List of languages by first written account

Writing first appeared in the Near East at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. A very limited number of languages are attested in the area from before the Bronze Age collapse and the rise of alphabetic writing:

• the Sumerian, Hattic and Elamite language isolates,
• Hurrian from the small Hurro-Urartian family,
• Afro-Asiatic in the form of the Egyptian and Semitic languages and
• Indo-European (Anatolian languages and Mycenaean Greek).

In East Asia towards the end of the second millennium BC, the Sino-Tibetan family was represented by Old Chinese.

There are also a number of undeciphered Bronze Age records:

• the Proto-Elamite script
• the Indus script (speculated to record a "Harappan language")
• Cretan hieroglyphs and Linear A (encoding a possible "Minoan language")^[4]
• the Cypro-Minoan syllabary^[5]

Earlier symbols, such as the Jiahu symbols, Vinča symbols and the marks on the Dispilio Tablet, are believed to be proto-writing, rather than representations of language.

• 
  Seal impression from the tomb of Seth-Peribsen, containing the oldest known complete sentence in Egyptian, c. 2690 BC^[6]
• 
  Letter in Sumerian cuneiform sent by the high-priest Lu'enna, informing the king of Lagash of his son's death in battle, c. 2400 BC^[31]
• 
  Greek Linear B tablet from Pylos, recording the distribution of hides, c. 1200 BC
• 
  Ox scapula inscribed with three records of divinations in the reign of Wu Ding of the Chinese Shang dynasty, c. 1200 BC

The earliest known alphabetic inscriptions, at Serabit el-Khadim (c. 1500 BC), appear to record a Northwest Semitic language, though only one or two words have been deciphered.In the Early Iron Age, alphabetic writing spread across the Near East and southern Europe. With the emergence of the Brahmic family of scripts, languages of India are attested from after about 300 BC.

There is only fragmentary evidence for languages such as Iberian, Tartessian, Galatian and Messapian.^[32]The North Picene language of the Novilara Stele from c. 600 BC has not been deciphered.^[33]The few brief inscriptions in Thracian dating from the 6th and 5th centuries BC have not been conclusively deciphered.^[34]The earliest examples of the Central American Isthmian script date from c. 500 BC, but a proposed decipherment remains controversial.^[35]

From Late Antiquity, we have for the first time languages with earliest records in manuscript tradition (as opposed to epigraphy). Thus, Classical Armenian is first attested in the Armenian Bible translation.

The Vimose inscriptions (2nd and 3rd centuries) in the Elder Futhark runic alphabet appear to record Proto-Norse names. Some scholars interpret the Negau helmet inscription (c. 100 BC) as a Germanic fragment.

Attestation by major language family:

• Afro-Asiatic: since about the 27th century BC
  • 27th century BC: Egyptian
  • 24th century BC: Semitic (Eblaite, Akkadian)
  • 7th century AD: Cushitic (Beja)
• Hurro-Urartian: c. 21st century BC
• Indo-European: since about the 17th century BC
  • 17th century BC: Anatolian (Hittite)
  • 15th century BC: Greek
  • 7th century BC: Italic (Latin)
  • 6th century BC: Celtic (Lepontic)
  • c. 500 BC: Iranian (Old Persian)
  • c. 260 BC: Indo-Aryan (Ashokan Prakrit)
  • 4th century AD: Germanic (Gothic)
  • 4th century AD: Tocharian (Tocharian B)
  • 4th century AD: Armenian (Classical Armenian)
  • 10th century AD: Balto-Slavic (Old Church Slavonic)
• Sino-Tibetan: c. 1250 BC
  • c. 1250 BC: Old Chinese
  • 8th century AD: Tibeto-Burman (Tibetan)
• Dravidian: c. 200 BC (Tamil)
• Mayan: 3rd century AD
• Austronesian: 4th century AD (Cham)
• South Caucasian: 5th century (Georgian)
• Northeast Caucasian: 7th century (Udi)
• Austroasiatic: 7th century (Khmer)
• Turkic: 8th century (Old Turkic)
• Japonic: 8th century
• Nilo-Saharan: 8th century (Old Nubian)
• Basque: c. 1000
• Uralic: 12th century
  • 12th century: Hungarian
  • c. 1200: Finnic
  • 14th century: Permic (Komi)
• Mongolic: 13th century (Possibly related Khitan language: 10th century)
• Kra–Dai: 13th century (Thai)
• Uto-Aztecan: 16th century (Classical Nahuatl)
• Quechuan: 16th century
• Niger–Congo (Bantu): 16th century (Kikongo)
• Northwest Caucasian: 17th century (Abkhaz, Adyghe, Ubykh)
• Indigenous Australian languages: 18th century
• Iroquoian: 19th century (Cherokee)
• Hmong-Mien: 20th century

• Ancient text corpora
• History of writing
• List of writing systems
• Undeciphered writing systems
• Origin of language
• Ancient literature § Incomplete list of ancient texts
• List of oldest documents

Notes

Works cited

• Bagley, Robert (1999), "Shang Archaeology", in Loewe, Michael; Shaughnessy, Edward L. (eds.), The Cambridge History of Ancient China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 124–231, ISBN 978-0-521-47030-8.
• Baldi, Philip (2002), The Foundations of Latin, Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-017208-9.
• Keightley, David N. (1999), "The Shang: China's first historical dynasty", in Loewe, Michael; Shaughnessy, Edward L. (eds.), The Cambridge History of Ancient China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 232–291, ISBN 978-0-521-47030-8.
• Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju (2003), The Dravidian Languages, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-77111-5.
• Macdonald, M. C. A. (2000), "Reflections on the linguistic map of pre-Islamic Arabia", Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, 11 (1): 28–79, doi:10.1111/j.1600-0471.2000.aae110106.x.
• Olivier, J.-P. (1986), "Cretan Writing in the Second Millennium B.C", World Archaeology, 17 (3): 377–389, doi:10.1080/00438243.1986.9979977.
• Pollock, Sheldon (2003), The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India, University of California Press, ISBN 978-0-520-24500-6.
• Woodard, Roger D. (2008), "Language in ancient Europe: an introduction", in Woodard, Roger D. (ed.), The Ancient Languages of Europe, Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–13, ISBN 978-0-521-68495-8.
• Woods, Christopher, ed. (2010), Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond (PDF), Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, ISBN 978-1-885923-76-9, archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-08-26, retrieved 2014-02-23.