# Sumerian is the oldest written language in the World!



## jana.bo99

As I have information, Sumerian language is the oldest language at all.

The first written Sumerian goes back to 3100 BC.

Who knows more about that?

Thank you for feedback.


----------



## Ayazid

You mean the oldest *written* language in the world, right?


----------



## Frank78

I do not know much more than Sumerian cuneiform script is the olderst written language. I´m not even sure if you can date the oldest spoken language. The problem is to define where a language starts and "noise communication" ends. I think it´s based on grammatical structures.

Here you´ll find an overview about the oldest written language:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform_script

http://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klinasto_pismo


----------



## jana.bo99

Ayazid said:


> You mean the oldest *written* language in the world, right?



Yes. The first written language that is still in use.



Frank78 said:


> I do not know much more than sumerian cuneiform script is the olderst written language. I´m not even sure if you can date the oldest spoken language. The problem is to define where a language starts and "noise communication" ends. I think it´s based on grammatical structures.
> Here you´ll find an overview about the oldest written language:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform_script
> http://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klinasto_pismo



Klinasto pismo: I would like to see where is the letter? 

About 3oth Century BC: who can prove that?


----------



## berndf

jana.bo99 said:


> Klinasto pismo: I would like to see where is the letter?


I don't understand your question. The links you were provided with contains sign lists and text samples.


----------



## Frank78

jana.bo99 said:


> About 3oth Century BC: who can prove that?



There´s a reference list at the end. You may read those books. 

The first language still in use if hard to answer since languages change permanently.

Wikipedia is inconsitent here:

The article to "Greek" says:
Greek has a written tradition of 3400 year and ranks 2 after Chinese (Mandarin), 

The Chinese article:
The oldest documents are from the 16th century BC. And is the ONLY language which continiously has written documents for more than 3000 years.


----------



## jana.bo99

berndf said:


> I don't understand your question. The links you were provided with contains sign lists and text samples.



What I wrote here, has nothing to do with: KLINASTO PISMO! 
It is in my language and that is why I am asking about that. 
All past days I have studied the oldest languages (not only Sumerian) I didn't find (or see) that.


----------



## jana.bo99

Frank78 said:


> There´s a reference list at the end. You may read those books.
> The first language still in use if hard to answer since languages change permanently.
> Wikipedia is inconsitent here:
> The article to "Greek" says:
> Greek has a written tradition of 3400 year and ranks 2 after Chinese (Mandarin),
> The Chinese article:
> The oldest documents are from the 16th century BC. And is the ONLY language which continiously has written documents for more than 3000 years.


Hi,
Thank you Frank.
You are very good, better than many other people studying the oldest languages.
It is something new for me and for many other. 

I visit very often Wikipedia but about other things 
(the last were: Nikola Tesla and Napoleon. Both have nothing to do with oldest languages).


----------



## Frank78

jana.bo99 said:


> What I wrote here, has nothing to do with: KLINASTO PISMO!
> It is in my language and that is why I am asking about that.
> All past days I have studied the oldest languages (not only Sumerian) I didn't find (or see) that.



What does "KLINASTO PISMO" mean? Probably "Keilschrift"/"cuneiform"?

 It´s the Croatian article to the English and German one on the Sumerian cuneiform script.


----------



## Frank06

Hi,


jana.bo99 said:


> As I have information, Sumerian language is the oldest language at all. The first written Sumerian goes back to 3100 BC.


If we're to accept the monogenesis theory, then, by logic, all languages are equally old.



jana.bo99 said:


> Yes. The first written language that is still in use.


What do you mean by "still in use". Who uses Sumerian these days?

Frank


----------



## berndf

Frank78 said:


> Wikipedia is inconsistent here:





Frank78 said:


> The article to "Greek" says:
> Greek has a written tradition of 3400 year and ranks 2 after Chinese (Mandarin),
> 
> The Chinese article:
> The oldest documents are from the 16th century BC. And is the ONLY language which continuously has written documents for more than 3000 years.


These languages still exist. They have the longest uninterrupted history of a writing system. The number 3400 is case of Greek is incorrect, if referring to uninterrupted history of a single writing system. The Greek alphabet is about 2800 years old. Greek was already written earlier in the Mycenaean era but with a different writing system and with an interruption of about 400 years (1200BC-800BC), the Greek dark ages. 

The Greek script is derived from the Phoenician script which is about 3000 years old and which in principle still exists: The Aramaic scripts used today to write Hebrew and Syriac are identical to Phoenician except for character shape. Number, name, sequence and meaning are still the same only character shapes have changed.


----------



## berndf

jana.bo99 said:


> Yes. The first written language that is still in use.


This almost becomes a question of definition. Is Homeric Greek "still in use" because there is a language called "Greek" today? I.e. are Homeric Greek and Modern Greek the same language? If you say "yes" then you might want to say that Latin (which is almost as old as a written language) is "still is use" because Italian is no further away from Latin than Modern Greek from Homeric Greek. Is Old Chinese as spoken in the Zhou dynasty about 3000 years ago the same language as Mandarin? Is Coptic which was used in everyday life until 1600AD the same language as Ancient Egyptian? If so, this would make Egyptian the longest surviving written language.

With your very question you are on shaky ground and I would appreciate if you could restate your question in more precise terms.


----------



## jana.bo99

Hi berndf,

With "in use" I don't think that somebody speaks Sumerian today. I think about many dictionaries we can find: from Sumerian to English. Sumerian is dead language, but we can see how those words looked like. If Sumerian would be totally dead in that case we wouldn't know anything about Sumerian language.
To me those words are very similar to one language today. Turkish?

www.sumerian.org/prot-sum.htm


----------



## jana.bo99

Frank78 said:


> What does "KLINASTO PISMO" mean? Probably "Keilschrift"/"cuneiform"?
> It´s the Croatian article to the English and German one on the Sumerian cuneiform script.


Sorry, I was sure that you come from Croatia because of "KLINASTO PISMO"

I will try to post that first Sumerian letter (klinasto pismo):


http://i921.photobucket.com/albums/ad55/bozena115/250px-Cuneiform_script2.jpg


----------



## berndf

jana.bo99 said:


> Hi berndf,
> 
> With "in use" I don't think that somebody speaks Sumerian today. I think about many dictionaries we can find: from Sumerian to English. Sumerian is dead language, but we can see how those words looked like. If Sumerian would be totally dead in that case we wouldn't know anything about Sumerian language.
> To me those words are very similar to one language today. Turkish?
> 
> www.sumerian.org/prot-sum.htm


I see what you mean. You are looking for the oldest deciphered and understood records of any language. In this case it is probably Egyptian. A few year ago they found and deciphered old Egyptian inscriptions the researchers who found them dated 3200BC or earlier.


----------



## sokol

jana.bo99 said:


> I will try to post that first Sumerian letter (klinasto pismo):
> 
> 
> http://i921.photobucket.com/albums/ad55/bozena115/250px-Cuneiform_script2.jpg


Actually this is cuneiform syllable script which isn't the oldest form of Sumerian: Sumerian was, in the very beginnings, written with pictograms, much like Egyptian, only that Sumerian quickly developped the syllabic cuneform script.
I do not know if a complete letter in old pictograms was preserved (if that's not the case then this letter above indeed could be the "oldest" Sumerian *letter *as far as we know), but the oldest form of Sumerian letters looked different - see the Wiki article.


----------



## Anas355

Hello,
Sumerian has a lot of words, phrases and sentences which are in use in todays Albanian. I,m preparing a Sumerian-Albanian-English dictionary so everybody can understand that Sumerian is Albanian. This is true, as the world-wide accepted dictionaries of Sumerian, like webster's Sumerian-English, or Sumerian.org lexicon we believe are true. If someone is interested I can give some proof on that, Sumerian is yesterday's and today's Albanian. Thanks for your future questions.


----------



## Cilquiestsuens

Anas355 said:


> Hello,
> Sumerian has a lot of words, phrases and sentences which are in use in todays Albanian. I,m preparing a Sumerian-Albanian-English dictionary so everybody can understand that Sumerian is Albanian. This is true, as the world-wide accepted dictionaries of Sumerian, like webster's Sumerian-English, or Sumerian.org lexicon we believe are true. If someone is interested I can give some proof on that, Sumerian is yesterday's and today's Albanian. Thanks for your future questions.


 
Yes give us some proofs please. Your claims are actually quite amazing!


----------



## Frank06

Anas355 said:


> Hello,
> Sumerian has a lot of words, phrases and sentences which are in use in todays Albanian. I'm preparing a Sumerian-Albanian-English dictionary so everybody can understand that Sumerian is Albanian.


*May I remind you of a few things:*
*1. Please keep on topic. If you want to start with a related topic, open a new thread.*
*2. Before you open a new thread about your claims on Sumerian and Albanian, be sure that you have a lot, lot, lot more than a list of random lexical items or phrases which look similar. Otherwise said, a Sumerian-Albanian list of words which look similar is somehow the worst possible 'proof' that Albanian is modern Sumerian. Or rather, it's not proof. NOT at all. We have dealt a lot with chance similarities on this forum.*
*3. Before you open a new thread, you have to dismiss the idea that Sumerian is an extinct and isolated language and you have to replace it with a theory (not a list of words) which is better than the theory which is widely accepted by every single real Sumerologist on this planet and beyond. Quite a job, if you'd ask me.*
*4. Before you open a new thread, be sure you are fully aware of the general and basic principles of mainstream historical and comparative linguistics. If not, spare yourself and us the trouble of opening a new thread on this topic. If not, don't be surprised that your thread theory will be considered to be completely pseudo-linguistic.*
*5. Before you open a new thread, please re-read the rules of EHL:*


> EHL is not a venue to launch or expand on private pet theories, pseudo-linguistic ponderings, idiosyncratic and fringe ideas. This also includes theories based upon random lists of similarly looking words, chance coincidences, wild speculations or associations and other pseudo-linguistic and pre-scientific methods.
> Novelty theories on the perceived relations between two languages (let's say Sumerian and Japanese), on the 'First' or 'Original language' (let's say Hebrew) or similar idiosyncratic theories, folk-etymologies etc. are outside the scope of this forum.


*We're always willing to revise these rules, but only if we are given an incredibly good reason.*

*Frank*
*Moderator EHL*


----------



## arsham

To my knowledge, Sumerian is a dead language and it's not known to be related to any of the identified language families just like Elamite. It's thus the oldest *written* language. 

BTW, Persian has also a continuous history from the ancient times down to the present time. Obviously, like all other languages, it has evolved over time and has used different writing systems.


----------

