500 years old
Modern Korean was established in the 17th century.
Korean language is spoken in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, and China.
Latin
9.
2100 years old
The inscriptions of the Latin languages first appeared in 75 BC.
Latin became the foundation of most of the European languages and still remains to be an official language in the Vatican and Poland.
Armenian
8.
2500 years old
Armenian likely started in 450 BC belonging to the family of the Indo-European language.
It has the oldest surviving text and a translation of the Bible is the first written record in this language during the 5th century.
Aramaic
7.
2900 years old
The Aramaic language has originated from the Aramaic states from the 10th century BC and has donated plenty of words to the Hebrew language and Arabic language.
It is also an influencer of Farsi known for the diplomatic documents and written record.
Hebrew
6.
3000 years old
Israel’s official language, and labelled as a holy language because it was mainly used for religious texts.
Jewish community made it both as the written and spoken language during the rise of Zionism in the 19th Century.
Greek
5.
3450 years old
About 13 million people in Cyprus, Albania, Greece and the Black Sea speak this language making its first appearance in 1450 BC.
Greek is the oldest language spoken in Europe and it has been the branch of the Indo-European language.
Chinese
4.
3500 years old
The Chinese language started in the late Shang dynasty.
Chinese has the greatest number of first language speakers with 1.2 billion people speaking Chinese in all its variations and dialects.
Sanskrit
3.
4000 years old
Sanskrit is an influential language in Europe, including Farsi.
Sanskrit, is an official language in the Indian Peninsula which is 4,000 years old.
Rigveda is the first and earliest example of the language.
Egyptian
2.
4700 years old
This oldest language in Egypt traces back to 2690 BCE.
Autobiographical writings were found in the Egyptian tombs and the proto language hieroglyphs were also found about 600 years before the appearance of complete texts in Egyptian.
Tamil
1.
5000 years old
Tamil, the Dravidian language is the world’s oldest living language, with its first grammar book making its first appearance in 3,000 BC.
It is probably the oldest written language and the longest surviving language.
Indian PM about Tamil
I have always been fascinated by the richness of the Tamil language and culture.
One of the happiest moments of my life was when I got a chance to speak a few words in the world’s oldest language, Tamil, at the United Nations.
-PM @narendramodi
(Tweet by PMO India
on Jan 12, 2022)