Russian and Sanskrit Grammar : Proximity and Differences - Part 1

Russian and Sanskrit Grammar: Proximity and Differences

Recently, I completed my Diploma in the Russian Language, from the great Benares Hindu University. I am also a scholar of Sanskrit. In this article, I present how Russian Grammar is mainly derived from  Sanskrit Grammar on the basis of several parts of speech. So far, we have heard how German is closer to Sanskrit; however, after studying both languages, I have concluded Russian has a greater proximity to Sanskrit.

1. Cases (कारक) and Declension of Nouns

Both the languages have declension of nouns i.e. the endings of nouns change depending on the cases. Here I list the cases used in Sanskrit, Russian and German.

Case	कारक	Usage in Different Languages
		Samskrit	Russian	German
Nominative	कर्त्ता	Yes	Yes	Yes
Accusative	कर्म	Yes	Yes	Yes
Instrumental	करण	Yes	Yes	No
Dative	सम्प्रदान	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ablative	आपादन	Yes	No	No
Genitive	संबन्ध	Yes	Yes	Yes
Prepositional	अधिकरण	Yes	Yes	No
Vocative	सम्बोधन	Yes	Yes	No

Now, in Sanskrit, for every noun, there are a set of changes that incur to the similar nouns like ending in, for e.g. अ or आ. Similarly in Russian, noun changes according to the case, as it happens in Sanskrit.

Let us take बालक in Sanskrit and студент (student) in Russian - both are masculine singular.
Also, I'm writing the declension forкнига (kneega) - book, which is feminine singular.
 

Case	Samskrit (Devnagri)	Russian (Cyrillic)	Russian (Roman)	книга  (kneega) - book
Nominative	बालकः	Студент	Student	книга (kneega)
Accusative	बालकम्	Студента	Studenta	книгу (kneegu)
Instrumental	बालकेन	Студентом	Studentom	книгой (kneegoe)
Dative	बालकाय	Студенту	Studentu	книге (kneege)
Ablative	बालकात्
Genitive	बालकस्य	Студента	Studenta	книги (kneegi)
Prepositional	बालके	o cтуденте	o studente	o книге (o kneege)

  

The use of these cases is also similar in both the languages, i.e. barring a few exceptions, most of the time the same cases are used in a sentence.
Let us an example in English: I give a book to the friend. 

Here two cases are used. The book is used in the Accusative case, and the friend is in the Dative case.

While constructing a sentence in Sanskrit, the sentence will be:
अहम् मित्राय पुस्तकं ददामि | or अहम् पुस्तकं मित्राय ददामि |

Whereas in Russian, the sentence formed would be: 

Я даю книгу другу (Ya dayoo kneegu drugu) - I give a book to the friend.

Or Я даю другу книгу (Ya dayoo drugu kneegu) - I give a book to the friend. 

Here book is in the accusative case and friend is in the dative case and I - is in the nominative case.
The table can be looked at and compared for similarities.  Note that word order does not matter in both of the languages.