When you try to determine superlatives, the first thing is to define your terms. Are we looking for the world’s oldest language that is still in use? The world’s oldest written language? Or the first spoken language? Actually, all three are being studied, but not yet determined. Linguists and historians are fairly sure that spoken language is much older than written language, and should be old enough that no one uses it anymore. It’s even possible that the first representative language was gestural. And all that makes finding it very difficult.
Listen beautiful relax classics on our Youtube channel.
But linguists are searching. They are working backwards to find the point in history where a language splits into two or more in different populations who no longer understood each other. Human migration and cultural changes also figure in. For example, Hebrew and Aramaic have written records going back 3,000 years, but both belong to the Afroasiatic family of languages, which may stretch back 10,000 to 20,000 years. But some Asian languages may be just as old, we just don’t have the evidence. And there is the possibility that all humans once spoke the same language and every language is descended from that one. Read how this research is being carried out and some of the contenders for the title at Scientific American. -via Digg
(Image credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Source: neatorama