Thursday, June 1, 2017
First of all, I wanna tell you that today, June 1, is one of
Indonesia's special days. Today is the birthday of our national identity and
ideology, Pancasila. Happy birthday, Pancasila!
Okay, now we're still gonna talk about the history of language. If you
want, you can read my previous post first, 'The History of Language: Part 1' on
this link:
Language was believed to be created when early hominis started changing
their primate communication systems. Somewhere in the evolution progress, brain
volume of humans started to change, and it has changed everything.
Early modern human started to form a basic theory of their minds and
shared with others. So that was how they started to create languages, and then
the first languages evolved. They became more complex, got more and more
vocabularies, and also spread around the world. Through differences in culture,
demography, sociology, and other aspects in every human civilization, the first
human languages had given birth to the new, more modern languages.
Languages evolve and diversify over time, and the history of their
evolution can be reconstructed by comparing modern languages to determine which
traits their ancestral languages must have had in order for the later
developmental stages to occur. A group of languages that descend from a common
ancestor is known as a language family.
There are approximately 5,000 to 7,000 different languages in the world
today. Some of them are relatively new. Some others have been spoken for
millenniums. There are also some ancient languages that have been extinct.
Although 7,000 languages are existing today, only some 300 or 400 languages
have a script and a written record.
I’m personally interested in the origin of languages because there are
hidden histories in every language, if we could trace the ancestors and the
evolution progress. The history that is hidden in languages can’t be modified
or distorted, and is not owned by the winner of wars, because etymologies don’t
lie, do they?
Problem is, as we’ve discussed in the previous post, it is not that
easy to really find the origin of language. Different expert has different
theory.
Questions concerning the philosophy of language, such as whether words
can represent experience, have been debated since Gorgias and Plato in Ancient
Greece. Rousseau argued that language originated from emotions while Kant held
that it originated from rational and logical thought. Twentieth century
philosophers such as Wittgenstein argued that philosophy is really the study of
language.
The paragraph above is quoted from Wikipedia, so you can google either
‘Plato’, ‘Rousseau’, ‘Kant’, or ‘Wittgenstein’ if you’re really interested.
Here I’m just gonna talk very briefly about the origin of language, the
oldest language that can be traced so far, and the oldest language that is
still spoken until now.
So I’ve written briefly about the origin of language. Now, what is the
oldest language in the world that can be traced by the experts?
Although it is still debatable, some claimed Khoisan languages as the
oldest languages in the world. The languages are spoken in Africa, the land
that is believed to be our origin. The languages also have the click sound that
is believe to be one of the most ancient sounds in human languages.
Some of the languages in the Andaman Islands, Australia, or elsewhere
in the world could have been in existence for 40,000 or 50,000 years. The last
Bo language speaker of the Andaman Islands died on January 26th,
2010. It was speculated that that language was in existence for more than
65,000 years.
Some ancient languages just didn’t survive. But there are also some
languages that are very, very old, yet are still spoken until today. Some are
spoken by very small number of minorities. But some are still spoken worldwide.
These are some of the oldest languages that are still spoken until now:
10. Lithuanian
First, number 10 on the list: Lithuanian!
Lithuanian is the official language of Lithuania and also a minority
language in Poland. It is spoken by 3 to 3.1 million speakers. It is believed
to have existed since 600 to 800 AD. The oldest surviving written text is dated
to the 16th century. Although sometimes classified as one of the Indo-European
languages, Lithuanian has characteristics of the origin languages of the
Proto-Indo-European category. It is the most conservative Baltic language.
9. Irish-Gaelic
Irish – Gaelic, or Irish, or Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the
Indo-European language family. It is originating in Ireland and historically
spoken by the Irish people. Old Irish language is dated on the 6th
century. As one of the oldest languages, nowadays, Irish is spoken by small
group of people. There are only 74 thousand native speakers that are minority
of Irish people. It is also a second language by a larger group of non-native
speakers.
8. Tamil
Tamil has probably been spoken before 2nd or 1st
century BC. It is a Dravidian language. It is still widely spoken in the South
Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry. It is also
the official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore. Tamil can be classified into
Classical Tamil, Modern Tamil, and Colloquial Tamil. All three forms are
currently in use.
7. Persian
This is one of the most important ancient languages in the list. Persian,
or Farsi, is believed to have been spoken since 4th to 3rd
century BC. It is spoken by over 100 million speakers around the world. Dari in
Afghanistan and Tajiki in Tajikistan are essentially the same language with
very little variation. Over the centuries it has had considerable influence on
other languages, especially Urdu. Persian literature, poetry, and prose have
great historical significance and have been studied by scholars and linguists
alike.
6. Hebrew
A language that is almost 3000 years old, Hebrew almost risked becoming
a defunct language around 400 CE. But when Zionism gained momentum in the last
two centuries, it became the official language of Israel. Today it is spoken by
Jews all around the world. Although Modern Hebrew is slightly different owing
to Yiddish (another Jewish language) influences, almost all Jews read and
understand the version of the Old Testament quite precisely.
5. Chinese
This is the most spoken surviving ancient language nowadays. There are
at least 1.2 billion Chinese speakers in the world today, means 16% of the
world’s population. Chinese first appeared in historical records in 1000 BC. Old
Chinese in its pure form may have died out. Now it is spoken in lots of
different dialects.
4. Latin
This is one of important languages to learn. Latin was brought to Italy
about 1000 BC. Of course the origin is older than that. Latin is a classical
language belonging to the Indo-European classification. It is the root and
origin of many European languages. The oldest form of the language, Old Latin
was spoken in the Roman Kingdom. Today it is the official language of the
Vatican City and is fluently spoken by the clergy. It is also recognized as an
official language in Poland. Several schools and educational institutions
around the world offer Latin as a language course.
3. Arabic
As a Moslem, I learned a little Arabic language at school. It survives
of course because we, Moslems still pray using the Arabic text. Arabic was
spoken as far back as the Iron Age by the people of Arabia, means it has been
spoken since 1200 BC. The modern text of the language is derived straight from
the Quran and is known as Classical Arabic, which is the base of Modern
Standard Arabic. There are approximately 420 million Arabic speakers in the
world today.
2. Basque
Okay, the list is getting more and more interesting, isn’t it?
On number 2, we have Basque that happened to be one of the most ancient
languages.
Basque itself is interesting because it is mysterious. It is an isolate
language that is only spoken by 720 thousands speakers in northern Spain and
southwestern France, or a region of the Basque Country. The origin of the
language is still unknown. We could only guess where it was originated or how
old it is. One thing for sure, it is older than Latin and most of Indo-European
languages. The modern Basque has both influenced and been influenced by the other
Romance languages over time.
1. Greek
And finally… number 1… Greek!
See why I love this language? It is one of the most ancient languages
that is still spoken until now, even tho' there have been some changes from the
one spoken in ancient Greece to modern Greece. It has been spoken in the Balkan
peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier.
Today, it is spoken by 13 million people, mostly native, in Greece, Albania,
and Cyprus. It is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of
languages. Greek has its own alphabet that has developed from the Phoenician
Alphabet, and is then developed to be the Latin alphabet that most of us are
using today.
Okay, that’d be all about the history of language. In the
next twenty something posts I might not talk about history. But this topic will
be back for sure. ;-)
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