List of languages by first written accounts

This is a list of languages arranged by the approximate dates of the oldest existing texts recording a complete sentence in the language. It does not include undeciphered scripts, though there are various claims without wide acceptance, which, if substantiated, would push backward the first attestation of certain languages. It also does not include inscriptions consisting of isolated words or names from a language.

A written record may encode a stage of a language corresponding to an earlier time, either as a result of oral tradition, or because the earliest source is a copy of an older manuscript that was lost. An oral tradition of epic poetry may typically bridge a few centuries, and in rare cases, over a millennium. An extreme case is the Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda: the earliest parts of this text may date to c. 1500 BC, while the oldest known manuscript dates to the 11th century AD, a gap of over 2,500 years. Similarly the oldest Avestan texts, the Gathas, are believed to have been composed before 1000 BC, but the oldest Avestan manuscripts date from the 13th century AD.

Because of the way languages change gradually, it is usually impossible to pinpoint when a given language began to be spoken. In many cases, some form of the language had already been spoken (and even written) considerably earlier than the dates of the earliest extant samples provided here.

For languages that have developed out of a known predecessor, dates provided here are subject to conventional terminology. For example, Old French developed gradually out of Vulgar Latin, and the Oaths of Strasbourg (842) listed are the earliest text that is classified as "Old French". Similarly, Danish and Swedish separated from common Old East Norse in the 12th century, while Norwegian separated from Old West Norse around 1300.

Before 1000 BC

Further information: Bronze Age writing

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, Hurrian, Hattic and Elamite language isolates,
• 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:

• Proto-Elamite script and Linear Elamite
• the Indus script (claimed to record a "Harappan language")
• Cretan hieroglyphs and Linear A (encoding a possible "Minoan language")
• the Cypro-Minoan syllabary

Date	Language	Attestation	Notes
c. 2690 BC	Egyptian	Egyptian hieroglyphs in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen (2nd Dynasty), Umm el-Qa'ab	"proto-hieroglyphic" inscriptions from about 3300 BC (Naqada III; see Abydos, Egypt, Narmer Palette)
26th century BC	Sumerian	Instructions of Shuruppak, the Kesh temple hymn and other cuneiform texts from Shuruppak and Abu Salabikh (Fara period)	"proto-literate" period from about 3500 BC (see Kish tablet); administrative records at Uruk and Ur from c. 2900 BC.
c. 2400 BC	Akkadian	A few dozen pre-Sargonic texts from Mari and other sites in northern Babylonia	Some proper names attested in Sumerian texts at Tell Harmal from about 2800 BC. Fragments of the Legend of Etana at Tell Harmal c. 2600 BC.
c. 2400 BC	Eblaite	Ebla tablets
c. 2250 BC	Elamite	Awan dynasty peace treaty with Naram-Sin
21st century BC	Hurrian	Temple inscription of Tish-atal in Urkesh
c. 1700 BC	Hittite	Anitta text in Hittite cuneiform	Isolated Hittite words and names occur in Assyrian texts found at Kültepe, from the 19th century BC.
16th century BC	Palaic	Hittite texts CTH 751–754
c. 1450 BC	Mycenaean Greek	Linear B tablet archive from Knossos	These are mostly administrative lists, with some complete sentences.
c. 1400 BC	Luwian	Hieroglyphic Luwian monumental inscriptions, Cuneiform Luwian tablets in the Hattusa archives	Isolated hieroglyphs appear on seals from the 18th century BC.
c. 1400 BC	Hattic	Hittite texts CTH 725–745
c. 1300 BC	Ugaritic	Tablets from Ugarit	see Ugaritic alphabet
c. 1200 BC	Old Chinese	Oracle bone and bronze inscriptions from the reign of Wu Ding

• 

  Seal impression from the tomb of Seth-Peribsen, containing the oldest known complete sentence in Egyptian, c. 2690 BC

• 

  Letter in Sumerian cuneiform sent by the high-priest Lu'enna, informing him the king of Lagash of his son's death in battle, c. 2400 BC

• 

  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

First millennium BC

The Ahiram epitaph is the earliest substantial inscription in Phoenician.

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, Thracian and Messapian. The North Picene language of the Novilara Stele from c. 600 BC has not been deciphered. The earliest examples of the Central American Isthmian script date from c. 500 BC, but a proposed decipherment remains controversial.

Date	Language	Attestation	Notes
c. 1000 BC	Phoenician	Ahiram epitaph
10th century BC	Aramaic	royal inscriptions from Aramean city-states
10th century BC	Disputed: Phoenician or Hebrew	Gezer calendar
c. 850 BC	Ammonite	Amman Citadel Inscription
c. 840 BC	Moabite	Mesha Stele
c. 800 BC	Phrygian	Paleo-Phrygian inscriptions at Gordion
c. 800 BC	Old North Arabian
c. 800 BC	Old South Arabian
c. 700 BC	Etruscan	proto-Corinthian vase found at Tarquinia
7th century BC	Latin	Vetusia Inscription and Fibula Praenestina
c. 600 BC	Umbrian
c. 600 BC	Lepontic
c. 600 BC	Lydian	inscriptions from Sardis
c. 600 BC	Carian	inscriptions from Caria and Egypt
c. 600 BC	Faliscan	Ceres inscription found at Falerii
c. 550 BC	South Picene	Warrior of Capestrano
late 6th century BC	Venetic	inscriptions at Este
c. 500 BC	Old Persian	Behistun inscription
c. 500 BC	Gaulish
c. 400 BC	Oscan
3rd century BC	Volscian	Tabula Veliterna
c. 260 BC	Middle Indo-Aryan (Prakrit)	Edicts of Ashoka	Pottery inscriptions from Anuradhapura have been dated c. 400 BC.
c. 200 BC	Tamil	cave inscriptions and potsherds in Tamil Nadu
2nd century BC	Meroitic	graffiti on the temple of Amun at Dukki Gel, near Kerma
c. 100 BC	Celtiberian	Botorrita plaques
1st century BC	Parthian	ostraca at Nisa and Qumis

First millennium AD

From Late Antiquity, we have for the first time languages with earliest records in manuscript tradition (as opposed to epigraphy). Thus, Old 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.

Date	Language	Attestation	Notes
c. 150	Bactrian	Rabatak inscription
c. 150	Sanskrit	Junagadh rock inscription of Rudradaman I
c. 292	Mayan	Stela 29 from Tikal	A brief undeciphered inscription at San Bartolo is dated to the 3rd century BC.
c. 312–313	Sogdian	Ancient Letters, found near Dunhuang
c. 328	Arabic	Namara inscription
c. 350	Ge'ez	inscriptions of Ezana of Aksum
c. 350	Cham	Đông Yên Châu inscription found near Tra Kiêu
4th century	Gothic	Gothic Bible, translated by Wulfila	A few problematic Gothic runic inscriptions may date to the early 4th century.
c. 430	Georgian	Bir El Qutt inscriptions
c. 450	Kannada	Halmidi inscription	Kavirajamarga (c. 850) is the oldest literary work.
late 5th century	Armenian	Inscription at the Tekor Basilica	Saint Mesrob Mashtots is traditionally held to have translated an Armenian Bible in 434.
c. 510	Old Dutch	Formula for freeing a serf in the Malbergse Glossen on the Salic law	A word in the mid-5th century Bergakker inscription yields the oldest evidence of Dutch morphology, but there is no consensus on the interpretation of the rest of the text.
6th century	Tocharian	manuscripts from Kucha, Karasahr and Dunhuang	Some Tocharian names and words have been found in Prakrit documents from Krorän dated c. 300 AD.
second half of 6th century	Old High German	Pforzen buckle
c. 575	Telugu	Erragudipadu inscription	Telugu place names are found in Prakrit inscriptions from the 2nd century AD.
c. 591	Korean	Sinseong (新城) Stele in Namsan (Gyeongju)
c. 611	Khmer	Angkor Borei inscription
c. 650	Tibetan	Tibetan Annals
c. 650–700	Old Udi	Sinai palimpsest M13
c. 683	Old Malay	Kedukan Bukit Inscription
7th century	Beja	ostracon from Saqqara
late 7th century	Pyu	Hpayahtaung funeral urn inscription of kings of Sri Ksetra
c. 700	Old English	runic inscription on the Franks Casket	The Undley bracteate (5th century) and West Heslerton brooch (c. 650) have fragmentary runic inscriptions.
c. 711–712	Japanese	poems in the Kojiki
c. 732	Old Turkic	Orkhon inscriptions
c. 750	Old Irish	Würzburg glosses	Primitive Irish Ogham inscriptions from the 4th century consist of personal names, patronymics and/or clan names.
c. 750	Persian
c. 750–900	Old Frisian	Westeremden yew-stick
c. 769	Old Hindi	Dohakosh by Saraha
late 8th century	Breton	Praecepta medica (Leyden, Codex Vossianus Lat. F. 96 A)	A botanical manuscript in Latin and Breton
c. 800	Old Norse	runic inscriptions
c. 804	Javanese	initial part of the Sukabumi inscription
9th century	Malayalam	Rajasekhara inscription at Vazhappally Maha Siva Temple	Ramacaritam (12th century) is the oldest literary work.
9th century	Welsh	Cadfan Stone (Tywyn 2)
c. 842	Old French	Oaths of Strasbourg
c. 862	Old Church Slavonic	religious literature translated by Cyril and Methodius	Developed in the Preslav Literary School and Ohrid Literary School, the two major cultural centres of the Bulgarian Empire.
c. 882	Balinese	dated royal inscription
c. 900	Old Occitan	Tomida femina
c. 959–974	Leonese	Nodicia de Kesos
c. 960–963	Italian	Placiti Cassinesi	The Veronese Riddle (c. 800) is considered a mixture of Italian and Latin.
c. 986	Khitan	Memorial for Yelü Yanning
late 10th century	Marathi	inscription on Bahubali statue at Shravanabelagola

1000–1500 AD

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Date	Language	Attestation	Notes
c. 972–1093	Slovene	Freising manuscripts
c. 1000	Old East Slavic	Novgorod Codex
c. 1000	Basque, Aragonese and Spanish	Glosas Emilianenses	Alleged finds of c. 300 Basque inscriptions at Iruña-Veleia have been exposed as a forgery.
c. 1028	Catalan	Jurament Feudal
c. 1050	Middle High German		by convention
c. 1066	Middle English		by convention
11th century	Mozarabic	kharjas appended to Arabic and Hebrew poems	Isolated words are found in glossaries from the 8th century.
c. 1100	Croatian	Baška tablet
c. 1100	Danish		by convention
c. 1100	Ossetian	Zelančuk inscription
c. 1100	Swedish		by convention; the Rök Stone (c. 9th century) is often cited as the beginning of Swedish literature
c. 1106	Irish	Lebor na hUidre ("Book of the Dun Cow")
c. 1113	Burmese	Myazedi inscription
c. 1114	Newari	palm-leaf manuscript from Uku Bahah
c. 1160–1170	Middle Dutch	Het Leven van Sint Servaes ("Life of Saint Servatius") by Heinrich von Veldeke
c. 1175	Galician-Portuguese	Pacto dos Irmãos Pais and A Notícia de Fiadores	The will of Afonso II of Portugal, dated 1214, is often cited as the first document written in Portuguese.
c. 1186–1190	Serbian	Miroslav Gospel
c. 1189	Bosnian	Charter of Ban Kulin
c. 1192	Old Hungarian	Funeral Sermon and Prayer	There are isolated fragments in earlier charters such as the charter of Veszprém (c. 1000) and the charter of Tihany (1055).
c. 1200	Finnic	Birch bark letter no. 292	Finnish proper: 1543, Abckiria.
c. 1200–1230	Czech	founding charter of the Litoměřice chapter
c. 1224–1225	Mongolian	Genghis stone
early 13th century	Punjabi	poetry of Fariduddin Ganjshakar
early 13th century	Cornish	prophesy in the cartulary of Glasney College	A 9th century gloss in De Consolatione Philosophiae by Boethius: ud rocashaas is controversially interpreted.
c. 1250	Kashmiri	Mahanayakaprakash ("Light of the supreme lord") by Shitikantha
c. 1270	Old Polish	Book of Henryków
c. 1272	Yiddish	blessing in the Worms mahzor
c. 1274	Western Lombard	Libro de le tre scritture, by Bonvesin de la Riva
c. 1292	Thai	Ramkhamhaeng stele	Some scholars argue that the stele is a forgery.
13th century	Tigrinya	a text of laws found in Logosarda
c. 1300	Old Norwegian
c. 1300	Batak
c. 1350	Oghuz Turkic (including Azeri and Ottoman Turkish)	Imadaddin Nasimi
c. 1369	Old Prussian	Basel Epigram
c. 1372	Komi	Abur inscriptions
c. 1440	Vietnamese	Quốc âm thi tập	Isolated names in Chữ nôm date from the early 13th century.
c. 1462	Albanian	Formula e Pagëzimit, a baptismal formula in a letter of Archbishop Pal Engjëll	Some scholars interpret a few lines in the Bellifortis text (1405) as Albanian.
c. 1470	Maltese	Il Cantilena
c. 1470s	Early Modern English		by convention
c. 1485	Yi	bronze bell inscription in Dafang County, Guizhou
15th century	Tulu	inscriptions in an adaptation of Malayam script

After 1500

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Date	Language	Attestation	Notes
c. 1503	Lithuanian	Hand-written Lord's Prayer, Hail Mary and Creed	Katekizmas (1547) by Martynas Mažvydas was the first printed book in Lithuanian.
c. 1521	Romanian	Neacșu's Letter	The Cyrillic orthographic manual of Constantin Kostentschi from 1420 documents earlier written usage. Four 16th century documents, namely Codicele Voronetean, Psaltirea Scheiana, Psaltirea Hurmuzachi and Psaltirea Voroneteana, are arguably copies of 15th century originals.
c. 1530	Latvian	Nicholas Ramm's translation of a hymn
c. 1535	Estonian	Wanradt-Koell catechism
c. 1536	Modern Portuguese	Grammatica da lingoagem portuguesa by Fernão de Oliveira.	by convention.
c. 1543	Modern Finnish	Abckiria by Mikael Agricola.
c. 1550	Classical Nahuatl	Doctrina cristiana en lengua española y mexicana	The Breve y mas compendiosa doctrina cristiana en lengua mexicana y castellana (1539) was possibly the first printed book in the New World. No copies are known to exist today.
c. 1550	Standard Dutch	Statenbijbel	The Statenbijbel is commonly accepted to be the start of Standard Dutch, but various experiments were performed around 1550 in Flanders and Brabant. Although none proved to be lasting they did create a semi-standard and many formed the base for the Statenbijbel.
c. 1554	Wastek	A grammar by Andrés de Olmos
c. 1557	Kikongo	A catechism
c. 1561	Old Ukrainian	Peresopnytsia Gospel
c. 1593	Tagalog	Doctrina Cristiana
c. 1600	Buginese
c. 1610	Manx	Book of Common Prayer
c. 1639	Guarani	Tesoro de la lengua guaraní by Antonio Ruíz de Montoya
c. 1650	Ubykh, Abkhaz, Adyghe and Mingrelian	Travel Book of Evliya Çelebi
c. 1651	Pashto	copy of Xayru 'l-bayān in the library of the University of Tübingen	The Pata Khazana, purporting to date from the 8th century, is considered by most scholars to be a forgery.
c. 1693	Tunisian Arabic	Copy of a Tunisian poem written by Sheykh Hassan el-Karray	Before 1700, lyrics of songs were not written in Tunisian Arabic but in Classical Arabic. Even though Tunisian Arabic existed before, it was only used orally.
c. 1695	Seri	Grammar and vocabulary compiled by Adamo Gilg	No longer known to exist.
c. 1728	Swahili	Utendi wa Tambuka
c. 1736	Greenlandic	Grönländische Grammatica by Paul Egede	A poor-quality wordlist was recorded by John Davis in 1586.
c. 1743	Chinese Pidgin English	sentence recorded in Macau by George Anson
c. 1800	Inuktitut	"Eskimo Grammar" by Moravian missionaries	A list of 17 words was recorded in 1576 by Christopher Hall, an assistant to Martin Frobisher.
c. 1806	Tswana	Heinrich Lictenstein – Upon the Language of the Beetjuana	First complete Bible translation in 1857 by Robert Moffat
c. 1819	Cherokee		Sequoyah's Cherokee syllabary
c. 1820	Maori	Grammar by Thomas Kendall and Samuel Lee	Kendal began compiling wordlists in 1814.
c. 1820	Aleut	Description by Rasmus Rask	A short word list was collected by James King in 1778.
c. 1823	Xhosa	John Bennie's Xhosa reading sheet	Complete Bible translation 1859
c. 1833	Vai		Vai syllabary created by Momolu Duwalu Bukele.
c. 1833	Sotho	Reduced to writing by French missionaries Casalis and Arbousset	First grammar book 1841 and complete Bible translation 1881
c. 1837	Zulu	First written publication Incwadi Yokuqala Yabafundayo	First grammar book 1859 and complete Bible translation 1883
c. 1844	Afrikaans	Letters by Louis Henri Meurant (published in Eastern Cape newspaper – South Africa)	Followed by Muslim texts written in Afrikaans using Arabic alphabet in 1856. Spelling rules published in 1874. Complete Bible published 1933.
c. 1851	Sakha (Yakut)	Über die Sprache der Jakuten, a grammar by Otto von Böhtlingk	Wordlists were included in Noord en Oost Tartarije (1692) by Nicolaas Witsen and Das Nord-und Ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia (1730) by Philip Johan von Strahlenberg.
c. 1856	Gamilaraay	Articles by William Ridley	Basic vocabulary collected by Thomas Mitchell in 1832.
c. 1872	Venda	Reduced to writing by the Berlin Missionaries	First complete Bible translation 1936
c. 1882	Mirandese	O dialecto mirandez by José Leite de Vasconcelos	The same author also published the first book written in Mirandese: Flores mirandezas (1884)
c. 1885	Carrier	Barkerville Jail Text, written in pencil on a board in the then recently created Carrier syllabics	Although the first known text by native speakers dates to 1885, the first record of the language is a list of words recorded in 1793 by Alexander MacKenzie.
c. 1885	Motu	Grammar by W.G. Lawes
c. 1891	Galela	grammatical sketch by M.J. van Baarda
c. 1893	Oromo	Translation of the New Testament by Onesimos Nesib, assisted by Aster Ganno
c. 1901	Guugu Yimithirr	Description by Walter Roth	Several words were recorded by James Cook's crew in 1770.
c. 1903	Lingala
c. 1940	Kamoro	materials by Peter Drabbe	A Kamoro wordlist recorded in 1828 by Modera and Müller, passengers on a Dutch ship, is the oldest record of any of the Papuan languages.
c. 1968	Southern Ndebele	Small booklet published with praises of their kings and a little history	Translation of the New Testament of the Bible completed in 1986 – translation of Old Testament ongoing
c. 1982	Gooniyandi	survey by William McGregor

By family

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–14th century BC: Greek
  • 7th century BC: Italic
  • 6th century BC: Celtic
  • 6th century BC: Indo-Iranian
  • 4th century AD: Germanic
  • 9th century AD: Balto-Slavic
• Sino-Tibetan: c. 1200 BC
  • roughly 1200 BC: Old Chinese
  • 7th century AD: Tibeto-Burman (Tibetan)
• Dravidian: c. 200 BC
• Mayan: 3rd century AD
• Austronesian: 4th century AD
• 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: 10th century
• Uralic: 11th century
  • 12th century: Ugric (Hungarian)
  • 13th century: Finnic
• Mongolic: 13th century (apparently related Khitan language: 10th century)
• Tai–Kadai: 13th century
• Uto-Aztecan: 16th century
• Quechuan: 16th century
• Niger–Congo (Bantu): 16th century
• Northwest Caucasian: 17th century (Abkhaz, Adyghe, Ubykh)
• Indigenous Australian languages: 19th century
• Iroquoian: 19th century
• Hmong-Mien: 20th century
• Papuan languages: 20th century

Constructed languages

Further information: constructed language

Date	Language	Attestation	Notes
1879	Volapük		created by Johann Martin Schleyer
1887	Esperanto	Unua Libro	created by L. L. Zamenhof
1907	Ido		based on Esperanto
1917	Quenya		created by J. R. R. Tolkien
1928	Novial		created by Otto Jespersen
1935	Sona	Sona, an auxiliary neutral language	created by Kenneth Searight
1943	Interglossa	Later became Glosa	created by Lancelot Hogben
1951	Interlingua	Interlingua-English Dictionary	created by the International Auxiliary Language Association
1955	Loglan		created by James Cooke Brown
1985	Klingon		created by Marc Okrand
1987	Lojban		based on Loglan, created by the Logical Language Group
2005–6	Na'vi		created by Dr. Paul Frommer and James Cameron
2009	Dothraki		created by George R. R. Martin and David J. Peterson for Game of Thrones

See also

• History of writing
• List of writing systems
• Undeciphered writing systems

References

Notes

Works cited