You live a new life for every new language you speak. If you know only one language, you live only once. – Czech proverb
The evolution of the language is still unknown. The primitive languages started with gestures and oral sound. The evolution of the first-ever language is still a highly debatable topic. However, as a general norm linguist calculate the age of a language by its first appearance in texts as well as contemporary use.
Based on this, we have collected a list of some oldest languages in the world that grew, evolved, managed to survive and are still spoken today.
Let us take a sneak and peek into the history.
Sanskrit
Sanskrit is considered ‘the language of Gods’. It first appeared in 2000 BCE, Sanskrit is an ancient language of India. It is one of the earliest examples of language, found in second millennium BCE. The language is still spoken by a small group of people in India. Vedic Sanskrit is the pre-classical form of Sanskrit with Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic text preserved.
Hebrew
The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from 10th century BCE. Hebrew is the best example of a revived dead language as around 400 CE, it fell out of common use and remained a preserved among the Jews all across the world. However, with the rise of Zionism in the 19th and 20th century, this language revived to become the official language of Israel. Though the modern version of Hebrew differs from Biblical version, native speakers can fully comprehend the Old Testament and connected texts. Modern Hebrew observed many influences by other Jewish languages.
Chinese
Chinese is the most spoken language in the world with around 1.2 billion speakers as their first language. The origin of Chinese dates back to 1250 BCE as the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions in the late Shang dynasty.
Latin
Latin is one of the oldest classic languages that survived the passage of time. Latin has influenced many languages over the course of time. The earliest traces of this languages date back to the dates of Roman Empire which was formed around 75 BCE. It is still the official language of Poland and Vatican City and is learned by millions of people around the world.
Conclusion – Being an experience translation agency, we have many more interesting facts about languages. Our translators can perform accurate translation of any document in 30+ languages. Need help in translation a document? Contact us at: 888-670-3369.