6 of the world’s oldest languages

Written language emerged only thousands of years after humans began speaking. Some of the earliest surviving records come from ancient civilisations in Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Middle East, while languages such as Tamil have continued to be spoken into the modern era. Here are six of the world's oldest languages with significant early written records. (wikimedia commons)

Eblaite: Eblaite was spoken in the ancient city of Ebla in what is now Syria. Thousands of cuneiform tablets discovered in the 1960s provided substantial evidence for the language, which flourished around 2500–2250 BCE. It appears to have been particularly important among government officials and educated people, and its relationship to other ancient Semitic languages remains a subject of scholarly discussion. (wikimedia commons)

Akkadian: Akkadian emerged in Mesopotamia and was written using a version of the cuneiform system borrowed from the Sumerians. Written evidence dates back to the third millennium BCE. It became an important language of Babylonian and Assyrian civilisation and was used for everything from legal documents and correspondence to major literary works, including the Epic of Gilgamesh. (wikimedia commons)

Egyptian: Ancient Egyptian was being written by around 3200 BCE, making it roughly contemporary with the earliest Sumerian records. Its hieroglyphic system used different types of signs to represent words, sounds and meanings. Egyptian writing appeared on monuments, tombs, pottery and papyrus, and eventually developed into different scripts, including the faster hieratic form used for everyday and administrative purposes. (wikimedia commons)

Elamite: Elamite was spoken in the ancient kingdom of Elam, located largely in present-day Iran. Its history stretches from around 2600 BCE to 330 BCE, with surviving written evidence including inscriptions and administrative records. One particularly notable early example is a treaty between Elam and the Akkadian Empire, dating to around 2275–2250 BCE. Elamite eventually disappeared as Persian influence expanded across the region. (wikimedia commons)

Sumerian: Sumerian is generally considered one of the oldest languages with a known written record. Its earliest surviving texts date to around 3200 BCE in southern Mesopotamia, in present-day Iraq. The Sumerians used cuneiform, a system of wedge-shaped marks that evolved from administrative records into a sophisticated way of recording language and literature. Sumerian eventually ceased to be a spoken language but continued to be studied and used by scribes for centuries. (wikimedia commons)

Tamil: Tamil's exact origins remain debated, but it has an exceptionally long literary history and is still spoken today. The HistoryFacts reference notes that some scholars have proposed a very early date for the Tolkāppiyam, while archaeologists can confidently date written Tamil to around the fifth century BCE. Unlike many ancient languages, Tamil has survived as a major living language and is an official language of both Sri Lanka and Singapore. (wikimedia commons)