The Oldest Languages in the World

The Oldest Languages . . .
in the World . . .

Please pass the brocolli! I very much doubt that was even close to the first use of language – written or spoken!

But it does pose some interesting questions that have puzzled researchers for many years – what IS the oldest language – written and/or spoken? There are over 7000 currently spoken in the world today. But how many have existed, historically and which one is the oldest?

Currently, about 7,000 languages are spoken around the world. They belong to different language families and their origins date back thousands of years ago. Researchers are still finding it difficult to determine which language is the oldest. However, the earliest written languages on record are the cuneiform script that was discovered in Mesopotamia that dates back to 8^th millennium BC. The Sumerian script that started in the 3^rd millennium BC was developed for funerary inscriptions because the Sumerians were concerned about their afterlife.

In a previous post, I suggested that MATH is actually the ‘The Original and Universal Language‘ and that is true.

Now I want to consider spoken and/or written languages. A great conversation would have been with Pythagoras and his famous theory, but …. I am angling for a different post topic! Fun Fact – there are over 367 unique proofs of a² + b² = c² ! More than one a day for a year! WOW! There is even a TED Talk too!

My first guess would have been Latin, and it IS considered one of the oldest. And then, maybe, Egyptian, with beautiful heiroglyphics. Nope. Definitely the oldest in Egypt itself though!

Surely Greek, ranks right up there too? Nope, but definitely one of the oldest spoken languages in Europe! My coffee buddy, Nik from Folegandros, would certainly argue it is the oldest, but again, nope!

Okay, I am running out of guesses – thus displaying my woeful lack of Archeological Linguistics – even though I did pass Linguistics 100 at the University of Calgary in 1977!

My last guess … it has to be right … is … CHINESE, ! Ah, close, but still not the oldest language!

Okay, I give up … the oldest language is …. TAMIL! And it is still spoken today!

Tamil

By order of appearance, Tamil would be considered the world’s oldest language as it is over 5,000 years old, having made its first appearance in 3,000 BC. The literature collection in Tamil, which is a classical language, is very vast. It is also varied. Tamil is very much a living language and thousands of newspapers are still published in the language.

It is believed that Tamil started around 2500 BC.

It is still widely spoken and an official language in Singapore, Sri Lanka. In India, first language speakers live in some 34 territories and states, including Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry, Kerala, Delhi, Gujarat, Goa and Assam

And many other candidates do make the list of oldest known languages, including, but not limited to: Latin, Armenian, Korean, Hebrew, Aramic, Sanskrit, Arabic and Lithuanian.

Each workday (at home!) during this pandemic, I pick a quasi-random topic, usually language related or perhaps math or even computers and I surprise myself each day with what I find out!

I am also slowly adding a few new future topics to discover and one fun topic might be ‘Top 10 Words that are Misunderstood … or … The Princess Bride Inconceivability!” Another future topic might be the exact OPPOSITE of The Oldest Words, the NEWEST WORDS!

Here are a few more very interesting sites about more ‘oldest languages’:

And who knows, maybe the oldest language is really … DOLPHIN, .. Carl Sagan might have thought so!

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics!

ENJOY! TTFN!

Is Tamil the Oldest Language
in the World?

5 Oldest Languages
in the World

What’s the World’s Oldest Language?

What are the World’s
Oldest Languges?

What is the World’s Oldest Language
Still Spoken Today

List of Top 10
Oldest Languages in the World

Homer Simpson
The Pythagorean Theorem

Funniest Words in the English Language

Funniest Words in . . .
the English Language . . .

Grub. Yes, grub. That was the funniest word EVER for me .. in Grade 1!

I had never heard the word ‘grub‘ before and it sounded so ridiculous and … FUNNY! Oh, sure … it makes me chuckle NOW, but what are some words that really ARE funny … at least to me, now! I have posted about ‘The Funniest Languages in the World‘ but this post will be about Funny English words!

According to Wikipedia :

“Certain words have been suggested to be inherently funny. Vaudeville tradition holds that words with the letter k are funny. A 2015 study at the University of Alberta suggested that the humor of certain nonsense words can be explained by whether they seem rude, and by the property of entropy – the improbability of certain letters being used together in a word.“

Yeah, I was as surprised as you were, that there was an actual Wikipedia article about ‘Inherently Funny Words’! And turns out, there might even be a science to it!

“From whong to quingel: the science of funny words” the basic theory is that words have entropy. And ….

“Well, what they’ve found is a strong inverse correlation between funniness and a property called entropy. This is a way of expressing how usual the letters in the NW are – so the less commonly they’re used in English, the lower the total entropy of the NW. To put it another way, the less “wordy” these NWs are, the more they strike us as humorous.”

I guess it takes a research scientist to take the fun out of research, even if the research is ABOUT FUN! LOL!

To me, a word is funny because it invokes a memory of something funny, a ridiculous idea, a sound that does not sound ‘right’ or even how a person pronounces it! I actually think the word ‘ORANGE‘ is very funny! And probably because …NOTHING RHYMES WITH ‘ORANGE‘ ! Well, actually, there might be….

And guess what the following words have in common …. NONE OF THEM HAVE ANY RHYMES EITHER!

silver, purple, month, ninth, pint, wolf, opus, dangerous, marathon and discombobulate.

And sticking with the word ‘ORANGE‘ is a an interesting ‘Chicken vs Egg’ controversy … which came first … the colour or the fruit!

And don’t think that English ALONE has funny words. A future post will decribe Funny Canadian Words and Slang Phrases, a taste of which is below in a YouTube video!

Okay, going on the record, my list, in no particular order, some of my favourite funny words are:

Orange, Lollygag, Gonzo, Doozy, Malarkey, Gobbledygook, Flerken, Brouhaha, Stupendous, … and of course, the most ubiquitous word in the entire English-Canadian Dictionary … “‘eh!” And the most famous Canadian political words ever spoken … Fuddle Duddle!

And the single greatest cartoon strip of ALL TIME is Calvin & Hobbes, which also introduced many funny and amazing words – that only a Tiger and a 6-year old would understand! There just might be future post involving Calvin & Hobbes too!

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics!

ENJOY! TTFN!

40 Funny Sounding
English Words

5 Funny English Words
and Their English Meanings

Weekly English Words with Alisha
Funny Sounding Words

Top Funniest Words
in the English Language

How to Speak Like a Canadian
21 Funny Canadian
Slang Words and Phrases

Funny Sounding Words
From Around the World

Ancient Technology . . . or Be Kind to Your Digital Elders!

Ancient Technology . . .
or . . .
. . . Be Kind to Your Digital Elders

Where we you in … no, not ’62, but 1984!!!

1984 immediately brings to mind two thing – my Grade 12 class on George Orwell’s novel and … the introduction of the original Macintosh computer … and that famous commercial, broadcast only ONCE, during the Super Bowl that year. It is considered The Greatest Commercial of All Time!

But did you know that it was originally introduced by none other than Steve Jobs at an Apple meeting? And of course, this is made available through the magic of … YouTube!

Steve Jobs Introduces the
Macintosh for the FIRST TIME!

When I originally started in The CALL Facility in 1989, there was ONE SINGLE SOLITARY MACINTOSH IN THE ENTIRE ROOM! The rest were all IBM computers. Yes, IBM!!!

It had been about 5 years since the original Mac had been introduced and made commercially available, but it had one unique incredible feature – it was the only computer (to the best of my knowledge back then!) that offered different operating systems (known back then as System 6) in DIFFERENT LANGUAGES!

To switch to Japanese, the ONLY other fully functional operating system that was installed at the time, required a full reboot after ‘blessing’ a folder that contained … the Japanese Operating System! And then, when finished, the same procedure had to be performed … IN JAPANESE, to reboot and return to System 6!

I think the very first document I ever produced in The CALL Facility .. was how to switch from English to Japanese and then back to English in System 6.0 on the only Mac, probably in all of Clearhue!

And there is my segue into languages! Communication! Ideas! Imagination! Cooperation!

This so-called ‘New Normal’ that we are now wrapped up in, still requires teamwork and literally thinking ‘outside the box’ that was our previous workplace location! We are truly … reinventing the box, while simultaneously physically being outside of our boxes! 👍

Truly astonishing that we can ZOOM, text, email, video and phone so easily now – and that allows us to maintain communications, both social and professional, with the click of a button! 30 years ago, this would have been in the realm of Harry Potter kind of magic .. and Harry Potter didn’t exist until 1997!

I still have some ‘ancient technology’ including my first ever computer, a Commodore SX-64, outrageously described as a ‘portable computer’ weighing in at a whopping 23 POUNDS!

A few years ago – 2017 seems SO long ago now – Systems had an Open House with the theme of ‘Time Travellers – Meet the Team – Systems Through Time‘ and it was a ‘Blast from our Past‘!

And both my Mac SE that I bought in 1989 and my venerable SX-64 are still working! Amazing!

The CALL Facility – 30th Anniversary!

A few great articles to take you down Memory Lane here:

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics!

Tag: Old Computers