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  2. Evolution of languages - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_languages

    The highly diverse Nilo-Saharan languages, first proposed as a family by Joseph Greenberg in 1963 might have originated in the Upper Paleolithic. [1] Given the presence of a tripartite number system in modern Nilo-Saharan languages, linguist N.A. Blench inferred a noun classifier in the proto-language, distributed based on water courses in the Sahara during the "wet period" of the Neolithic ...

  3. List of languages by time of extinction - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_time...

    For many languages which have become extinct in recent centuries, ... 12 speakers were reported in 1992. by 2000: Central Pomo: Pomoan ... There were 20 speakers in 1904.

  4. Glottochronology - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottochronology

    Glottochronology tracks language separation from thousands of years ago but many linguists are skeptical of the concept because it is more of a 'probability' rather than a 'certainty.' On the other hand, some linguists may say that glottochronology is gaining traction because of its relatedness to archaeological dates.

  5. List of languages by total number of speakers - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total...

    Most spoken languages, Ethnologue, 2024 [4] Language Family Branch First-language (L1) speakers Second-language (L2) speakers Total speakers (L1+L2) English (excl. creole languages) Indo-European: Germanic: 380 million 1.135 billion 1.515 billion Mandarin Chinese (incl. Standard Chinese, but excl. other varieties) Sino-Tibetan: Sinitic: 941 ...

  6. Origin of language - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language

    The time range for the evolution of language or its anatomical prerequisites extends, at least in principle, from the phylogenetic divergence of Homo (2.3 to 2.4 million years ago) from Pan (5 to 6 million years ago) to the emergence of full behavioral modernity some 50,000–150,000 years ago.

  7. List of languages by first written account - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_first...

    A date prior to 1175 has been proposed for the Pacto dos Irmãos Pais. [146] 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). Some scholars believe that the language of the Szarvas inscription (8th century) is Old Hungarian.

  8. List of time periods - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_time_periods

    The dates for each age can vary by region. On the geologic time scale , the Holocene epoch starts at the end of the last glacial period of the current ice age (c. 10,000 BC) and continues to the present.

  9. History of linguistics - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_linguistics

    Linguistics is the scientific study of language, [1] involving analysis of language form, language meaning, and language in context. [2]Language use was first systematically documented in Mesopotamia, with extant lexical lists of the 3rd to the 2nd Millennia BCE, offering glossaries on Sumerian cuneiform usage and meaning, and phonetical vocabularies of foreign languages.