世界上仍在使用的7种最古老的语言
7 Of The World’s Oldest Languages Still Spoken Today
译文简介
原始时代的人类学记录显示，在语言存在之前，人们曾经用手势、信号和奇怪的声音进行交流，然而，随着大约1万年前“语言”的出现，为部落提供了一种标准化的交流方式，从而使人们更容易相互理解，这改变了人类文明的进程，因为它导致了文化和规范的形成——这两个概念在狩猎采集者为主的原始社会中都是陌生的。
正文翻译
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.
原始时代的人类学记录显示，在语言存在之前，人们曾经用手势、信号和奇怪的声音进行交流，然而，随着大约1万年前“语言”的出现，为部落提供了一种标准化的交流方式，从而使人们更容易相互理解，这改变了人类文明的进程，因为它导致了文化和规范的形成——这两个概念在狩猎采集者为主的原始社会中都是陌生的。
然而，更有趣的是，这些文化怎么会突然以文字的形式保存下来，而且通常是在石板、洞壁、动物皮毛和木头等上面完成的，遗憾的是，这些古代书写材料的零星片段是留给我们的唯一记录，以确定语言艺术是如何独特形成的。
从一种已知的无边界语言到一种超过10万个字符的语言，以下便是我们已知的7种最古老且仍在使用的语言。
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.
巴斯克语
巴克语几乎只在巴斯克地区使用，约有75万母语者和约185万被动语者使用，巴斯克语仍然是一种独特的古老语言，由于种种原因，，它是独一无二的。首先，尽管语言学家对巴斯克语文献进行了深入研究，但其起源仍然是一个谜，一些模糊的理论预测它比罗马语、西班牙语和法语更早，这使它成为西欧最古老的语言之一，毫无疑问，毫无疑问，这是一种总是晦涩难懂的语言，在世界上被遗忘的角落里存在了很长时间。
巴斯克语的独特之处在于它是世界上为数不多的 "孤立语言 "之一，这意味着它与当今任何一种活的语言都没有任何地理或遗传根源。尽管西班牙和法国的一小部分人使用这种语言，但巴斯克语与西班牙语和法语完全没有关系，一些语言学家理论上认为巴斯克语与其他独特的语言，如高加索山脉的车臣语和格鲁吉亚语之间存在联系，虽然有限的巴斯克文献阻碍了对它的进一步研究，但它对巴斯克人来说仍然具有巨大的文化、历史和情感意义。
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.
巴斯克语
巴克语几乎只在巴斯克地区使用，约有75万母语者和约185万被动语者使用，巴斯克语仍然是一种独特的古老语言，由于种种原因，，它是独一无二的。首先，尽管语言学家对巴斯克语文献进行了深入研究，但其起源仍然是一个谜，一些模糊的理论预测它比罗马语、西班牙语和法语更早，这使它成为西欧最古老的语言之一，毫无疑问，毫无疑问，这是一种总是晦涩难懂的语言，在世界上被遗忘的角落里存在了很长时间。
巴斯克语的独特之处在于它是世界上为数不多的 "孤立语言 "之一，这意味着它与当今任何一种活的语言都没有任何地理或遗传根源。尽管西班牙和法国的一小部分人使用这种语言，但巴斯克语与西班牙语和法语完全没有关系，一些语言学家理论上认为巴斯克语与其他独特的语言，如高加索山脉的车臣语和格鲁吉亚语之间存在联系，虽然有限的巴斯克文献阻碍了对它的进一步研究，但它对巴斯克人来说仍然具有巨大的文化、历史和情感意义。
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.
泰米尔语
泰米尔语是世界上现存最古老的语言，尽管它的根源仅能追溯到2000年前，但它今天仍然广泛流行。
事实上，它在世界上使用人口数最多的语言中排名第20位，是斯里兰卡、新加坡和印度的官方语言( 泰米尔纳德邦尤其流行)，它属于达罗毗荼语系，包括印度南部和东部的土著语言，令人惊讶的是，它与印地语没有基因上的相似之处，甚至大多数说印地语的人都听不懂，它还拥有丰富的书写历史，考古学家发现了一些可以追溯到公元前300年的泰米尔铭文，因此，它有2200多年的历史，而且还在现代社会中生存、发展和演变。
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.
泰米尔语
泰米尔语是世界上现存最古老的语言，尽管它的根源仅能追溯到2000年前，但它今天仍然广泛流行。
事实上，它在世界上使用人口数最多的语言中排名第20位，是斯里兰卡、新加坡和印度的官方语言( 泰米尔纳德邦尤其流行)，它属于达罗毗荼语系，包括印度南部和东部的土著语言，令人惊讶的是，它与印地语没有基因上的相似之处，甚至大多数说印地语的人都听不懂，它还拥有丰富的书写历史，考古学家发现了一些可以追溯到公元前300年的泰米尔铭文，因此，它有2200多年的历史，而且还在现代社会中生存、发展和演变。
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.
阿拉姆语
阿拉姆语是世界上最古老且享有盛誉的语言之一，属于亚非地区，在数千年前 ( 确切地说是3100多年前 ) 就被人们所使用。
这种语言不仅古老，且在皇室宫廷中也备受追捧，多个皇朝都将其作为官方语言，我们还还可以看到，阿拉伯语和其他较古老的语言也从阿拉姆语中吸收了词汇，并且可以在其中找到词根，因为它的易读性，圣经的一些部分也被翻译成阿拉姆语，阿拉姆语所使用的文字也是而独特的，很容易区分，即使在现代，从美国到俄罗斯，世界各地的人们都在使用阿拉姆语，据估计，有超过100万的人将阿拉米语作为他们的第一语言。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
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.
阿拉姆语
阿拉姆语是世界上最古老且享有盛誉的语言之一，属于亚非地区，在数千年前 ( 确切地说是3100多年前 ) 就被人们所使用。
这种语言不仅古老，且在皇室宫廷中也备受追捧，多个皇朝都将其作为官方语言，我们还还可以看到，阿拉伯语和其他较古老的语言也从阿拉姆语中吸收了词汇，并且可以在其中找到词根，因为它的易读性，圣经的一些部分也被翻译成阿拉姆语，阿拉姆语所使用的文字也是而独特的，很容易区分，即使在现代，从美国到俄罗斯，世界各地的人们都在使用阿拉姆语，据估计，有超过100万的人将阿拉米语作为他们的第一语言。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
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.
汉语
汉语必须是最独特的语言之一，无论是说还是写。
汉语有超过10万个字符，组成不同的单词、短语和句子，因此，汉语在漫长的历史中享有盛誉也就不足为奇了。
它也是其他几种语言的灵感来源，比如日语，日语本身就非常复杂了，唯有汉语如此的复杂性才能影响了另一种高度复杂的语言。
汉语的记录甚至可以追溯到公元前1250年，超过13亿人使用汉语，这使得它成为世界上被使用最多的语言之一。
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.
汉语
汉语必须是最独特的语言之一，无论是说还是写。
汉语有超过10万个字符，组成不同的单词、短语和句子，因此，汉语在漫长的历史中享有盛誉也就不足为奇了。
它也是其他几种语言的灵感来源，比如日语，日语本身就非常复杂了，唯有汉语如此的复杂性才能影响了另一种高度复杂的语言。
汉语的记录甚至可以追溯到公元前1250年，超过13亿人使用汉语，这使得它成为世界上被使用最多的语言之一。
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.
阿拉伯语
阿拉伯世界以其在伊斯兰帝国统治下的黄金时代而闻名，这使得阿拉伯语在整个世界占有一席之地。
然而，这种古老的闪米特语早在公元125年就开始使用了，阿拉伯语因其美妙的语音风格而受到欢迎，这种风格极好地体现在阿拉伯世界诗人的作品中，而在其鼎盛时期，《古兰经》反映了这种风格，该书是世界上阅读量最大的书籍之一。
阿拉伯语本身包括许多不同的方言和变体，然而，它们大部分已经统一在古典阿拉伯语之下，阿拉伯语也是像乌尔都语这样的语言的灵感来源，乌尔都语也有类似于阿拉伯语的文字。
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.
阿拉伯语
阿拉伯世界以其在伊斯兰帝国统治下的黄金时代而闻名，这使得阿拉伯语在整个世界占有一席之地。
然而，这种古老的闪米特语早在公元125年就开始使用了，阿拉伯语因其美妙的语音风格而受到欢迎，这种风格极好地体现在阿拉伯世界诗人的作品中，而在其鼎盛时期，《古兰经》反映了这种风格，该书是世界上阅读量最大的书籍之一。
阿拉伯语本身包括许多不同的方言和变体，然而，它们大部分已经统一在古典阿拉伯语之下，阿拉伯语也是像乌尔都语这样的语言的灵感来源，乌尔都语也有类似于阿拉伯语的文字。
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.
冰岛语
维京人的语言，冰岛语，起源于挪威文化，其文字来源于古挪威语言，尽管它已经很古老了，但从冰岛到甚至加拿大，全球仍有300多万人将其作为第一语言使用。
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.
冰岛语
维京人的语言，冰岛语，起源于挪威文化，其文字来源于古挪威语言，尽管它已经很古老了，但从冰岛到甚至加拿大，全球仍有300多万人将其作为第一语言使用。
古北欧语对冰岛语的影响比其他任何语言都要大ーー甚至连丹麦人对冰岛语的影响也没有那么大，由于这个原因，据说能说会读冰岛语的人在北欧语时代很容易生存下来，而且能够毫无困难地读和说冰岛语，对于一门语言来说，能够在没有任何变化的情况下生存这么长时间，并且能够适应如此不同的时代和文化，是一个了不起的壮举。
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.
波斯语
波斯语是由阿拉伯语改写而成的，俗称的Farsi，是一种可以追溯到2500年前的语言，它是波斯帝国的官方语言，在阿富汗、塔吉克斯坦、伊朗等周边地区留下了不可磨灭的印记，尽管波斯语是波斯帝国统一的单一语言，但波斯语却出现了多种变体，如达里语、塔吉克语等，在塔吉克斯坦，它是用不同于阿拉伯语的西里尔字母书写的，波斯语和其他植根于伊斯兰世界的语言一样，都是从宗教中汲取灵感的，大多数波斯作家的优秀作品都是在向伊斯兰教献礼，人们常说Farsi（波斯语）是伊斯兰教苏菲圣徒的语言。
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.
波斯语
波斯语是由阿拉伯语改写而成的，俗称的Farsi，是一种可以追溯到2500年前的语言，它是波斯帝国的官方语言，在阿富汗、塔吉克斯坦、伊朗等周边地区留下了不可磨灭的印记，尽管波斯语是波斯帝国统一的单一语言，但波斯语却出现了多种变体，如达里语、塔吉克语等，在塔吉克斯坦，它是用不同于阿拉伯语的西里尔字母书写的，波斯语和其他植根于伊斯兰世界的语言一样，都是从宗教中汲取灵感的，大多数波斯作家的优秀作品都是在向伊斯兰教献礼，人们常说Farsi（波斯语）是伊斯兰教苏菲圣徒的语言。
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.
结语
语言是我们在日常生活中很少关注的东西，因为用语言交流是我们的第二天性，然而，如果有人停下来思考一下这个强大的工具是如何弥合人类之间的鸿沟的，那么它的重要性就真正凸显出来了，没有这个工具，我们所有的发明都会消失，我们的历史也会被抹去。因此，语言不仅仅是交流的工具，也是人类自我保存的工具。
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.
结语
语言是我们在日常生活中很少关注的东西，因为用语言交流是我们的第二天性，然而，如果有人停下来思考一下这个强大的工具是如何弥合人类之间的鸿沟的，那么它的重要性就真正凸显出来了，没有这个工具，我们所有的发明都会消失，我们的历史也会被抹去。因此，语言不仅仅是交流的工具，也是人类自我保存的工具。
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I am surprised you did not include Sanskrit. It is the oldest language and atill spoken in many places in India.
我很惊讶你没把梵语写进去我，它是印度许多地方仍在使用的最古老语言。
Maybe this article ought to be titled "The world's oldest written languages which are still spoken today"?
There must be many unwritten languages (including Australian aboriginal languages) that go back far into the time of the Last Ice Age / Glaciation (or even before that).
也许这篇文章应该命名为“世界上至今仍在使用的最古老书面语言”?
一定有许多非书面语言（包括澳大利亚土著语言）可以追溯到最后的冰河时代/冰川时期（甚至更早）。
Lithuanian should be on your list. Lithuanian belongs to the Baltic group of the Indo-European family of languages. It is one of the oldest spoken languages in the world and even has words, such as vyras (man), ?uo (dog), avis (sheep) which cognate in Sanskrit. It means that Lithuanians can recognize some words while listening to the Indian language. For example, the word for "Five" in Lithuanian is "Penkios;" in Sanskrit, it is "Pancha". Interestingly, a cognate word is "Pinky," the fifth finger on one's hand.
立陶宛语应该在你的名单上，立陶宛语属于印欧语系波罗的海语族，它是世界上最古老的口语之一，甚至有个单词，比如 vyras (人) ，？Uo (狗) ，avis (绵羊) ，与梵语同源，这意味着立陶宛人在听到印地语时可以识别出一些单词。例如，立陶宛语的“ Five”是“ Penkios”，梵语的“ Pancha”是“ Penkios”，有趣的是，其同源词是“ Pinky”，指人手上的第五根手指。
Glad to see Basque in here. What about the various Gaelic language branches? They've been in use more than 2000 years.
很高兴在这里看到巴斯克语，那盖尔语的各个分支呢？它们已经使用了2000多年了。
Persian
Just a remark on the picture. This could be Sumerian or Akkadian written in cuneiform. These are not related to the Indo-European languages such as Farsi.
波斯语的部分。
我只是想说说这幅画：这可能是苏美尔语或阿卡德语的楔形文字，这些与印欧语系的语言如 Farsi （波斯语）并没有关系。
Three million people speak Icelandic as a first language? Have you a reference?
有300万人把冰岛语作为第一语言? 你有什么参考来源吗？
the Aramaic language belongs to the Afro-Asiatic region and was spoken by people thousands of years ago — 3100 plus years to be exact.
That means that Jesus spoke Aramaic, which means that Jesus was Afro-Asiatic
阿拉姆语属于亚非地区，几千年前，确切地说是3100多年前，就有人说这种语言了。
——这意味着耶稣会说阿拉姆语，也就是说耶稣是亚非拉地区的人。
Human natural language is unparalleled by any communication by any other animal. You can communicate in detail about your own mental states, inflecting the when's, where's and whys of what your signaling. From a neuroscience point of view the brain has unique mechanisms for allowing one neocortex to communicate to another in the most comprehensive way unknown to any other animal with a neocortex (like dogs or chimps).
However, with this comes not only the human power to conquer the world, but also the power to commit unparalleled acts of evil.
人类的自然语言是其他任何动物的交流都无法比拟的，你可以就自己的精神状态进行详细的沟通，从而影响你发出信号的时间、地点和原因，从神经科学的角度来看，大脑有独特的机制，可以让一个新皮层与另一个新皮层进行最全面的交流，这是任何其他有新皮层的动物（如狗或黑猩猩）所不具备的。
然而，与之相伴的不仅是人类征服世界的力量，还有犯下空前罪恶行为的力量。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
English is every bit as old as these other languages. Unless language had more than one independent origins at different times , and different languages can trace their origins back to different times, it makes no sense to say that one contemporary language is older than another.
if the point is that some language has a longer record of being unchanged, that's not possible. All languages change. Even those whose users seek to suppress change.
英语和这些其他语言一样古老。除非语言在不同的时代有不止一个独立的起源，不同的语言可以追溯到不同的时代，否则说一种当代语言比另一种更古老是没有意义的。
如果重点是某种语言有更长的保持不变的记录，那是不可能的，所有的语言都会发生变化，即使是那些试图压制改变的使用者。
Urdu
You might want to rephrase this. Urdu is written in Arabic scxt but its origins are Indo-Aryan.
乌尔都语
你或许应该换个说法，乌尔都语是用阿拉伯文字写就的，但它起源于印度雅利安人。
All languages that are currently spoken are collectively “the oldest languages of the world”. If you had a time machine, you could trace all of them back to thousands and thousands of years ago. Perhaps just as importantly, it must also be said that none of those languages (not those that really kept alive and well, spoken natively by generation upon generation) remained intact like a preserved fossil, linguistic evolution can be faster or slower, but it is unstoppable.
That is because there is no clear-cut boundary between one stage of the language and the other, we just call them “the same language”, an “archaic/modern dialect” or “a new daughter language” based on our impressions about their mutual intelligibility and linguistic identity, often decisively shaped by politics, national identity and even belonging to a certain religion or culture (for example, arguably one can say that different “dialects of Arabic” are certainly more different between each other than Galician, Portuguese and Mirandese, though the latter are fully recognized nowadays as “independent languages”).
If you really think about it, is 21st century English really the same language spoken by Shakespeare? By Chaucer? By the authors of Beowulf? The best answer is “yes and no”.
目前人类所使用的所有语言都被可以称为 "世界上最古老的语言"。
如果你有一台时光机，你可以把所有这些语言追溯到几千年前，也许同样重要的是，还必须指出，这些语言（不是那些真正保持着生命力，一代又一代的原生口语）没有一种像保存下来的化石一样保持完整，语言进化可快可慢，但进化是不可阻挡的。
这是因为一个阶段的语言和另一个阶段的语言之间并没有明确的界限，我们只是根据我们对它们的相互可理解性和语言特性的印象，称它们为 "同一种语言"、"古方言/现代方言 "或 "新的子语言"，这是基于我们对它们的相互理解性和语言身份的印象，往往决定性地受到政治、民族身份甚至属于某种宗教或文化的影响（例如，可以说，不同的 "阿拉伯语方言 "之间的差异肯定比加利西亚语、葡萄牙语和米兰德语更大，尽管后者如今已被完全承认为 "独立语言"）。
如果你真的想一想，21世纪的英语真的是莎士比亚所说的语言吗？乔叟说的是21世纪的英语吗？《贝奥武夫》的作者说的是21世纪的英语吗？最好回答是 "是也不是"。
If you subscribe to the hypothesis that language skills appeared only once in archaic humans and gave them a huge advantage that made it spread like fire, a kind of primordial world language, then you’d have to assume that all languages spoken now descend seamlessly, in a continuous chain of transmission, from that very first language ever.
What I think gets some people confused is that some languages are just more phonologically and/or gramatically more conservative than others, so they appear “more archaic” because they changed more slowly (but didn’t remain unchanged). However, that does not mean they are “older” than other languages that evolved faster and therefore changed more significantly along the centuries.
现在所说的所有语言都是从1000年前的一种语言衍生出来的，而这种语言又是从2000年前的一种语言衍生出来的，而这种语言又是从3000年前的一种语言衍生出来的，以此类推，直到你发现现在所说的所有语言都只是来源于旧石器时代的少数几种语言。
如果你认同这样的假设，即语言技能只在古人类身上出现过一次，并给他们带来了巨大的优势，使其像火一样传播，成为一种原始的世界语言，那么你就不得不假设，现在所使用的所有语言都是无缝的，在一个连续的传播链中，从有史以来的第一种语言中延续下来。
我认为让一些人感到困惑的是，有些语言只是在语音或语法上比其他语言更保守，所以它们看起来 "更古老"，因为它们变化得更慢（但并不是保持不变），然而，这并不意味着它们比其他语言 "更古老"，因为其他语言进化得更快，因此在几个世纪里变化得更显著。
If the question was specifically about the first attested language / first written language, the answer would be simpler and more definite, with only Sumerian and Egyptian vying for the 1st position in this ranking.
Unlike other languages that are still spoken nowadays and cherished by some nations/ethnicities, those two languages (which are really the first ever to be recorded into a system allowing the translation of a spoken language into a set of visual symbols) don’t have a lot of diehard ultra-nationalist supporters to spread fantasies and fringe hypotheses about their own language/language family (coincidentally, it’s almost always their own, not anyone else’s) being the “oldest” language, completely preserved in modern times only by their people or even, even more absurdly, the true source of hundreds or thousands of other languages and the language families these belong to.
But as anyone with a healthy dose of skepticism and a modicum of knowlegde on linguistics can easily notice, those unproven hypotheses are always based on a supposed “exceptionality” of their mother language or on the conspiratorial notion of “real scientific evidences that have been neglected or even denied their existence by the mainstream scientific community, because they don’t like the truth”.
So, no, the oldest language was not Tamil, Basque, Albanian, Arabic,or whatever. None of the present-day forms of those languages and all others was spoken exactly like today even some centuries ago, let alone many thousands of years ago. Like other languages, they all represent a particular stage in the linguistic development of some linguistic community, deriving from an earlier stage going back indefinitely to the beginnings of modern humankind.
当你比较两种我们都知道来自完全相同的古代来源的语言时，这个事实变得特别清楚。
例如，冰岛语看起来比丹麦语更 "古老"，意大利语看起来比法语更 "古老"，尽管这两种语言中都是大约1500年前同一种语言（分别是古北欧语和古拉丁语）的现代延续。
如果这个清单关注的是第一种被证实的语言/第一种书面语言，结果会更简单和更明确，只有苏美尔语和埃及语争夺排名第一的位置。
这两种语言（它们确实是有史以来第一种被记录到系统中的语言，允许将一种口语翻译成视觉符号）与现在仍在使用并为一些国家/民族所珍视的其他语言不同，这两种语言没有许多顽固的极端民族主义支持者来散布关于他们自己的语言/语言家族的幻想和边缘假设( 巧合的是，几乎总是他们自己的语言，而不是其他任何人的) ，是“最古老的”语言，只有他们的民族在现代才完全保存下来，甚至更荒谬的是，认为他们是成百上千种其他语言和这些语言所属语系的真正来源。
但是，任何一个对语言学有一点点怀疑精神和知识的人都很容易注意到，这些未经证实的假设总是基于他们母语假定的“例外性”，或者建立在 "真正的科学证据被主流科学界忽视甚至否认其存在，因为他们不喜欢真相 "的阴谋论概念上。
所以，不，最古老的语言不是泰米尔语、巴斯克语、阿拉伯语或其他什么语言，即使在几个世纪以前，这些语言和其他所有语言的现今形式完全像今天一样，更不用说几千年以前了，与其他语言一样，它们都代表着某些语言群体语言发展的特定阶段，这些语言起源于可以无限追溯到现代人类起源的早期阶段。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
Very well put. One minor quibble: there are a handful of languages that are not as old, mainly constructed languages (for instance, Esperanto and Klingon have actual speakers, in small numbers).
说得好。
有一个小问题 : 有一些语言并不那么古老，主要是构造性语言 ( 例如，世界语和克林贡语有实际的使用者，但只有少数一部分使用 )。
The more people remain in the same area and do not have contact with their neighbours, the more languages develop. Papua New Guinea has 700+ languages because each tribe remained isolated in its own valley. Same with southern China dialects.
越多的人留在同一个地区，不与邻居接触，语言就发展得越多，巴布亚新几内亚有700多种语言，因为每个部落都被孤立在自己的山谷里，中国南方的方言也是如此。
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