Most archaic Indo-European language by grammar

Breiniak   Fri Aug 15, 2008 6:36 pm GMT
Languages all change over time. Some at a far more lesser extent (i.e. Icelandic, which still is like Old Norse), some have changed beyond recognition (Old Anglo-Saxon <=> Modern English).
Now I do know this topic has been done before, but people failed to proof their points by summing up their knowledge.

I want to know which language is the most archaic of all Indo-European language by its grammatical features which is currently spoken. What IE language has the most inflected grammar of them all?

I personally think the Baltic languages are (Latvian over Lithuanian <=> Prussian was even more archaic but sadly died out), but also Albanian (please don't mention Illyrian, I'm talking about contemporary Albanian), Romani and Sanskrit are possible winners.

Can people who know any of these languages sum up how many tenses they have? How any cases? How many moods? Any other information? Maybe for instance how Baltic languages are more archaic than Slavic ones because of that reason...
Guest   Fri Aug 15, 2008 6:45 pm GMT
Does Sanskrit really count? Isn't that sort of an artificial revival?
Guest   Fri Aug 15, 2008 6:46 pm GMT
The most archaic would probably be Hittite since it's the earliest attested of the IE languages.
Guest   Fri Aug 15, 2008 6:49 pm GMT
I see you meant current languages.
Breiniak   Fri Aug 15, 2008 6:50 pm GMT
Mayhap. It's also perfectly possible to revive Old Prussian in that manner. Very still people speak Sanskrit as their natural mother tongue, very like Hebrew (even though Hebrew had to borrowed a lot from its Arabic cousin to sound more Semitic and still be adapted to modern society).

Let's exclude Sanskrit then and talk about languages that have never died out.