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What was the first language?

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posted on Aug, 15 2006 @ 01:09 PM
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I had a question, but don’t let me get off topic here, if this question needs another thread i will be happy to create one for it.

Given the current discussion of where language itself originated, or what was the first spoken language. Why is it that we have this common conception that where demonology is concerned, Latin is always the primary language which seems to be used and even spoken in cases of demonic possession and or demonic language etc. I assume evil was around before Latin?

any thoughts on why this might be?

[edit on 15-8-2006 by captinofcats]



posted on Aug, 15 2006 @ 01:45 PM
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Originally posted by djohnsto77
These trees are somewhat useful, but not a total picture of the history of languages. For example, they don't show the very strong influences French and Latin had in the modern English language, it's simply presented as a German offshoot.


This is a great point djohnsto77. French had a decided impact not only on English vocabulary but even some aspects of English syntax. The way English moved from an inflected language, where variations in word pronunciation mark the syntax, to a distributed language, where word order is much more important, was most certainly influenced by French. (Of course, the zeal for commerce in England made dropping the inflections an advantage too. It became easier for people to just say "knife", for instance, rather than k-nif-e, k-nife, nif-e, and various other pronunciations.)

Regarding the whole, "what's the oldest" debate, let's think of it this way. The difference between a language and a dialect of a language is often a socio-political consideration. Think of Latin and the romance language that it sprung. There would have been a point in time where the various "dialects" of Latin spoken in Europe would have been, more or less, mutually intelligible. A person speaking the Parisian dialect of Latin could probably understand a person speaking a Spanish verison of Latin.

Eventually, however, nationalities, cultures, wars, trade, etc. can make dialects become so distinct that mutual intelligibility becomes somewhat lost. Hence, we dub Spanish and French distinct languages. Another example of this is the mutual intelligibility of Norwegian and Danish. From what I understand, speakers of these two languages can understand each other, if they make an effort. However, given national pride in their dialect, they are referred to as separate languages.

In the Latin example, the romance languages are really equally old. This same sort of analysis can be applied to all the Indo-European languages. Some languages may have a more detailed analysis. Some may have sprung from the proto language "sooner," but all modern languages have extensively changed since the proto language. It just doesn't make sense to speak of one or another as being "older" except for socio-political reasons.

[edit on 8/15/2006 by Toromos]



posted on Aug, 15 2006 @ 02:18 PM
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Oh yes it can be my friend. You have wrong information. Albanians didn't come from nowhere. They always been there. Have you ever hear about Illyrians and especialy Pellasgians?


ilirians and dacians were in fact from tracian roots ilirians and tracians are related as by tradition and languege , russians ,bulgars, romanians, albanians, nordics , they are all of tracian descent.



What you're saying doesn't make any sense even languagewise

It does, and it has to do alot with the languege.
www.answers.com...



In the 1950s, the Bulgarian linguist Vladimir Georgiev published his work which demonstrated that the phonology of the Dacian language is close to the phonology of Albanian, further supporting the theory that Dacian was on the same language branch as the Albanian language, a language branch termed Daco-Moesian (or Daco-Mysian), Moesian (or Mysian) being thought of as a transitional dialect between Dacian and Thracian. There are cognates between Daco-Thracian and Albanian which may be evidence of the Daco-Thracian-Albanian language affinity, and many substratum words in Romanian have Albanian cognates.




Romanians? Huh??? Their language is latin my friend

The languege is latin because of the historical influence, but it's not native, native romanian languege and roots are of dacian tracian origins.
www.globalvolunteers.org...


Romanians trace their history back to 300 B.C. But Romania did not become an independent, unified country until 1861. During most of the time in-between, various foreign peoples ruled all or part of Romania.
In the years from 300 to 400 B.C., Dacian people farmed, mined gold and iron ore, and traded with neighboring peoples.
Romania was called "Dacia" during this period.
The Romans, under Emperor Trajan, conquered Dacia in A.D. 106, and made it a province of the Roman Empire. Roman soldiers occupied Dacia, and Roman colonists settled there. The Romans intermarried with the Dacians, who adopted Roman customs and the Latin language. Dacia became known as Romania because of the Roman occupation and influence.


here is a very good link it explains the whole region realy good.
www.dacia.org...


Tracs are younger then Albanians in those lands. Remember pellasgians !!!

Not really not on the latest discovery.
www.romania.co.nz...


A research team co-directed by Erik Trinkaus, professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, has dated a human jawbone from a Romanian bear hibernation cave to between 34,000 and 36,000 years ago. That makes it the earliest known modern human fossil in Europe.

Dacians ilirians were all of tracian origins, now the tracians migrated from asia, which puts a question, was the first languege spoken in africa or in asia?


[edit on 15-8-2006 by pepsi78]

[edit on 15-8-2006 by pepsi78]


CX

posted on Aug, 15 2006 @ 02:39 PM
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Wow i've been very impressed by some of the content in the replies here, thanks for that.


I can see now that my initial question was not nearly clear enough, but then again i did say i had only a limited knowledge of historical languages. You guys have helped no end in that i can see that i am going to have to do a fair bit of research before making my decision on which one to learn.

See again thats something i need to consider and should have worded my thread accordingly, what is the earliest language that i can learn? I will need to have access to learning resources, whether that be online or other methods. I have two little girls to look after, so i can't just go shooting off round the world at the moment to study languages in thier places of origin. An ancient language that has no record is obviously no use to me. Whatever one i learn, i'd like to think that some day i can put it into practice too.

After reading the posts so far i would be lying if i said it was'nt a daunting prospect, but then again i did want something different. I'm now actually looking forward to learning the historical aspects to where all these languages herald as well as learning the language itself.

Thanks everyone, although by the looks of it, i'm sure this thread is'nt quite dead yet.


CX.



posted on Aug, 15 2006 @ 02:47 PM
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Originally posted by CX
by the looks of it, i'm sure this thread is'nt quite dead yet.


CX.



I doubt it too..


originally posted by CX
Could someone please tell me what the earliest known speakable language was?


Good question, but rather difficult to figure out since language is such a fluid tool...changing at a furious rate over the centuries through merging nomadic tribes, forced migration due to climate changes, etc.

Some of the Amerind languages like the Na-Dene group are fairly old. Also, the Dravidian group should boast some really ancient roots in the family (20 languages spoken by 145 million people).

It's going to be tough to pick just one out of so many because there are between 5,000 and 10,000 different languages in the world. The reason for the 'wide-open' guess is because there are two camps in the
science. Linguists are made up of 'splitters' and 'lumpers'for an obvious good reason.

Some of the pioneers of "linguistic palaeontology" are Holger Pederson, Vladislav Illich-Svitych and Aron Dolgopolsky if you want to investigate the 'Proto' groups to find that particular one you'd like to take on.

Here's a link to an informative website to help a bit...


www.krysstal.com...

Introduction to the more important language families including
Indo-European, Uralic, Altaic, Afro-Asiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Malayo-Polynesian, Niger-Congo, Dravidian and others


Good luck


CX

posted on Aug, 15 2006 @ 03:01 PM
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Thanks for that link Masqua
I'll take a look at that in a bit.

Ok how about this extract from a Wikipedia type site.....

"Egyptologists refer to Egyptian writing as hieroglyphs, today standing as the world's earliest known writing system. The hieroglyphic script was partly syllabic, partly ideographic. Hieratic is a cursive form of Egyptian hieroglyphs and was first used during the First Dynasty (c. 2925 BC – c. 2775 BC)."

Any comments on this? There seems to be so many claims on the internet as to what was the earliest language or writing system. Would you consider the terms "writing system" and "language" different? Hieroglyphics were a means of communication, they were readable and could be passed on. This would have been by verbal as well as written means too would it not? Therefore would this not indeed be the earliest language i could attempt?

I know i am probably making it sound as if it should be all so simple, but after your great posts here i do appreciate that there is a lot more to it than just picking one and learning it.

CX.



posted on Aug, 15 2006 @ 03:02 PM
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That's funny ! Now your telling me the history of my country and of my people? LOL

Illyrians are direct descendants of Pellasgians...


linguist Georgiev claims that the Pelasgians where Indo-Europeans and related to the neighbouring Thracians. He even proposes a soundshift model from Indo-European to Pelasgian.


So are related, that's all.


Zacharie Mayani is not the only person that has linked Pelasgian with Albanian. Aristides P. Kollias in his books writes that the Pelasgian race is the progenitor race of Greeks and Latins, and Albanians are the only ones that preserved the words as studies from Vlora Falaschi, Giuseppe Catapano, Stanislao Marchiano, Jean Cloude Faverial, Robert D'Angely, Aristides P. Kolias, Eqrem Cabej claim. Recently another French scholar, Mathieu Aref, has put forth the claim that "the earliest Greeks" were what he terms "Pelasgo-Albanians".


Anyway, I think I'm off topic here. Sorry guys.



posted on Aug, 15 2006 @ 03:12 PM
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Linguists are made up of 'splitters' and 'lumpers'for an obvious good reason.


I wish I had those descriptions in grad school. That's great. Historical linguistics is certainly a fascinating topic, and well worth investigating even at a non-professional level. David Crystal's .Encyclopedia of Language is a good place to start for many aspects of the study of language

[edit on 8/15/2006 by Toromos]



posted on Aug, 15 2006 @ 03:17 PM
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Originally posted by CX
Thanks for that link Masqua
I'll take a look at that in a bit.

Ok how about this extract from a Wikipedia type site.....

"Egyptologists refer to Egyptian writing as hieroglyphs, today standing as the world's earliest known writing system. The hieroglyphic script was partly syllabic, partly ideographic. Hieratic is a cursive form of Egyptian hieroglyphs and was first used during the First Dynasty (c. 2925 BC – c. 2775 BC)."

Any comments on this? There seems to be so many claims on the internet as to what was the earliest language or writing system. Would you consider the terms "writing system" and "language" different? Hieroglyphics were a means of communication, they were readable and could be passed on. This would have been by verbal as well as written means too would it not? Therefore would this not indeed be the earliest language i could attempt?

I know i am probably making it sound as if it should be all so simple, but after your great posts here i do appreciate that there is a lot more to it than just picking one and learning it.

CX.


Hi CX,

Writing systems are very much separate from language. There are many languages without writing systems. Writing is a way to communicate symbolically what we speak to each other, but language itself does not rely on writing.

(Just a side thought, I've never thought about Braille as being a language itself. I know sign language is indeed considered a language proper, even though it's not spoken.)

Of course, if you intend to study a "dead" language, where it is no longer spoken in a living community of people, then all you have is writing. Ancient Greek, Latin, Egyptian, and many others will keep you busy and interested for a long time.



posted on Aug, 15 2006 @ 04:00 PM
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That's funny ! Now your telling me the history of my country and of my people? LOL

Illyrians are direct descendants of Pellasgians...

All I'm telling you is that all of it is of tracian origin, the latest discovery confirms this, the oldest homo sapien is found in an area of daco tracien presence, you have to understand that the traciens were the most numeros population at the time of the arival, and they migrated alot, acros europe.
Because the scheleton was found in a region of where only tracians were present it gives credit to the theory that all other forms were in fact tracian, like dacians and pellasgians, the languege says the same.
Your theory does not hold water simply because much older fosils were found around where tracs originated.


So are related, that's all.

Related by blood lines which makes them one and the same.


[edit on 15-8-2006 by pepsi78]



posted on Aug, 15 2006 @ 05:17 PM
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EEEEE...AAAAHHHHH......(((grunt)))

All about 1-liners

[edit on 15-8-2006 by masqua]



posted on Aug, 15 2006 @ 05:30 PM
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As to the question when we began to talk we must look at the genes. One called FOXP2 have two mutations wich is belived to have existed before we left Afrika for 130 000 years ago, and these mutations gave us the ability to talk.



posted on Aug, 15 2006 @ 05:32 PM
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Originally posted by pepsi78


That's funny ! Now your telling me the history of my country and of my people? LOL

Illyrians are direct descendants of Pellasgians...

All I'm telling you is that all of it is of tracian origin, the latest discovery confirms this, the oldest homo sapien is found in an area of daco tracien presence, you have to understand that the traciens were the most numeros population at the time of the arival, and they migrated alot, acros europe.
Because the scheleton was found in a region of where only tracians were present it gives credit to the theory that all other forms were in fact tracian, like dacians and pellasgians, the languege says the same.
Your theory does not hold water simply because much older fosils were found around where tracs originated.


So are related, that's all.

Related by blood lines which makes them one and the same.


[edit on 15-8-2006 by pepsi78]


I'm sorry to say that my friend but your comment is lacking argument and logic. I do not think this is the right thread to discuss this but I do know how right I'm in what I've said.
Sorry again for being out of topic. I'm done with this.



posted on Aug, 15 2006 @ 07:02 PM
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R3KR'as joke is actually probably close to actual history, in IMO.
Toremos gave you a serious and state of the art answer as best we know.

I would only add that the first attempts at language probably mimicked other animals and the sound was probably song like. I imagine that grunts and other sounds with various inflections served early man until about 10 to 15,000 years ago.

I was surprised to read that Cuneiform was spoken. I has assumed that Cuneiform was mostly an accounting system and therefore not spoken. I believe it does qualify as the first language because it is preserved and did transmit information. I just have never read that it was actually spoken.

Finally, if you are able to learn a rudimentary form of, say, Aramaic, you will only be able to communicate with a few scholars and even then it will be mostly like a Japanese with no other language capability other then Japanese, speaking to a Baptist with only the typically poor American English.

If you want to impress people...just learn proper English and develop your vocabulary.

My best guess is that the first qualifying attempt at language (certainly unconscious) was a sort of singing grunt system accompanied with lots of hand and arm gestures.



posted on Aug, 15 2006 @ 07:12 PM
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Originally posted by captinofcats
I had a question, but don’t let me get off topic here, if this question needs another thread i will be happy to create one for it.

Given the current discussion of where language itself originated, or what was the first spoken language. Why is it that we have this common conception that where demonology is concerned, Latin is always the primary language which seems to be used and even spoken in cases of demonic possession and or demonic language etc. I assume evil was around before Latin?

any thoughts on why this might be?

[edit on 15-8-2006 by captinofcats]


Several... but start a topic on it, eh?



posted on Aug, 15 2006 @ 07:18 PM
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Originally posted by sayswho
I was surprised to read that Cuneiform was spoken. I has assumed that Cuneiform was mostly an accounting system and therefore not spoken. I believe it does qualify as the first language because it is preserved and did transmit information. I just have never read that it was actually spoken.


Gotta clarify things here -- cuneiform is an alphabet, and the alphabet (like the ones we use to type here) is not a "language." Cuneiform was, however, one of the earliest known alphabets. A number of languages were written using cuneiform as their alphabet.



posted on Aug, 15 2006 @ 07:20 PM
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And the topic is...


Originally posted by CX
Could someone please tell me what the earliest known speakable language was?

CX.


let's focus on that alone.



posted on Aug, 16 2006 @ 06:00 PM
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The oldest "spoken" language is......Symbolism! We do not know how humans developed our cognitive abilities but something happened (anatomically or most likely culturally).

Our ability to ask the question "What if...." is the best example of the human minds unique cognitive and symbolic processes. When we form and manipulate mental symbols that represent things both real and abstract, and create a relationship among objects we give rise to language. Many animals use vocal communication of varying levels of sophistication but none are known to have the symbolic cognition required to develope language.

Hmmmm then we find the chicken and the egg once again!



posted on Aug, 16 2006 @ 06:30 PM
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It probably wasn't a spoken form of communication, but a physical interaction. It continues today and is readily understood by all.



posted on Aug, 16 2006 @ 06:40 PM
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~~

that is un-answerable,

if you want a reasonable model of just what a developing language
sounded like
Go rent a video titled 'Clan of the Cave Bear',
the blonde girl from another clan was adopted by the clan
and 'Ayla' learned healing & (magic) shamanism as her
contribution to the clan....pretty well made movie/story.

& the stories proto-language (in our present day view) with grunts
jestures and syllables was once cutting edge stuff,
and fits well with our stereotypical worldview of our ancestors.

If its accurate or true is for a consensus to decide, but it satisifies me
as to what the 1st 'language' was like & how it sounded

~peace~




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