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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?

#51

Post by detourdog »

linguistics__ wrote: post #25
politelemon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I have started to plan some earth mounds. I keep walking over the same ground contemplating the optimal setting. Once I figured that out it occurred to me that it would be fun to make them 3 sizes small, medium, and large.

The idea has evolved to the point where I'm now estimating quantity of stones and relative size based on seating capacity of the mound.

I won't it even get in to site the entrances towards the east...

My point, I think is that a simple tweaks to earth mound can evolve a complex language by using similar shaped river stones at different scales.

The final result of the first phase will 7 mounds of 3 sizes and one large elevated platform. I realized doing planing the easiest way to communicate my idea to landscapers was to find a stone of each size to use a reference. I could then describe how many of which type go where. before covering with earth.

Once they are done we start to mark celestial events with special stones from far away places to mark the significance...

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

#52

Post by triceratops »

civilitty wrote: post #50
celeritascelery wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oldest spoken language in the world? All equally old. That doesn’t seem possible. Surely some spoken languages are older then others.

Without written language, no record can exist of the spoken language. Since spoken language significantly predates written language, we’ll never know when the former originated. It’s just practical to say they’re all equally old to avoid any cultural egotism that inevitably creeps in.

It's not cultural egotism to say for example, that Hebrew is older than English. Being old doesn't confer extra prestige on a language.

The problem is in deciding whether a language spoken 1000 years ago is still the same language as today. I'm not enough of a linguist to know the correct answer to this.

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

#54

Post by wl »

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…

Classical Latin is to Italian as Middle Egyptian is to Coptic. If the former pair are distinct languages, so are the latter. Yes, knowledge of Coptic is what unlocked the Rosetta Stone. But the differences are substantial. Old Egyptian (even if we knew the vowels) and revival Bohairic would be nowhere near mutually intelligible.

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

#55

Post by Aloha »

I'd like to know what the oldest mutually intelligible language would be.

With each spoken and written language that exists, from how long ago could you find a speaker (or reader) who could meaningfully have a conversation with an average fluent speaker from today.

I specifically say average, because vocabulary registers shift with time - even when fundamentals of the language do not, even an english speaker from after the great vowel shift might have trouble unless the modern speaker was especially well read.

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

#56

Post by xbar »

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.

I felt the author was justified in failing to yield an answer by posing the title in the form of a question. You were not going to get an answer, you were going to explore a question.

An article that gives an answer would have said " Is The World's Oldest Language."

My suspicion is that we have been clickbait-trained to expect answers when the title is a question. I prefer this structure.

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

#57

Post by solumunus »

DonaldFisk wrote: post #47
celeritascelery wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oldest spoken language in the world? All equally old. That doesn’t seem possible. Surely some spoken languages are older then others.

OK, excluding constructed languages such as Esperanto.

“All spoken languages are equally old” but then in the next point: Welsh is older than English. You must have miscommunicated here? Obviously all spoken languages are not “equally old”…

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

#58

Post by guidedlight »

This article does a poor job of even identifying candidates, because it narrows its scope to old world history (i.e. european, middle eastern, and asian history).

It ignores for example, Aboriginal Australians whose history and language dates back over 50,000 years. Far preceding the timelines mentioned. Many African cultures and languages are likewise much older than those mentioned in the article.

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

#59

Post by heywhatupboys »

solumunus wrote: post #57
DonaldFisk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, excluding constructed languages such as Esperanto.

“All spoken languages are equally old” but then in the next point: Welsh is older than English. You must have miscommunicated here? Obviously all spoken languages are not “equally old”…

are humans older than chimps?

no, we share a common ancestor.

Have chimps been in x country for longer than humans? maybe

not the same question

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

#60

Post by heywhatupboys »

triceratops wrote: post #52
civilitty wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without written language, no record can exist of the spoken language. Since spoken language significantly predates written language, we’ll never know when the former originated. It’s just practical to say they’re all equally old to avoid any cultural egotism that inevitably creeps in.

It's not cultural egotism to say for example, that Hebrew is older than English. Being old doesn't confer extra prestige on a language. The problem is in deciding whether a language spoken 1000 years ago is still the same language as today. I'm not enough of a linguist to know the correct answer to this.

English and Hebrew are equally old. Just like humans and chimps are.

There are species with less "evolution" than others.

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