新澳门开奖结果

Art depiction of the tower of Babel – Author; Pieter Brueghel the Elder-

10 Oldest Languages in the world

Language is an important aspect in human history and it is as old as the mountains. It has always been there with us.

It is the one phenomenon that connects human beings and enable them to communicate effectively. So you can imagine what the world would be like if we didn’t have language.

How would we be able to express ourselves, give our opinions and views. How would we be able to have a definitive culture and roots as a people? It would be such a tiresome task.Next to impossible even.

Different culture and societies speak different languages. Which is what makes the human race quite interesting and phenomenal. Story has always been that different languages emerged from the tower of Babel when God punished human beings for wanting to be like him.

Here are some of the oldest languages to have existed in the world.

1. Egyptian

Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs- Image by WikiImages from

The first known complete sentence in Ancient Egyptian was recorded in roughly 2690 BCE, making it over 4700 years old. At the time Egyptians would use hieroglyphs on papyrus surfaces. This was a pretty common scenario in early Egyptian civilization.

While the Egyptian language  hasn’t been spoken by regular people since the nineteenth century (which is, sadly, why you don’t see a lot of hieroglyph in modern society), it is technically still in use today. 

The language descended from Ancient Egyptian that survives today is called Coptic, and it is primarily used as the language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria and also the Coptic Catholic Church. 

2. Sanskrit

Sanskrit language on paper- Author; Unknown-

With it is oldest texts dating back to around 1500 BCE, Sanskrit is probably one of the few oldest languages in the world still being used today.. 

Just like Coptic, Sanskrit is largely used in religious texts and ceremonies that persist today, with a place in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. 

Sanskrit words and phrases are also frequently used by bureaucratic institutions – from missile names to school mottos – in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and other parts of South and Southeast Asia. 

Interesting enough, several  people report Sanskrit as their first language on India’s census each time it is performed. This is regardless of the belief that no one speaks it as their first language in today’s society. 

3. Greek

Greek Scripture- Image by Edward Lich from

Greek could be the oldest language still spoken as a primary, day-to-day language. As much as modern Greek has evolved significantly from the Greek that was being spoken in the ancient times, the language of Greece today is a definitive descendant of the language of Homer and those who came before him.

The works of Homer are believed to have been composed between the seventh and eighth centuries BC. 

Mycenaean Greek, the first confirmed by linguists Greek first appeared in 1450 BCE. Today, contemporary Greek has approximately 13.5 million native speakers.

4. Chinese

Chinese characters- Photo by 金金 陶 on

Chinese is another language that be ranked as the oldest written and spoken langauge that is still in use today.

The first attested Old Chinese goes back to a set of inscriptions on oracle bones dated back to around 1250 BCE.

Of course, there are many different language varieties and dialects in China today, so Chinese is just but a broad term being used here. Many of today’s most used varieties (including Mandarin and Cantonese) fall within the Sino-Tibetan language family and are descended from the Old Chinese we’re referencing to here.

When it comes to languages that are both ancient and useful, Chinese has to take the top of the list. 

Fun fact: Mandarin is the single most spoken language in the world today, with over 1.1 billion speakers.

5. Aramaic

Lord’s Prayer painting in Aramaic with a golden frame- Author; Adam Izgin –

People not familiar and well versed in the culture of Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey might not expect Aramaic to appear on this list as it being one of the oldest languages.

However, Aramaic is very ancient. For instance, the Aramaic alphabet was the precursor to both the Hebrew and Arabic alphabets.It is thus one of the oldest still living languages.

This language, spoken by Arameans in ancient Syria and being attested for the first time in 1100 BC, has survived well into its 4th millennium.

To say the least, among these oldest languages in use today, Aramaic is actually more lively of a living language than Sanskrit or Coptic is.

There are about 800,000 -1,000,000 speakers of Neo-Aramaic languages in the world today.

6. Hebrew

Written Hebrew language- Image by Robert C from

 Hebrew was first attested (studied and confirmed by linguists) around 100 years after Aramaic, in 1000 BCE.

Hebrew is a bit unique when compared to the languages discussed thus far because this is  a language that ceased to be a common mother tongue at one point but was eventually successfully revived as a living language later.

Hebrew was primarily used for religious texts, correspondence and communications between Jewish people who otherwise did not share a language from around the second century CE onwards. 

It was however revived as a spoken language by activists in the nineteenth century, starting in Germany.

Today, there are over nine million speakers of modern Hebrew, about five million of whom speak it as a first language.

7. Farsi

Inscription in Farsi- Author; persian gulf1-

Farsi is the longest surviving spoken language of the Iranian family of languages. It takes its roots from Old Persian, which was first attested somewhere between 522 and 486 BCE. 

According to the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, there are roughly 70 million native Farsi speakers and  in total about110 million speakers of the language  around the world today.

Today there are still communities of native Farsi speakers not only in Iran, but also in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan as well as in Persian diasporic communities worldwide.

8. Tamil

Copy of the original palm-leaf manuscript of Thol.kaa.p.pi.am, written in the ancient grammer of Tamil language- Author; ?*?????-

Being one of the official languages of Singapore, Sri Lanka, and the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India, Tamil is another wonderful language with a long and interesting history. 

It is frequently cited as the language in India  that has the most direct line back to its classical roots. That is in terms of how it has evolved over time. 

With over 75 million native speakers, then it certainly wouldn’t be wrong to say that it remains in use as a common first language.

According to Russian Linguist Dr. Mikhail S. Andronov, Tamil descended from Proto-Dravidian, which is a proto-language reconstruction that may have been in use as far back as the fourth millennium BCE.

9. Korean

Bible written in Korean Language- Image by Maximilian Ihm from

When thinking of the oldest languages still being spoken today, you cannot fail to think of the Korean language.

This language dates back to thousands of years. Spoken as the primary language in both North and South Korea, there are at least 77 million native speakers of Korean today. 

There is some dispute about when exactly Proto-Koreanic language transitioned into Old Korean, but what is clear is that by the Silla state (established in 57 BCE), there was either a Koreanic language or proto-language in use. 

Interestingly, the older Korean writing system known as Hanja, which is based on Chinese characters, can be dated back to 400 BC and the Gojoseon period when Ye-Maek, an extinct Koreanic language from Manchuria and eastern Korea, was the common language.

The Hangul phonetic characters unique to the Korean language today weren’t developed until the fifteenth century.

10. Italian

Language-aids for nurses and patients, English-Italian. Compiled by Ruth Wilson and Norma Cavaglieri- Author; Wilsom, Ruth, writer on nursing; Cavaglieri, Norma-

Early Latin was used in the Roman Republic, certainly by 75 BCE, but possibly much earlier since the Roman Republic was formed in 509 BC.

Thus Italian ranks as another old language still in existence because it remains to be the language of Rome, and  it  descended directly from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire through Italy in the Middle Ages.

Today, Italian has about 67 million native speakers in the EU and beyond, and many more choose to learn Italian for its aesthetics.