Languages are the key to human survival. Being able to communicate helped early humans survive, and is still an essential part of our lives today. All of us speak at least one or more languages, yet have you ever thought about where they came from? Every language has a story behind it, and I’m here to tell you about a few of them.
Indo-European Languages: Includes languages from India, Europe, and Germanic tribes.
Mother Language: Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European is the oldest known ancestor of Indo-European languages. It likely originated in Southern Russia and Ukraine, and was last spoken 4,500 years ago. Many modern languages stemmed from it, including Spanish, Hindi, and English. Because these languages were created in the highlands between the Black and Caspian seas, they were spoken by a very limited amount of people until a couple thousand years after they were created. However, their descendants are currently being spoken by thousands of people around the world.
Sino-Tibetan Languages: Includes languages from China, India, the Himalayas, and other languages of Asia.
Mother Language: Hokkien
Hokkien is one of the oldest spoken languages in the world, from which many Asian languages stemmed. Hokkien has been found to be a dialect of another older language. However, there are no records of this root language, so Hokkien remains the oldest as far as we know. It is spoken in the Fujian Province, Taiwan, and parts of Southeast Asia. From it have come Cantonese, Taiwanese, Burmese, and Mandarin.
Afro-Asiatic Languages: Includes languages from Northern Africa, Somalia, and the Middle East.
Mother Language: PAA
PAA stands for Proto-Afro-Asiatic. It originated in the Mesolithic period of humanity, and was likely developed by those living in the Sahara. From there, it was transferred to travelers from the Middle East and spread across the area. Many modern languages like Arabic, Somali, and Egyptian evolved from Proto-Afro-Asiatic, and were shaped into the languages we know today by travelers from Mesopotamia and Saudi Arabia. Sadly, many of the smaller languages have been lost, but others like Arabic are still spoken today.
Mother of All Languages?
Although we can’t be sure what the first language in human history is, we know that it likely evolved 150,000 to 200,000 years ago in Sub-Saharan Africa. There is no name for this language, and linguists are still trying to trace our modern languages back to it. From it spawned the three language groups above, starting with Afro-Asiatic languages and moving towards Indo-European languages. Some studies theorize that this language is much older, perhaps having been created over 1.6 million years ago. So- what do you think? What is the root of all languages?
Sources
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Proto-Afro-Asiatic-language
https://www.angmohdan.com/the-root-of-all-human-languages/