Oldest Language in the World
The idea of an “oldest language in the world” is a contentious one, as the origins of language itself are difficult to trace and much of what is known about ancient languages is speculative or based on limited evidence. However, several languages are often considered among the oldest still in use today, such as Tamil, Hebrew, and Chinese.
Tamil, spoken primarily in southern India and Sri Lanka, has a written history dating back over 2,000 years and is one of the world’s classical languages. Hebrew, the language of the Jewish people, has roots in ancient Canaanite and Aramaic and has been in use for over 3,000 years. Chinese, with its complex characters and tonal system, has a written history stretching back over 3,000 years and is one of the world’s most widely spoken languages today.
It’s important to note that while these languages have long histories, they have also undergone significant changes and evolution over time, so the versions spoken today may not closely resemble their ancient forms. Additionally, there are likely many other languages that were once spoken but have since been lost to history, making it difficult to determine definitively which language is truly the “oldest” in the world.
Top 10 Oldest Language in the World
Communication among humans is facilitated by language, some of which have become extinct over time while others continue to be spoken and preserved by people. These languages are characterised by their rich literary traditions and it is remarkable that some have persisted for more than 400 or even 4000 years. Additionally, sign language is now recognized as a language in its own right. Without further ado, let us delve into the top 10 oldest languages in the world.
|
S. No |
Oldest Language in the World |
|
1 |
Egyptian |
|
2 |
Sanskrit |
|
3 |
Greek |
|
4 |
Chinese |
|
5 |
Aramaic |
|
6 |
Hebrew |
|
7 |
Farsi |
|
8 |
Tamil |
|
9 |
Korean |
|
10 |
Italian |
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Egyptian
The first known language and proto-writing system originated in Africa, specifically in Nigeria. Therefore, it is not surprising that the oldest language on the list is Egyptian, which is also from and used in Africa. The first complete sentence in Ancient Egyptian was recorded around 2690 BCE, making it over 4700 years old.
Although regular people have not spoken the Egyptian language since the nineteenth century, it is still technically in use today. The descendant of Ancient Egyptian that survives is known as Coptic, and it is primarily used as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria and the Coptic Catholic Church. This fact is quite remarkable, especially considering that the language has survived for over 4500 years.
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Sanskrit
Sanskrit, with its oldest texts dating back to around 1500 BCE, is considered to be the second oldest language in the world still in use today. Its use is largely confined to religious texts and ceremonies in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. However, Sanskrit words and phrases are also commonly used in bureaucratic institutions such as missile names and school mottos in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and other parts of South and Southeast Asia.
Interestingly, several thousand people report Sanskrit as their first language on India’s census, even though it is believed that no one speaks it as their first language today. Researchers speculate that some people list it as an aspirational mother tongue. Nonetheless, there are people who speak and read Sanskrit as a second language in India and beyond, with entire universities devoted to its study.
Apart from its use in prayer and meditation, Sanskrit is also found in modern literature and music, and has loan words that have made their way into other languages around the world.
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Greek
Just slightly further down the timeline, Greek is considered as one of the oldest languages still used as the primary language in day-to-day life. While Modern Greek has undergone significant changes from the ancient Greek, the language spoken in Greece today can be traced back to the language of Homer and his predecessors, dating back centuries. Homer’s works are believed to have been written between the seventh and eighth centuries BCE, while the earliest attested form of Greek, Mycenaean Greek, appeared around 1450 BCE, several centuries prior to the emergence of Homer’s works. Presently, contemporary Greek boasts of approximately 13.5 million native speakers, making it an impressive feat to have survived for almost 3,500 years.
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Chinese
Another competitor for both oldest written language and oldest spoken language still in use today, Chinese is definitely both useful and backed by a long, rich history.
The first attested Old Chinese goes back to a set of inscriptions on oracle bones dated to roughly 1250 BCE. Of course, there are many different language varieties and dialects in China today, so Chinese is a fairly broad term here – but many of today’s most used varieties (including Mandarin and Cantonese) fall within the Sino-Tibetan language family and are descended from the Old Chinese we’re referencing here!
When it comes to languages that are both ancient and useful, Chinese has to take the top of the list. After all, Mandarin is the single most spoken language in the world today, with over 1.1 billion speakers. So if you’re looking to learn one of the oldest languages in the world still spoken today, you can’t go wrong if you learn Chinese.
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Aramaic
When looking for the oldest living language in the world, it might be surprising to find Aramaic on the list, especially for those who are not familiar with the culture of Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. However, Aramaic is an ancient language that has survived for almost 4,000 years, and its alphabet was the precursor to both the Hebrew and Arabic alphabets.
Aramaic was first attested in 1100 BC and was spoken by the Arameans in ancient Syria. Today, it is more lively as a living language than Sanskrit or Coptic, with somewhere between 800,000 and 1,000,000 speakers of Neo-Aramaic languages worldwide
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Hebrew
When it comes to the oldest languages still in use, Hebrew is a member of that club, having been first attested around 100 years after Aramaic, in 1000 BCE. What sets Hebrew apart from other languages on this list is that it stopped being a common mother tongue for a while, but was later successfully revived as a living language.
Hebrew was mainly used for religious texts and correspondence between Jewish people who did not share a language from around the second century CE onwards. The revival of Hebrew as a spoken language began in the nineteenth century, thanks to activists in Germany.
Today, over nine million people speak modern Hebrew, with around five million speaking it as a first language, making it a pretty impressive feat.
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Farsi
Although Farsi is not the earliest known language in the Indo-Iranian language family, it is the most enduring spoken language of the Iranian language family, having its roots in Old Persian, which was first documented between 522 and 486 BCE. The Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at UNC Chapel Hill reports that there are about 70 million native Farsi speakers and a total of 110 million speakers of the language worldwide. Today, there are communities of Farsi speakers not only in Iran but also in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Persian diasporic communities across the globe.
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Tamil
Tamil is a remarkable language that has a long and fascinating history, and is one of the official languages of Singapore, Sri Lanka, and the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India. It is often considered to be the language in India, and possibly the world, that has the most direct connection to its classical roots in terms of its evolution over time. With over 75 million native speakers, Tamil remains a popular first language.
Tamil enthusiasts may claim that it is the oldest language in the world, and in some ways, they may be right. According to Dr. Mikhail S. Andronov, a Russian linguist, Tamil may have descended from Proto-Dravidian, a proto-language reconstruction that may have been in use as far back as the fourth millennium BCE. However, it is difficult to prove. What is certain is that Old Tamil can be traced back to 300 BCE, which is still a significant achievement.
Regardless of whether Tamil is the oldest language in the world, it is certainly ancient, and speaking it can be beneficial if you plan to visit southern India, Sri Lanka, or Singapore.
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Korean
Korean, another language with a long history, cannot be left out of any top 10 list of the world’s oldest languages still spoken today. It is the primary language spoken in both North and South Korea, with at least 77 million native speakers.
While there is some debate about the exact date when Proto-Koreanic language evolved into Old Korean, it is clear that by the establishment of the Silla state in 57 BCE, a Koreanic language or proto-language was already in use.
Interestingly, the older Korean writing system, Hanja, which was based on Chinese characters, can be traced back to 400 BCE and the Joseon period, when Ye-Maek, an extinct Koreanic language from Manchuria and eastern Korea, was the common language. However, the Hangul phonetic characters that are unique to the Korean language today were not developed until the fifteenth century and can be considered relatively new.
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Italian
Finally, we have Italian, which is certainly not the least significant language on this list. Determining the oldest language in use can be challenging without examining a language’s lineage – at what point do we consider a language to be modern rather than historical if one leads to the other? Early Latin was used in the Roman Republic, possibly as early as 509 BCE, and certainly by 75 BCE. After much consideration, Italian was included in this list as the most direct modern descendant of Latin, although any of the Romance languages could have qualified.
So, why choose Italian over the others? Italian remains the language of Rome and is descended directly from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire through Italy during the Middle Ages. Today, Italian has approximately 67 million native speakers in the EU and beyond, and many people choose to learn Italian for its aesthetic appeal.
TRENDING
Which is the No 1 Oldest Language in the World?
Egyptian is considered to be the oldest language in the world, with its first known complete sentence recorded around 2690 BCE, making it over 4700 years old. Egyptian was the language of ancient Egypt and was spoken by the Egyptians for thousands of years. It is a member of the Afroasiatic language family and its hieroglyphic writing system is one of the earliest known writing systems. While Egyptian language is not spoken by regular people since the nineteenth century, it is still technically in use today. The language descended from Ancient Egyptian that survives today is called Coptic, and it is primarily used as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria and the Coptic Catholic Church.
Coptic is used in religious texts and ceremonies that persist today, but it is not commonly used as a spoken language. Instead, Arabic is the main spoken language in Egypt. Nonetheless, the language has an important place in Egypt’s cultural heritage and is studied by scholars and enthusiasts around the world. The importance of the Egyptian language in the development of human civilization cannot be overstated. Ancient Egyptians used the language to write down their history, laws, religion, and culture. The language was also used to create some of the most remarkable and enduring works of art and architecture in human history, including the Great Pyramids of Giza, the temples of Luxor, and the tombs of the pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings.
Which Is the Most Spoken Oldest Language in the World ?
Tamil (தமிழ் tamil) belongs to the Dravidian language family and is considered a classical language. It is primarily spoken by Tamils in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Singapore, although smaller communities of Tamil speakers exist in several other countries. As of 1996, Tamil was the eighteenth most widely spoken language in the world, with an estimated 74 million speakers. Tamil is an official language in India, Singapore, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka.
Tamil is one of the few living classical languages with a literary heritage that spans two millennia. Due to the significant diglossia in Tamil and the importance placed on classical Tamil, much of the vocabulary and forms of classical Tamil have been preserved in modern literary Tamil, with the higher registers of literary Tamil tending towards the classical language. The name ‘Tamil’ is derived from the native name (தமிழ்), with the final letter typically represented by a retroflex r sound, often written as a lowercase l or zh, and commonly transcribed as a retroflex approximant.
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