# the oldest known written sentence in your mother tongue



## Seana

Hello,

Do you know the oldest known written down sentence in your mother tongue?
Do you know circumstances when it was written?
How much this spelling is different from modern language?
Is it possible and easy to guess its meaning?

I give the known oldest Polish sentence in Old Polish spelling .

_Day ut ia pobrusa, a ti poziwai._ 
Daj, ać ja pobruszę, a ty poczywaj.
It means:
Let me grind (I will curl the quern), and you rest (or see as it to do). 

This sentence was said by Czech Boguchwal to his Polish wife.
So the first written sentence in Polish was just said by some Czech.  
It was found in the Latin text around 1270 year in the abbey of Cistercian monks chronicle written down in Latin.


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## Kraus

Cześć!

Najstarszy tekst włoski się znajduje w tak zwanych "Placiti Campani" (wyroków Kampanii, regionu w południowych Włoszech). Tekst był napysany w ósmym wieku:

"Sao ko kelle terre, per kelle fini que ki contene, trenta anni le possette parte S(an)c(t)i Benedicti" 
(Wiem, że klasztor Świętego Benedykta posiadał przez trzydzieści lat te ziemie, granicy których są opisane tutaj)

The oldest Italian sentence is in the so-called "Placiti Campani" (Judgements of Campiania, a region of South Italy). The text dates back to the 8th century:

"Sao ko kelle terre, per kelle fini que ki contene, trenta anni le possette parte S(an)c(t)i Benedicti" 
 (I know that those lands, whose boundaries are here described, were held for thirty years by the side (the monastery) of Saint Benedict).*

* Translation taken from the site everything2.com/index.pl/node=Italian

Do miłego napisania!


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## spakh

That's a wonderful thread.
The oldest known written sentence in Turkish was found in Yenisei River. But the tomb stone, on which script was written, was so badly damaged during centuries that noone was able to read this unfortunately. But happily the Orkhon inscriptions were discovered in 1889 in an expedition to the Orkhon Valley monuments in Mongolia, which date from the 8th-century. And now they're accepted as the oldest. They're about the Gokturk state in the Middle Asia. They're erected in the names of Gokturk khans and vizier. There the narrator warns the Gokturks(Kök-Türks) against the Chinese.
As for the language, I wish I could understand it totally but that is impossible of course. But if you know Turkish you can catch few things.
If you want to learn more you can google Orkhon.
Finally the first sentence starts with something about Kök Tengri(old Turkish god)


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## valerie

The first written text in French is considered to be 'le serment de Strasbourg', (IX c.), when two grand-sons of Charlemagne allied against their brother and pronounced the alliance text one in 'French' and the other in 'German'. The text was written by Nithard, by request of his cousin, Charles le Chauve one of the grand-sons.

The first phrase says:
_Pro deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, d'ist di in avant, in quant deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo et in aiudha et in cadhuna cosa, si cum om per dreit son fradra salvar dist, in o quid il mi altresi fazet, et ab Ludher nul plaid nunquam prindrai, qui meon vol cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit _
Pour l'amour de Dieu et pour le peuple chrétien et notre salut commun, à partir d'aujourd'hui, en tant que Dieu me donnera savoir et pouvoir, je secourrai ce mien frère Charles par mon aide et en toute chose, comme on doit secourir son frère, selon l'équité, à condition qu'il fasse de même pour moi, et je ne tiendrai jamais avec Lothaire aucun plaid qui, de ma volonté, puisse être dommageable à mon frère Charles.

I have copied the translation, because this text is not comprehensible for me, even with my experience in several roman languages. Actually this language is not called French, nor old French, but 'Roman'. 

More than French language birth, this text marks the oficialization of vernacular languages where Latin was before the only written language.


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## beclija

I am afraid I don't even know which is the oldest text in German, but I will go for Heliand (if only because it is southern, so chances are higher that I'll understand it), and in my opinion it is totally not understandable unless you take some extra effort to learn Old High German. 
If you are more rigid and say that only New High German represents my language, it gets complicated, because it is hard to determine precisely which text is late Middle High German and which is early New High German, but generally Martin Luther's bible translation is considered the oldest text in New High German. These texts are more or less understandable, although there are quite a few archaic words I have to guess or look up, and sometimes, though rarely, words even meant the opposite of there present denotation as recent as early 19th century.


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## Seana

Kraus said:


> Do miłego napisania!


Dziękuję *Kraus*

Writing in Polish you made me a big pleasure. I must say it is really correct Polish. 

Thank you *spakh* for your post*.*
I learnt interesting and amazing thing - I have never known - modern studies indicate that Turkish language has a history dating back to the middle of the 4th millennium BCE.The the oldest written documents of Turkish, was found upon stone monuments in what in modern days is Mongolia - 8 th century

I would like to ask has anyone heard of  the oldest English sentence was found by archeologists was a runic inscription dating to c. 480 CE, and says, "This she-wolf is a tribute to my knismen."


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## ireney

Hmmm, what are we talking about exactly? Oldest system of writing for the Greek language is Linear B. I don't know what's the oldest (surviving)  text writen in Linear B but I do know that I wouldn't understand a thing. Oh and the first one must be from _circa_ 1500 BC

Are we talking about that or should I search to see what's the oldest (surving) text writen with an alphabet (one in which each character represents a phoneme and not a syllable or a whole word). ( I think it's Homer's works by the way but I could be mistaken of course)


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## Outsider

Hi. This seems to be the oldest known document in Portuguese. It's dated from 1175, and it's pretty dull, a list of the debts and creditors of some poor devil named Pelágio Romeu. 

The text is full of abbreviations, so I don't think I would be able to make it out by myself, but there are definitely recognizeable words in it. Most of it is quite simple, though.

Specialized books actually date the earlist Portuguese texts to the 9th century, but they're talking about just a couple of loose words in the middle of Latin texts. This one actually looks like Portuguese, of sorts.


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## Hakro

The first written and printed Finnish text is the Abckiria (ABC book) by Mikael Agricola, published in 1543. It begins with a poem:

Oppe nyt wanha / ia noori /
joilla ombi Sydhen toori .
Jumalan keskyt / ia mielen /
iotca taidhat Somen kielen

Translation:
Now the young and the old will learn
those who have a fresh heart
they'll learn the commandments of God and His mind
as they know the Finnish language

If there was any hand-written text in Finnish before that, no one knows. Probably not, because the official language was Swedish.


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## mytwolangs

The oldest English sentence - 
"For spanish, press 2."


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## Seana

Hi,
I have learnt about two oldest English sentences one of them was found by archeologists a runic inscription dating to c. 480 CE, and says:

*"This she-wolf is a tribute to my knismen."
*
Second one was found by a farmer near Undley (Suffolk - ) a kind of, medallion -  AD 450-500 -were inscribed the words

*"gægogæ mægæ medu"*. 

What it probably may be read as 'howling she-wolf' (a reference to the wolf image) and 'reward to a relative'. 

Has anyone heard about them?


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## Chazzwozzer

spakh said:


> Finally the first sentence starts with something about Kök Tengri(old Turkish god)


*"In Tengri we trust...."* ?  Well, shame on me because I cannot exactly put my finger on it either. Is it something like "In the name of Tengri, who saved Turks..." Hmmm... I'll have to check my literature book.

Well, it's not that old actually.  Yes, it's true that all our ancestors used to practise Tengriism before the vast joined world religions _but_ it's still practised by large community in Central Asia, those Turkic peoples who did not leave our ancient homeland.

Earliest known examples of Turkish language are now kept in Mongolia, observed by Republic of Turkey.

This is the script of oldest Turkic alphabet which we see it was used in oldest inscriptions.

Scientists still work on it because there's still some things that cannot be decoded. It's belived to have incredible predictions about future.

According to some scientist, there are two symbols refer to second week of 2012 February in two sources.

And just on there, there's a human figure probably looks like this. And on his right hand, he holds two sets of thunderbolds which still cannot be figured out what it means, and on his left hand, there's a symbol that looks just like the letter G, it's not known what it means yet, either.

*
Some very simple examples from oldest known written Turkish(or Turkic, I must say) sentences in English:

I am Bilge Tonyukuk and I was born in the State of China. The Turkish nation was subject to China. When the Turkish nation could not find its khan, it got separated from China and attained a khan.

**......*

*We would eat deer and rabbits. The people were not hungry. Our enemies were like kilns within our environs and we were fires.

......

**When I heard of this news, I could not sleep at night and I was disturbed all day long. Then, I entered the presence of my ruler. I told him the situation as follows: If China, Oguz and Kitay States collaborated, we will be left alone. We are surrounded by interior and exterior sources. It is easy to pierce the thin sheet of though and it is east to break it into pieces if it is thin. If the plough sheet is thick, it is difficult to pierce it and if it is thin but concentrated, it is also difficult to break it into pieces. 

** ......

The ruler of China was our enemy. The ruler of On Ok (Ten Arrows) was our enemy. The powerful khan of the Khirghiz people who were very crowded became also our enemy, too. These three khans collaborated and resolved, Let's meet in the region over the Golden forest. They had resolved the following plan: Let's send an army against the Turkish ruler in the east. If we did not send an army against him, they - their khan is a hero, and their counsellor is a wise scholar- will kill us under any circumstances no matter what happens.

**......*

* I grew old and became an aged person. What kind of a problem can arouse within any nation with such a ruler, if any? I dictated these statements in the country of Turk Bilge Kağan (Ruler). I am Bilge Tonyukuk.*


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## Frank06

Hi,



Seana said:


> Do you know the oldest known written down sentence in your mother tongue?
> Do you know circumstances when it was written?
> How much this spelling is different from modern language?
> Is it possible and easy to guess its meaning?



For years it was believed that the oldest sentence written in (Old) Dutch was a lovely piece of poetry:
_ Hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan hinase hic enda thu wat unbidan we nu
Have all birds began (to build) nests, except you and me. What are we waiting for?
_ 
The text is believed to date from the 1000s-1100s and is a 'probatio pennae' by a monk. He probably cut himself a new pen and tried it out with this lovely verse (picture). It was discovered in 1931 in England, in the cover of a more recent manuscript and it caused a lot of thrills among Dutch historical linguists and philologists of that period.
Quite recently, however, there are more and more people who believe it is not Dutch, but (Old) Kentish, or at least a very hybrid kind of language. For a short article (or rather abstract) see here.

There are even older texts believed to be (more or less) Dutch, but they are thought to have a very mixed character (Old High German, Old English, Old Dutch), and some of them also feature in anthologies of Old High German literature. Another problem is that many of those texts look like Old Saxon so much, that it is hard (impossible) to sort it out.

Even if we'd accept those texts as Old Dutch, they are impossible to understand without specialised schooling. It takes courses in Old Dutch, a bunch of "Old-other languages" and Middle Dutch to understand them out.


Groetjes,

Frank


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## robbie_SWE

A wonderful thread! 

The first sentence ever noted of Romanian (referred to as the only Latin language in the Balkans at the time), was by Theophanes Confessor. He was a Byzantine chronicler and he noted it sometime during the 6th century. He was in a military expedition and he noted a Vlach (Romanian) soldier saying "*Torna, torna fratre*!" ("Return, return brother") when he noticed a load falling from the animals. In modern Romanian that would be "_întoarce-te, întoarce-te frate_!". 

But the first ever text written in Romanian is considered to be a letter written by Neacsu din Câmpulung in 1521. He wrote a letter to the mayor of Brasov pleading for military assistance against the Ottomans. The letter was written in the Cyrillic alphabet and starts off like this: 

*Mudromu I plemenitomu, I cistitomu I bogom darovanomu jupan Hanăş Bengner ot **Braşov** mnogo zdravie ot Nécşu ot Dlăgopole.*


_(The most highly regarded and fair man, and God sent man Hanas Bengner  of Brasov, health is wished upon you from Neacsu of Campulung)_

I don't understand a word of it (except the city Brasov)! The Romanian language has REALLY changed since this letter was written!  


The first written documents in Swedish are very hard to find, because the Vikings wrote one stones all over Europe in Runic script since the 8th century. But the first document in Swedish is presumed to be _Västgötalagen_ (the Westrogothic law) from 1225.

*Krister är fyrst i laghum warum. Da är cristna var oc allir cristnir, konongär, böndär oc allir bocarlär, biscupär oc allir boclärdir män. *

_(Christ is first in our law. Followed by our chrisitan faith and all christians, king, peasants and all inhabitants, bishop and all educated men)_ 

 robbie


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## Chaska Ñawi

Of course, as has been already pointed out, the problem is knowing when your mother tongue was considered to have evolved into your mother tongue.

The very old Anglo-Saxon would be considered a different language, not English, if it were still spoken now.

I'd vote for Chaucerian English as our oldest written form.   I can't see pinpointing one example, however, because one, the transformation from AngloSaxon to middle English was so gradual; and two, there are too many written examples from which to choose.


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## Encolpius

Of course I know the oldest known written down sentence in Hungarian, since I went to secondary school and we all learnt it. 
it is: Feheruvaru rea meneh hodu uta rea
it is from 1055 and you can find this sentence in the founding charter of the Abbey at Tihany. 
Feheruvaru rea meneh hodu uta rea, now: Fehérvárra menő hadi útra.
It is a really hard question if you can guess its meaning, I do not know, the teacher said the meaning, so there was no chance to guess..

Interesting thread! The Greek comment is fantastic!  They can mock us all with dates like the 11th century!


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## ilocas2

According to Wikipedia, the oldest Czech sentence is from beginning of 13th century and it's  „_Pavel dal jest Ploskovicích zemu, Vlach dal jest Dolas zemu Bogu i svatému Ščepánu se dvěma dušníkoma, Bogučejú a Sedlatú.“_


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## Youngfun

Kraus said:


> "Sao ko kelle terre, per kelle fini que ki contene, trenta anni le possette parte S(an)c(t)i Benedicti"
> (I know that those lands, whose boundaries are here described, were held for thirty years by the side (the monastery) of Saint Benedict).*


Hi Kraus! Just to be clear, "Saint Benedict" isn't the name of that particular monastery, but because Saint Benedict has "invented" the order of the monastery, "Saint Benedict's side/part" was an expression to refer to the monastery.
By the way, you don't need to put the parenthesis, because there is a mable stone where the whole word "Sancti" is written.

In Chinese, if we regard ancient and modern Chinese as one language, then the most ancient script are the Turtle Oracles (like this or this). They were inscription on turtle sheels, the script was very rudimental, were pictograms more similar to drawing than ideograms.

If we consider the Modern Chinese as a different language, then until the beginning of the XX century all the literature and the writing was written in Classical Chinese, that was the style of writing of Confucius, and very different from how people talk. 
Then in 1917 the Chinese writer Hu Shi wrote an article on the magazine La Jeunesse which declared the Classical Chinese as useless, and that people should write in "Baihua" (Vernacular Chinese), i.e. as we speak - that was the first writing in Vernacular Chinese. 
Later the magazine La Jeunesse wrote all article in Vernacular Chinese, than it was imitated by other magazines too. Until 1920 when the Ministry of Education declared the Vernacular Chinese as the official way of writing.
The modern Standard Chinese was born.


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## Roy776

There was a Latin - German glossary in the 8th century called Codex Abrogans, which is believed to be the oldest manuscript in German, but as this is not a good language example, the Merseburg Incantations should be considered the oldest pre-christian (meaning natively German, untranslated) examples.
_
Phol ende uuodan uuorun zi holza.__
du uuart demo balderes uolon sin uuoz birenkit.__
thu biguol en sinthgunt, sunna era suister;__
thu biguol en friia, uolla era suister;__
thu biguol en uuodan, so he uuola conda:__
sose benrenki, sose bluotrenki, sose lidirenki:__
ben zi bena, bluot si bluoda,__
lid zi geliden, sose gelimida sin!_

Phol und Wodan begaben sich in den Wald
Da wurde dem Fohlen des Herrn/Balders sein Fuß verrenkt
Da besprach ihn Sinthgunt, die Schwester der Sunna
Da besprach ihn Frija, die Schwester der Volla.
Da besprach ihn Wodan, wie er es wohl konnte.
So Beinrenkung, so Blutrenkung,
so Gliedrenkung:
Bein zu Bein, Blut zu Blut,
Glied zu Glied, wie wenn sie geleimt wären.

The OHG text is not intelligible for native speakers today.


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## Frank78

Roy776 said:


> There was a Latin - German glossary in the 8th century called Codex Abrogans, which is believed to be the oldest manuscript in German, but as this is not a good language example, the Merseburg Incantations should be considered the oldest pre-christian (meaning natively German, untranslated) examples.



Well if you speak English you'll be able to guess about a quarter of the words. 

"ende" sounds like "and"
uuodan has got a double-U
holza -> Holz -> wood


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## stormwreath

_gægogæ mægæ medu_ is probably the first written text in Old English, as Seana said. 'Medu' is either 'mead' (the alcoholic drink) or a word which became 'meed' in Middle English, which is an archaic term for a payment or reward. 'Mæg' means 'kinsman' or 'father', with the dative ending. The first word can't be translated.

However, the first full, coherent paragraph written in English is from the poem _Cædmon's Hymn_, written in about 670.

Nu we sculon herigean heofonrices weard,    
meotodes meahte ond his modgeþanc, 
weorc wuldorfæder,  swa he wundra gehwæs, 
ece drihten, or onstealde. 

_Now we must praise the Protector of the heavenly kingdom,
__the might of the Measurer and His mind's purpose,
__the work of the Father of Glory, as He for each of the wonders,
__the eternal Lord, established a beginning.
_
I can understand a few of the words in modern English: 'Nu we' is clearly _Now we_. 'Heofonrices' includes the elements 'heofon' _heaven _and 'ric' which I assume is cognate with German 'Reich', _kingdom_, plus the genetive ending -es which is -'s in modern English. 'Weard' is presumably related to the modern words _ward _and _warden_. 'Meahte' is presumably _might_; 'ond his' is obviously _and his_. 'Weorc Wuldorfaedor' is clearly _work _(of the) _(something)father; _'wundra' is _wonder._


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## Roy776

Frank78 said:


> Well if you speak English you'll be able to guess about a quarter of the words.
> 
> "ende" sounds like "and"
> uuodan has got a double-U
> holza -> Holz -> wood



I still find it pretty much unintelligible  The grammar is also a little bit strange for modern native speakers, I prefer Middle High German, which I even learned for some time, just for fun. I'm always amazed by how much the languages have changed over the course of time. If we could talk to a native speaker of Old High German, I think he or she would never ever recognize our German as German. And at the same time I wonder if somebody who's learned Old High German could really communicate with a native speaker, as what we know about its phonology is only reconstructed. Unfortunately, we'll never know.


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## robbie_SWE

robbie_SWE said:


> A wonderful thread!
> 
> The first sentence ever noted of Romanian (referred to as the only Latin language in the Balkans at the time), was by Theophanes Confessor. He was a Byzantine chronicler and he noted it sometime during the 6th century. He was in a military expedition and he noted a Vlach (Romanian) soldier saying "*Torna, torna fratre*!" ("Return, return brother") when he noticed a load falling from the animals. In modern Romanian that would be "_întoarce-te, întoarce-te frate_!".
> 
> But the first ever text written in Romanian is considered to be a letter written by Neacsu din Câmpulung in 1521. He wrote a letter to the mayor of Brasov pleading for military assistance against the Ottomans. The letter was written in the Cyrillic alphabet and starts off like this:
> 
> *Mudromu I plemenitomu, I cistitomu I bogom darovanomu jupan Hanăş Bengner ot **Braşov** mnogo zdravie ot Nécşu ot Dlăgopole.*
> 
> 
> _(The most highly regarded and fair man, and God sent man Hanas Bengner  of Brasov, health is wished upon you from Neacsu of Campulung)_
> 
> I don't understand a word of it (except the city Brasov)! The Romanian language has REALLY changed since this letter was written!



  Had to make a minor adjustment to my previous post - I neglected that the first sentence in the letter wasn't actually in Romanian, but in Slavonic. It was customary to start and finish letters using a common administrative language which at the time was Slavonic. 

The rest of the letter was however in Romanian and looks like this (Note: transliteration from Cyrillic):




> m(u)drom(u) i plemenitom(u) i čistitom(u) i b[o]gω(m) darovannom(u)  župa(n) hanĭ(š) be(g)ne(r) o(t) brašo(v) mno(g)[o] z(d)ravie o(t)  ně(k)šu(l) o(t) dlŭgopole i pa(k) dau štire do(m)nïetale za lukru(l)  tu(r)čilo(r) kum amĭ auzi(t) èu kŭ ĩpŭratu(l) au èši(t) de(n) sofïę ši  aimi(n)trě nue ši sěu du(s) ĩ su(s) pre dunŭre i pa(k) sŭ štïi  do(m)nïjata kŭ au veni(t) u(n) ω(m) de la nikopoe de mïe mě(u) spu(s) kŭ  au vŭzu(t) ku ωkïi loi kŭ au treku(t) čěle korabïi če štïi ši  do(m)nïjata prè dunŭre ĩ su(s) i pak sŭ štïi kŭ bagŭ den tote ωrašele  kŭte [50] de ωmi(n) sŭ ę fïe ĩn ažuto(r) ĩ korabïi i pak sŭ štïi kumu  sěu prinsŭ nešte me(š)šte(r) de(n) c[a]ri gra(d) ku(m) vorĭ trěče ačěle  korabïi la loku(l) čela (st)rimtu(l) če šttïi ši do(m)nïjata i pa(k)  spui do(m)nïetale de lukru(l) lu mahame(t) be(g) ku(m)u amĭ auzit de  boęri če sŭntĭ medžïja(š) ši de dženere mïu negre kumu ęu da(t)  ĩpŭratu(l) slobozïe lu mahame(t) beg pre iu iωi va fi voę pren cěra  rumŭněskŭ jarŭ èlĭ sŭ trěkŭ i pa(k) sŭ štïi do(m)nïjata kŭ are frikŭ  mare ši bŭsŭrab de ače(l) lotru de mahame(t) be(g) ma(i) vŭrto(s) de  do(m)nïele vo(s)tre i pa(k) spui do(m)nïetale ka ma(i) marele mïu de če  amĭ ĩcele(s) šïeu eu spui do(m)nïetale jarŭ do(m)nïjata ešti ĩceleptĭ ši  ačěste kuvi(n)te sŭ cïi do(m)nïjata la tine sŭ nu štïe umi(n) mulci ši  do(m)nïele vo(s)tre sŭ vŭ pŭzici ku(m) štici ma(i) bine i b[og]ĭ te  ve(s)[e]li(t) amï(n)ŭ



After adaptation: 



> "_Mudromu I plemenitomu, I cistitomu I bogom darovanomu jupan Hană__ș Bengner ot Braşov mnogo zdravie ot Néc__șu ot Dlăgopole.__
> I pak_ dau știre domnie tale _za_ lucrul turcilor, cum am auzit eu că împăratul au eșit den Sofiia, și aimintrea nu e, și se-au dus în sus pre Dunăre._
> I pak_ să știi domniia ta că au venit un om de la Nicopole de  miie me-au spus că au văzut cu ochii lor că au trecut ciale corăbii ceș tii și domniia ta pre Dunăre în sus._
> I pak_ să știi că bagă den toate orașele câte 50 de omin să fie de ajutor în corăbii._
> I pak_ să știi cumu se-au prins nește meșter(i) den Țarigrad  cum vor treace ceale corăbii la locul cela strimtul ce știi și domniia  ta._
> I pak_ spui domniie tale de lucrul lui Mahamet beg, cum am  auzit de boiari ce sunt megiiaș(i) și de generemiiu Negre, cum i-au dat  împăratul sloboziie lui Mahamet beg, pe io-i va fi voia, pren Țeara  Rumânească, iară el să treacă._
> I pak_ să știi domniia ta că are frică mare și Băsărab de acel lotru de Mahamet beg, mai vârtos de domniile voastre._
> I pak_ spui domniietale ca mai marele miu, de ce am înţeles și  eu. Eu spui domniietale iară domniiata ești înțelept și aceste cuvinte  să ții domniiata la tine, să nu știe umin mulți, și domniile vostre să  vă păziți cum știți mai bine._
> I bog te veselit._ Amin."



  Oddly enough the rough transliteration is pretty much intelligible today, except for the beginning, the end and "i pak".


 Robbie


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## Mighis

The oldest "things" written in _tifinagh _(ⵍⵣⵣⴰⵢⴻⵔ) are in the form of carvings on the rocks commonly written from bottom to top and should so differ from the left-to-right modern _t__ifinagh_; the research is still ongoing ..


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## rayloom

The oldest known text written in Arabic (known as Pre-Classical Arabic), dates from the 1st century BC. It's the Qaryat Dhat Kahil inscription written in a Musnad script, and it's a rather long tomb dedicatory which says:


> 'Igl son of Haf'am constructed for his brother Rabib-il son of Haf'am the tomb: both for him and for his child and his wife, and his children and their children's children and womenfolk, free members of the folk Ghalwan. And he has placed it under the protection of (the gods) Kahl and Lah and 'Athtar al-Shariq from anyone strong or weak, and anyone who would attempt to sell or pledge it, for all time without any derogation, so long as the sky produces rain or the earth herbage



If we take the Old North Arabian group of languages, to which Arabic belongs to, then the oldest inscriptions date from the 8th century BC.


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## fdb

Roy776 said:


> There was a Latin - German glossary in the 8th century called Codex Abrogans, which is believed to be the oldest manuscript in German, .



It is a question of what you mean by “German”. If you mean: “Any Germanic language” then there is of course the Gothic translation of (parts of) the Bible, from the 4th century, preserved in a manuscript from the 6th century.


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## ancalimon

Turkic:

There are Turkic sentences not fully understood in old Chinese records. But they are not traditionally accepted as first Turkic writings.

I think the first generally and traditionally accepted fully understood Turkic sentence is this:

Tengri  teg tengride bolmış Türk Bilge Kagan bu ödke olurtum.  Turkish: _“Tanrı gibi sonsuz gökte olmuş  Türk Bilge Kağanı bu zamanda tahta çıktım.”_.

Existed with the eternal sky like the God; I, the Turk all knowing~Wise Khan of Khans ascended to the throne at this time.


Tengri: it means both "God" and "the thing that covers eternity; eternal sky"
öd: time (we today use "zaman" in Turkish instead of this)


----------



## Sepia

In one way the question is absurd: Starting when, is my mother tongue my mother tongue? Germanic languages have developed a lot since the first sentence were carved into pieces of wood. Basically one could say, this was an old version of my native language - still it is not sure I would understand it. At some time in the course of linguistic evolution my native language was almost identical with what became known as Old English. But it is probably more a political technicality that it is considered English.


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## francisgranada

The inscription on the so called *Lapis Niger* seems to be the oldest documented *Latin* phrase (6th century before Christ):
QUOI HON… SAKROS ESED… REGEI KALATOREM… IOUXMENTA KAPIA… IOUESTOD
_(in class. Latin: QUI HUNC… SACER ESTO… REGI CALATOREM… IUMENTA CAPIAT… IUSTO)_

There is also an inscription from the 7th century BC, the so called *Fibula Praenestina,* but it's authenticity is discussed:
MANIOS MED FHE FHAKED NUMASIOI
_(in class. Latin:_ _MANIUS ME FECIT NUMERIO)_

A longer text is the *Inscriptio Duenos* from 575-550 BC:
IOVESAT DEIVOS QOI MED MITAT NEI  TED ENDO COSMIS VIRCO SIED, AS TED NOISI OPETOIT ESIAI PACARI VOIS, DVENOS MED FECED EN MANOM EINOM  DVENOI NE MED MALO STATOD
_(in class. Latin: IURAT DEOS QUI ME MITTIT NI IN TE COMIS VIRGO SIT, …(?)... PACARI VISBONUS ME FECIT …(?)... IN BONUM NE ME MALO STATO)

_P.S. The Latin is not my mother tongue  ...


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## Youngfun

francisgranada said:


> The inscription on the so called *Lapis Niger* seems to be the oldest documented *Latin* phrase (6th century before Christ):
> QUOI HON… SAKROS ESED… REGEI KALATOREM… IOUXMENTA KAPIA… IOUESTOD
> _(in class. Latin: QUI HUNC… SACER ESTO… REGI CALATOREM… IUMENTA CAPIAT… IUSTO)_
> 
> There is also an inscription from the 7th century BC, the so called *Fibula Praenestina,* but it's authenticity is discussed:
> MANIOS MED FHE FHAKED NUMASIOI
> _(in class. Latin:_ _MANIUS ME FECIT NUMERIO)_
> 
> A longer text is the *Inscriptio Duenos* from 575-550 BC:
> IOVESAT DEIVOS QOI MED MITAT NEI  TED ENDO COSMIS VIRCO SIED, AS TED NOISI OPETOIT ESIAI PACARI VOIS, DVENOS MED FECED EN MANOM EINOM  DVENOI NE MED MALO STATOD
> _(in class. Latin: IURAT DEOS QUI ME MITTIT NI IN TE COMIS VIRGO SIT, …(?)... PACARI VISBONUS ME FECIT …(?)... IN BONUM NE ME MALO STATO)
> 
> _P.S. The Latin is not my mother tongue  ...


6th century before Christ? When Rome was founded in 753 b.C., wasn't there any inscription?

And I used to live near Via *Prenestina*


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## francisgranada

Youngfun said:


> 6th century before Christ? When Rome was founded in 753 b.C., wasn't there any inscription?


Probably they had other things to do in those times than write inscriptions .... 



> And I used to live near Via *Prenestina*


Have you not found the fibula somewhere on the street? ...


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## francisgranada

Kraus said:


> ... The oldest Italian sentence is in the so-called "Placiti Campani" (Judgements of Campiania, a region of South Italy). The text dates back to the 8th century:
> 
> "Sao ko kelle terre, per kelle fini que ki contene, trenta anni le possette parte S(an)c(t)i Benedicti" ...


Cześć . As far as I know, this sentence (called also _Placiti cassinesi_ and _Carta Capuana_) was written in *960 *and not in the 8th century.


----------



## fdb

Youngfun said:


> 6th century before Christ? When Rome was founded in 753 b.C., wasn't there any inscription?



The “traditional” date for the foundation of Rome was invented by Varro in the first century BC.


----------



## Youngfun

francisgranada said:


> Have you not found the fibula somewhere on the street? ...


Nope. 
That's a really long street, that goes from the city center till Capranica, a town 20 km away. I'm usually too focused on the traffic .


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## relativamente

I copy and paste from wikipedia about first writen text in Castilian (Old Spanish)

The Cartularies of Valpuesta (Spanish: Cartularios de Valpuesta) refers to two medieval Spanish cartularies which belonged to a monastery in the locality of Valpuesta in the province of Burgos, Castile and León, Spain. They contain a series of documents from the 12th century that, in turn, are copies of other documents, some of which date from the 9th century. Although the authenticity of some of the texts is disputed,[1] the cartularies are significant in the history of the Spanish language, and their status as manuscripts containing the earliest words written in Spanish has been officially recognised. They are written in a very late form of Latin mixed with other elements of a Hispanic Romance dialect that corresponds with that of the Castilian dialect.
fragment in Visigothic script

The cartularies are called the Gótico and the Galicano from the type of script used in each. They are housed in the National Archives of Spain. Selections from the oldest documents were published in 1900 in the French journal Revue hispanique. The preamble of the Statue of Autonomy of Castile and León mentions the cartularies, along with the Nodicia de Kesos, as documents that contain "the most primitive traces of Castilian" (las huellas más primitivas del castellano). In November of 2010, the Royal Spanish Academy endorsed the cartularies, written in "a Latin language assaulted by a living language", as the record of the earliest words written in Castilian, predating those of the Glosas Emilianenses.[2] The cartularies are available in a recent scholarly edition.


----------



## francisgranada

I'd like to add that according to my informations, the _Cartularios de Valpuesta_ is thought to contain (copies of) texts starting from 844 and the _Nodicia de Kesos_ (also _Documento de Quesos_) is dated from around 974.

The so called _Glosas Silenses_ and the _Glosas Emilinenses_ are from around 1000 Anno Domini. The _Glosas Emilianenses _contains not only old Spanish (Hispano-Romance) words but also the following sentences (written rather in Navarro-Aragonese than in Castilian Romance):

_Cono ayutorio de nuestro dueño dueño Christo, dueño Salbatore, qual dueño yet ena honore e qual dueño __tienet era (=ela?) mandacione cono Patre cono Spiritu Sancto, enos siéculos de los sieculos. Facanos Deus omnipotes tal serbicio fere que denante ela sua face gaudiosos seyamus. Amen._


----------



## purpleannex

Sepia said:


> In one way the question is absurd: Starting when, is my mother tongue my mother tongue? Germanic languages have developed a lot since the first sentence were carved into pieces of wood. Basically one could say, this was an old version of my native language - still it is not sure I would understand it. At some time in the course of linguistic evolution my native language was almost identical with what became known as Old English. But it is probably more a political technicality that it is considered English.



This. 

It's a nonsensical question. 

I can barely understand the supposed greatest works in the English language, Shakespeare, the language used is so removed from modern English. Being transported back to Elizabethan England would be like being transported to the Bronx and trying to understand an American!


----------



## Vanda

There is not a certainty about Portuguese. The history says:


> Entre 740 e 868 a região a norte do Douro foi reconquistada pelos  cristãos hispano-góticos, que aí estabeleceram os seus reinos. O  documento medieval com traços românicos mais antigo da península Ibérica  data de 775, o _Diploma do rei Silo das Astúrias_, encontrado na Galícia e preservado no arquivo da catedral de Leão.Como este, muitos documentos escritos em latim medieval contêm palavras românicas.
> Em Portugal, os mais antigos textos com traços de galego-português são a _Doação à Igreja de Sozello_, de 870, e a _Carta de Fundação e Dotação da Igreja de S. Miguel de Lardosa_, de 882. A _Notícia de Torto_ (c. 1214?) e o _Testamento de Afonso II_  (27 de junho, 1214) são* já galego-português*. Na Galícia, a documentação  legal em galego-português remonta a 1231, data de um diploma de venda  procedente do mosteiro de Melón, no Minho. No entanto, o documento chamado *Carta Foral do Boo Burgo é provavelmente mais antigo (c. 1228*). Os primeiros textos poéticos datam de c. 1195 a c. 1225.


 wiki
so 775- a document with Romance features found in Galiza
870- in Portugal - with Galician-Portuguese features 
1214- already Galician-Portuguese 


> Embora o mais antigo documento *régio escrito em português seja o testamento de D. Afonso II, de 1214*, é o ano de 1255, em tempo de D. Afonso III, que assinala o reaparecimento dos textos escritos em português no âmbito da chancelaria régia. [...] como marco cronológico para estabelecer o limite final da fase mais antiga da produção escrita em português: “antes de 1255 existiu também uma diminuta produção primitiva em português, constituída por documentos de carácter notarial escritos em português”.


so 1214 the oldest royal document 
In Brazil the 1st and so the oldest written was in Carta do Achamento do Brasil between , April 26th and May 2nd, 1500.


----------



## Omada

relativamente said:


> I copy and paste from wikipedia about first writen text in Castilian (Old Spanish)
> 
> The Cartularies of Valpuesta (Spanish: Cartularios de Valpuesta) refers to two medieval Spanish cartularies which belonged to a monastery in the locality of Valpuesta in the province of Burgos, Castile and León, Spain. They contain a series of documents from the 12th century that, in turn, are copies of other documents, some of which date from the 9th century. Although the authenticity of some of the texts is disputed,[1] the cartularies are significant in the history of the Spanish language, and their status as manuscripts containing the earliest words written in Spanish has been officially recognised. They are written in a very late form of Latin mixed with other elements of a Hispanic Romance dialect that corresponds with that of the Castilian dialect.
> fragment in Visigothic script
> 
> The cartularies are called the Gótico and the Galicano from the type of script used in each. They are housed in the National Archives of Spain. Selections from the oldest documents were published in 1900 in the French journal Revue hispanique. The preamble of the Statue of Autonomy of Castile and León mentions the cartularies, along with the Nodicia de Kesos, as documents that contain "the most primitive traces of Castilian" (las huellas más primitivas del castellano). In November of 2010, the Royal Spanish Academy endorsed the cartularies, written in "a Latin language assaulted by a living language", as the record of the earliest words written in Castilian, predating those of the Glosas Emilianenses.[2] The cartularies are available in a recent scholarly edition.





francisgranada said:


> I'd like to add that according to my informations, the _Cartularios de Valpuesta_ is thought to contain (copies of) texts starting from 844 and the _Nodicia de Kesos_ (also _Documento de Quesos_) is dated from around 974.
> 
> The so called _Glosas Silenses_ and the _Glosas Emilinenses_ are from around 1000 Anno Domini. The _Glosas Emilianenses _contains not only old Spanish (Hispano-Romance) words but also the following sentences (written rather in Navarro-Aragonese than in Castilian Romance):
> 
> _Cono ayutorio de nuestro dueño dueño Christo, dueño Salbatore, qual dueño yet ena honore e qual dueño __tienet era (=ela?) mandacione cono Patre cono Spiritu Sancto, enos siéculos de los sieculos. Facanos Deus omnipotes tal serbicio fere que denante ela sua face gaudiosos seyamus. Amen._



We also have find very ancient spanish in the _Jarchas_, from X-XI century (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharja) (https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarcha), there we can find a mix of arabic and ibero-romance language. The jarchas are the oldest poetry in romance language:

Vayse meu corachón de mib. (mi corazón se va de mí) (My heart leaves away from me)
Ya Rab, ¿si me tornarád? (OH Dios, ¿acaso volverá a mi?) (Oh Lord, will it return to me?)
¡Tan mal meu doler li-l-habib! ( tan fuerte mi dolor por el amado) (So great is my pain for my beloved!)
Enfermo yed, ¿cuánd sanarád? (enfermo está, ¿cuándo sanará) (It is sick, when will it be healed?


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## Pedro y La Torre

purpleannex said:


> I can barely understand the supposed greatest works in the English language, Shakespeare, the language used is so removed from modern English.



I'd doubt that. Here's a sample chosen at random:



> Thou hast her, France: let her be thine; for we
> Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see
> That face of hers again. Therefore be gone
> Without our grace, our love, our benison.
> Come, noble Burgundy.



A strange formulation certainly, but totally understandable.


----------



## Guajara-Mirim

Vanda said:


> There is not a certainty about Portuguese. The history says:
> wiki
> so 775- a document with Romance features found in Galiza
> 870- in Portugal - with Galician-Portuguese features
> 1214- already Galician-Portuguese
> 
> so 1214 the oldest royal document
> In Brazil the 1st and so the oldest written was in Carta do Achamento do Brasil between , April 26th and May 2nd, 1500.



Não me surpreende.


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## Frank78

Roy776 said:


> There was a Latin - German glossary in the 8th century called Codex Abrogans, which is believed to be the oldest manuscript in German, but as this is not a good language example, the Merseburg Incantations should be considered the oldest pre-christian (meaning natively German, untranslated) examples.



By the way, what about the Negau helmet. It reads ""harigasti teiva ..." and is from 5th century BC. But scholars still seem to debate wheather it's Etrusician or Germanic.


----------



## Sepia

purpleannex said:


> This.
> 
> It's a nonsensical question.
> 
> I can barely understand the supposed greatest works in the English language, Shakespeare, the language used is so removed from modern English. Being transported back to Elizabethan England would be like being transported to the Bronx and trying to understand an American!



I wouldn't say it is nonsensical - Mother Tongue means the language I speak and understand. And then somebody comes with something in Old English that somebody who only knows modern English would not be able to understand - and apart from that, when is OE really English and not old Danish, Jutish or Anglian? That is really a political thing and nothing you can base on logical arguments. The only thing there that is really sure: The language or languages the evolved into being known as English are not the native language(s) of England.


----------



## rainbowizard

Kraus said:


> The oldest Italian sentence is in the so-called "Placiti Campani" (Judgements of Campiania, a region of South Italy). The text dates back to the 8th century:
> "Sao ko kelle terre, per kelle fini que ki contene, trenta anni le possette parte S(an)c(t)i Benedicti"
> (I know that those lands, whose boundaries are here described, were held for thirty years by the side (the monastery) of Saint Benedict).*



Ciao,
even if that is probably the oldest Italian sentence ever found, another document was discovered in 1924: a manuscript on parchment known as "Indovinello Veronese" (Veronese Riddle).
Not all researchers agree it could be considered the very first example of Italian/Romance Language or instead an example of the latest stage of Vulgar Latin.

This is the transcription:
_Se pareba boves, alba pratàlia aràba__et albo versòrio teneba, et negro sèmen seminaba
_In modern Italian it sounds like:
_Teneva davanti a sé i buoi, arava bianchi prati, __e un bianco aratro teneva, e un nero seme seminava_
And the translation in modern english should sound like:
_In front of him (he) led oxen, w__hite fields (he) plowed. __A white plow (he) held, a__ black seed (he) sowed_
The solution of the riddle ... is the writer himself, probably a monk whose business is to copy old manuscripts. The two oxen are his fingers which draw a white feather (the white plow) across the page (the white fields), leaving black ink marks (black seed).

For more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronese_Riddle (in English) or http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indovinello_veronese (in Italian).


----------



## Schem

rayloom said:


> If we take the Old North Arabian group of languages, to which Arabic belongs to, then the oldest inscriptions date from the 8th century BC.



Can you please specify what inscriptions would those be?


----------



## Ben Jamin

valerie said:


> The first written text in French is considered to be 'le serment de Strasbourg', (IX c.), when two grand-sons of Charlemagne allied against their brother and pronounced the alliance text one in 'French' and the other in 'German'. The text was written by Nithard, by request of his cousin, Charles le Chauve one of the grand-sons.
> 
> The first phrase says:
> _Pro deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, d'ist di in avant, in quant deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo et in aiudha et in cadhuna cosa, si cum om per dreit son fradra salvar dist, in o quid il mi altresi fazet, et ab Ludher nul plaid nunquam prindrai, qui meon vol cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit _
> Pour l'amour de Dieu et pour le peuple chrétien et notre salut commun, à partir d'aujourd'hui, en tant que Dieu me donnera savoir et pouvoir, je secourrai ce mien frère Charles par mon aide et en toute chose, comme on doit secourir son frère, selon l'équité, à condition qu'il fasse de même pour moi, et je ne tiendrai jamais avec Lothaire aucun plaid qui, de ma volonté, puisse être dommageable à mon frère Charles.
> 
> I have copied the translation, because this text is not comprehensible for me, even with my experience in several roman languages. Actually this language is not called French, nor old French, but 'Roman'.
> 
> More than French language birth, this text marks the oficialization of vernacular languages where Latin was before the only written language.


How can you say that this is French? It reminds more of Catalan than French, and is a kind of a transition language between Latin and French.


----------



## swintok

Of course this thread is ridiculous.  But it has taught me a lot, has given me a new appreciation for several languages, and is a lot of fun.

As far as Ukrainian is concerned, there is of course a debate raging as to what is the oldest text.  Scholars can detect specifically southern East Slavic dialectal features in several Old Church Slavonic texts from the Kyivan Rus' period.  Depending on your political viewpoint, this could be the start of an identifiable Ukrainian written record that is distinct from the language of documents printed around Novgorod-Suzdal.  "Ukrainian" features are increasingly found in subsequent centuries in Old Church Slavonic documents written or published in what is today Ukraine.  At what point or even whether these can be considered Old Ukrainian or Middle Ukrainian is the subject of raging debate, again with much depending upon your political views.

Because of the supression of printing or publishing in vernacular Ukrainian in the Russian Empire, however, it is not until Kotlarevskyi's Eneida appears in 1798 that we can talk about literature written in the modern, vernacular Ukrainian language.


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## franknagy

Hungarian: The foundation of Abbey Tihany 1055: *FEHERUUARU REA MENEH HODU UTU REA
*in presewnt language* Fehérvárra menő hadi útra.
*


----------



## Sempervirens

Youngfun said:


> Hi Kraus! Just to be clear, "Saint Benedict" isn't the name of that particular monastery, but because Saint Benedict has "invented" the order of the monastery, "Saint Benedict's side/part" was an expression to refer to the monastery.
> By the way, you don't need to put the parenthesis, because there is a mable stone where the whole word "Sancti" is written.
> 
> In Chinese, if we regard ancient and modern Chinese as one language, then the most ancient script are the Turtle Oracles (like this or this). They were inscription on turtle sheels, the script was very rudimental, were pictograms more similar to drawing than ideograms.
> 
> If we consider the Modern Chinese as a different language, then until the beginning of the XX century all the literature and the writing was written in Classical Chinese, that was the style of writing of Confucius, and very different from how people talk.
> Then in 1917 the Chinese writer Hu Shi wrote an article on the magazine La Jeunesse which declared the Classical Chinese as useless, and that people should write in "Baihua" (Vernacular Chinese), i.e. as we speak - that was the first writing in Vernacular Chinese.
> Later the magazine La Jeunesse wrote all article in Vernacular Chinese, than it was imitated by other magazines too. Until 1920 when the Ministry of Education declared the Vernacular Chinese as the official way of writing.
> The modern Standard Chinese was born.



Ciao, Youngfun, solo per chiarire, il  Placito cassinese è vergato su supporto mobile, se parliamo dell'originale, ed è visibile qui: http://www.aquinosindaco.it/placitocassinese.html

A proposito, mi chiedevo se tu puoi leggere quei _sinogrammi _che hai gentilmente segnalato. Sono semplicemente incredibili e ancora espressivi! Veramente belli!


----------



## Ben Jamin

Youngfun said:


> If we consider the Modern Chinese as a different language, then until the beginning of the XX century all the literature and the writing was written in Classical Chinese, that was the style of writing of Confucius, and very different from how people talk.



This is quite mysterious to me. If we assume that Chinese writing consists of ideograms, and that the same ideograms are pronounced very differenet in various Chinese dialects, so one can assume that the old ideograms were just pronounced in the modern way, weren't they? So, what did the change from old to modern chinese mean for writing? I know that the old ideograms were simplified in the XX century, but they retained the same meaning?


----------



## Youngfun

Grazie, Sempervirens. Chiedo scusa per la mia ignoranza, pensavo che l'iscrizione su marmo fosse la versione originale, che poi ragionando a logica, essendo un documento giuridico, dovrebbe essere su carta (o papiro? boh... riecco la mia ignoranza).

I sinogrammi che ho segnalato sono irriconoscibili per i cinesi moderni. 
Facendo un parallelo, anche l'alfabeto romano deriva da quello etrusco, a sua volta da quello greco, a sua volta da quello fenicio, a sua volta dai geroglifici. La differenza che corre tra quei simboli e i moderni sinogrammi cinesi è simile a quella tra i geroglifici e l'alfabeto latino.

Ecco un sito che illustra l'evoluzione dei caratteri cinesi. La prima pagina dà come esempio la storia del carattere 車, cronologicamente dal basso verso l'alto


----------



## Youngfun

Ben Jamin said:


> This is quite mysterious to me. If we assume that Chinese writing consists of ideograms, and that the same ideograms are pronounced very differenet in various Chinese dialects, so one can assume that the old ideograms were just pronounced in the modern way, weren't they? So, what did the change from old to modern chinese mean for writing? I know that the old ideograms were simplified in the XX century, but they retained the same meaning?


The main difference is grammar, and some vocabulary.
Written Classical Chinese has maintained more or less the same grammar from Confucius to 1920, but the pronunciation changed a lot in time and in place (the dialects).
Today we use the modern pronunciation to read Classical Chinese, and nobody is sure how Chinese was pronounce in the past, although there are reconstructions.


----------



## Sempervirens

Youngfun said:


> Grazie, Sempervirens. Chiedo scusa per la mia ignoranza, pensavo che l'iscrizione su marmo fosse la versione originale, che poi ragionando a logica, essendo un documento giuridico, dovrebbe essere su carta (o papiro? boh... riecco la mia ignoranza).
> 
> I sinogrammi che ho segnalato sono irriconoscibili per i cinesi moderni.
> Facendo un parallelo, anche l'alfabeto romano deriva da quello etrusco, a sua volta da quello greco, a sua volta da quello fenicio, a sua volta dai geroglifici. La differenza che corre tra quei simboli e i moderni sinogrammi cinesi è simile a quella tra i geroglifici e l'alfabeto latino.
> 
> Ecco un sito che illustra l'evoluzione dei caratteri cinesi. La prima pagina dà come esempio la storia del carattere 車, cronologicamente dal basso verso l'alto



Youngfun, mi stupisci. Sia per il tuo italiano , perfetto, sia per la tua competenza! 

Tornando al supporto scrittorio dovrebbe trattarsi di quattro pergamene con su redatti i placiti. 

Spero di non andare fuori tema chiedendoti una cosa che vorrei sapere sul sinogramma 車 da te citato.　Nel caso del giapponese ha finito per assumere quello di ruota, ruote,　e  infine come sineddoche quello di veicolo , autoveicolo in generale. Abbiamo dunque delle stringhe di non facile intuibilità per alcuni utenti dell'alfabeto. 
Bicicletta (non è che poi sia tanto trasparente nemmeno questa parola!) lo troviamo in giapponese
 sotto queste sembianze 自転車...nella quale stringa di sinogrammi si nota in coda l'elemento 車 : ruota/ carro (carro= quattro ruote?) che potrebbe mettere in difficoltà i neofiti come me. La stessa medesima cosa succede anche nel cinese? 

Grazie per avermi segnalato quel sito interessante sui sinogrammi. Io invece ti segnalo quello dove attingo per i miei modesti studi:
http://www.saiga-jp.com/language/kanji_list.html

Ciao e grazie ancora!




​


----------



## sakvaka

Hakro said:


> If there was any hand-written text in Finnish before that, no one knows. Probably not, because the official language was Swedish.



More generally, the oldest surviving hand-written text in any Finnic language is preserved in the Birch bark letter no. 292, dating to the 13th century:

юмолануолиїнимижи
ноулисѣханолиомобоу
юмоласоудьнииохови

There's no consensus as to what it means exactly.


----------



## Youngfun

Sempervirens said:


> Youngfun, mi stupisci. Sia per il tuo italiano , perfetto, sia per la tua competenza!


Vivendo in Italia da quando ho 6 anni, un po' d'italiano l'ho imparato.



> Tornando al supporto scrittorio dovrebbe trattarsi di quattro pergamene con su redatti i placiti.


Grazie per l'informazione. 



> Spero di non andare fuori tema chiedendoti una cosa che vorrei sapere sul sinogramma 車 da te citato.　Nel caso del giapponese ha finito per assumere quello di ruota, ruote,　e  infine come sineddoche quello di veicolo , autoveicolo in generale. Abbiamo dunque delle stringhe di non facile intuibilità per alcuni utenti dell'alfabeto.
> Bicicletta (non è che poi sia tanto trasparente nemmeno questa parola!) lo troviamo in giapponese
> sotto queste sembianze 自転車...nella quale stringa di sinogrammi si nota in coda l'elemento 車 : ruota/ carro (carro= quattro ruote?) che potrebbe mettere in difficoltà i neofiti come me. La stessa medesima cosa succede anche nel cinese?
> 
> Grazie per avermi segnalato quel sito interessante sui sinogrammi. Io invece ti segnalo quello dove attingo per i miei modesti studi:
> http://www.saiga-jp.com/language/kanji_list.html
> 
> Ciao e grazie ancora!


In cinese 車 (semplificato: 车) non significa "ruota" ma soltanto "veicolo", anzi in realtà qualsiasi mezzo dotato di ruote, compresi carri, carrelli, carriole, carrozze, biciclette, moto, automobili, ecc.
In cinese a seconda degli usi regionali ci sono almeno tre modi per chiamare la bicicletta:

1. 自行车 (la forma più diffusa, in cinese "standard"): lett. significa "veicolo che cammina da solo"

2. 脚踏车: "veicolo pedalato dai piedi"

3. 单车: "veicolo singolo"

Probabilmente il 2 è il più intuitivo. La forma giapponese assomiglia al 1., e letteralmente significherebbe "veicolo che gira da solo".
In realtà non saprei come interpretare quel "da solo". Siccome in cinese e giapponese spesso non si specifica il soggetto, potrebbe significare letteralmente "veicolo che noi da soli dobbiamo far camminare".


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## Awwal12

Seana said:


> .
> Do you know the oldest known written down sentence in your mother tongue?


Ahem. Well, writing in Russia is definetly older than the modern  Russian language, and it's pretty difficult to call, say, ancient  Novgorodian dialect "my mother tongue" (because it seems probably less  intelligible than even Old Church Slavonic - although most likely more  intelligible than Old English to modern English speakers).
The first  inscriptions in ancient Russian are separate words on wooden artifacts  dated back to X century. The "Novgorodian Code" is apparently the  earliest written document of Russia which is dated back to early XI  century, but it is in Church Slavonic, not exactly ancient Russian. The  first authentic text in ancient Russian is, afaik, the Stone of Tmutarakan (1068).


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## Sempervirens

Ciao, Youngfun! In ritardo, lo so , ma volevo dirti che *forse *''veicolo che gira da solo'', come tu hai gentilmente spiegato, andrebbe cambiato in '' veicolo che gira da sé'' , autonomamente, senza essere trainato da quadrupedi. La propulsione è all'interno del veicolo stesso e pertanto non ci sono altre forze trainanti poste all'esterno di questi. 

Saluti

S.V


----------



## Youngfun

Sempervirens said:


> Ciao, Youngfun! In ritardo, lo so , ma volevo dirti che *forse *''veicolo che gira da solo'', come tu hai gentilmente spiegato, andrebbe cambiato in '' veicolo che gira da sé'' , autonomamente, senza essere trainato da quadrupedi. La propulsione è all'interno del veicolo stesso e pertanto non ci sono altre forze trainanti poste all'esterno di questi.
> 
> Saluti
> 
> S.V


Hai ragione, è quello che volevo dire. Purtroppo a Roma per dire che qualche attrezzo o umano fa qualcosa "da sé", diciamo che lo fa "da solo"... e scrivendo mi sono dimenticato di convertire nel vocabolo italiano "corretto".


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## Vukabular

robbie_SWE said:


> *Mudromu I plemenitomu, I cistitomu I bogom darovanomu jupan Hanăş Bengner ot Braşov mnogo zdravie ot Nécşu ot Dlăgopole.*
> 
> 
> _(The most highly regarded and fair man, and God sent man Hanas Bengner of Brasov, health is wished upon you from Neacsu of Campulung)_
> 
> I don't understand a word of it (except the city Brasov)! The Romanian language has REALLY changed since this letter was written!


You don't understand because it's written in Serbian. 
*Mudrom i plemenitom i čestitiom i Bogom darovanom županu Hanăş Bengner od Braşov mnogo zdravlja od Nécşu od Dlăgopole.*


----------



## Awwal12

It's simply a local variety of Church Slavonic, which was an official language of Wallachia and Moldavia for a really long time. (All modern day varieties stem from Russian Church Slavonic, but it wasn't the case in the XV century yet.)


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## Vukabular

If this is Church Slavonic then all Slavs would read without a problem. 
Romanian is a Jesuit creation of recent times. I had the opportunity to read a dictionary written in 1825 where, in my free estimation, there are 50 percent identical words as in today's Serbian and another 20 to 30 percent similar.


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## Awwal12

Vukabular said:


> If this is Church Slavonic then all Slavs would read without a problem.


They do. Romanians are (unexpectedly!) Romance speakers, though.


Vukabular said:


> Romanian is a Jesuit creation of recent times


Yes, and Serbian was created by reptiloids before the Flood.
Romanian was somewhat "purified" during the XIX century (with numerous artificial loanwords, chiefly from French), but so were Croatian, Czech and many other local languages of the region - it was the era of nationalism (thankfully, Russian has avoided that fate - the movement for language purification of the early XIX century didn't find many proponents). And, no doubt, it's not the cultural vocabulary which makes Serbian and Romanian mutually incomprehensible.


----------



## L'irlandais

No-one mentioned Ogham writing yet.


> it is believed that Ogham Stones were probably carved since the middle 4th or the beginnings of the 5th century. However, it is possible that the alphabet employed to write the first graphical signs of Old Irish language was in use by the 2nd century (HARVEY, 1990, p. 13-14), or even the 1st (CARNEY, 1975, p. 53-65), and continued to be produced until the 9th


 Ancient Scripts : Ogham – Old Irish inscriptions


----------



## Penyafort

In *Catalan*, the oldest attested sentences are from the 1030s, found in the *Radulf Oriol's Oath*, a feudal loyalty oath to Raymond IV of the Pallars Jussà (_Lower Pallars_), in which Medieval Latin and Proto-Catalan are mixed.




Iuro ego, Radolf Oriol, filium Mirabile, a(d) te, Ragimundo, chomite, filium Ermetructe, et a te Ermesende, chomitissa, filiam Gilga, _de ipssos chastellos de Aringo et de Oriti_; *go fideles vos ende sere; go no llos vos devetare, ni devetare no llos vos fare*. Et si de Giriperto, meum seniore menus [e]venerit per morte, *go a vos ende atendere sine lochoro che non vos ende de demandare.* Quamu (o: Quomu?) ací est est scriptu et omo ligere hic pote, *sí vos ate[n]re* (escrit: 'atere') *et si vos atendere per directa fidem sine vestro (vostro?) enchanno*. Per Deum et sanctis suis​


The bold sentences are in Archaic Catalan. The very first one says:

_go fideles vos ende sere; go no llos vos devetare, ni devetare no llos vos fare._​(Modern St. Catalan)​*jo fidel us en seré; jo no us els vedaré, ni vedar no us els faré.*​(English)​[Regarding those castles...] I shall be loyal to you. I shall not deny them to you, nor shall I make them denied to you.​
Before that date, there can only be found some Catalan words inside some Latin texts (names of tools, trees, etc), but not any complex sentence.

The first literary sentence would be from the *Song of the Holy Faith*, written two or three decades later (about the 1060s), although there's still some debate whether the language in it can be considered Old Catalan or Old Occitan.



francisgranada said:


> The _Glosas Emilianenses _contains not only old Spanish (Hispano-Romance) words but also the following sentences (written rather in Navarro-Aragonese than in Castilian Romance):
> 
> _Cono ayutorio de nuestro dueño dueño Christo, dueño Salbatore, qual dueño yet ena honore e qual dueño tienet era (=ela?) mandacione cono Patre cono Spiritu Sancto, enos siéculos de los sieculos. Facanos Deus omnipotes tal serbicio fere que denante ela sua face gaudiosos seyamus. Amen._



That is not Spanish but Archaic Aragonese indeed. The Romance traits shown there are found still today in Aragonese.



Omada said:


> We also have find very ancient spanish in the _Jarchas_,



The Kharjas are not in Spanish either, but in the Romance variety/varieties once spoken in Al-Andalus.


----------



## apmoy70

The oldest written sentence in Greek (leaving aside Linear B, which was a syllabary only known by professional scribes) is an inscription of 8th c. BCE on a drinking cup found at excavations in the ancient Greek city of Pithikoussai on the island of Ischia, in the Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy:

Νέστορος εἰμὶ εὔποτον ποτήριον
ὃς δ' ἂν τοῦδε πίησι ποτηρίου αὐτίκα κῆνον
ἵμερος αἱρήσει καλλιστεφάνου Ἀφροδίτης.

I am Nestor's cup, good to drink from. 
Whoever drinks this cup empty, 
straightaway desire for beautiful-crowned Aphrodite will seize him.

What's interesting about this inscription is that while the inscriptions in Linear B are older, they are texts of disbursements of goods written by professional scribes who served the central bureaucracy; Nestor's inscription on the other hand is a playful joke, written by a layman, demonstrative of the easiness to learn how to read and write, in the "new" alphabet


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## Olaszinhok

How about the oldest written sentence in Modern Greek? I mean Standard Modern Greek.  May I use this definition as far as Modern Greek is concerned?


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## Awwal12

Olaszinhok said:


> How about the oldest written sentence in Modern Greek? I mean Standard Modern Greek.  May I use this definition as far as Modern Greek is concerned?


As far as I get it, Modern Greek is just a codified standard which is closer to spoken varieties when compared to Katharevousa. Obviously the spoken varieties developed gradually and there is no sharp border between Byzantine and Modern Greek in the broad sense of the word (and, in turn, Byzantine Greek arises directly from late local varieties of the Koine).


----------



## Awwal12

Anyway, the first meaningful complete texts in Old Russian all come from the early XI century (together with first Russian texts in Church Slavonic). Aside of several Novgorodian birch bark manuscripts from 1020s (with strong dialectal features of the region), the Tmutarakan monumental inscription of 1068 can be mentioned, which perfectly reflects characteristic feautres of the early Old Russian koine (I transliterated it to the Latin alphabet, making some orthographic simplifications):
"Vъ lěto 6576 indikta 6 Glebъ knяzь měrilъ more po ledou otъ Tъmoutorokanя do Korčeva 10000 i 4000 sяženъ"
~"In the year 6576 the sixth of the Indiction, Prince Gleb measured the distance across the sea on the ice from Tmutarakan to Kerch (which is) 14,000 sazhens".
Pretty understandable to modern East Slavic speakers, although one wouldn't understand the numbers when seeing the inscription (obviously it doesn't use the modern Arabic digits), and it lacks spaces or any other dividers too.


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## apmoy70

Awwal is quite right, yet, if one wants to be precise, the oldest Modern Greek text would be the vernacular-origin, popular literature and Akritic cycle poems that describe the border wars between Byzantium and the Arab-Islamic world. The language used is literary Byzantine Greek, but with vernacular influences in lexicon and syntax. The date is 7th-11th c. CE (I'd say 8th century's texts are more accessible than the ones written in 7th c.). The language is very similar to the modern vernacular, bar the use of the infinitive, dative, some latinisms here and there, and with a bit more complex and different syntax. Pretty intelligible to the modern speaker.


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## Olaszinhok

apmoy70 said:


> The date is 7th-11th c. CE (I'd say 8th century's texts are more accessible than the ones written in 7th c.).


Thank you. I was thinking about something like that when I asked my question.


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## Perseas

Olaszinhok said:


> How about the oldest written sentence in Modern Greek? I mean *Standard *Modern Greek.  May I use this definition as far as Modern Greek is concerned?


Apmoy70 is (of course) right as to the early stages of the Modern Greek language, but this "Standard" baffles me a bit. Am I not right to think that the existence of a Standard language presupposes the existence of a State? Greece became an independent country in 1830.


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## Olaszinhok

Perseas said:


> Am I not right to think that the existence of a Standard language presupposes the existence of a State


You may be right and _Standard _could be easily removed from my question.   However, I am not that sure that a Standardised form of a Language always presupposes the existence of a State. For instance,  Italy was only united in 1861, but a sort of standard Language, based upon Tuscan and the well-known Tuscan authors such as Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio, pre-existed as early as the fourteenth century. Even though it was spoken by very few well-educated people,  whoever wanted to write poetry, novels, plays used to resort to that prestigious and codified language.


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## Perseas

@Olaszinhok 
Thanks for the clarification!


----------



## Keith Bradford

English



purpleannex said:


> ...I can barely understand the supposed greatest works in the English language, Shakespeare, the language used is so removed from modern English. Being transported back to Elizabethan England would be like being transported to the Bronx and trying to understand an American!


Well, _Romeo and Juliet _was recently performed at Shakespeare's Globe in the original pronunciation. It was perfectly comprehensible to almost all the audience once they'd 'got their ear in' - about five minutes. And spectators from America thought it sounded Appalachian (it didn't). Nine-tenths of Shakespeare's vocabulary is identical to modern English -- his grammar is rather different.

The trouble with answering this question, for an English speaker, is that our language has evolved over many thousands of years, and the last 1500 have been recorded in writing.  Most people can't read Old English (= Anglo-Saxon, before 1100), many can decipher Middle English (1100-1500) and more or less everybody except Purpleannex   can cope with Modern English to some degree or another.

So, what's the earliest written text in "my" language?  If that means the earliest that I can understand, it has to be Chaucer (1340-1400) but my friends at University who studied English were able to decipher Old English, so for them the date is pushed back much earlier to around 700-750.  Here are some examples -- the opening lines of _Beowulf, the Canterbury Tales_ and the Memorial to Shakespeare's _First Folio_. Judge for yourselves:

*Old English: *
Hwæt! We Gardena     in geardagum,​þeod-cyninga     þrym gefrunon,​hu ða æþelingas     ellen fremedon.​*Middle English:*
Whan that Aprille with his shour*e*s soot*e*,​The droghte of March hath perc*e*d to the root*e*,​And bath*e*d every veyne in swich licóur​Of which vertú engendr*e*d is the flour...​*Early Modern English:*
Wee wondred (Shake-speare) that thou went'st so soone​From the Worlds-Stage to the Graves-Tyring-roome.​Wee thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth,​Tels thy Spectators that thou went'st but forth​To enter with applause.​


----------



## Keith Bradford

Ben Jamin said:


> How can you say that this is French? It reminds more of Catalan than French, and is a kind of a transition language between Latin and French.


You need to know the context.  The Strasburg Oaths were in a direct line of descent from Latin to Early French, and the first time anybody thought it was necessary to write a separate version for French people, that wasn't Latin.  It may well resemble Catalan (to me Spanish "resembles" Italian) but that's only in the way a man resembles his cousin.


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## Penyafort

Ben Jamin said:


> How can you say that this is French? It reminds more of Catalan than French, and is a kind of a transition language between Latin and French.





Keith Bradford said:


> You need to know the context.  The Strasburg Oaths were in a direct line of descent from Latin to Early French, and the first time anybody thought it was necessary to write a separate version for French people, that wasn't Latin.  It may well resemble Catalan (to me Spanish "resembles" Italian) but that's only in the way a man resembles his cousin.



I agree. And it actually doesn't resemble Old Catalan either. Although I'd probably agree too in calling them a sort of Gallo-Romance rather than Old French properly. Or Latin with some Gallo-Romance in it.

It is quite common that Romance early texts are interspersed with Latin. It is already in the 13th century that we start seeing more important 'Latin-free' literary texts in most Romance languages.

In the case of Catalan, the first sentences -which I already mentioned- are also alongside Latin. Then the Organyà Homilies are traditionally considered the first literary text, but I also see them as still very Latinesque. The two first really important works in full Old Catalan are always in prose (Catalan poets wrote in Occitan), and they are by King James I of Aragon and by the philosopher Ramon Llull (Raymond Luly in English), regarded as father of the language, not without a reason. Both were written in the 1270s.

This is the beginning of the Llibre dels Feyts, which was translated into English as Book of the Deeds. It's the first of the Four Great Catalan Chronicles, and it's an autobiography of the reign of James I of Aragon (1213-1276), dealing with deeds such as the conquest of Valencia and Majorca.

_*Retrau mon senyor Sent Jacme que fe sens obres morta es; aquesta paraula volch nostre Senyor complir en los nostres feyts; e jassia que la fe senes les obres no vayla re, quant abdues són ajustades fan fruyt, lo qual Deu vol reebre en la sua mansió.*_​​My lord Saint James relates that faith without good works is dead. Our Lord wished this saying to be confirmed in our deeds; for though it is true that faith without works is worthless, when the two are combined they bear fruit, a fruit that God wishes to receive in His mansion.​
In the case of Llull's first book, _Llibre de contemplació en Déu_ ("Book of Contemplation in God"), we are talking about a mystical encyclopedical work about creation, the human being in all aspects and the presence of God. Apart from being foundational and of high literary quality, Lllull is saying to the Catalan-speaking elites of the time that they could use their mother tongue as a means for literature, science and philosophy/theology, instead of Latin, advancing many other languages of Europe in this regard.

This fragment shows how Catalan was already clearly different from Occitan, and preferred for 'serious' things. In fact, Llull critizises his contemporary troubadours (all of whom wrote in Occitan).

_*Ah Déus, pare celestial, en lo qual és tota santetat e tota senyoria e tota glòria e tota benedicció! L’art, Sényer, de joglaria començà en vós a lloar e en vós a beneir; e per açò foren atrobats estruments e voltes e lais e sons novells amb què hom s’alegràs en vós. Mas, segons que nosaltres veem ara, Sényer, en nostre temps tota l’art de joglaria s’és mudada; car los hòmens qui s’entremeten de sonar estruments e de ballar e de trobar no canten ni no sonen los estruments ni no fan verses ni cançons sinó de luxúria e de vanitats d’aquest món.*_​​Oh God, heavenly father, in whom all is holiness, glory and blessing! The art of the minstrels began praising and blessing thee, and to that purpose instruments, lays and new sounds were found for everyone to rejoice in thee. But, the way we see this now, Lord, in these times the art of the minstrels has changed. For men devoted to play instruments, dance and compose, they neither play them nor compose verses or songs but of lust and of the vanities of this world.​


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

Is there a real difference between Old Occitan and Old Catalan?


----------



## Ben Jamin

"The oldest known written sentence in your mother tongue" is a very tricky subject, especially in the case of languages having a long record of written samples of the language. They often pass through stages that are called names that imply that they are separate languages, but often they just get adjectives like "old", "middle" or "modern" . 
When a language ceases to be Language 1 and becomes Language 2? Is Old English really a mother tongue of contemporary Britons? 
Is Homer's Greek really a mother tongue of contemporary Greeks? When did their mother tongue really begin? 
What is your mother tongue? When you can understand everything, or it is enough with 90%, 20% of the text, or when some words still remind you of the language you speak now?


----------



## Penyafort

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Is there a real difference between Old Occitan and Old Catalan?



Catalan in its origin was very probably a distinctive Occitan dialect in its primitive area (the south of the March of Gothia). As such, one can tell the differences from a very early stage, but it could be considered a variety. In fact, the debate among linguists about whether the _Cançó de Santa Fe_, one of the oldest poems in Romance, is Old Catalan or Old Occitan, shows to what extent it is hard to tell at such an early stage.

However, unlike other Occitan varieties, it expanded southwards and had a history and literature of its own. I'd mark the point of inflection in the 13th century. After the emergence of the figure of Ramon Llull and it becoming the main codified language of the Crown of Aragon, it becomes a fully-fledged language adopting a course of its own.

We could tell more or less a similar story about Spanish, being a distinctive Leonese dialect in its primitive Cantabro-Castilian area, then becoming a Crown of its own and an adult language. Or about Portuguese, being a distinctive Galician dialect in its primitive Bracarian area, then becoming the language of the Kingdom of Portugal. As Catalan, they both expanded southwards and became important dialects of a new crown, hence becoming _Ausbausprachen_, languages by development.


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

I see. Interesting. Thanks.


----------



## Mahaodeh

rayloom said:


> If we take the Old North Arabian group of languages, to which Arabic belongs to, then the oldest inscriptions date from the 8th century BC.



I know of an older one, in what is known as Old Arabic, written on a rock in modern day Jordan using Old North Arabian script and dating early first millennium BC, I don’t have an exact date but 8th century BC sounds close enough. Obviously we can’t read the script today as we now use a different one but the transliteration is:
_haː malkamu wa kamaːsu wa kʼawsu bi kumu ʕawuðnaː_
In standard Arabic it would be:
يا مَلكَمُ وكماسُ وقوسٌ بكمُ عوذُنا (أي بكم نستعيذ
English translation: Oh Malkam and Kamaas and Qaws in you we seek refuge.

Malkam, Kamas, and Qaws were ancient Gods worshiped in Transjordan at that time.

It is a little different than Classical Arabic, but it seems mutually intelligible to me. I can easily understand the transliteration. I’m aware it’s not CA but it’s not a different language either. At least it doesn’t seem to be.

there are a few more lines written in Canaanite.


----------



## WadiH

Mahaodeh said:


> I know of an older one, in what is known as Old Arabic, written on a rock in modern day Jordan using Old North Arabian script and dating early first millennium BC, I don’t have an exact date but 8th century BC sounds close enough. Obviously we can’t read the script today as we now use a different one but the transliteration is:
> _haː malkamu wa kamaːsu wa kʼawsu bi kumu ʕawuðnaː_
> In standard Arabic it would be:
> يا مَلكَمُ وكماسُ وقوسٌ بكمُ عوذُنا (أي بكم نستعيذ
> English translation: Oh Malkam and Kamaas and Qaws in you we seek refuge.
> 
> Malkam, Kamas, and Qaws were ancient Gods worshiped in Transjordan at that time.



And _Qaws _is probably another form of the _Qays _that we find in more familiar names like _Imru' Al-Qays _and _'Abd al-Qays._


----------



## KalAlbè

In Haitian Creole the first written sentence comes from a poem written in 1757. I'll include the first stanza:

Lisette quitté la plaine
Moin pèdi bonhè moué;
Zié moin semblé fontaine.
Dépi moin pas miré toué.
Le jou quand moin coupé canne
Moin chongé zanmou moué;
La nouit quand moin dans cabane,
Dans dromi, moin quimbé toué.


----------



## Zareza

robbie_SWE said:


> But the first ever text written in Romanian is considered to be a letter written by Neacsu din Câmpulung in 1521. He wrote a letter to the mayor of Brasov pleading for military assistance against the Ottomans. The letter was written in the Cyrillic alphabet and starts off like this:
> 
> *Mudromu I plemenitomu, I cistitomu I bogom darovanomu jupan Hanăş Bengner ot Braşov mnogo zdravie ot Nécşu ot Dlăgopole.*
> 
> 
> _(The most highly regarded and fair man, and God sent man Hanas Bengner of Brasov, health is wished upon you from Neacsu of Campulung)_


Only the greeting formulas at the beginning and end are in Old Slavonic. The rest of the text is in Romanian, at that time it was customary to write in Cyrillic letters.
A Slav person does not understand what is written in the letter, s/he understands only the letters. But a Romanian who knows Slavonic letters, as s/he reads, realizes that it is a text with Romanian words written in Slavic letters.


----------



## Ben Jamin

Zareza said:


> Only the greeting formulas at the beginning and end are in Old Slavonic. The rest of the text is in Romanian, at that time it was customary to write in Cyrillic letters.
> A Slav person does not understand what is written in the letter, s/he understands only the letters. But a Romanian who knows Slavonic letters, as s/he reads, realizes that it is a text with Romanian words written in Slavic letters.


The opening of the letter is not in a pure old Slavic language. It reminds more of early Bulgarian, as only selected substantives are declined. May  be it is a kind of Vallachian - Slavic pidgin. By the way, even in genuine Romanian there are still many words of Slavic origin that a Slavic person can understand.


----------



## Zareza

Ben Jamin said:


> By the way, even in genuine Romanian there are still many words of Slavic origin that a Slavic person can understand.


For this reason also the Romanian is a rich language.


----------



## Penyafort

Yet I find it very surprising that the first Romanian written text was so late! I mean, by the 16th century there had already been several major works in all other Romance languages for centuries. This means that there is no medieval work in Romanian, which is striking.


----------



## Hantu

Seana said:


> Hi,
> I have learnt about two oldest English sentences one of them was found by archeologists a runic inscription dating to c. 480 CE, and says:
> 
> *"This she-wolf is a tribute to my knismen."*
> 
> Second one was found by a farmer near Undley (Suffolk - ) a kind of, medallion -  AD 450-500 -were inscribed the words
> 
> *"gægogæ mægæ medu"*.
> 
> What it probably may be read as 'howling she-wolf' (a reference to the wolf image) and 'reward to a relative'.
> 
> Has anyone heard about them?


Perhaps the writer was talking about his wife.


----------



## AndrasBP

Penyafort said:


> Yet I find it very surprising that the first Romanian written text was so late! I mean, by the 16th century there had already been several major works in all other Romance languages for centuries. This means that there is no medieval work in Romanian, which is striking.


This might have to do with Romania's geographical location separating it from other Romance languages, as well as the Orthodox faith, dominated by Greek and Old Church Slavonic. The Romanian Cyrillic script was still used as late as the middle of the 19th century. (Soviet Cyrillic Moldovan is another story...)


----------



## Penyafort

AndrasBP said:


> This might have to do with Romania's geographical location separating it from other Romance languages, as well as the Orthodox faith, dominated by Greek and Old Church Slavonic. The Romanian Cyrillic script was still used as late as the middle of the 19th century. (Soviet Cyrillic Moldovan is another story...)


I see. Come to think of it, all literary works I can think of in a Slavic language are from the last three centuries, so I guess that makes some sense.

However, I still think that it's really too late for a written text. I mean, not a literary one, but an ordinary one.


----------



## Zareza

AndrasBP said:


> This might have to do with Romania's geographical location separating it from other Romance languages, as well as the Orthodox faith, dominated by Greek and Old Church Slavonic. The Romanian Cyrillic script was still used as late as the middle of the 19th century. (Soviet Cyrillic Moldovan is another story...)


You forgot about the wars with the Turks, Tatars, Hungarians, Poles, Bulgarians, etc. plus internal struggles. Who would have had time to write poems in the mother tongue?

Over time, the Carpatho-Danubian-Pontic lands have been, with short breaks, a real battlefield. Located in a strategic position in the northern Balkans and at the intersection of major trade routes linking the north south and east west, the Romanian principalities and state formations were constantly threatened by strong neighbors and large empires.

Either they were on the way of the Ottomans to the west, or they were coveted by the powerful kingdoms of Poland and Hungary for the important resources on their territory, Moldova and Wallachia fought a constant struggle to maintain independence or at least territorial integrity. Numerous foreign travelers or diplomats, participants or mere witnesses to the wars in the Balkans in the Middle Ages, wrote about how the Wallachians behaved on the battlefield.

There is a collection with many volumes called "Foreign Travelers" in which the impressions of these foreign people are gathered (for example: the chronicler Jan Dlugosz, the Venetian doctor Matteo Muriano, the Italian scholar Antonio Maria Graziani, the writer Anton Verancsics). The Wallachians were really busy.

On the Romanian territory, the printing press was introduced short after 1500. In Târgovişte, the capital of Wallachia, hieromonk Macarie began his printing activity, supported by the ruler Radu the Great (1495-1508). The first printed book was in 1508, The Liturgy, but written in Slavonic, the official (written) language at that time in Moldavia and Wallachia.
By the way, according to the studies of several Western scientists, the first form of writing includes the tablets from Tărtăria (Alba Iulia, Romania). Appeared 7,500 years ago, the writing of this culture is 2,000 years older than the Sumerian one.


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## Penyafort

Zareza said:


> On the Romanian territory, the printing press was introduced short after 1500. In Târgovişte, the capital of Wallachia, hieromonk Macarie began his printing activity, supported by the ruler Radu the Great (1495-1508). The first printed book was in 1508, The Liturgy, but written in Slavonic, the official (written) language at that time in Moldavia and Wallachia.


Very interesting. Here in the Iberian Peninsula, many of the first written texts were just a few scattered words here and there along texts written in the 'official' written language at the time, obviously Latin. But they did it for the people to understand what they probably regarded as the most difficult words or expressions. Perhaps I expected something similar in Romanian, but not everything has to have an equivalent everywhere, of course.


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## clamor

KalAlbè said:


> In Haitian Creole the first written sentence comes from a poem written in 1757. I'll include the first stanza:
> 
> Lisette quitté la plaine
> Moin pèdi bonhè moué;
> Zié moin semblé fontaine.
> Dépi moin pas miré toué.
> Le jou quand moin coupé canne
> Moin chongé zanmou moué;
> La nouit quand moin dans cabane,
> Dans dromi, moin quimbé toué.


Has the language changed much since that epoch?


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## clamor

Traditionaly this is considered the first sentence written in Armenian in Armenian script. It dates back from the 5th Century, and it's the translation of the Book of Proverbs (1:2).

*Ճանաչել զիմաստութիւն եւ զխրատ, իմանալ զբանս հանճարոյ:*


It's understandable to Modern Armenian speakers with some knowledge of Classical grammar.


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## Ben Jamin

Zareza said:


> For this reason also the Romanian is a rich language.


This was not the meaning of my comment. I meant  that a speaker of a Slavic language can also understand a good deal of the rest of the document, contrary to what was written in the thread.


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## KalAlbè

clamor said:


> Has the language changed much since that epoch?


Sure. Just a few changes would be more anglicisms, and the article is placed after the noun e.g. _Nwit la._


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