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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?

#81

Post by blueyes »

xbar wrote: post #56
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.

Speaking as a former journalist, I would say:

It's the job of reporters to do more than explore a question. Their job is to surface new and useful information for readers, and then prioritize it. And the job of the headline is to telegraph to readers what that information may be, reflecting their priorities.

It is a sign of a failed process of reporting if one can do no more than explore a question, and present a collection of dead ends.

If the reporter can't name the oldest language, then she might write a piece focused on why it's so hard to determine which language is oldest.

Or she might tell the story of how nationalism drives scholars of Chinese, Sanskrit and Tamil to stake the claims they do. There are probably several great stories there.

That is, part of the process of reporting is framing a question that can be answered in a way that allows her to present new and relevant information.

The reporter of this piece, and her editors, did not meet that standard.

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

#82

Post by Sprocklem »

pharrington wrote: post #30
LordGronk wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One (admittedly speculative) reason to believe that all natural spoken languages have a common ancestor derives from the fact that modern humans seem to rapidly develop new languages in the absence of an existing language, as was seen in the case of Nicaraguan Sign Language. There is no particularly compelling reason to believe that earlier homo sapiens ­– who were otherwise anatomically modern – would be any different before they began migrating out of africa. This is especially true given that all human populations do ultimately have both an apparently-innate capacity for language, and their own languages.

If this is the case, then the first language would have probably rapidly spread between the early populations in africa – if, indeed, there were multiple distinct populations at the time – and new (homo sapiens–originated) languages would have only arisen if the chain of speakers were somehow broken and children raised without access to an existing language.

With that being said, there are some cases where something similar has happened. Most obviously are sign languages, which are believed to have had multiple origins, since it is possible for deaf people to be born among non-signing populations. Something similar in the case of spoken languages is the phenomenon of pidgins evolving into creoles mentions elsewhere in the comments, although they still retain at least some aspect of one of their parent languages. The extent to which the latter count as proto-languages is questionable.

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

#83

Post by edgyquant »

earthboundkid wrote: post #66
triceratops wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> English and Hebrew are equally old. If you had a time machine could you bring me an English speaker from the year 1 CE?

In 1CE, people in Palestine mostly spoke Aramaic, and Hebrew was a religious language rapidly declining in vernacular use. :-)

So you concede that Hebrew existed. Well English didn’t and that’s the point.

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

#84

Post by rospaya »

DonaldFisk wrote: post #41

This question keeps cropping up, and whenever it does, people claim it was their language. The question needs to be precisely framed. Oldest spoken language in the world? All equally old. Oldest still spoken language in a particular area? It's easier to answer this for islands or archipelagos, e.g. Great Britain: Welsh. New Zealand: Maori. Japan: Ainu (but maybe not for much longer). Oldest written language? Sumerian…

I thought that Chinese is a group of languages, so when you mention it do you mean Mandarin and Cantonese both?

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

#85

Post by DonaldFisk »

rospaya wrote: post #84
DonaldFisk wrote: post #41

This question keeps cropping up, and whenever it does, people claim it was their language. The question needs to be precisely framed. Oldest spoken language in the world? All equally old. Oldest still spoken language in a particular area? It's easier to answer this for islands or archipelagos, e.g. Great Britain: Welsh. New Zealand: Maori. Japan: Ainu (but maybe not for much longer). Oldest written language? Sumerian…

I thought that Chinese is a group of languages, so when you mention it do you mean Mandarin and Cantonese both?

Yes, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Hokkien, etc., as they're all derived from Old Chinese and share its script.

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

#86

Post by NikkiA »

tyg13 wrote: post #79
triceratops wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I offered 100 pieces of gold I bet I could find at least one Hebrew speaker in Judaea in the year 1. Would I find an English speaker if I then popped over to Britannia and offered gold? Or would they say "What the fuck is English?"

Hebrew as it's spoken today in Israel, or ancient Hebrew? There's a lot of intelligibility between the two, but it's mostly in the written form. In ancient Judea you'd be more likely to find a speaker of dialect that'd entirely dead today. As far as English goes, obviously you wouldn't find any English speakers in ancient Britain, but you could find Saxons that spoke a language that English is descended from. There w…

> but you could find Saxons that spoke a language that English is descended from.

Not in britain you wouldn't, the saxons colonised britain in the 700-800AD range. Britons speaking Brythonic is what you'd find, probably not common Brythonic though, too early for that.

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

#87

Post by tyg13 »

NikkiA wrote: post #86
tyg13 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hebrew as it's spoken today in Israel, or ancient Hebrew? There's a lot of intelligibility between the two, but it's mostly in the written form. In ancient Judea you'd be more likely to find a speaker of dialect that'd entirely dead today. As far as English goes, obviously you wouldn't find any English speakers in ancient Britain, but you could find Saxons that spoke a language that English is descended from. There w…

> but you could find Saxons that spoke a language that English is descended from. Not in britain you wouldn't, the saxons colonised britain in the 700-800AD range. Britons speaking Brythonic is what you'd find, probably not common Brythonic though, too early for that.

Yes, you are correct the Saxons would be in ancient Saxony, not Britain.

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

#88

Post by LudwigNagasena »

tyg13 wrote: post #80
ffhhttt wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it’s generally the inverse from what they are saying. Isolated groups retain the old form of the language for much longer. e.g. Romansh or even Basque.

It seems multi-dimensional. Isolation allows for parallel language development, but that development could be conservative relative to the rest of the speakers, or it could be heavily divergent. Basque is an example where there's an obvious motivation for linguistic conservatism: the maintenance of a language that is "untainted" by the constant and unbalanced contact with French and Spanish speakers. There's a need t…

English is a great example of a language with huge influence from other Germanic languages and the French language. It wasn’t isolated in any meaningful sense: there were local Celtic tribes that lived there before Anglo-Saxons, then there was Danelaw, then there was the Norman conquest. Icelandic is a better example.

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

#89

Post by tyg13 »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #88
tyg13 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems multi-dimensional. Isolation allows for parallel language development, but that development could be conservative relative to the rest of the speakers, or it could be heavily divergent. Basque is an example where there's an obvious motivation for linguistic conservatism: the maintenance of a language that is "untainted" by the constant and unbalanced contact with French and Spanish speakers. There's a need t…

English is a great example of a language with huge influence from other Germanic languages and the French language. It wasn’t isolated in any meaningful sense: there were local Celtic tribes that lived there before Anglo-Saxons, then there was Danelaw, then there was the Norman conquest. Icelandic is a better example.

Sure, maybe not entirely isolated. I just mean that the geographic isolation of being an island means you don't see a dialect continuum between English and other languages the way that you do with say, the various Germanic languages.

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

#90

Post by ffhhttt »

tyg13 wrote: post #89
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is a great example of a language with huge influence from other Germanic languages and the French language. It wasn’t isolated in any meaningful sense: there were local Celtic tribes that lived there before Anglo-Saxons, then there was Danelaw, then there was the Norman conquest. Icelandic is a better example.

Sure, maybe not entirely isolated. I just mean that the geographic isolation of being an island means you don't see a dialect continuum between English and other languages the way that you do with say, the various Germanic languages.

Some linguists argued that English is essentially a creole language which would explain this.

> isolated

I would say the opposite. Frisian etc. were much more isolated and therefore developed more conservatively.

> a dialect continuum

You do a bit, e.g. Scots which developed somewhat independently/in parallel to English.

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