) and I didn't write them at the right (so that the word pacati looks nice).

Back to RTFM .

Parens show labels.mmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 10

When I explain the affix zyan in page zyan, I write it as (z)ya(n). The parens mean that the z and the n are label letters, and the real affix is just ya --

nRt + zyan + tip → nRt + (z)ya(n) + ti(p) → nRtyati

In page yak I type ya(k), to mean that the k is not real --

dRz + ya(k) + te''' → dRz ya te

Similarly, if I write "the root gam(L)", the true root is gam, and L is a label that is chanted after it in the dhAtupATha.

Sometimes, I write a moondot (~) after a vowel to mean it's a label.

Example.

I usually just write "the root gam", because most of the time students don't need to know that this root carries L label.

Yet, in some places(such as puSAdi;dyutAdy;LditaH) I spell that gam root either as gam(L), or as gamL~, or as gamL.

Ignore the purple questions.mmmmmmmmm ^ M+ C+ 11

In some rules you can see questions painted in purple, like this one --

Those purples are not important. If you do not understand the questions, that's fine. Just ignore the question, the answer, and everything below. Maybe next year these will have become readable.

Blue letters.mmmmmmmmm ^ M- C+ 12

The blue letters of this website must be pronounced as they are written. For instance, here --

evam uktasH sa rAjJA tu saJMjayo vAkyam abravIt

the blue s must be pronounced s and the blue J must be pronounced J.

There are two kinds of blue letters --

blue zar

blue nasals

Back to RTFM .

Difference between 'I write' and 'I am writing'.mmmmmmmmm ^ M- C+ 13

Somebody, who has much more experience with spoken English than I have, told me once that I should not write my translations of Sanskrit verbs in this style --

kadalI-phalAni pacAmi "I cook bananas"

pATalAn gajAn pazyati "he sees pink elephants"

because it sounds more natural if I say --

kadalI-phalAni pacAmi "I am cooking bananas"

pATalAn gajAn pazyati "he is seeing pink elephants"

Truth is, we MUST use pacAmi BOTH for "I cook" and for "I am cooking". The Sanskrit verb just doesn't make this subtle distinction. So both translations are fine.

If some grammar example like "I cook bananas" sounds weird to you, please add "often" to it. That will make it sound natural.

Alternatively, replace "I cook" with "I am cooking". The Sanskrit sentence can have that meaning too.

About 'he' 'she' 'it' 'the' 'a' and other useless words.mmmmmmmmm ^ M- C+ 14

Sometimes my examples are translated into an I-Tarzan-you-Jane style of English --

kadalIphalAni kapir abhuGkta "monkey ate bananas"

While many grammar books use only grammatically correct English in translations. Like --

kadalIphalAni kapir abhuGkta "the monkey ate some bananas"

kadalIphalAni kapir abhuGkta "a monkey ate the bananas"

I used to do that, until I noticed that the custom of always using correct English sometimes makes my students confused.

So, when you notice that I didn't use words like "the", "a", "some" in a translation, feel free to add them yourself. Any are good.

Similarly, if I translate ayaGM gacchati as "this one goes", do not take that "this one" as the only possible wording for ayam. More often than not, just "this goes" or "he goes" is closer to what a native speaker of English would say. I am using "this" just to remind the reader that ayam means "this".

about sexismmmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 15

The word krAmate means "lives". Yet, I often translate those words adding a pronoun in front --

jIvati "he lives"

saMsUte "she gives birth"

(1) I'm lazy,

(2) my students already know that all verbs that can describe "he" can describe "she" and "it" too,

(3) translating jIvati as "lives" makes some students think that jIvati means the same thing as jIvitAni, and

(4) I have no degree in education.