Today there are a great variety of languages, both ancient and relatively young; both artificial and natural; both living and dead. Of course, each of them has the right to exist, because if at least some number of people use them all, it means they are needed. In the end, many believe (and not without reason) that it is precisely articulate speech and the possession of one’s own language that makes a person human.
But, probably, everyone has thought at least once about what their origin is, how they have survived to this day, and which of them is the most ancient. Unfortunately, the answer to this question still does not exist.
Of course, if we talk about language as such, then the most ancient is But what about the oral version?
There is a very interesting story on this topic about one pharaoh who, like the reader, became interested in the question of the proto-language. For the purpose of the experiment, this inquisitive ruler ordered two babies, who had never heard human speech in their lives, to be locked in a hut. This was done so that the children would “remember” the ancient languages supposedly embedded in their genes. To prevent the kids from dying of hunger, a milking goat was regularly brought to them, on whose milk they grew up.
And so, one fine day, the grown-up children uttered their first word, and it sounded like this: “bekos.” Pharaoh ordered his subjects to find a people whose language contains this word. Oddly enough, it was found - in the Phrygian language, "bekos" means "bread."
Of course, this experiment clarified something only for the pharaoh, since the modern reader can easily be convinced that there were more ancient languages than Phrygian.
Today, several languages are recognized as the most ancient.
Thus, Sumerian was first attested in writing in 3200 BC.
The first mention of the language spoken by the inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia dates back to 2800 BC.
The root Egyptian language is also very ancient. The first written evidence of its existence dates back to 3400 BC.
The Semites had their own language - once very popular, but now dead. It was called Elabian, and it has existed, at most, since 2400 BC.
In ancient Crete, the Minoan language was widely used, which flourished throughout the second century BC.
The Hittite Empire, during its period of prosperity, created its own language, called Hittite. Its origin dates back to 1650 BC.
One of the most ancient, not only in terms of writing but also in writing, is the Greek language, the first mention of which dates back to 1400 BC.
Chinese originated around the 11th century BC. Today, a huge number of people speak it.
So, from all of the above, we can conclude that many ancient languages of the world exist to this day, which means that their history is constantly being updated, and they themselves are being improved.
However, there is another noteworthy language that deserves mention. This is Sanskrit.
The origin of classical Sanskrit is attributed by specialists to the 4th century AD, but epic Sanskrit was born eight centuries before it, and the related Vedic language arose in the twentieth century BC.
Despite its considerable age, it has survived to this day in full, for which we should thank the ancient sages who defended the text of the sacred Vedas and the entire Vedic language. Thanks to the method they invented, their students could memorize the entire holy book, and then pass on their knowledge to a new generation.
Sanskrit is still spoken today, and there are people who communicate in it in everyday life.
Of course, in addition to Sanskrit, there were other ancient languages, but in none of them were so many great works written as in the language of the Vedas.
In our translation agency, foreign languages are of interest not only to translators. Our programmer Ivan Orlov, in his relay turn, asked for a translation of an article about different languages :)
Ok, done! 7 oldest classical languages of the world.
And here are the ones our translation agency iTrex works with!
Language as a means of communication began to take shape 100,000 years ago. We will never be able to know which language was the very first spoken language, since ancient languages did not have a written form. It is simply impossible to single out the very first language in the world. Even figuring out which language came first is a difficult task, but we can learn about some invaluable languages. Humanity developed along with these classical languages.
Of particular value are the 7 classical languages that had the strongest influence on humans. They can be called the treasures of the Earth, and we are responsible for their preservation. Moreover, many languages that existed even before the classical ones disappeared without a trace.
7 Invaluable Classical Languages
What was the first language on our planet? Unfortunately, today scientists cannot answer this question. Sometimes you can hear the variants “Sumerian” (the Sumerians lived on the territory of modern Iraq, there are written sources from 3000 BC), “Egyptian”, “Phrygian” (younger than Sumerian by a couple of millennia).
But linguists believe that the language macrofamilies that exist today arose 15-17 thousand years ago, and this is already much earlier than the 3rd millennium BC.
Scientists who adhere to the theory of monogenesis believe that all languages originated from one language, the proto-world language, that is, some language was the first on Earth. Although it is also possible for a situation in which different language groups arose independently.
It should be especially noted that a proto-world language is not necessarily the very first language in the world, it is “just” the language from which all others descended.
Protolanguage and monogenesis: how to find the first language?
There are some roots that can be traced in many languages, for example, dad, mom, big brother (aka, kaka), leaf (leaf, petal). Let’s say that the existence of the words “dad” and “mom” (link to a page with dad and mom in different languages) can be explained by the fact that the consonants “m” and “p” are the first sounds of children’s speech, that is, words seem to be natural for baby talk. But it’s difficult to attribute the word “leaf” to children’s speech, and this root can be found in language families very far from each other. And he is not alone; there are many such common roots. Linguists explain this by saying that such words have a common source - perhaps we are talking about the first language of the world?
In addition, human languages are similar in their internal structure: they all have consonants and vowels, there is a subject, a predicate and an object. Linguists consider it unlikely that such an identical structure could have originated in different places completely independently.
As we have already said, linguistic macrofamilies known to science date back approximately 15-17 thousand years. Perhaps, to bring these families together, another 2-3 “floors” are needed, but linguists, in particular Sergei Starostin, who is deeply interested in the problems of monogenesis, believes that it is unlikely that the proto-language could be older than 40-50 thousand years, otherwise global etymology.
It is very likely that human language originated in Central Africa. As proof of this, a number of others cite the fact that in Africa there is a group of Khoisan languages (link to Khoisan). They differ from all others by the presence of clicking consonants, clicks. Linguists believe that it is much easier for kliks to be lost in the process of language development than to be acquired, so the Khoisan languages may turn out to be one of the first - or related to the first language.
Man, being essentially an ordinary animal with ordinary instincts, nevertheless differs from other animals in his ability to speak, while transmitting “oral” information. There are quite a few languages on our planet, but the principle of verbal communication remains the same for any nation. All people belong to the same, so to speak, “linguistic family.”
There are primitive languages, the ancestors of modern languages, that appeared at the dawn of mankind. It is difficult to say which language arose first, but modern scientists are inclined to believe that absolutely all modern languages of the world have the same root - the same language spoken by the inhabitants of southern Europe at the end of the Ice Age.
Thanks to this ancient progenitor language, with the help of which ancient people communicated approximately 13-16 thousand years ago, 7 other languages appeared, forming the ancient Eurasian “superfamily”, from which the remaining languages emerged.
Modern languages are developing very quickly and have already lost their ancestry; most words will be replaced in languages with the advent of new technologies and notations. According to statistics, words change approximately every 2-4 thousand years.
But some “foundational” words remain in modern languages. A team of scientists from the University of Reading, led by evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel, found that some words tend to be pronouns, numerals and adverbs, have remained unchanged through hundreds of centuries.
In order to find out which words were not initially subject to changes and sound in Eurasian languages the same way as several dozen, or even hundreds of centuries ago, scientists from the University of Reading created and applied computer modeling. Linguistic scientists identified 23 words that were found in at least four Eurasian languages, including the pronouns “I”, “we”, and the nouns “man”, “mother”.
Interesting results were also discovered, such as the verb “spit” and the nouns “bark” and “worm”. Linguistic scientists called these words “super-stable”, since they have not changed for 12-15 thousand years.
They are present in such language families as Indo-European, Altaic (modern Turkish, Uzbek, Mongolian), Chukchi-Kamchatka (languages of northeastern Siberia), Dravidian (languages of southern India), Eskimo, Kartvelian (Georgian and other similar languages) and Ural (Finnish, Hungarian and others).
Ancient words
In total, we counted 23 “super stable” words left over from the Ice Age:
“you”, “I”, “no”, “that”, “we”, “give”, “who”, “this”, “what”, “man”, “you”, “old”, “mother” "", "hear", "hand", "fire", "pull", "black", "flow", "bark", "ash", "worm", "spit"
List of the most ancient languages
Sumerian language- 2900 BC
Egyptian- 2700 BC
Akkadian- 2400 BC
Eblaite— 2400 BC
Elamite— 2300 BC
Hurrian- 2200 BC
Hittite- 1650 BC
Luwian- 1400 BC
Huttian— 1400 BC
Greek- 1400 BC
Ugaritic-1300 BC
The development of language is reminiscent of biological evolution - it happens every minute, generation after generation, so it is difficult to determine where one language ends and another begins, developing from it. Thus we cannot say that one language is more ancient than another; they are all the same age as humanity. And yet, each of the languages described below has something special - something ancient - that sets them apart from the crowd.
Oldest of the Living
Hebrew
Hebrew has an interesting situation, since it almost fell out of use around 400 AD. and was used only in worship by Jews around the world. However, after the rise of Zionism in the XIV - XX centuries. Hebrew underwent a process of revival and became the official language of Israel. Although the modern version differs from the biblical version, Hebrew speakers fully understand everything written in the Old Testament and related books. Since the first speakers of Modern Hebrew were often Yiddish, Modern Hebrew has many similarities with this other Hebrew language.
Tamil
Spoken by about 78 million people and the official language of India, Sri Lanka and Singapore, Tamil is the only ancient classical language that has survived into modern times. It belongs to the Dravidian family, which includes languages primarily spoken in the southern and eastern states of India. Researchers have found inscriptions in Tamil that date back to the third century BC, and it has been in continuous use since then. Unlike Sanskrit, another ancient Indian language that fell out of common use around 600 BC. and almost became used only for worship, Tamil continued to develop and is now the 20th most spoken language in the world.
Lithuanian
Most European languages belong to the Indo-European language family, but they began to separate from each other around 3500 BC. They developed into dozens of other languages, including German, gradually losing the features common to them all. However, one of these languages, which belongs to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family, more than the others, retains the features of a language that linguists call Proto-Indo-European (PIE), which they suggest was in use around 3500 BC. It is not known why, but Lithuanian has retained more PIE sounds and grammatical rules than its other linguistic counterparts, and can therefore be called one of the most ancient languages in the world.
Farsi
Have you ever heard of Farsi? Farsi is spoken today mainly in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. You may have heard, and, probably, in connection with this, your imagination draws a picture of a genie emerging from a bottle. In essence, it is the same language, just under different names. Farsi is a direct descendant of Old Persian, which was the language of the Persian Empire. Modern Persian emerged around 800 AD, and what distinguishes it from many modern languages is that it has changed relatively little since then. Today's Persian speakers can take, for example, a text written in 900 AD. and read it with even less difficulty than a native English speaker might read, say, Shakespeare.
Icelandic
Icelandic is another Indo-European language that belongs to the Scandinavian branch (for comparison, English also belongs to the Germanic languages, but to the West Germanic branch). Many Germanic languages have, over the course of their development, lost some of the features that their other Indo-European counterparts have, but Icelandic has developed much more conservatively and has retained many of these features. The reign of Denmark in the country from the 14th to the 20th century. also had little influence on Icelandic, so it has changed little since the Vikings brought it with them when they settled the area, and Icelandic speakers can easily read sagas written centuries ago.
Macedonian
The Slavic language group, which includes Russian, Czech and Croatian, among others, is relatively young. They began to separate from their common ancient ancestor, the Common Slavic (or Proto-Slavic) language, when Cyril and Methodius introduced language standards, creating what is today called Old Church Slavonic, and created an alphabet for it. In the 9th century they contributed to the spread of this ancient language to the north along with the spread of Christianity among the Slavs. They came from a land slightly north of Greece, perhaps what is now Macedonia, and Macedonian (along with its closest relative) is the language closest to Old Church Slavonic.
Basque
Basque is a real linguistic mystery. Its speakers are the Basque people, who live in Spain and France, but Basque itself has nothing in common with any of the Romance languages (which include Spanish), or, in fact, with any other language in the world. For several decades, linguists have tried to clarify its ancient linguistic ancestry, but none of the theories has been able to withstand criticism. The only certain fact is that it existed before the appearance of Romance languages in this territory - that is, before the Romans brought Latin to this land, which eventually developed into French and Spanish.
Finnish
Finnish was not used in writing until the 16th century, but it has a much deeper history. It belongs to the Finno-Ugric language family, which also includes Estonian, Hungarian and several languages that are used by national minorities in Siberia. Despite this, Finnish contains many loanwords that have been introduced into it from other language families over many centuries. In many cases, Finnish has preserved these loanwords in a form closer to the original than the languages from which they were borrowed. For example, the word aiti, meaning "mother", comes from Gothic - which, of course, is no longer used. Word kuningas(“king”) comes from the Old Germanic word * kuningaz– which no longer exists in any Germanic language.
Georgian
The Caucasus region is a real find for linguists. The main languages of the three South Caucasus countries: Armenia. Azerbaijan and Georgia belong to three completely different language families - Indo-European, Turkic and Kartvelian. – the most widespread among the Kartvelian languages, and is the only Caucasian language with an ancient literary tradition. Its melodic and unique alphabet is also quite ancient - it was adapted from Aramaic around the third century BC. Although it is not an isolated language in the same sense as Basque, there are only four Kartvelian languages in the world, all of them used by national minorities in Georgia, and none of them is related to any language in the world.
Irish Gaelic
Although Irish Gaelic is spoken as a first language by only a small majority of Irish people today, it has a deep history. It belongs to the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family. It existed on the islands that are today Great Britain and Ireland long before the Germanic tribes came to this territory. From Irish Gaelic developed Scots and Manx (which was formerly used on the Isle of Man), but what makes it included on this list is that it has the oldest vernacular literature in Western Europe. While other European countries spoke their own languages but used Latin writing, the Irish used their own language for writing.
