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The Oldest Words in Existence
Words are the building blocks of language, the medium we use to express ideas and communicate with one another. Words vary quite a bit from language to language, and today, there are over 6,000 unique languages spoken worldwide. This was not always the case.
Many of the languages now in use are thought to be descendent from one or more common, ancestral languages. A
2013 study led by Mark Pagel of the University of Reading's School of Biological Sciences sought to identify the oldest words—those whose meanings and pronunciations have existed in some form or another for longer than any others.
Prager and team eventually isolated 23 words that they believe date back 15,000 years to the most recent ice age. As would be expected, many of these were pronouns and other common, functional words (e.g., I, thou, we, who, that, this, to, etc.). The remaining words—mostly nouns, adjectives, and verbs—serve as a sort of time capsule that highlights some of the most important concepts discussed by ancient humans that are still around today. Check them out below.
- Nouns: Man, mother, hand, fire, bark, ashes, worm
- Verbs: To hear, to pull, to flow, to spit
- Adjectives: Male, old, black
Worm is one of the oldest human words? Who knew. Speaking of worms, if you need to gather some for fishing or composting, check out "
6 Guaranteed Ways to Get Worms out of the Ground Fast" by
Meagan Ireland on
SkyAboveUs.
Image Credit: Bradley Dunn via Unsplash; Canva
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