Sanskrit

Sanskrit is the oldest Indo-European language current in any form. It has survived, in essence, because it is seen as sacred, and is the language in which the oldest Hindu holy writings, the Vedas, were composed. As Hindu religious beliefs include respect for the oral tradition, and an insistence on accuracy of ritual, Sanskrit has been much studied and meticulously recorded since at least the 5th century B.C.E. Its importance to western linguistics dates back to the foundations of modern etymological study, when Sir William Jones (1746-1794), a judge in the Supreme Court of Bengal, first proposed that Latin, Greek and Sanskrit, not to mention their descendants, as well as Germanic and Celtic languages. all belonged to the same language family, now known as Indo-European.