2006-07-04 13:42:07 · 7 answers · asked by Gardener for God(dmd) 7 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
Go to the library and find the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages. It is an outstanding volume and has short grammatical sketches of several dozen of the ancient and extinct languages of the world.
2006-07-05 14:23:29 · answer #1 · answered by Taivo 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Wikipedia has an article about it... but they list Sanskrit, which is still spoken by a lot of people as a first language...
To sum up, you've got a lot of Native American languages, Latin (though still used by the Catholic Church and is the official language of Vatican City), Sanskrit (though still spoken in parts of South Asia, so go figure), and a few others like Cornish and Manx. Interestingly, I always thought Aramaic was a dead language, but there are still speakers of it as a first language in the Middle East.
Hebrew was dead, but was actually revived, so I'm not sure it can really be considered a dead language anymore.
2006-07-04 13:53:17 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Aramaic (original language of the Old Testament)
Koine Greek (Form of Greek used to write the New Testament)
And there's that one that was before Aramaic, a written language that had to do with wedges and such, but I forgot what it's called.
2006-07-04 17:54:37 · answer #3 · answered by Turmoyl 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Hebrew is probably the oldest and most widely known
Latin was around in Jesus time
2006-07-04 13:45:24 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, Sanskrit is the oldest I know, been 'dead' about three thousand years.
2006-07-04 13:47:35 · answer #5 · answered by snoweagleltd 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There are too many to list. Go to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_languages
and choose the ones you want to know about.
2006-07-04 13:47:05 · answer #6 · answered by NannyMcPhee 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
yes i personally know them all.....
well i used to?
2006-07-04 13:48:39 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋