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 M¢25  Funded By Mahalo ? |  May 17, 2009 09:29 PM

roommate debate: What is the oldest language in the world? Googling now.... your thoughts?

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May 17, 2009 09:39 PM | view on twitter
The oldest written language probably Sumerian or Egyptian wins because they developed a writing system first (both start appearing in about 3200 BC).

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May 17, 2009 09:41 PM | view on twitter
I know this won't help the roommate debate, but with this link, you can at least have some guidelines in your argument!
http://www.linguistlist.org/ask-ling/oldest.html
In my opinion, we don't know the answer to this question, although some people will give one anyway.
http://theconnexion.net/wp/wp-content/themes/thesis/rotator/mistymorning.jpg

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May 18, 2009 10:36 AM | view on twitter
The oldest language is no longer spoken. Instead it has been reconstructed. One possible contender is Nostratic, a controversial language that predates Indo-European, Semitic, and many other language families, including some Native American families.

Among the European languages still spoken, some people suggest that Lithuanian is the closest to proto-Indo-European.

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostratic
http://popgen.well.ox.ac.uk/eurasia/htdocs/nostratic.html
http://www.santafe.edu/~johnson/articles.nostratic.html
http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/elltankw/history/nostratic.htm
http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question75734.html


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