* No Written Records: The earliest languages were spoken and had no written form. This means we have no direct evidence of their existence or structure.
* Evolution, Not Invention: Languages don't appear overnight. They evolve over time, with changes happening gradually through generations. It's more accurate to think of language families branching and developing over thousands of years, rather than distinct "invention" points.
* Common Ancestry: All languages are ultimately related, sharing a common ancestor that existed tens of thousands of years ago. Tracing the exact lines of descent back to this proto-language is incredibly complex and often speculative.
What we do know:
* Deep History: Linguistic studies have established that language families, like Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic, have roots dating back thousands of years.
* Linguistic Reconstruction: By comparing modern languages and using sound changes and other linguistic tools, scholars can reconstruct the features of earlier languages, giving us glimpses into the past.
Instead of a strict order, we can talk about language families and their estimated timelines:
* Proto-Indo-European (PIE): Estimated to have been spoken around 4500-2500 BCE. This is the ancestor of many languages spoken in Europe, South Asia, and parts of the Middle East.
* Proto-Sino-Tibetan: Estimated to have been spoken around 4000-3000 BCE. This is the ancestor of Chinese, Tibetan, and many other languages in East Asia.
* Proto-Afro-Asiatic: Estimated to have been spoken around 10,000-15,000 BCE. This is the ancestor of languages like Arabic, Hebrew, and Berber.
It's important to remember that these are estimated timelines based on linguistic evidence and are subject to change as research progresses.