10 Oldest Language in the World
Its not possible to answer exact number of languages in the world. According to the report, the total number of languages in the world is about 6800. Among them there are 200 to 150 languages are spoken by more than 1 million, and 357 languages are spoken by 50 people. Not only this, there are 46 languages whose number of speaker is only one.
Did you know which is the oldest language in the world ? In this post I listed top 10 oldest languages in the world. With the excavation prove of 2021.
World's 10 Oldest Languages
10.Icelandic
Icelandic is the national language of Iceland, spoken by 3,30,00 people. And also spoken in some parts of Denmark, USA and Canada. The language had been developed in the 9th and 10th century. The written scripts of Iceland are quite similar to old Norse(1068-1148).
9.Irish Gaelic
Irish Gaelic, has 2,76,000 speakers around the world. Irish Gaelic had origins from the Bronze Age at 6th century AD. The Irish language is related to Scottish Gaelic, Cornish and Breton Languages. The language can be seen in Ogham stones of the 5th and 6th century AD.
8.Farsi
Farsi is the common language spoken in modern day Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Farsi is the Old Persian language, and it was the official language of the Persian Empire. Speakers of Persian language could pick up a piece of writing from 900 CE. Reading difficulty of Farsi is lesser than English. This perisan language is 2500 years old.
7.Hebrew(3000 years old)
Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. Canaanite language are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages. They are belongs to 300 BC. Hebrew regarded as the language of the Israelites, Judeans and their ancestors. Canaanite language are till spoken.
6.Sumerian
Sumerian is the language of ancient sumer and the language was spoken in mesapotonia. Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as a spoken language around (300 - 200) BC. But Sumarian continued to be used as a ceremonialceremonial, literally and Scientific language in Akkadian.
5.Chinese
The Chinese language is the oldest written language in the world. Chinese character inscriptions have been found in turtle shells At(1766-1123) BC. It proving that the Chinese language has existed for more than 3000 years ago.
4.Greek
Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC. The earliest written evidence is a found in Messenia that dates between 1450-1350 BC.
3.Egyptian
The oldest records of the Egyptian language date from about 3200 BC. Egyptian was spoken till the late 17th century AD. The national language of modern Egypt is Egyptian Arabic.
2.Sanskrit
Sanskrit is the primary language of Hinduism and also has been used as a philosophical language of Hinduism. Its originated as vedic Sanskrit in 1700 -1200 BCE. It is still used today in Hindu religious rituals. Sanskrit belongs to 3500 BC.
1.Tamil
Tamil is mother tounge of Tamilnadu. Tamil language is one of the world longest surviving classical language. History of tamil language is divided into three periods Old Tamil, Middle Tamil, Modern Tamil. In January 2021, an excavation at keezhadi(South India) revealed tamil language is dating back to 5000 years old. Since, Over 78 million people has speak tamil language in Tamilnadu, Srilanka, Singapore, Malaysia.
Conclusion
I hope you learned something new. In this post I listed 10 Oldest languages in the world. And also include an Video version. Keep on update for more interesting topic.
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