Understanding English Verb Tenses

Verb Tenses and Vedic Sanskrit Grammar

• Verb tenses indicate the time an action took place: past, present, or future.
• There are 12 main verb tenses in English, including the past, present, and future, along with grammatical aspects.
• The grammatical aspects include simple tense, perfect tense, continuous tense, and perfect continuous tense.
• The present tense is the standard tense in English, usually the root form of the verb.
• Vedic Sanskrit is the oldest attested descendant of Proto-Indo-Aryan language, used in religious hymns called the Vedas, particularly the Ṛg-Veda.
• The Vedic language was purely spoken before the introduction of writing and inherited an elaborate system of morphology from its ultimate-parent, the Proto-Indo-European language.
• Vedic Sanskrit grammar differs greatly from later Classical Sanskrit, with a complex inherited morphology that simplified over time.
• The language descended from Proto-Indo-Aryan, entering the Indian subcontinent around 1800–1500 BCE.
• Vedic hymns are estimated to have been composed between 1500 and 1000 BCE, with the language of each hymn fixed at the time of its oral composition.
• The popular speech evolved over the centuries, making Vedic hymns increasingly inaccessible, leading to a rigorous linguistic tradition to "arrest" language change.
• The Vedic language's grammar is preserved in Sanskrit more than in other kindred languages such as Ancient Greek or Latin.
• The Vedic language was used in a religious canon, establishing a literary tradition, before evolving over time.