Page 11 - New Grammar with a Smile 3

3 Nouns

Warm-up

Read the passage. Underline the common nouns and circle the proper nouns.

The Panchatantra is a collection of animal fables. A fable is a story that usually has

animals as characters. Each fable ends with a moral. For example, the story ‘The
Hare and the Tortoise’ is a famous fable that was written by Aesop.

According to legend, about two thousand years ago, there was once a king called

Amarashakti who ruled over Mahilaropya in southern India. The king was sad because
his sons were not fit to be rulers. So, he appointed a scholar called Pandit Vishnu

Sharma, who lived in Varanasi, to teach the princes. Pandit Vishnu Sharma decided to

teach the princes in a new way and so he decided to write a collection of stories.

The stories of the Panchatantra convey nice messages. The first story in the
collection is about a bullock named Sanjivaka who is betrayed by two jackals named

Karataka and Damanaka.

The stories were written in a simple way to teach princes and princesses how to be
great leaders. For example, the story of ‘The Lion and the Rabbit’ tells the story of a

lion who is greedy. In the end, a clever rabbit tricks him into jumping into a well. The

story of ‘The Monkey and the Crocodile’ tells us that everyone cannot be a true friend.

Over time, travellers carried the Panchatantra to Persia, Arabia, Greece and Europe.
The stories were translated into English by Charles Wilkins.

The name of a person, place, animal or thing in general is called a common noun.
For example, fable, king, stories and scholar.

Proper noun is the special name given to a person, a place, an animal or a thing. For
example, Pandit Vishnu Sharma, Varanasi and Sanjivaka. The first letter of a proper
noun is always capital.

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