Ishwa helper Reged: 03/03/02 Posts: 553

Re: Sanskrit is the World's the oldest language [Re: Daitenshi] #18446 - 07/08/02 02:16 AM Edit Reply Quote

Hmm, actually cuneiform is not the earliest type of writing (anymore). The pictographic scripts are older. At this moment three of the oldest scripts are from Egypt, Sumer and Sindhu-Sarasvati (and China?). Whether the submerged city of Khambat contains some kind of writing has yet to be proven with more investigations. It is true that in Jericho and also somewhere in Asia Minor there (I forgot the name of the place) are two very old village-like settlements. The settlement of Mehrgarh of Baluchistan is far larger. The submerged Khambat city has yet to be investigated more profoundly. Note Avesta Persian doesn't belong to the family of the rest of the languages for which the cuneiform script was used. Persian is an Indo-European language. Avestan is actually more close to Sanskrit than Achaemenid Persian, which is actually a later development. And of this last we have cuneiform inscriptions. May be there are, but as far as I know there are no cuneiform inscriptions of the Avesta. The oldest Gathic Avesta tradition is intermingled with younger Avestan and the Middle-Persian Pahlavi of the Sasanian kings. That's why the study of that language is so difficult without inscriptions, but facilitated by the closeness with Sanskrit.