is chinese or mandarin language older than english or german?

Question

reply for philology experts only !! Thanks sweet smile!


source: history of linguistic

Answer 1

Definitely. Chinese language or Mandarin has been in use since the year 2100 BC, in other words 4000 years ago, while the English and German languages came into existence just around 1500 years ago.
Three most ancient languages are the Sumerian (Babylonian), Chinese and Egyptians, but the the Sumerians Cuneiforms and Egyptian hieroglyphs are obselete or not in use any longer while the Chinese language and writing is still in use until today, although it has been modified or modernised you can still trace it from its origin.

Answer 2

I am Chinese and I can tell you that the "Chinese language" is much older than English or German. But the language is developing all the time. Mandarin is quite young and has a history of about 200 years(not sure), although the characters are the same. The known earliest Chinese characters are "Jiaguwen (inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells of the Shang Dynasty [16th—11th century B.C.)" and it has a history of at least 3600 years.

PS: The word "mandarin" has a history of about 200 years, but the rules and regulations of Mandarin we are using now was set in 1955. The characters did not change much, besides traditional to simplified character, however, the pronunciations changed a lot. The Mandarin is based on the northern dialect and Beijing (the capital) accent.

Answer 3

If you compare the age of the Chinese civilizations against the English and German, well may be. But all current froms of the spoken languages are young in comparison to the civilizations.
Just take the chinese language for an example. Mandarin is only one part of a collection of many current dialects which shares the same form in writing. And the current writings ( Hanji ), both in traditional and simplified forms were more of an invention by the first Qin emporor whom was credited with the unification of China amongst other things. Along history, the current China were occupied by various tribes like the Mongolians and Manchurians, each with their own language in both spoken and written form.
In order to have a correct answer to your question, you will probably have to refine the definitions of exactly what you are trying to compare here.

Answer 4

Since I'm the first actual linguist who specializes in historical linguistics to reply here, I'll give you a full answer.

Old Chinese is the ancestor language of all the modern languages that are sometimes referred to as dialects of "Chinese". These languages include Mandarin (Putonghua), Min-nan (Taiwanese), Yue (Cantonese), etc. The date when Old Chinese began to break up into the modern forms is about 2500 years ago.

Proto-Germanic is the ancestor language of all the Germanic languages, including English, German, Dutch, Swedish, Gothic, etc. Proto-Germanic also began to break up into the modern forms about 2500 years ago.

So the Germanic languages and the Chinese languages share about the same level of difference among the modern languages because their ancestral languages are about the same age.

Mandarin (specifically) is no older than German or English. The modern languages are all less than 500 years old. But they all evolved from earlier languages (Old Mandarin, Old High German, Old English) which are older.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

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Answer 7

Modern English and German? Yes.

Answer 8

Chinese is older unless there was English about 2,000 years before Christ.

Answer 9

2

Answer 10

old chinese, known also as archaic chinese, comes from proto-sino-tibetan, dated 1120's BC. German testimonies come from old inscription written in alemannic, 6th century. Chinese is much older.