13.2 Structure of Devanagan Level The outermost layer of the dictionary, namely the entries in devanagarT script, should ideally only contain dhatu, but in practice it includes those words whose form has changed radically (e.g. by samprasarana), or have a prefix added, or whose dhatu is not known. Turn to page 733 of the dictionary and examine the devanagarT entries in the first column. The last word in this column is in large devanagarT type, indicating a major dhatu: the entry for this word begins with its transliterated form, followed by "cl. i" which stands for 'class-1'. There are ten classes of dhatu (i.e. ten ways of conjugating verbs), but this, together with the other information given in the dhatu entry, will be explained in the next lesson. At this stage, simply be aware that a devanagarT entry, followed by its transliterated form and a class number, is a dhatu. Returning to the top of the first column, the first entry is qT*T, which is a dhatu, and is followed by ff^irH which is not a dhatu, but the entry shows that it is derived from the dhatu badh. For the next three words, no etymology is given, which means that the dhatu is not known (to Monier- Williams anyway) and may be foreign words absorbed into Sanskrit. The word WW> is onomatopoeic (i.e. it sounds like the thing signified). This is followed by WW> whose etymology is not known, the dhatu W^fr, and "^"H whose root is not known. The next dhatu W^f is also given the alternative reading vung; the similarity in both sound and form of 3" and 3" allows this to happen. The next two entries are dhatu; note that *C is given as both class-1 and -10, and 3"5 is class-6. These are followed by the onomatopoeic ^IS^S, the personal name «(Krt, and the dhatu 3"<?. The next word, «(«&, gives references to columns two and three: common words like this are often listed in the devanagarT with a cross-reference given to their etymological entry position. This is followed by the onomatopoeic *{%<*. and finally the dhatu ^T. That was a pretty mixed bag of words, but does illustrate the many types of entries listed in devanagarT, except for those beginning with a prefix which form the bulk of the words listed in devanagarT. Page 672 of the dictionary is representative of this type of entry: the second column begins with y Id-H"^ and in transliteration is conveniently split into the prefix and dhatu as prati-i/suc; the next entry y Id-y'^K has two prefixes prati-sam-^/car, and half-way down the column is Vi I d "H <H I I <* 31 having three prefixes prati-sam-a-i/dis. The transliteration shows the etymology of the word, and allows each element to be separately examined in the dictionary.
