What Is the Oldest Language Spoken by Humans?
There are no straight answers.
What is the world’s oldest human language? This question sounds simple, but it is not as straightforward as it appears.
What exactly do we mean when we say “the oldest language”?
Are we talking about the oldest written language?
Or are you thinking, “What was the first language ever to be spoken by humans?”
Another question that comes to mind is, what is the oldest language that is still spoken today?
As you can see, the question“What is the oldest language spoken by humans?” is layered with hidden questions.
We know answers to some of them, but we can’t say for certain which language is the oldest. What about Greek, Persian, Sanskrit, Tamil, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Hebrew?
They are all fairly old, but none of them can lay claim to being the oldest known language to humans or the oldest continually spoken language.
So how do we answer the question of the oldest language since languages become extinct and humans developed writing long after they started speaking?
Before we answer that, let us look at written languages for which we have evidence.
Oldest written language: Sumerian.
Sumerian was the language of Sumer in ancient Mesopotamia. It is one of the earliest written languages. The Kish tablet, found in the ancient Sumerian city of Kish, in present-day Iraq, is the oldest writing discovered so far.
Archaeologists dated the tablet 3400–3100 B.C. That makes it over 5000 years old.
The earliest Sumerian writing system was pictographic. This was before the invention of the cuneiform script, which was used to write the many Mesopotamian languages.
We know this period as the “proto-literate” period, and historians consider it to represent the origin of human literacy.
But does this prove that Sumerian is the world’s oldest language? No, but it shows that Sumerian is the world’s earliest written language.
We should keep in mind that there are many writing systems that haven’t been deciphered yet. Some of these date to the Neolithic era, such as the Vinča symbols of Central Europe, Jiahu symbols of China, and the Dispilio Tablet of Greece.
Linguists believe that these Neolithic characters represent a proto-writing system. Proto-writing systems cannot be compared to developed writing systems.
Were such proto-writing systems used to communicate lost languages? We do not know.
Even though we cannot be certain, the Sumerian language is a strong contender for one of the oldest written languages.
Sumerian is a language isolate, which means we cannot classify it as part of a wider language family.
A variety of language groups, including the Sino-Tibetan languages, Dravidian languages, and Munda languages, have been suggested as Sumerian affiliates, although there is no conclusive evidence to support any of these claims.
What about the English language?
It is a member of the Indo-European language family. Could we perhaps trace the ancestor of this language family to the oldest language?
The Proto Indo-European language.
There are many languages in the Indo-European family that were formerly regarded to be the oldest. Historians and academics once believed that Greek and Persian were the oldest languages.
Then, in the nineteenth century, Indologists such as William Jones and Max Mueller suggested Sanskrit was the “mother of all languages” because it shared many root verbs with European languages and was older than them.
But did languages like Greek, Persian, and Sanskrit share a common ancestor? They did; the Proto-Indo European language was the true mother of all Indo-European languages. The language is thought to have been spoken between 4500 B.C. and 2500 B.C.
More recent research reveals, the oldest language branch in the Indo-European family might be the Baltic languages, many of which became extinct. The exceptions are Lithuanian and Latvian.
Sanskrit, like Lithuanian, has maintained some of the archaic features of the Proto-Indo European language. But unlike Lithuanian, it is largely restricted to religious ceremonies. In India and Nepal, there are two million people who have recognized Sanskrit as their native language.
Lithuanian and Sanskrit are the strongest contenders for the oldest language in the Indo-European language family. They share the closest resemblance to the ancient Proto Indo-European language.
Proto-Indo European is the root language of a large language family spoken across Europe and Asia, but is it the world’s oldest language?
But, in our search for the oldest language, are we missing a vital clue?
Homo Sapiens migrated from Africa. So, shouldn’t Africa have the oldest language?
Khoisan language family
The Hadza, an African hunter-gatherer community, has recently been the subject of health and nutrition research. Scientists are researching their diets to figure out how human eating habits developed.
But the Hadza also interests us because the language they speak may be one of the oldest known to humanity.
The Hadza language was a member of the Khoisan language family. But, it is now treated as a language isolate, with only 1000 people speaking it. Its distinguishing feature is the click sounds made when speaking.
Khoisan languages, like the Hazda, are known for their click sounds. One such example is the Juǀʼhoan language, which has 48 click consonants. The Bantu tribesmen of South Africa also have click consonants in their language, having adopted it from the Khoisan speakers.
Because of the speaking pattern, many linguists theorized that these were among the first languages on earth.
But does an archaic way of speaking mean they (the Khoisan and Hadza languages) are the oldest? Not necessarily. We cannot prove that the earliest humans used click sounds.
The argument that click sounds remained in Africa, hence is the oldest, is a weak one. Bantu tribesmen adopted it from the Khoisan speakers. Maybe the Khoisan adopted it from an older language?
Yet, other African languages in the region do not have click sounds.
Click sounds can spread from one linguistic group to another, that doesn’t make them the oldest.
Before the creation of the Khoisan languages, older language speakers may have migrated out of Africa.
This begs the question, will we ever find the oldest language?
A pointless quest?
Is the search for the oldest language meaningless?
In the case of English, a modern English speaker would have a difficult time communicating with a Shakespearean age English speaker.
Classical Sanskrit differs significantly from Vedic Sanskrit, the latter being at least a thousand years older.
Modern Persian and Cantonese speakers would struggle to communicate with their forefathers if they created a time machine and traveled back in time. Languages evolve, and many become extinct.
Can we never solve the mystery as to which is the oldest language?
Maybe yes, maybe no.
But the question is should we bother? Perhaps not. Better efforts are spent trying to decipher the ancient languages that we have found, but we have been unsuccessful at cracking their code.
Another useful approach is to determine the language family’s root languages. For example, the Proto-Indo-European language has emerged as a possible candidate for the Indo-European language family’s root language. It is worthwhile to learn more about this language and how it influences the development of other languages.
Sumerian is our best option for the oldest written language, although if other writing systems are deciphered, this may change in the future.
Our curious minds will continue to seek the world’s oldest language, but it may not be a fruitful pursuit.
Languages gave birth to a new era in human progress, which was the creation of writing. Advancement in writing resulted in the invention of paper which changed the way knowledge spread around the world. If you are interested in knowing more about paper technology, make sure to read the story below.
References.
- The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, David. W. Anthony 2007.
- What was the first ever language?, Science Focus by BBC.
- https://www.ucl.ac.uk/atlas/lithuanian, Lithuanian Languages.
- Which language is the oldest? , Languages of the World.
