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The Oldest Language In The World?

A

angellous_evangellous

Guest
Don Penguinoini

Don Penguinoini

Modi.
.lava said:
isn't it semi languages, like Hebrew, Arabic..?
Click to expand...

I think you being Muslim gave you that idea :D But, definetly not. A language originated within the Indian subcontinent. Probably Sanskrit. If Hinduism is the oldest language in the world, then sanskrit must be. The first texts in Hinduism were in sanskrit...
 
Mike182

Mike182

Flaming Queer
i vote for Runes :) but it will take me weeks to dig up the information and sources i would need to argue that case, so don't take my word on that.
 
Sunstone

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Don Penguinoini said:
As far i have read/ seen, the general view is Tamil/Sanskrit. I save seen Persian in some places.

Anyone else have any others?
Click to expand...

For languages still in use, Sanskrit seems a fair bet to me. I'm no authority though.

For languages no longer in use, Indo-European or proto Indo-European have been extensively reconstructed.
 
Troublemane

Troublemane

Well-Known Member
I thought Eldarin and those other languages in Lord of the Rings were before all the rest!
...but thats just cuz im a geek :D
 
Comet

Comet

Harvey Wallbanger
Well, as the Anthropology major in college, I must say I've heard arguements for many languages:

Tamil-Sanskrit, Hebrew, Phrygian, Anishinabaemowin, etc....

The oldest known language that I know of is what the Sumerians spoke... as they are the supposed first civilazation. I can't remember the "proper" term for it, but it is unlike any known language that has decended down to us today. I believe it dates to about 3100 BC... cuneiform was the written part, but I forget the term for the spoken. (I can't help but wonder if this is the language that Ashurbanipal bragged about being about to read circa 600BC - the writing before the flood as he called it).
 
rheff78

rheff78

I'm your huckleberry.
Don Penguinoini said:
I think you being Muslim gave you that idea :D But, definetly not. A language originated within the Indian subcontinent. Probably Sanskrit. If Hinduism is the oldest language in the world, then sanskrit must be. The first texts in Hinduism were in sanskrit...
Click to expand...

I was unaware that Hindu was a language.
 
Valjean

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Oh come on, folks. Why are we talking about all these written or historically known johnny-come-latelys? 100,000 years ago, long before anything resembling any known language or even language Family, people were probably telling stories around their campfires.

The language of the San may be the unique representative of the most ancient known language Family, but, of course, even this is a modern iteration that would be incomprehensible to their ancestors.

Languages are not static. They change continuously.
Sanskrit, Athabascan, Hebrew, San -- all have fully-dveloped antecedents that recede for tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, into the darkness of prehistory.

Unless we can go back a hundred thousand years or so we can't begin to guess at the origins of language, much less discover an "oldest" language
 
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