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i'm not talking about just spoken languages but ones with literature & stuff in it .

2006-06-25 22:34:03 · 35 answers · asked by yjnt 5 in Society & Culture Languages

35 answers

arabic,and may be chines

2006-06-26 00:51:21 · answer #1 · answered by renoz 4 · 0 0

criterion for determining which is the world's oldest language would be to examine the depth of its written records.
Languages with very old literatures include Sanskrit, Tamil and Kannada. it has been suggested that the earliest poems of the Vedas date to between 3500 BC - 1500 BC, though they were preserved by oral transmission well before they were written down. The antiquity of the texts of the Hebrew Bible is a controversial subject; some religious believers accept the literal truth of statements that would have the earliest portions of the text written by Moses, which would put them before 1270 BC. The poems of Homer are dated by Herodotus to approximately 850 BC.

The oldest language with a continuous written tradition is Chinese; the oracle script seems to be related to the seal scripts of early Chinese, and is attested from around 1200 BC, and therefore the descendants of that script are still in use. Speakers of several Semitic languages developed the abjad or consonantal alphabet some time before 1500 BC.


By this criteria, most archaeologists concur that Sumerian is the world's oldest language; it is extant from about 3200 BC. The hieroglyphs of Egyptian date to about 3100 BC.

2006-06-25 22:42:20 · answer #2 · answered by Life 5 · 0 0

Body Language!

2006-06-25 22:38:37 · answer #3 · answered by honky550 3 · 0 0

Language is the conveyance of abstract thought. I would think we probably do not have a name for the oldest language. Proof that an older language than (Egyptian Hierglyphics and the like) the ones listed here existed could be demonstated by examining the cave pictures depicting the hunt of wooly mammoth in the caves of present day Spain and France. They are over 5,000 years old, as the wooly mammoth became extinct in the last parts of Europe over 7.500 years ago.

2006-07-08 15:20:30 · answer #4 · answered by olivia54984 2 · 0 0

Sumerian is the oldest known language. Written records date back 5000 years

2006-06-26 00:44:29 · answer #5 · answered by Taivo 7 · 0 0

SANSKRIT which is the mother of all known languages at present. It is also one of the officially recognized languages of India. It is full of high standard literature. Read literature of Kalidas.

2006-07-04 00:52:36 · answer #6 · answered by agni 4 · 0 0

The language of Ur of the Chaldees in Mesopotamia, or Egypt are the first recogbisable languages that have been reduced to writing. The Epic of Gilgamesh may be the first story.

2006-06-25 22:42:21 · answer #7 · answered by iansand 7 · 0 0

In Europe, for example, the most archaic language is Lithuanian. It is closest to Sanskrit and was least modified throughout the centuries

2006-07-04 08:42:59 · answer #8 · answered by amber2sea 2 · 0 0

sanskrit is the oldest language of world all the othere language came from it

2006-06-25 22:41:46 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

Aramaic

2006-06-25 23:13:46 · answer #10 · answered by 【ツ】ρεαcε! 5 · 0 0

Chinees

2006-07-09 22:32:35 · answer #11 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

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