The Sanskrit language is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. Its position in the cultures of South and Southeast Asia is akin to that of Latin and Greek in Europe. It appears in pre-Classical form as Vedic Sanskrit (appearing in the Vedas), with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved.
Sanskrit belongs to the Indo-Aryan sub-family of the Indo-European family of languages.
Together with the Iranian languages it belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch and as such is part of the Satem group of Indo-European languages, which also includes the Balto-Slavic branch.
When the term arose in India, "Sanskrit" was not thought of as a specific language set apart from other languages, but rather as a particularly refined or perfected manner of speaking. Knowledge of Sanskrit was a marker of social class and educational attainment and the language was taught mainly to members of the higher castes, through close analysis of Sanskrit grammarians such as Panini.
