When did Language Start?
15,000 B.C. – Lesaux, France Cavedrawings. Historians
date them to be from around 15,000 B.C.
6,000 B.C. – Proto-Indo-European language develops.
Sixty Romance, Slavic, Celtic, Indo-Iranian, Germanic and Hellenic languages
are all thought to have evolved from this one language. They are the first
languages for about a third of all people.
5,000 B.C. –The first writing appears in Sumer. It
evolves into the wedge-shaped writing style called cuneiform. Cuneiform was
originally used to record things like trade.
3,400 B.C. – The Egyptians are using hieroglyphics and
hieratic writing. Hieratic writing is a quick, cursive style of hieroglyphics.
3,000 B.C. – The Proto-Indo-European language is
spreading out to Europe and Asia where other groups of languages will
eventually evolve.
2,000 B.C. – The Greek language appears around this
time. In Egypt, an early alphabetic writing was invented by Semitic laborers.
1,600 B.C. – The Phoenicians develop a phonetic
alphabet.
1,200 B.C. – Chinese writing develops and is very
complex. Writing is found on oracle bones. These are found in 1899 and explain
much about Chinese culture.
800 B.C. – Egyptians use demotic writing. It’s a
developed version of hieratic writing, much more like handwriting. Looking at
it, you can hardly tell that it had evolved all the way from hieroglyphics.
500 B.C. – Classical Chinese is written on bamboo
strips, cloth, and wooden tables.
400 B.C. – The
first real grammar is used in India in a document on the structure of the
Sanskrit language.
400 B.C. – The
Qin script is made the main writing of China by the first emperor of the Qin
dynasty. Previously, many different dialects of Chinese were used.
200 B.C. – The Tolkappiyam is written to explain the
grammar of the Tamil language. It introduces ideas of separating words into
verbs and nouns and talks about the alphabet having vowels and consonants.
200 B.C. – The Roman Empire conquers all of Italy,
almost all of Europe, and some of Africa and Asia. This directly results in the
development of the Romance languages – Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese,
and Romanian.
179 B.C. – The Rosetta stone is written and has three
languages written on it – Greek, Demotic, and Hieroglyphics. It has the same
paragraph written in all three languages and was later used to decode Egyptian
hieroglyphics.
1370 A.D. – The Bible is translated into English. This
made it possible for the common people to be able to read it.
1456 A.D. – The first printing press is invented in
Germany by Johann Gutenberg. This makes books much more available increasing
literacy.
1755 A.D. – The
Dictionary of the English Language is written by Samuel Johnson. It gives
standardized spelling to the English Language.
1799 A.D. – The Rosetta stone is found in Egypt by the
French. By using the Greek on it, they are able to translate the hieroglyphics
and demotic writing on it.
1880 A.D. – Dr. Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof develops
Esperanto, a universal language that he hopes will create harmony between
people from different countries.
1916 A. D. – Ferdinand de Saussure, a French linguist,
writes A Course in General Linguistics. He theorizes that language is a
socially organized structure of meanings and rules.
1936 A.D. – The British philosopher A. J. Ayer writes
Language, Truth, and Logic. He states that language is shared knowledge and
confirmed through experience.
2000 A.D. – Languages from around the world start
disappearing at an alarming rate. Some experts estimate as rapidly as one every
2 weeks.
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Galambos, Imre. “Origins of Chinese Writing.”
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<http://www.putlearningfirst.com/language/01origin/prehist.html>.
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