§ Sanskrit and Sumerian
§ Sanskrit's precursors
The oldest known sanskrit text that has been found is the Rig Veda. Eveyrthing
after is the study of sanskit proper. This is quite problematic because the
Rig Veda is a complete and consistent textbook with respect to language. It's
a black-box in terms of language evolution.
The question "what is the precursor" asks for a method of study to determine
the precursor. We just don't know because we have no writings, text, etc.
§ Archaeological data
Archaeological data is problematic as well. We don't know where the people who
knew sanskrit came from. Sanskrit was spoken in the northen part of
Hindusthan [what they originally called Bhrahma-nagar (?) ]. While we can
try to undersatnd where it comes from, it's hard. The script is Brahmi / Devanagiri,
which means used by Brahma or god. The name "sanskrit" is a compound that stands
for "well-formed". It's really clean-slate in that sense. The study of Indo-Aryan
languages in the Indian subcontinent has only one possible known history, which
stops at the Rig Veda. We don't know the relationship between 2400BC when
Rig Veda was written to anything before it.
§ Non Vedic sanskrit
Studies in non-vedic sanskrit is known to be the "true" proto-Indo-Europoean (PIE)
language. The conjecture is that this Indo European language ought to be
able to cover middle greek, hittite, and sanskit.
§ Prakrit and its relationship to this story
Prakrit evolved as a vernacular of Sanskrit in the north pahadi region. Hindi
as we know toady evolved from Hindusthani, which came from languages in
northern india. Languages like Marathi, Marvadi, Gujurathi, etc. came a lot
before Hindi did.
§ TLDR on Sanskrit v/s Hindi
There is a huge gap of time between Sanskit, Prakrit, Pali, and Hindi.
Hindi evolved around the 1600s due to the Mughals who used to speak a
vernacular of Hindusthani. Kabir also wrote in Hindusthani. There was also
some Farsi and Urdu mixed in.
Hindi is more of a political exploit than an actual language ~ Alok 2020
§ The relationship to Sumerian
We don't know what the relationship to sumerian is. Social expectations that
was setup is sumerian has become more stringent in Sanskrit.