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What’s the world’s oldest language?

scientificamerican.com

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Re: What’s the world’s oldest language?

#21

Post by ClaraForm »

LordGronk wrote: post #13
retrac wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coptic is as dead as Latin. No one speaks it as a native language.

it has a steady liturgical use and children are raised to understand it in church, along with small spoken revival groups here in the states so, while not exactly living, I would say it’s in a far better state in its community than Latin post vatican 2. But note, I never said it was alive. Just that it’s not as dead as, say, Sumerian (in fact it’s about as alive amongst the coptic community I know as Sumerian was at…

As a Copt who speaks but doesn't understand very much of what I say, my father can speak it, as does anyone who has a liturgical inclination. I can always go learn more of it, and it will likely remain as alive as it currently is for the foreseeable future. It's impossible to be devout without speaking it, it's impossible to connect to our identity without seeking to be devout.

Just supporting what you're saying.

Re: What’s the world’s oldest language?

#22

Post by ffhhttt »

TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #12
LordGronk wrote: post #8

Historians and linguists generally agree that Sumerian, Akkadian and Egyptian are the oldest languages with a clear written record. All three are extinct Umm, what? Coptic is a (barely) living Egyptian. It is close enough for us to have deciphered hieroglyphs, hieratic, and demotic, at the old, middle, and late stages. Yes the Greek on the Rosetta stone helped but Coptic sealed the deal, particularly with translitera…

Plus, wasn't Arabic based on Aramaic, which is still spoken today?

Not really, they are not even on the same sub-branch of Semitic languages. Aramaic is closer to Hebrew.

Aramaic is still spoken by Assyrians and IIRC some other Christian groups in the region though.

Re: What’s the world’s oldest language?

#23

Post by zarzavat »

LordGronk wrote: post #8

Historians and linguists generally agree that Sumerian, Akkadian and Egyptian are the oldest languages with a clear written record. All three are extinct Umm, what? Coptic is a (barely) living Egyptian. It is close enough for us to have deciphered hieroglyphs, hieratic, and demotic, at the old, middle, and late stages. Yes the Greek on the Rosetta stone helped but Coptic sealed the deal, particularly with translitera…

This is why “oldest language” is silly.

Is Old English the same language as Modern English? They are definitely not mutually intelligible. If we can accept them as being the “same” language then why not English and Proto-Indo-European? It’s not like people woke up one day and started speaking a different language. It’s a continuous evolution.

The oldest languages that are still intelligible such that you could go back in time and be sure to be understood are surely the liturgical languages like Arabic and Latin that have been carefully preserved over thousands of years. Without this system of active remembrance, languages naturally become unintelligible with their prior versions.

Re: What’s the world’s oldest language?

#24

Post by nivertech »

TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #12
LordGronk wrote: post #8

Historians and linguists generally agree that Sumerian, Akkadian and Egyptian are the oldest languages with a clear written record. All three are extinct Umm, what? Coptic is a (barely) living Egyptian. It is close enough for us to have deciphered hieroglyphs, hieratic, and demotic, at the old, middle, and late stages. Yes the Greek on the Rosetta stone helped but Coptic sealed the deal, particularly with translitera…

Plus, wasn't Arabic based on Aramaic, which is still spoken today?

No, Aramaic falls somewhere in between the two. Hebrew is closer to Aramaic since it has borrowed its higher register (similar to how Latin influenced European languages)

Both Hebrew and Aramaic belong to the Northwest Semitic languages[1] family

Furthermore, there is no single attested Arabic language in the same manner as Hebrew, which is one of the Canaanite dialects

There are several proto-Arabic languages[2], but some of the northern ones are likely speculative. While there is evidence of the Ancient North Arabian[3] script, the actual language(s) it represents remain unattested

---

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Semitic_languages

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Arabic_language

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_North_Arabian

Re: What’s the world’s oldest language?

#25

Post by linguistics__ »

politelemon wrote: post #15
blueyes wrote: post #9

Very disappointing article, and a reminder to me that, when the headline is a question, the article rarely contains the answer. It's as though the author went down a rabbit hole of her own curiosity for a couple hours, came up with next to nothing, but had to justify the time spent.

Yes I was thinking a better title would be, "It is difficult to determine the oldest language"

Well, the question is in reality either unanswerable (we don't know - and may never know - how many and when the first proto-language(s) emerged) or meaningless (all live natural languages go back as far as we can reconstruct or attest to).

Re: What’s the world’s oldest language?

#26

Post by [deleted] »

TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #12
LordGronk wrote: post #8

Historians and linguists generally agree that Sumerian, Akkadian and Egyptian are the oldest languages with a clear written record. All three are extinct Umm, what? Coptic is a (barely) living Egyptian. It is close enough for us to have deciphered hieroglyphs, hieratic, and demotic, at the old, middle, and late stages. Yes the Greek on the Rosetta stone helped but Coptic sealed the deal, particularly with translitera…

Plus, wasn't Arabic based on Aramaic, which is still spoken today?

[deleted]

Re: What’s the world’s oldest language?

#27

Post by LudwigNagasena »

bradley13 wrote: post #7

There are so many fascinating things about languages. Here are a couple: - Toss people together who don't really have a common language, and they quickly evolve a pidgin, which is a very simplified kind of language that lets them communicate. Over a couple of generations, the pidgin evolves into a full language. This has happened repeatedly over history, often through things like conquering or enslaving other groups…

> Isolate people, and they quickly develop their own dialect.

Are you sure of that? I think the absence of external communication would make a language more conservative.

Re: What’s the world’s oldest language?

#29

Post by retrac »

LordGronk wrote: post #13
retrac wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coptic is as dead as Latin. No one speaks it as a native language.

it has a steady liturgical use and children are raised to understand it in church, along with small spoken revival groups here in the states so, while not exactly living, I would say it’s in a far better state in its community than Latin post vatican 2. But note, I never said it was alive. Just that it’s not as dead as, say, Sumerian (in fact it’s about as alive amongst the coptic community I know as Sumerian was at…

That is why I compared it to Latin. It sees steady liturgical use, and in some pockets, children are still raised to understand it in Church, along with spoken revival groups. That is to say, Latin is dead.

Re: What’s the world’s oldest language?

#30

Post by pharrington »

LordGronk wrote: post #10
zirgs wrote: post #5

What makes them think that there was just one proto-language not several ones that appeared independently from each other?

There’s no evidence that Homo Sapiens, aside from some interbreeding with other hominids interacted with other hominids who were capable of complex language for that to be possible. And a multiple origin scenario for behaviourally modern humans flies in the face of modern science, archaeology, and palaeontology to such a degree that it would basically require magic.

I think what zirgs meant is that since at least one group of humans developed a language, it makes sense that different groups of humans could also independently develop language.
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