• Birbatron@slrpnk.net
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    62
    ·
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    the root of all modern languages

    the whole universe used to speak it

    uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

    P.S: the closest thing to that is Egyptian, but not the language, the Alphabet (the Symbols, not a literal alphabet). Tons of alphabets are descended from Egyptian, including, but not limited to: Greek (and by Proxy Latin, Cyrillic, Georgian, Armenian, Armenian and Armenian (I just noticed this, I’m leaving it in because it’s funny)), Arabic (and by proxy- I won’t list all that), Hebrew, and Aramaic (and by proxy all Indian languages but one, as well as Tibetan, Phags-pa mongol (and by proxy exactly 5 letters of Hangul), Thai, Lao, Sundanese, and Javanese). There’s a lot of dead languages that used scripts derived from Egyptian too but I didn’t mention them because I’d be here all day listing stuff like Sogdian or Norse Runes.

      • Birbatron@slrpnk.net
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 month ago

        Also descended from Egyptian. Forgot to add them though. They’re the link between Egyptian and Greek. and Egyptian and Aramaic

        • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 month ago

          East Asia and it’s Chinese-derived alphabets being the big exception. The New World would be too, if it weren’t for barbarians in upturned helmets burning all the codices. I suppose Canada’s North is pretty dependent on indigenous syllabics, which were invented whole-cloth in the modern era.

          I was referring to the Latin as per OP, though. And even then “used to” is doing a lot of the work, thanks to the Islamic empire conquering the Middle East and North Africa and converting it to Arabic. And maybe Greek prevailing in the East, but I’m guessing it would be hard to put an end date on Latin in the Byzantine empire.