5 ms·

I think there are a couple of ways to prove this. Archeological records of say, inscriptions in one language would help. If an inscription is older than any ins

by _jgdh 9y ago

I think there are a couple of ways to prove this. Archeological records of say, inscriptions in one language would help. If an inscription is older than any inscription in another language, it's possibly older. Another way would be linguistic analysis that demonstrates that one language is derived from another. For example, in India many languages are influenced by Sanskrit so Sanskrit is probably older than all of them, with a few exceptions like Tamil, which show much less influence. In India this is a pretty contentious issue. People like to claim that they're a part of a much older tradition and that makes their culture better. This is related to the claim by people who speak more widely spoken languages that these languages should replace the older, less popular languages - for example "why can't you Tamil speakers learn to speak Hindi?"

thaumasiotes 9y ago
Two regional Indian languages spoken today are, by necessity, equally old. It's not so common for new languages to form. > in India many languages are influenced by Sanskrit so Sanskrit is probably older than all of them Sanskrit is older than modern languages in the sense that it is from a premodern period. That doesn't apply to living languages. We can say that Latin is an older form of Portuguese; it is nonsensical to say that Portuguese is older than Spanish. They're both Latin. Spanish has a noticeable amount of influence from Arabic, since Arabic speakers conquered the south of Spain and ruled there for a while. I don't see how this is evidence that Arabic is an older language than Spanish is, though.
- deleted 9y ago
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- _jgdh 9y ago
  No, I don't think so. If people have been speaking Language A for 2 millennia, it's 2 millennia old. If they've been speaking Language B for 15 centuries, it's 15 centuries old. Just because A and B are both spoken today doesn't make them equally old. That's as absurd as saying you and I are both alive today so we must be the same age. It's interesting that you mention Spain. Are you familiar with the Basque language? It has almost no influence from the Romance languages spoken in all areas surrounding Basque country like French and Spanish. It's the last descendant of the pre-Indo-European languages spoken in Western Europe. Would you claim that Basque and Spanish are equally old? Influence doesn't imply that the influenced language is younger. A language being entirely derived from another, like Hindi from Sanskrit and the Romance languages from Latin, does imply that they're younger than Sanskrit and Latin.
  - Grustaf 9y ago
    >Would you claim that Basque and Spanish are equally old? If by Spanish you mean the modern history of the language, since its branching off from the other Romance languages, then you could say it's younger, but this is just an accident of naming, caused by the extrinsic fact that there are other surviving dialects of Latin with their own nation states. If Latin had only survived in the form of Spanish, we would probably either call it Latin, or see Latin as Old Spanish. Either way we wouldn't see it as less old than Basque. And from a linguistic point of view, unless you think Basque and IE languages derive from separate innovations of language (sort of like wings have evolved separately in birds and bats - analogy rather than homology), the language that is today called Spanish is of course just as old as the language called Basque.
  - thaumasiotes 9y ago
    > Would you claim that Basque and Spanish are equally old? Think. How could it possibly be otherwise? > If people have been speaking Language A for 2 millennia, it's 2 millennia old. If they've been speaking Language B for 15 centuries, it's 15 centuries old. Just because A and B are both spoken today doesn't make them equally old. But you just made that up. As has already been pointed out, all modern languages have been spoken for exactly the same period of time, with a few rare exceptions. The fact that two languages are both spoken today is sufficient to conclude that they are equally old, unless you happen to know exactly when one of them originated.
    - _jgdh 9y ago
      Ah, I think I'm beginning to understand what you're saying. So Spanish might have have evolved from Vulgar Latin after the Romans brought it to the Iberian peninsula in 210BC, but in your eyes, its the same age as Latin itself. So although the Romans conquered Gaul (France) in 50BC, beginning the evolution of French, you reckon that French and Spanish are the same age. Let me know if I've understood you correctly. If I have, then I think that's a perfectly valid way of looking at it.
- Grustaf 9y ago
  For some reason people seem to call languages "old" when they really mean "archaic" or "unchanged". It makes more sense to say that Portuguese is older than Latin in the sense that it has been developing for centuries longer. >Spanish has a noticeable amount of influence from Arabic, since Arabic speakers conquered the south of Spain and ruled there for a while. I don't see how this is evidence that Arabic is an older language than Spanish is, though. I don't see how this is relevant, the post talked about some modern Indian languages being "derived" from Sanskrit, which definitely implies a difference in age. >>Another way would be linguistic analysis that demonstrates that one language is derived from another
- oblio 9y ago
  > Spanish has a noticeable amount of influence from Arabic, since Arabic speakers conquered the south of Spain and ruled there for a while The Arabs conquered about 60-70% of both Spain and Portugal, not just the south of Spain. And they were there for more than a while, they were there from the 700s to late 1400s, so more than half a millennia :) I don't know the exact reason why Portuguese has a lower Arabic influence than Spain, though...
  - thaumasiotes 9y ago
    > they were there for more than a while, they were there from the 700s to late 1400s, so more than half a millennia :) Compare the period during which regions of Spain have been ruled by Latin speakers ;)
    - oblio 9y ago
      > During the Second Punic War, roughly between 210 and 205 BC the expanding Roman Republic captured Carthaginian trading colonies along the Mediterranean coast. Although it took the Romans nearly two centuries to complete the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, they retained control of it for over six centuries. The Latin speakers (i.e. the Roman Empire) actually controlled Iberia for about as much time as Arabic speakers (i.e. various caliphates and emirates) :)
hrasyid 9y ago
> If an inscription is older than any inscription in another language, it's possibly older No, it just means that the first language has an older written tradition. I really doubt that "the oldest" language" has any meaning at all, given that most (all?) living natural languages gradually evolved from an ancestor language. Like the other poster said, it's nonsensical to say whether Spanish and Portuguese is older because they both just evolved from being a variation of Latin. Or like, all current variant of English evolved from the English spoken in England some hundred years ago (which is different from British English today). What does it mean to say whether British, American or Australian English is older?
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  > I really doubt that "the oldest" language has any meaning at all, given that most (all?) living natural languages gradually evolved from an ancestor language. There are some newer languages, which evolved quite suddenly rather than gradually. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Creole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Creole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tok_Pisin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tok_Pisin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullah_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullah_language There is no reason to believe that any regional language of India could have arisen in this way, though.

by _jgdh 9y ago

thaumasiotes 9y ago

Two regional Indian languages spoken today are, by necessity, equally old. It's not so common for new languages to form. > in India many languages are influenced by Sanskrit so Sanskrit is probably older than all of them Sanskrit is older than modern languages in the sense that it is from a premodern period. That doesn't apply to living languages. We can say that Latin is an older form of Portuguese; it is nonsensical to say that Portuguese is older than Spanish. They're both Latin. Spanish has a noticeable amount of influence from Arabic, since Arabic speakers conquered the south of Spain and ruled there for a while. I don't see how this is evidence that Arabic is an older language than Spanish is, though.

deleted 9y ago
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_jgdh 9y ago
No, I don't think so. If people have been speaking Language A for 2 millennia, it's 2 millennia old. If they've been speaking Language B for 15 centuries, it's 15 centuries old. Just because A and B are both spoken today doesn't make them equally old. That's as absurd as saying you and I are both alive today so we must be the same age. It's interesting that you mention Spain. Are you familiar with the Basque language? It has almost no influence from the Romance languages spoken in all areas surrounding Basque country like French and Spanish. It's the last descendant of the pre-Indo-European languages spoken in Western Europe. Would you claim that Basque and Spanish are equally old? Influence doesn't imply that the influenced language is younger. A language being entirely derived from another, like Hindi from Sanskrit and the Romance languages from Latin, does imply that they're younger than Sanskrit and Latin.
- Grustaf 9y ago
  >Would you claim that Basque and Spanish are equally old? If by Spanish you mean the modern history of the language, since its branching off from the other Romance languages, then you could say it's younger, but this is just an accident of naming, caused by the extrinsic fact that there are other surviving dialects of Latin with their own nation states. If Latin had only survived in the form of Spanish, we would probably either call it Latin, or see Latin as Old Spanish. Either way we wouldn't see it as less old than Basque. And from a linguistic point of view, unless you think Basque and IE languages derive from separate innovations of language (sort of like wings have evolved separately in birds and bats - analogy rather than homology), the language that is today called Spanish is of course just as old as the language called Basque.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  > Would you claim that Basque and Spanish are equally old? Think. How could it possibly be otherwise? > If people have been speaking Language A for 2 millennia, it's 2 millennia old. If they've been speaking Language B for 15 centuries, it's 15 centuries old. Just because A and B are both spoken today doesn't make them equally old. But you just made that up. As has already been pointed out, all modern languages have been spoken for exactly the same period of time, with a few rare exceptions. The fact that two languages are both spoken today is sufficient to conclude that they are equally old, unless you happen to know exactly when one of them originated.
  - _jgdh 9y ago
    Ah, I think I'm beginning to understand what you're saying. So Spanish might have have evolved from Vulgar Latin after the Romans brought it to the Iberian peninsula in 210BC, but in your eyes, its the same age as Latin itself. So although the Romans conquered Gaul (France) in 50BC, beginning the evolution of French, you reckon that French and Spanish are the same age. Let me know if I've understood you correctly. If I have, then I think that's a perfectly valid way of looking at it.
Grustaf 9y ago
For some reason people seem to call languages "old" when they really mean "archaic" or "unchanged". It makes more sense to say that Portuguese is older than Latin in the sense that it has been developing for centuries longer. >Spanish has a noticeable amount of influence from Arabic, since Arabic speakers conquered the south of Spain and ruled there for a while. I don't see how this is evidence that Arabic is an older language than Spanish is, though. I don't see how this is relevant, the post talked about some modern Indian languages being "derived" from Sanskrit, which definitely implies a difference in age. >>Another way would be linguistic analysis that demonstrates that one language is derived from another
oblio 9y ago
> Spanish has a noticeable amount of influence from Arabic, since Arabic speakers conquered the south of Spain and ruled there for a while The Arabs conquered about 60-70% of both Spain and Portugal, not just the south of Spain. And they were there for more than a while, they were there from the 700s to late 1400s, so more than half a millennia :) I don't know the exact reason why Portuguese has a lower Arabic influence than Spain, though...
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  > they were there for more than a while, they were there from the 700s to late 1400s, so more than half a millennia :) Compare the period during which regions of Spain have been ruled by Latin speakers ;)
  - oblio 9y ago
    > During the Second Punic War, roughly between 210 and 205 BC the expanding Roman Republic captured Carthaginian trading colonies along the Mediterranean coast. Although it took the Romans nearly two centuries to complete the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, they retained control of it for over six centuries. The Latin speakers (i.e. the Roman Empire) actually controlled Iberia for about as much time as Arabic speakers (i.e. various caliphates and emirates) :)

hrasyid 9y ago

> If an inscription is older than any inscription in another language, it's possibly older No, it just means that the first language has an older written tradition. I really doubt that "the oldest" language" has any meaning at all, given that most (all?) living natural languages gradually evolved from an ancestor language. Like the other poster said, it's nonsensical to say whether Spanish and Portuguese is older because they both just evolved from being a variation of Latin. Or like, all current variant of English evolved from the English spoken in England some hundred years ago (which is different from British English today). What does it mean to say whether British, American or Australian English is older?

thaumasiotes 9y ago
> I really doubt that "the oldest" language has any meaning at all, given that most (all?) living natural languages gradually evolved from an ancestor language. There are some newer languages, which evolved quite suddenly rather than gradually. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Creole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Creole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tok_Pisin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tok_Pisin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullah_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullah_language There is no reason to believe that any regional language of India could have arisen in this way, though.