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I am very old -- hundreds of years

Reborn now and then, I have many peers

Have thousands with me - you know many of them

They all can change-- and yet stay the same

Sensible and orderly-- you all know me

Believe it or not-- I am inside me.

Hope this riddle has not been covered already.

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  • $\begingroup$ I thought it was a good riddle to try to "decode". $\endgroup$
    – Cody Vogt
    May 8, 2017 at 14:18

10 Answers 10

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Probably not, but could it be:

a Matryoshka doll?

I am very old -- hundreds of years

Matryoshka dolls are an old tradition (less old than I'd assumed, though - less than two hundred years).

Reborn now and then, I have many peers

"Reborn" by emerging from a larger version of itself? And the "peers" are the many copies of the doll.

Have thousands with me - you know many of them

There are thousands of Matryoshka dolls in the world.

They all can change-- and yet stay the same

They change in size from outer to inner, and yet still stay more or less the same otherwise.

Sensible and orderly-- you all know me

Orderly - they come in order.

Believe it or not-- I am inside me.

Well, this bit certainly fits!

Hope this riddle has not been covered already.

Not that I know of.

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  • $\begingroup$ rand al'thor this certainly seems to fit in general. my answer is quite a bit different. $\endgroup$
    – DrD
    Apr 23, 2017 at 12:11
  • $\begingroup$ @DeepakMahulikar which should be an indication you may lack something unique to differentiate your answer from any guesses. $\endgroup$
    – n_plum
    Apr 23, 2017 at 15:06
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    $\begingroup$ @Deepak Agreed; I'm beginning to think you should add another line or two to the original riddle to ensure that the solution is unique, otherwise it's liable to be closed as "too broad". $\endgroup$
    – Rand al'Thor
    Apr 23, 2017 at 15:12
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You could be

Words or Formulas(like a mathematical number series or scientific formulae)

I am very old -- hundreds of years

They both are too old.

Reborn now and then, I have many peers

New words and new formulae keep on coming. Words and formulas both have their own peers

Have thousands with me - you know many of them

There are thousands of words and formulas and we know many of them.

They all can change-- and yet stay the same

The words and formulas can all be different from each other in terms of spelling and symbols but they are still words and formulas

Sensible and orderly-- you all know me

They are sensible and orderly. If the symbols or letters are misplaced, words and formulas could become gibberish and incorrect

Believe it or not-- I am inside me.

me is both a word and a formula.

Hope this riddle has not been covered already.

Probably it has been covered but in a different way.

Also

I can fit in Letters as answer as well. But for now I have these two.

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  • $\begingroup$ very creative and very close to my answer $\endgroup$
    – DrD
    Apr 23, 2017 at 12:14
  • $\begingroup$ @Deepak Based on your comment that this is very close, I posted a new answer. $\endgroup$
    – Rand al'Thor
    Apr 23, 2017 at 15:11
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Are you a:

Star

I am very old, hundreds of years:

Stars are billions of years old

Reborn now and then I have many peers:

When some stars die they are transformed into a Nebula

Have thousands with me - you know many of them:

There are millions of stars in space maybe more

They all can change and yet stay the same:

Every star can change into a different thing, also every star is different and yet it's a star..

Sensible and orderly, you all know me:

Well we know a lot of stars and they are all well designed in an orderly and sensible way..

Believe it or not I'm inside me:

A star eats it self until it's dead So a star is inside it self

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  • $\begingroup$ Talal. Most of it fits except hundreds of years. I would have said billions for stars for sure. $\endgroup$
    – DrD
    Apr 23, 2017 at 12:12
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Second answer, based on the OP's comment to Techidiot's answer:

LANGUAGE.

I am very old -- hundreds of years

Most languages, except constructed ones like Esperanto, are hundreds or thousands of years old.

Reborn now and then, I have many peers

Dead languages can be 'reborn', like Latin or Cornish. Nearly every language has many relatives in the language tree.

Have thousands with me - you know many of them

There are thousands of languages in the world.

They all can change-- and yet stay the same

Languages evolve over time, but most of their structure stays the same - we can still understand Shakespearian English today.

Sensible and orderly-- you all know me

Languages have some logic and system to them, and everybody speaks at least one.

Believe it or not-- I am inside me.

Every language has within it a word for the language itself: English, Francais, Deutsch, Espanol, ...

Hope this riddle has not been covered already.

Not that I know of.

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  • $\begingroup$ Again. So close to my answer. $\endgroup$
    – DrD
    Apr 23, 2017 at 18:28
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    $\begingroup$ @DeepakMahulikar There's really nothing in the riddle as given that rules out this answer, other than "that wasn't what I was thinking of" - which is, more or less, the definition of a too broad puzzle or riddle. In fact I find this answer better and more convincing than yours. Rather than self-answer, a better choice would have been to further constrain your riddle to the single solution you intended. As it stands, other than "because MY answer is the right one", there's no good reason rand al'thor's answer shouldn't be deemed correct, and accepted as such. $\endgroup$
    – Rubio ♦
    Apr 24, 2017 at 4:33
  • $\begingroup$ I agree with @Rubio on this, you can see by how many answers you recieved - most of which can make very good arguments for being a correct answer, but instead of clarifying your riddle or attempting to make it more unique you answered yourself and did not even provide an answer that different to a lot of these. -1 on the puzzle. $\endgroup$
    – n_plum
    Apr 28, 2017 at 13:42
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Are you a

Book?

I am very old -- hundreds of years

Book are hundreds, some like Vedas & Bible are thousands of year old!

Reborn now and then, I have many peers

Book published in many formats and edition from time to time.

Have thousands with me - you know many of them

Book contain many characters both real and fictional, many of these are well known to general public.

They all can change-- and yet stay the same

Not sure about this, may be a referance to the changes over time to the original stories or content of books, but still the core concepts are preserved!

Sensible and orderly-- you all know me

Books present stories in proper way to better grasp, many of them are indexed.

Believe it or not-- I am inside me.

The actual core of the book is not the physical paper but the info which it contain!

Hope this riddle has not been covered already.

This seems to me as a referance to 'book cover'.

Built taking hints from Techidiot's and rand al'thor's answers

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is it

a riddle?

I am very old -- hundreds of years

riddles existed for a long time

Reborn now and then, I have many peers

sometimes old riddles resurface, there are a lot of riddles

Have thousands with me - you know many of them

we know a lot of riddles (being a bunch of puzzling geeks)

They all can change-- and yet stay the same

riddles morph and change, variations, but still the same concept of hidden clues to arrive at an answer

Sensible and orderly-- you all know me

riddles should make sense and the answers should follow the rules/clues set by the riddle

Believe it or not-- I am inside me.

the answer (or clues of the answer) to a riddle should be inside the riddle

Hope this riddle has not been covered already.

alluding to the fact that riddles resurface/have variations, hope this isnt a duplicate?

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  • $\begingroup$ This is what I came here to say. Also for "thousands with me" consider where the current one is.... $\endgroup$
    – leigero
    Apr 24, 2017 at 20:31
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Are you

Law

I am very old -- hundreds of years

Law is as old as a country

Reborn now and then, I have many peers

Each country has its own law (peers of American Law). Sometimes countries adopt a previously-used law(so this law reborns)

Have thousands with me - you know many of them

There are thousands of laws. Most citizens are familiar with many of these laws.

They all can change-- and yet stay the same

I'm not very sure of this. But, punishment for a crime can change, even though the law stays the same?(For example, jail time for murder can be reduced, but murdering someone is still illegal.)

Sensible and orderly-- you all know me

Sensible and orderly people know the law very well.

Believe it or not-- I am inside me.

A specific law is called "law". But all laws combined is also called "Law". Laws make up law, hence a law is inside law.

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Writing/characters:

Here’s why:

I am very old, hundreds of years:

Writing and/or drawing has been around since caveman times.

Reborn now and then, I have many peers:

There are hundreds of thousands of different languages.

I have thousands with me, you know many of them:

We know hundreds of characters of writing.

They all change, yet stay the same:

The characters change, yet the meaning of the words stay the same.

sensible and orderly- you all know me:

The writings are all ordered to be very certain.

Believe it or not, I am inside me:

Writing is inside itself, and can only be used by us and if forgotten, only the language can remember itself.

I hope this riddle has not yet been covered:

Writings/characters come and go, it (the riddle) hopes that this writing/characters have not yet been forgotten.

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  • $\begingroup$ Welcome to Puzzling Stack Exchange! Please use >! to hide your intended solution and clues. $\endgroup$
    – Glorfindel
    Apr 26, 2017 at 14:10
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Numbers

I am very old -- hundreds of years

The first known system with place value was the Mesopotamian base 60 system (ca. 3400 BC) and the earliest known base 10 system dates to 3100 BC in Egypt.wikipedia

Reborn now and then, I have many peers

From time to time people attach meaning to different numbers.
I don't have an exact example but you can find a lot in here

Have thousands with me - you know many of them

I would say more than thousands (this is where my answer may fail)

They all can change-- and yet stay the same

Technically numbers are the same but all though out history there are a lot of ways to represent numbers depending on the civilization. Roman, Mesopotamian, Egyptian

Sensible and orderly-- you all know me

there is an order in numbers.

Believe it or not-- I am inside me.

numbers are formed out of numbers.

Hope this riddle has not been covered already.

I hope so too.

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I was thinking of

Dictionary

because

Hundreds of years old (first known reference in 16th century)
Dictionaries get revamped now and then, reprinted (hence reborn)
Many peers: Different languages
Thousands of words
They can change into similar words, similar words in other languages yet the core meaning is same
They make sense and certainly have an alphabetical order
The word "Dictionary" is inside the Dictionary

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    $\begingroup$ So, its just a word. Also, you could have added another line to your riddle. Self answering is not entertained here. And not so early $\endgroup$
    – Techidiot
    Apr 23, 2017 at 21:08
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    $\begingroup$ +1 Techidiot I had some ideas before scanning the answers to see if anyone else had them already, and it's so much more disappointing when one of them has been posted by the OP when the question has been up less than a day. $\endgroup$
    – Brent Hackers
    Apr 24, 2017 at 7:21

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