Oldest Languages Of The World To Learn
At present, approximately 7,000 dialects are used around the world. They relate to different groups, and their sources date back thousands of years ago. Let’s have a look at the oldest languages and the reasons to learn them.
Oldest Languages
For a high time, people used old sounds and postures as their means of communication. Structured languages were observed in inscriptions that were written nearly 10,000 years ago. Philologists say that a dialect’s age should be defined by the initial time it arrived in texts and its value in the present.
Since some of them are thousands of years old, several could be added to the list of the oldest languages in the world. Few of them are already lost; others still exist for a particular target, while others continue in use.
So, let’s have a look at the oldest languages of the world you can learn:
Latin
Latin is one of the oldest languages of the world and number one scientific language and lingua franca of Classical Antiquity time. Its first stage, known as Old Latin, was first used in the Roman Kingdom since approximately 6th century BC, which is known from ancient records.
Basque
Spoken today in Southwestern France and Northern Spain, Basque is likely to be very old, though it has faced a substantial Latin influence. According to linguistic data, Basque is unlike its Indo-European neighbors, suggesting it could be over 4,000 years old.
Hebrew
Hebrew existed only in written form for the first centuries AD; though, it was restored as a spoken dialect in the 19th century. Hebrew is about 3,000 years old according to linguistic data. Historical records declare it was in practice in 12th century BC; however, these sources are disputed by scholars.
Korean
Similar to Basque in Europe, Korean is nothing like its neighbors in the Far East. The current dialect has progressed through many stages, the earliest of which is defined by historical data to have started around 1st century AD. Its roots are even older but unclear.
Arabic
This title is used for Classical Arabic, which, according to historical data, developed from its ancestors in the 6th century AD. Nowadays it comprises over 20 dialects, some of which are so unlike the others that their speakers are inefficient to know each other. It is the 5th most influential language in the world.
Aramaic
Like Arabic, this is a group of languages. According to historical data, it is at least 3,000 years old. Its present forms still exist now among several groups, but they are all on the edge of destruction, due to the spokesmen being inspired by Hebrew and Arabic, as well as other languages.
Sanskrit
Linguists considered the Sanskrit was mighty to many languages in Europe. They also consider that it originated from Tamil. Sanskrit, which is 4,000 years old used to be the language of the standards in India. Sanskrit is still used in the Indian Peninsula despite its inadequate use as an everyday dialect. The origins of Sanskrit were used during the development of the computer’s primary language.
Value them!
If you want a challenge with meaningful benefits, give those a try. The more you learn about them, the more you will see their value, the better you will appreciate your language!
The Value of Culture:
The different aspects of human life can teach us a lot of things. Without studying the behavior of humans and the cultures they create, we cannot make proper plans for the future. Civilization is very important, but it wasn’t born with humans. Culture is also something that did not come into being overnight. People had to struggle to build their communities and come up with rules to regulate their daily lives. Over the course of history, we have been refining the efforts of our ancestors to make societies better than before. An important and inseparable part of our culture is language.
Why Study Languages?
Like cultures, we have also been studying languages to better understand our past and make plans for the future. Since they are a part of our culture, they carry values from one generation to the next. They are used to transfer knowledge from one group to the other. By studying the languages of the past, we can learn about the people who used to speak them. A huge part of a spoken language today is slang words. They are unique to each country, some time to a community. This is how information about people can be gathered by studying a tongue.
At times, it becomes absolutely necessary for people to learn a new tongue. But even if they don’t have to, there are many benefits of studying an official language. Studying a tongue can make you familiar with a foreign culture and help immensely when you are traveling. If it one with a large number of speakers, then you can easily put it to good use if you meet foreigners frequently. A lot of people study vernaculars just because they want to. They wish to be able to understand foreign cultures. There are also those who study a tongue so they can understand their favorite show. Thanks to streaming services, it has become very easy for people to watch content produced in different countries. And if they don’t want to read subtitles while watching something they love, they can learn that vernacular instead.
Studying Old Languages:
We do not have an account of history related to the earliest human. We also do not have any idea about the first language that was ever spoken by our ancestors. But that doesn’t mean we don’t know anything about the past. There is a lot of information available about our ancestors and their way of living that can teach us plenty of things about them. We also know about a lot of languages from the past. Although we can’t know with absolute certainty about the oldest languages, we can make an estimate and rely on that regarding our knowledge of the past.
Many people will say that there is no use in studying a tongue if it has gone extinct. But they fail to understand that every member of a language family is related in one way or another. By understanding the growth of a dead language, we can figure out the structure of the ones that are still living.
Benefits of Studying Old Languages:
One of the biggest benefits of studying a tongue that has gone extinct is being able to develop a better understanding of the languages that originated from it. Although the Germanic and Slavic families do not have any known ancestor, other groups do. All the Romance languages had their origin from Latin. Even today, some of them have many Latin words in the vocabulary. If someone studies Latin, they can understand the structure and formation of all the Romance languages.
It is true that most of the time, it is the students of linguistics who study dead tongues. But in truth, those who have to learn vernaculars for their work can benefit greatly from studying a language like Latin. It will give you easy access to Spanish, and you will be able to learn a new vernacular quickly and more efficiently. Some linguists say that studying the languages spoken by only a small group of people is not beneficial in any way. But if we ignored the lesser-known vernaculars, we will only be driving them to extinction. By studying the vernaculars of the past, we learn to appreciate our current tongues a lot more. If a famous language like Latin can go out of use, then so can English and Spanish.
There are a few tongues that we don’t know much about. Learning them is quite difficult as there is not much data available about their structure and grammar. But as long as there is a basic structure of a language available, it can be studied. Although you can learn a tongue by listening to it frequently, the best way to gain a complete understanding of it is by figuring out its structure and grammar. The alphabet, number of vowels, and the sound system can truly help a student when learning a vernacular.
If you are interested in learning different tongues, you can start by reading about your own language. Once you have familiarized yourself with it completely and you know all about its grammar, you can focus on other vernaculars. Even if you don’t plan on doing a lot of traveling, learning a vernacular will be extremely beneficial for you. If for nothing else, it can help you communicate with strangers on the internet. All of us spend a lot of time on the internet, so being able to speak more than one language can be highly helpful there.
