what is the oldest language in Europe?

[beckyreitsis]

As a victim of extreme Welsh patriotism at school, I was always told that Welsh is the oldest language in Europe. Logical common sense has now told me that Latin must be much older, but I think I might be missing something. Plase clear this up for me for once and for all...

[kempie]

What about Greek?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages

[jno]

Latin isn't spoken any more; Greek is, but modern Greek is quite some distance from ancient Greek, so I don't know if you'd count that or not. The oldest still spoken in the same place may be Basque, which dates from about the 7th century BC and doesn't seem to have much resemblance to any other languages.

[kempie]

Each language is considered in terms of being a "dialect family" and as such show evidence of evolutionary change from its earliest incarnation. Basque is no different to Greek in this respect, so if we discount Greek we must discount all other languages also.

Except for creoles, which arise from pidgins and are a special case, all languages are equally "old", in that all descend in an unbroken line from the earliest human speech. What we can say about Basque is that its ancestor was spoken in western Europe before (possibly long before) the ancestors of all the other modern western European languages arrived there. That is, Spanish, French, English, and all the others are descended from languages which were introduced into western Europe (from farther east) at a time when the ancestor of Basque was already there.

[Mr Songman]

May I most politely query a point you make here Kempie?

"Except for creoles, which arise from pidgins and are a special case, all languages are equally "old", in that all descend in an unbroken line from the earliest human speech."

This would only be true if language had started in one isolated place and developed from there, but most experts agree that this was not the case.

I quote, as a single example, Bill Bryson in Mother Tongue.

"One of the great mysteries of prehistory is how people in widely separated places suddenly developed the capacity for language at roughly the same time! Even those who were cut off from the 20 or so great language families developed their own quite seperate languages!

Japanese,as an example, is a mystery. Although its system of writing and some of its vocabulary have been taken from Chinese, it is otherwise quite unrelated to any other known language. The same is true of Korean

And there is simply no proven connection between Basque and any other known language.

Others do however have differing theories. Merrit Ruhlen said in Natural History magazine "The significant number of such global cognates leads some linguists to conclude that all the world's languages ultimately belong to a single language family"

My point being, i suppose, is that there are too many theories based on too little information for us to state anything so boldly as fact where language is concerned!

A damned fascinating subject though!

Luck to all!!

[kempie]

Mr Songman - my use of the term equally "old" was meant to infer separate distinct languages being developed at "roughly the same time", so I see no contradiction in my answer to the opinions expressed by "most experts" although I freely and readily admit that I am not an expert in this field.

[milly143]

I sympathise with you on the first line of your question. When I was 5 we moved to Wales and I joined my first school, speaking only English but they wouldn't even let me go to the toilet unless I asked in Welsh. It was so cruel. Anyway, I'll let people get back to answering your question now.

[heathfield]

It must have been Neanderthal

[goldenboy]

im proposing finnish mainly because my girlfriend speaks it, but also i remember something i saw in the museum in helsinki saying that the finns have been settled in the region since neolithic times. i could be and probably am wrong about it being the oldest but it and hungarian are a bit of an enigma.

[Mr Songman]

My apologies Kempie if I misunderstood, though it was the "unbroken line" part that I may have mis-interpreted.

I inferred from that that you were implying that all languages could be traced through a single unbroken line from a single source!

Again my apologies if I got it wrong. I, like yourself, am no expert either. But I'm always happy and willing to learn!

Heathfield: Experts feel that it may have been Cro-Magnon rather than Neanderthal that were the first to form some sort of language because they were the first hominids who could choke on their food!

" This slight evolutionary change that pushed man's larynx deeper into his throat,and made choking a possibility,also brought with it the possibility of speech!

Other mammals have no contact between their air passages and oesophagi. In modern humans, the lowered larynx isn't in position from birth. It descends between the ages of 3 and f5 months which is why these babies can breathe and swallow at the same time! "

Hope this helps!

[Mr Songman]

Or here!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_language

[heathfield]

Oops! That link produces an 'empty page' error. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_language works better.

The Celtic people arrived in Western Europe from Asia Minor. They spread round the northern side of the Alps and into France and the British Isles. The Celtic tongue eventually displaced the local languages, but not until very late on in Scotland. Here, Pictish was spoken in some places up until the 10th Century. Since Welsh is Celtic, and Pictish was a displaced language, Pictish is obviously older than Welsh

[mike b]

There have been attempts to associate Basque with what little is known of Pictish, as related pre-Celtic languages, but without much success. Just don't mention Martian!

[heathfield]

It's OK mike, we won't mention Martian....Oooops!

[shery]

i think should be greek