Is Hebrew an older language than Sanskrit?

Answer 1

NO, according to data available sanskrit is the oldest one

Answer 2

Aging languages is difficult. What is Sanskrit? We have Vedic Sanskrit & Classical Sanskrit. Sanskrit is the second greatest language in size after English, having over 160,000 words. There are many redundancies within Sanskrit indicating that it is not one language. It is likely that all languages are the results of a number of processes:

1) Invading other nations or being invaded (e.g., by the Greeks)
2) Evolution of language through increased technology, trade
3) The cross cultural influences resulting from a long gone ancient Indian empire (perhaps circa 5300BC at the time of Rama).

The other thing is that Sanskrit is Indo-european and shares many similarities with Germanic, Romance, Hellenic, Celtic and Balto-Slavic languages. The notion is that Indo-european languages originated in northern Europe (both east + west), but due to the ice age, many tribes emigrated south, taking their languages with them. Out of that, many indo-european languages developed as mentioned. We don't know if Sanskrit is the originating language, or if it is an evolution of an earlier language. My personal opinion is that the size of Sanskrit indicates it's origin might be multi-faceted over 1000's of years...

The thing is that Hebrew is the same, and there are many languages similar to Hebrew. Knowing when it was first spoken is beyond written records...

Therefore, the answer is: nobody knows for sure.

Answer 3

Sanskrit is NOT the oldest language in the world. What you can say about a language is what are the oldest written records in a language. The oldest written Hebrew is dated to about the 8th century BC. The oldest written Sanskrit is dated to about the 5th or 6th centuries BC. So Hebrew has older written records than Sanskrit. But the language with the oldest written records is Sumerian, with records dating back 5000 years. The next oldest is Egyptian with records dating back about 4500 years. Then comes Akkadian (about 4000 years). The oldest written records of Chinese are about 2500 years old.

EDIT: If you are not counting written records, then ALL languages are equally old since ALL languages evolved from a common ancestor about 100,000 years ago. Indeed, every single language that has ancient written records had a long history of oral transmission before the stories were written down. Sanskrit is NOT unique. Indeed, Sanskrit, like Latin and Greek and even English evolved from Proto-Indo-European about 6000 years ago. So Sanskrit is NOT older than any other Indo-European language. The notion that Sanskrit is somehow the oldest language (or the most complex or the most beautiful) is Indian propoganda to promote the culture of India over the culture of Europe. It is a cultural/political assertion made by Indian nationalists and is NOT a linguistic fact.

Answer 4

No. Sanskrit is known to be one of the oldest languages as hinduism is older than Judaism.

There may not be records going back older than hebrew as the garbage muslims came and burnt all the sanskrit scriptures when they were looting india and stealing all the gold and jewels.

Answer 5

Sanskrit is the oldest language in the world.

Answer 6

No. Hebrew, like other Indo-European languages, is derived from Sanskrit.

Answer 7

Sanskrit is VERY old. In fact, it is the oldest, and the most complicated and beautiful language.
Sanskrit does not have very old written records, true. But, in olden times in India, scriptures were learnt by heart and passed on verbally from the teacher to the student. This trend of writing came late in India.

Answer 8

I believe Sanskrit is older.

Answer 9

The world today is living to the tune of the most intelligent race- the Jews. And have been doing so, since time immemorial. They created almost everything, from religions to languages.

Answer 10

It is very easy to make unsubstantiated claims. Without any other objective data one must use written records. Hebrew it is.