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100 things challenge - 59: Oldest language
What is the oldest language in the world? This is difficult question to answer, as languages change and evolve all the time, to the extent that any currently spoken language is unintelligible to it's ancestor of just a 1000 years ago!
Most scientists agree that spoken language has been present since around 100,000 years ago. In the 19th and early 20th century it was a popular belief among scientists that by comparing modern languages the first human language could be reconstructed, the so-called Proto-Human. A few words/roots that where reconstructed in this way are 'ku' (who), 'pal' (two) and 'akwa' (water). However, there are also many critics of this method of tracing language to its roots.
The oldest written language is Sumerian (the language of Mesopotamia), which has records dating back to 3000 BC. Second comes Egyptian, with records of some 4500 years old (2500 BC). Ancient Egyptian actually partially survived in the Coptic language, which is used in the Christian services of the Coptic church. If the language has to have survived (in some form) until today, then Chinese and Greek are the oldest written languages, both first appearing around 1500 BC.
If a language has no old written records, it does not necessarily mean it's a 'new' language. For example, Albanian was first written in the 15th century AC, while archeological evidence suggests the Albanians were a separate people in the first century and probably spoke a language related to modern Albanian.
Most scientists agree that spoken language has been present since around 100,000 years ago. In the 19th and early 20th century it was a popular belief among scientists that by comparing modern languages the first human language could be reconstructed, the so-called Proto-Human. A few words/roots that where reconstructed in this way are 'ku' (who), 'pal' (two) and 'akwa' (water). However, there are also many critics of this method of tracing language to its roots.
The oldest written language is Sumerian (the language of Mesopotamia), which has records dating back to 3000 BC. Second comes Egyptian, with records of some 4500 years old (2500 BC). Ancient Egyptian actually partially survived in the Coptic language, which is used in the Christian services of the Coptic church. If the language has to have survived (in some form) until today, then Chinese and Greek are the oldest written languages, both first appearing around 1500 BC.
If a language has no old written records, it does not necessarily mean it's a 'new' language. For example, Albanian was first written in the 15th century AC, while archeological evidence suggests the Albanians were a separate people in the first century and probably spoke a language related to modern Albanian.
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