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Abington Library offers Sanskrit classes to teens and tweens
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January 15, 2015
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SUBURBAN
by Stephanie Longo
ABINGTON SUBURBAN EDITOR
For nine-year-old Phoebe Davidock, it’s all about the novelty. Davidock is one of the participants in the Abington Community Library’s weekly Sanskrit classes, hosted by Jaya Bache and her daughters Havisha and Vihisha. “It’s different from the American language,” Davidock said. “There’s different numbers, there’s more letters. It’s not the same.” Sanskrit is the primary liturgical language of Hinduism as well as a literary language that was universally used throughout the Indian culture. Today, it is one of the official languages of India. “Sanskrit was the first language,” Vihisha Bache said. “It was spoken all over the world and all of the languages derive from it. English, Arabic, Spanish ... all languages have words from it.” The Bache family decided to offer the courses at the Abington Community Library as a way to teach local residents about their language and culture. The weekly course for teens and tweens, held Fridays beginning at 4 p.m., has already taken off. “Ever since Sanskrit Class began last year, it has been a success as parents recognize the value of learning a new language at a young age,” said children’s librarian Laura Gardoski. “Children are not only learning a new language, but are also developing other literacy skills like handwriting, letter recognition and reading. I love listening to them practice the new words and sounds, and they are proud to show me their papers filled with new letters.” The program has also been praised by the participants’ parents. “We wanted our children to be able to read books in another language and broaden their world view,” said David Jakubiak, whose children Eli and Lee take the class. “This was also great for them to understand linguistics, even at a young age.” Children participating in the class get the chance to write common words in the Sanskrit
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The Abington Community Library, 1200 W. Grove St., Clarks Summit, offers a Sanskrit class for teens and tweens on Friday afternoons, beginning at 4 p.m. From left, front row: Eli Jakubiak, Lee Jakubiak and Phoebe Davidock. Back row: David Jakubiak, Havisha Bache, Jaya Bache and Vihisha Bache. PHOTO STEPHANIE LONGO
alphabet and try their hand at pronunciation. “The spellings in English are complicated but in Sanskrit it is phonetic,” Jaya Bache said. “It is like mathematics and physics. It is not just language; it is language but scientific. Everything has a reason. Every letter, every consonant has a rule. There are pronunciation rules.” “If you open your mouth and make a sound, you make an ‘ah’ sound,” she continued. “That is the human natural sound. If you open and
close your mouth, you get an ‘ah-ma’ sound. That’s where ‘mother’ comes from. In ancient days, the mother was given great importance and in Sanskrit you can see it because ‘ah-ma’ is the natural sound and, in most languages, ‘mother’ is called ‘ma’ or something like it.” For more information on the Sanskrit class at the Abington Community Library, 1200 W. Grove St., Clarks Summit, call 570-587-3440 or visit lclshome.org/b/abington-communitylibrary.