Anthropological records of primitive times show that people used to communicate using hand gestures, signals, and odd sounds before the existence of language. However, as the concept of linguistics came to exist about 10,000 years ago, it provided local tribes with a mode of communication that was standardized and hence, more comprehensible. This changed human civilization’s course as it led to the formation of cultures and norms — both notions being unfamiliar in the primitive societies of basic hunter-gatherers.
However, what was more interesting was how suddenly these cultures could be preserved in the form of writings, usually done on stone tablets, cave walls, animal hides, and wood, etc. Bits and pieces of these ancient writing materials are, unfortunately, the only records we have left to determine how the art of linguistics formed the unique tapestry of past kingdoms.
From a language that is known to be borderless to a language with over 100,000 characters, these are the 7 oldest languages known to us that are spoken today.

原始時(shí)代的人類學(xué)記錄顯示，在語言存在之前，人們?cè)?jīng)用手勢、信號(hào)和奇怪的聲音進(jìn)行交流，然而，隨著大約1萬年前“語言”的出現(xiàn)，為部落提供了一種標(biāo)準(zhǔn)化的交流方式，從而使人們更容易相互理解，這改變了人類文明的進(jìn)程，因?yàn)樗鼘?dǎo)致了文化和規(guī)范的形成——這兩個(gè)概念在狩獵采集者為主的原始社會(huì)中都是陌生的。
然而，更有趣的是，這些文化怎么會(huì)突然以文字的形式保存下來，而且通常是在石板、洞壁、動(dòng)物皮毛和木頭等上面完成的，遺憾的是，這些古代書寫材料的零星片段是留給我們的唯一記錄，以確定語言藝術(shù)是如何獨(dú)特形成的。
從一種已知的無邊界語言到一種超過10萬個(gè)字符的語言，以下便是我們已知的7種最古老且仍在使用的語言。

Basque
Photo Credits: Omniglot
Spoken almost exclusively in the Basque country by approximately 750,000 native speakers and about 1,185,000 passive speakers, Baque remains an ancient language that is unique for many reasons. For starters, despite intensive research by linguists into Basque literature, its origins still remain a mystery. Some vague theories predict that it predates the Roman, Spanish and French languages, making it one of the oldest languages in Western Europe. It is undoubtedly a language that was always obscure and endured through time by surviving in forgotten corners of the world.
What makes Basque even more unique is that it enjoys the status of one of the very few ‘isolate languages’ in the world, meaning that it draws no geographical or genetic roots from any of the living languages today. Despite being natively spoken by a small population of Spain and France, it remains completely unrelated to Spanish and French. Some linguists theorize a connection of Basque to other unique languages such as Chechen and Georgian in the Caucasus Mountains. Although the limited literature on Basque hinders further research into it, it still holds immense cultural, historical, and sentimental significance to the Basque people.


巴斯克語
巴克語幾乎只在巴斯克地區(qū)使用，約有75萬母語者和約185萬被動(dòng)語者使用，巴斯克語仍然是一種獨(dú)特的古老語言，由于種種原因，，它是獨(dú)一無二的。首先，盡管語言學(xué)家對(duì)巴斯克語文獻(xiàn)進(jìn)行了深入研究，但其起源仍然是一個(gè)謎，一些模糊的理論預(yù)測它比羅馬語、西班牙語和法語更早，這使它成為西歐最古老的語言之一，毫無疑問，毫無疑問，這是一種總是晦澀難懂的語言，在世界上被遺忘的角落里存在了很長時(shí)間。
巴斯克語的獨(dú)特之處在于它是世界上為數(shù)不多的 "孤立語言 "之一，這意味著它與當(dāng)今任何一種活的語言都沒有任何地理或遺傳根源。盡管西班牙和法國的一小部分人使用這種語言，但巴斯克語與西班牙語和法語完全沒有關(guān)系，一些語言學(xué)家理論上認(rèn)為巴斯克語與其他獨(dú)特的語言，如高加索山脈的車臣語和格魯吉亞語之間存在聯(lián)系，雖然有限的巴斯克文獻(xiàn)阻礙了對(duì)它的進(jìn)一步研究，但它對(duì)巴斯克人來說仍然具有巨大的文化、歷史和情感意義。

Tamil
Photo Credits: Quartz
Tamil holds the distinction of being the oldest living language in the world, and despite drawing its roots from 2000 years ago, it still continues to be widely popular today. In fact, it is the 20th world language with the highest first language speakers serving as the official languages of Sri Lanka, Singapore, and India (particularly popular in Tamil Nadu). It belongs to the Dravidian family, which comprises languages native to southern and eastern India. Surprisingly, it has no genetic similarities to Hindi and is not even understood by most people speaking Hindi. It also holds a rich written history, with archaeologists discovering some Tamil inscxtions that date back to 300 BCE, making it more than 2200 years old and still surviving, developing, and evolving through modernity.


泰米爾語
泰米爾語是世界上現(xiàn)存最古老的語言，盡管它的根源僅能追溯到2000年前，但它今天仍然廣泛流行。
事實(shí)上，它在世界上使用人口數(shù)最多的語言中排名第20位，是斯里蘭卡、新加坡和印度的官方語言( 泰米爾納德邦尤其流行)，它屬于達(dá)羅毗荼語系，包括印度南部和東部的土著語言，令人驚訝的是，它與印地語沒有基因上的相似之處，甚至大多數(shù)說印地語的人都聽不懂，它還擁有豐富的書寫歷史，考古學(xué)家發(fā)現(xiàn)了一些可以追溯到公元前300年的泰米爾銘文，因此，它有2200多年的歷史，而且還在現(xiàn)代社會(huì)中生存、發(fā)展和演變。

Aramaic
Photo Credits: Pinterest
One of the oldest yet prestigious languages in the world, the Aramaic language belongs to the Afro-Asiatic region and was spoken by people thousands of years ago — 3100 plus years to be exact. Not only is this language old, but it was also highly coveted in the royal courts, where it was used as the official language for multiple royal dynasties. It is also seen that Arabic and other older languages also took words from the Aramaic language and can find their roots in it. Some parts of the Bible were also translated to it because of its accessibility. The scxt that is used is one of its only kind and is easily distinguishable due to its uniqueness. Even in modern times, Aramaic has survived with people from all over the world, from America to Russia, speaking it. It is estimated that over 1 million people speak Aramaic as their first language.


阿拉姆語
阿拉姆語是世界上最古老且享有盛譽(yù)的語言之一，屬于亞非地區(qū)，在數(shù)千年前 ( 確切地說是3100多年前 ) 就被人們所使用。
這種語言不僅古老，且在皇室宮廷中也備受追捧，多個(gè)皇朝都將其作為官方語言，我們還還可以看到，阿拉伯語和其他較古老的語言也從阿拉姆語中吸收了詞匯，并且可以在其中找到詞根，因?yàn)樗囊鬃x性，圣經(jīng)的一些部分也被翻譯成阿拉姆語，阿拉姆語所使用的文字也是而獨(dú)特的，很容易區(qū)分，即使在現(xiàn)代，從美國到俄羅斯，世界各地的人們都在使用阿拉姆語，據(jù)估計(jì)，有超過100萬的人將阿拉米語作為他們的第一語言。

Chinese
Photo Credits: Wikimedia Commons
Chinese has to be one of the most unique languages spoken or even written. With over 100,000 characters making up different words, phrases, and sentences, it is no surprise that the Chinese language has gained its prestige over the long period of time it has been around. It is also the inspiration for several other languages, such as the Japanese language, which itself is highly intricate. Only the Chinese language could itself be so complex that it heavily influenced another highly complex language. Records going back up to even 1250 BCE, the Chinese language is spoken by over 1.3 Billion people. This makes it one of the most spoken languages in the world.


漢語
漢語必須是最獨(dú)特的語言之一，無論是說還是寫。
漢語有超過10萬個(gè)字符，組成不同的單詞、短語和句子，因此，漢語在漫長的歷史中享有盛譽(yù)也就不足為奇了。
它也是其他幾種語言的靈感來源，比如日語，日語本身就非常復(fù)雜了，唯有漢語如此的復(fù)雜性才能影響了另一種高度復(fù)雜的語言。
漢語的記錄甚至可以追溯到公元前1250年，超過13億人使用漢語，這使得它成為世界上被使用最多的語言之一。

Arabic
Photo Credits: Wikipedia
The Arab world is known for its Golden Age under the Islamic empire, which put the Arabic language on the map for the entire world. However, this ancient Semite language was being used as far as 125 AD. Arabic is popular for the beautiful phonetic style that it can sound, which was best displayed in the works of poets in the Arab world and when at its height, was reflected in the Quran, which is one of the most read books in the world. Arabic itself consists of many different dialects and variants; however, most of it has been unified under Classical Arabic. Arabic has also been the inspiration behind languages like Urdu, which also has a scxt similar to Arabic.


阿拉伯語
阿拉伯世界以其在伊斯蘭帝國統(tǒng)治下的黃金時(shí)代而聞名，這使得阿拉伯語在整個(gè)世界占有一席之地。
然而，這種古老的閃米特語早在公元125年就開始使用了，阿拉伯語因其美妙的語音風(fēng)格而受到歡迎，這種風(fēng)格極好地體現(xiàn)在阿拉伯世界詩人的作品中，而在其鼎盛時(shí)期，《古蘭經(jīng)》反映了這種風(fēng)格，該書是世界上閱讀量最大的書籍之一。
阿拉伯語本身包括許多不同的方言和變體，然而，它們大部分已經(jīng)統(tǒng)一在古典阿拉伯語之下，阿拉伯語也是像烏爾都語這樣的語言的靈感來源，烏爾都語也有類似于阿拉伯語的文字。

Icelandic
Photo Credits: Guide to Iceland
The Vikings’ language, Icelandic, takes roots from the Norse culture and derives its scxt from the Old Norse languages. Despite being as old as it is, it is still spoken as the first language by over 3 million people worldwide, ranging from Iceland to even Canada. The Old Norse language’s heavy influence is more potent than any other language on Icelandic — even the Danish people did not have a more substantial impact on it. Due to this, it is said that people that can speak and read Icelandic would have easily survived in the Norse era and would have read and spoken the language without any hassle. For a language to survive this long without any change and be compatible in times and culture so different is a remarkable feat.


冰島語
維京人的語言，冰島語，起源于挪威文化，其文字來源于古挪威語言，盡管它已經(jīng)很古老了，但從冰島到甚至加拿大，全球仍有300多萬人將其作為第一語言使用。

古北歐語對(duì)冰島語的影響比其他任何語言都要大ーー甚至連丹麥人對(duì)冰島語的影響也沒有那么大，由于這個(gè)原因，據(jù)說能說會(huì)讀冰島語的人在北歐語時(shí)代很容易生存下來，而且能夠毫無困難地讀和說冰島語，對(duì)于一門語言來說，能夠在沒有任何變化的情況下生存這么長時(shí)間，并且能夠適應(yīng)如此不同的時(shí)代和文化，是一個(gè)了不起的壯舉。
Persian
Photo Credits: Wikimedia Commons
Written in an altered version of the Arabic language, Persian, or Farsi as it is commonly known, is a language that dates back 2500 years. It was the Persian Empire’s official language and has left an indelible mark in regions of Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Iran, and other surrounding areas. Despite being a uniform singular language of the Persian Empire, multiple variants such as the Dari, Tajik, etc., emerged for Persian. In Tajikistan, it was also being written in a different scxt than Arabic called the Cyrillic alphabet. Persian, like other languages rooted in the Islamic world, has drawn inspiration from the religion; most of the Persian writers’ fine work is in dedication to Islam. It is often said that Farsi is the language of the Sufi saints of Islam.


波斯語
波斯語是由阿拉伯語改寫而成的，俗稱的Farsi，是一種可以追溯到2500年前的語言，它是波斯帝國的官方語言，在阿富汗、塔吉克斯坦、伊朗等周邊地區(qū)留下了不可磨滅的印記，盡管波斯語是波斯帝國統(tǒng)一的單一語言，但波斯語卻出現(xiàn)了多種變體，如達(dá)里語、塔吉克語等，在塔吉克斯坦，它是用不同于阿拉伯語的西里爾字母書寫的，波斯語和其他植根于伊斯蘭世界的語言一樣，都是從宗教中汲取靈感的，大多數(shù)波斯作家的優(yōu)秀作品都是在向伊斯蘭教獻(xiàn)禮，人們常說Farsi（波斯語）是伊斯蘭教蘇菲圣徒的語言。

Final Thoughts
Language is something that we rarely pay attention to in our everyday lives because it is second nature to communicate in it. However, if one stops to think about the unique ways that this powerful tool bridges the divide and gap between human beings, its importance is truly highlighted. Without this tool, all of our inventions would be lost, our history erased. Hence language is not only just a tool for communication but also one of self-preservation of the human species.

結(jié)語
語言是我們?cè)谌粘Ｉ钪泻苌訇P(guān)注的東西，因?yàn)橛谜Z言交流是我們的第二天性，然而，如果有人停下來思考一下這個(gè)強(qiáng)大的工具是如何彌合人類之間的鴻溝的，那么它的重要性就真正凸顯出來了，沒有這個(gè)工具，我們所有的發(fā)明都會(huì)消失，我們的歷史也會(huì)被抹去。因此，語言不僅僅是交流的工具，也是人類自我保存的工具。