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Claims about one language being "the oldest" abound. Latin is one of the earliest languages for which we have written documents, but not the oldest by a long shot.

Of course, talking about the age of a language only makes sense if you are talking about a dead language (Latin is one, having presumably no living native speakers). This is because all languages evolve out of previous languages (with the possible exception of some sign languages).

For instance, while it is true that a language called "Hebrew" was spoken several thousand years ago and a language called "Hebrew" is spoken today, and there is a direct connection between the older and the younger language, the sense in which Hebrew is very old is mostly that it has retained the same name. Nearly every living language can point to an ancestor language as "old" as Hebrew. What is unusual about Hebrew is the name has stayed the same.

Back on the subject of Latin: maybe it does raise SAT scores. But wouldn't studying English raise SAT scores more?

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