sanskrit
n. uncountablen. an ancient language from India that is used in many religious and historical books. It is the root of many modern Indian languages, similar to how Latin is the root of many European languages.
n. an ancient Indo-Aryan language that serves as the primary liturgical language of Hinduism and the source of many modern South Asian languages.
Many yoga poses have names in Sanskrit.
The scholar spent years studying Sanskrit to read ancient religious texts in their original form.
While no longer a primary spoken tongue, Sanskrit remains a vital academic and liturgical language, preserving a vast corpus of philosophical and scientific literature from the Indian subcontinent.
Learned borrowing from Sanskrit संस्कृत (saṃskṛtá, “perfected, prepared, constructed, refined”). First use appears c. 1617 in the publications of Samuel Purchas.
When referring to the language, it is treated as an uncountable proper noun and is always capitalised.