User talk:Caadhavan


 * "Ancient Language" redirects here. For other uses, see ancient language (disambiguation).

This is a list of languages by first written accounts which consists of the approximate dates for the first written accounts that are known for various languages.

Because of the way languages change gradually, it is usually impossible to pinpoint when a given language began to be spoken. In many cases, some form of the language had already been spoken (and even written) considerably earlier than the dates of the earliest extant samples provided here.

There are also various claims regarding still-undeciphered scripts without wide acceptance, which, if substantiated, would push backward the first attestation of certain languages.

A written record may encode a stage of a language corresponding to an earlier time &mdash; either as a result of oral tradition, or because the earliest source is a copy of an older manuscript that was lost. Oral tradition of epic poetry may typically bridge a few centuries, and in rare cases, over a millennium. An extreme case is the Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda: the earliest parts of this text are dated to ca. 1500 BC, while the oldest known manuscript dates to the 11th century AD, corresponding to a gap of approximately 2,500 years.

For languages that have developed out of a known predecessor, dates provided here are subject to conventional terminology. For example, Old French developed gradually out of Vulgar Latin, and the Oaths of Strasbourg (842) listed are the earliest text that is classified as "Old French". Similarly, Danish and Swedish separated from common Old East Norse in the 12th century, while Norwegian separated from Old West Norse  around 1300.

Before 1000 BC
A very limited number of languages are attested from before the Bronze Age collapse and the rise of alphabetic writing: The Sumerian, Hurrian, Hattic and Elamite language isolates, Afro-Asiatic in the form of the Egyptian and a number of ancient Semitic languages, and Indo-European (Anatolian languages, Mycenaean Greek and traces of Indo-Aryan ). There are a number of undeciphered Bronze Age records, possibly encoding a Minoan (Cretan hieroglyphs, Linear A), a Proto-Elamite and a "Harappan language" (Indus script).

First millennium BC
With the appearance of alphabetic writing in the Early Iron Age, the number of attested languages increases. With the emergence of the Brahmic family of scripts, languages of India were thought to be attested from after about 300 BC. Recent evidence found in 2004 at Adichanallur, an archaeological site near Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu, India dates the Tamil Brahmi script to after about 800 BC.


 * Phoenician - about 1000 BC
 * Aramaic - c. 950 BC
 * Hebrew - c. 950 BC: Gezer calendar
 * Phrygian - c. 800 BC
 * Moabite - c. 800 BC
 * Ammonite - c. 800 BC
 * Old North Arabian - c. 800 BC
 * Old South Arabian - c. 800 BC
 * Etruscan - c. 700 BC
 * Umbrian - c. 600 BC
 * North Picene - c. 600 BC
 * Lepontic - c. 600 BC
 * Tartessian - c. 600 BC
 * Lydian - c. 600 BC
 * Carian - c. 600 BC
 * Eteocypriot - c. 600 BC
 * Thracian c. 6th c.BC
 * Venetic c. 6th c.BC
 * Tamil - c. 600 Bc: Tamil [Tamil-Brahmi script unearthed at Adichanallu which is similar to indus valley civilization script.]
 * Old Persian -  525 BC: Behistun inscription
 * Latin - c. 500 BC: Duenos Inscription
 * South Picene - c. 500 BC
 * Messapian - c. 500 BC
 * Gaulish - c. 500 BC
 * Mixe-Zoque - c. 500 BC: Isthmian script (disputed)
 * Oscan - c. 400 BC
 * Iberian - c. 400 BC
 * Meroitic - c. 300 BC
 * Faliscan - c. 300 BC
 * Mayan languages - c. between 300 BC and 200 BC
 * Volscian - c. 275 BC
 * Sanskrit, Prakrit - c. 260 BC: Edicts of Ashoka
 * Galatian - c. 200 BC
 * Celtiberian - c. 100 BC
 * Korean - adoption of Hanja c. 100 BC, evidence of proto-Idu c. 500 AD

First millennium CE
From Late Antiquity, we have for the first time languages with earliest records in manuscript tradition (as opposed to epigraphy). Thus, Old Armenian is first attested in the Armenian Bible translation.
 * Bactrian - - c. 150: Rabatak inscription
 * Common Germanic/Proto-Norse - c. 160: Vimose inscriptions (c. 100 BC if the Negau helmet inscription is accepted as Germanic)
 * Cham - c. 200
 * Basque - c. 300: Iruña-Veleia archaeological site (allegedly forgery: see c. 1000 for the Glosas emilianenses)
 * Gothic - c. 300: Gothic runic inscriptions
 * Ge'ez - c. 300 (pre)-Ezana inscriptions
 * Armenian - 395 - 405 Saint Mesrob Mashtots.
 * Primitive Irish - c. 300-400: Ogham inscriptions
 * Georgian - c. 430: a Georgian church in Bethlehem
 * Kannada - c. 450: Halmidi inscription
 * West Germanic - 6th century:
 * Old Low Franconian - c. 510: Salic law
 * Old High German - c. 550: Pforzen buckle
 * Old English - Undley bracteate; c. 650: Franks Casket; West Heslerton brooch
 * Arabic - 512: pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions
 * Cambodian - c. 600
 * Tibetan - c. 600
 * Udi - c. 600: Mount Sinai palimpsest M13
 * Telugu - 620
 * Old Malay - c. 683: Kedukan Bukit Inscription
 * Tocharian - c. 700
 * Old Turkic - c. 700 Orkhon
 * Old Irish - c. 700
 * Japanese - c. 700
 * Welsh - c. 700: Tywyn inscriptions
 * Old Frisian - c. 750
 * Old Hindi - 769: Dohakosh by Saraha
 * Malayalam - c. 800
 * Mozarabic - c. 800
 * Old Norse - c. 800 (runic)
 * Javanese - 804
 * Old French - c. 842: Oaths of Strasbourg
 * Old Church Slavonic - c. 862
 * Bengali Language -c. 900 charyapada
 * Philippine languages (particularly Old Tagalog)- c. 900 Laguna Copperplate Inscription
 * Leonese - c. 959-974: Nodicia de Kesos.
 * Italian - c. 960-963:

1000-1500 CE

 * Slovene - 972-1093: (Freising manuscripts)
 * Hungarian - c. 1000: the Charter of the Nuns of Veszprémvölgy
 * Balinese - c.1000
 * Ossetic - c. 1000
 * Marathi - c. 1000
 * Newari - c 1000
 * Basque (case of Iruña-Veleia, c. 300, being a forgery), Aragonese and Spanish - ca. 1000: Glosas Emilianenses
 * Catalan - c. 1028: Jurament Feudal
 * Middle High German -  1050 (by convention)
 * Middle English -  1066 (by convention)
 * Piedmontese - 1080
 * Croatian - c. 1100: Baška tablet
 * Danish - c. 1100 (by convention)
 * Swedish - c. 1100 (by convention; the Rök Stone (c. 9th century) is often cited as the beginning of Swedish literature)
 * Nepal Bhasa - 1114: "The Palmleaf from Uku Bahal"
 * Middle Dutch -  1150 (by convention)
 * Portuguese and/or Galician - 1189
 * Serbian - between 1186 and 1190: The Gospels of Miroslav
 * Bosnian - 1189: The Charter of Kulin
 * Czech - c. 1200-1230
 * Western Lombard - c. 1250: Sordello da Goito, "Sirventese lombardesco"
 * Polish - c. 1270: Book of Henryków
 * Yiddish - 1272
 * Thai - c. 1292
 * Old Norwegian - c. 1300
 * Batak - c.1300
 * Baltic-Finnic - c. 1300 Birch bark letter no. 292 (Finnish proper: Abckiria, 1543)
 * Old Prussian - c. 1350
 * Kashmiri - c. 1350
 * Oghuz Turkic (including Azeri and Ottoman Turkish) - c. 1350 (Imadaddin Nasimi)
 * Komi - 1372
 * Korean - 1446 (Hunmin Jeongeum)
 * Albanian - 1462 (Formula e Pagëzimit - Short baptismal formula in a letter of Archbishop Pal Engjëll)
 * Maltese - c. 1470: Cantilena
 * Early Modern English - 1470s (by convention)
 * Tulu - c. 1500

By family
Attestation by major language family:
 * Afro-Asiatic: since about the 28th c. BC
 * 28th c. BC: Egyptian
 * 24th c. BC: Semitic (Eblaite, Akkadian)
 * 16th c. BC: West Semitic (Canaanite)
 * Hurro-Urartian: ca. 20th c. BC
 * Indo-European: since about the 19th c. BC
 * 19th c. BC: Anatolian
 * 15th-14th c. BC: Greek
 * 7th c. BC: Italic
 * 6th c. BC: Celtic
 * 6th c. BC: Indo-Iranian
 * 2nd c. AD: Germanic
 * 10th c. AD: Balto-Slavic
 * Sino-Tibetan: about 1200 BC
 * roughly 1200 BC: Old Chinese
 * 9th c. AD: Tibeto-Burman (Tibetan)
 * Dravidian: 3rd c. BC
 * Austronesian: 3rd c. AD
 * Mayan: 3rd c. AD
 * Basque: 4th c.
 * South Caucasian: 5th c. (Georgian)
 * Northeast Caucasian: 7th c. (Udi)
 * Austro-Asiatic: 7th c. (Khmer)
 * Altaic: 8th c.
 * 8th c.: Turkic (Old Turkic)
 * 8th c.: Japonic
 * 13th c.: Mongolic
 * Nilo-Saharan: 9th c. (Old Nubian)
 * Uralic/Finno-Ugric: 11th century
 * 11th c. Ugric (Hungarian)
 * 14th c. Finnic
 * Tai-Kadai: 13th c.
 * Uto-Aztecan: 16th c.
 * Quechuan: 16th c.
 * Niger-Congo (Bantu): 18th c.
 * Indigenous Australian languages: 18th c.
 * Iroquoian: 19th c.
 * Papuan languages: 20th c.