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Sanskrit is a classical language that was spoken by the Aryan invaders who settled in the Indus Valley region and displaced the Indus Valley or Harappan civilization in perhaps 1500 B.C.

It is generally written in the Devanagari script. Several Latin-alphabet transliterations of varying utility are also available. It is found written on stone, birch bark, palm leaves and paper.

Sanskrit belongs to the Indo-European family of languages and its common origin with modern European and the more familiar classical languages of Greek and Latin can be seen, for instance, in the Sanskrit words for mother, matr, and father, pitr. The similarities between Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit led to the discovery of this language family, and thus played an important role in the development of linguistics.

For India, Sanskrit occupies a role similar to that of Latin in Western Europe. It was a language of religious ritual and scholars, it is now dead, and it had locally varied spoken forms (Prakrits) such as Pali.

Sanskrit had some influence on the Chinese culture because Buddhism was initially transmitted to China in Sanskrit. Many Chinese Buddhist scriptures were written with Chinese transliterations of Sanskrit words. Some Chinese proverbs use Buddhist terms that originate from Sanskrit.

Sanskrit words are found in many present-day languages. For instance the Thai language contains many loan words from Sanskrit.

External links:

• The sanskrit alphabet
• The earliest dated illustrated Sanskrit manuscript in the world
• list of Chinese words originated from Sanskrit