The Chronicles of Human Language

Today, we have about 7,151 living languages in the world, but not without proper consideration that this number is in flux. Due to the dynamicity of the world, over 40% of languages are now endangered. Regardless of the many languages, Humans have grown ample respect for English language, a language which had  taken its place as one of the world’s predominant form of communication with its influences extending over as much as 2 billion of the global population. Despite the diversity of human minds, due stereotypical usage of these languages and other factors, there are common reoccurring questions to be answered. Questions like, how the first word of our ancestors sounds like?  What are the oldest languages in the world? How old is English language?

Languages have always been enumerated highly, because of its vital role in advancement and human evolution. Imagine a world without any means of communication, but thanks to annals, historians, linguists and archaeologists, disseminating the dern of language has been made easy and fun. Going by archaeological proofs, the oldest dead language in the world is the Sumerian language. Dating back to at least 3500 BC, the oldest proof of written Sumerian was found in today’s Iraq, on an artifact known as the Kish Tablet. Thus, given this evidence, Sumerian may be considered as one of the earliest language in the world.

Sumerian was gradually replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language around 2000 BC, but it continued to be used as a literary, ceremonial, scientific and sacred language until the 1st century AD. Unknown to the modern world until the 19th century when Assyriologists began deciphering its cuneiform inscriptions, written Sumerian can be divided into several time periods: Archaic Sumerian (31st–26th century BC), Old or Classical Sumerian (26th–23rd century BC), Neo-Sumerian (23rd–21st century BC), Late Sumerian (20th–18th century BC) and Post-Sumerian (after 1700 BC).
It should be noted that Sumeria belongs to  group of  dead languages i.e extinct languages, “one that is no longer the native language of any community”, even if it is still in use, like Latin.

Other very dead languages include but not limited to;
• HURRIAN  – oldest proof of written Hurrian dates back to the 21st century BC;
• PALAIC – attested in cuneiform tablets in Bronze Age Hattusa – circa the 16th century BC;
• HIEROGLYPHICS – its earliest known complete written sentence has been dated to about 2690 BC;
• AKKADIAN – first attested texts from around the mid-3rd-millennium BC;
• ELAMITE – the earliest Elamite writings use a pictographic Hurrian  – oldest proof of written Hurrian dates back to the 21st century BC;
• HITTITE – the oldest known text in the Hittite language was written by Anitta, a king that reigned in the 17th century BC;
• MYCENAEAN GREEK – the most ancient attested form of the Greek language with the earliest writings dating back to 1450 BC.

Furthermore, aside Sumerian and many other dead languages, Humans should be exposed to the fact that some languages  not withstanding how old they have gotten, having been born, grown and mutated by time, they still find life on the lips of people and hence exist till today. Likes of them are short-listed below;
Sanskrit (3500 years old)
Greek (3400 years old)
Coptic Egyptian (2200 years old)
Hebrew (3000 years old)
Chinese (3200 years old)
Aramaic (3100 years old)
Arabic (2800 years old)
Farsi (2500 years old)
Irish Gaelic (1500 years old)

The list isn’t exhaustive as we know that not all spoken languages ever made it to writing. Next week, we would be looking at the history of the English language.