Sanskritism

Sanskritism

English

Etymology

Sanskrit +‎ -ism

Noun

Sanskritism (plural Sanskritisms)

1. A word or phrase borrowed from Sanskrit for modern usage in India, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, especially in various Indo-Aryan languages.
   • 1991, Sisir Kumar Das, Sahitya Akademi, A History of Indian Literature, page 251, quoting Nawab Abdul Latif, the founder of the Mohammedan Literary Society, 1882:

     My opinion as regards Bengali is that Primary Instruction for the lower classes of people, who are for the most part ethnically allied to the Hindoos should be in the Bengali language, purified, however, from the super-structure of Sanskritism of learned Hindoos and supplemented by the numerous words of Arabic and Persian origin...