Sanskrit Dictionary

Several Sanskrith words have made their way into English and appear in English dictionaries. A few of these are used without definition in the text, although they are defined in this glossary. Among these are Aathma (or Atma), dharma, guru, karma, moksha, yoga, and yogi (or yogee).

A phoneticized English spelling of Sankrith words is being adopted. This has two purposes: first, to make it easier for non-Sanskrithists to pronounce words correctly; second to make the Sanskrith more pleasing and accurate for Sanskrithists. We give a pronunciation guide.

Short and long vowels are spelled and pronounced as follows.

Vowel	English equivalent	French equivalent
 a 	    	but, mica                 	--
 aa	    	father, tar		      	tard
 i	    	fit, fill	              	ici
 ee	    	fee, police			pire
 u          	put, full	 	      	tout
 uu	    	boo, rude	      		court

For example, the spelling aanandha (bliss) alerts the reader to the fact that the first syllable is long, so that the accent is on the first, and not the second, syllable.

Phonetic English spelling of Sanskrith consonants is difficult, because there are more consonants in Sanskrith than in English.

Below, the examples for bh, dh, and th are slightly misleading, in that they may give the impression that two sounds are said separately when they are not. The idea of the examples is to make it clear that the h is distinctly aspirated.

Consonant	English equivalent
   bh 	        abhore (said rapidly)
   s 	        silver
   sh         	shut
   dh 	        adhere, madhouse (said rapidly)
   dh         	dice (more like this )
   th        	pothouse, nuthook (the aspiration should be heard distinctly)	
   th           thin, try 

Some Sanskrith compounds have been hyphenated between their constituent words to aid those who want to analyze the meanings of individual words.

A