Top 5 Ancient Languages That Are Still Alive And Spoken Today
Ah, languages. They’ve existed for almost as long as the mankind, in some form or another. Over time, they evolved, developed or disappeared altogether. However, while we might not use Ancient Greek or Latin in our daily life anymore, for many people other ancient languages still constitute a big part of their cultures and lives.
Basque (Euskara)
Basque is a language spoken in the Basque country, Spain, and France in the Pyrenees region. It’s the last remaining proto-Indo-European language still spoken today by a lot of people – about 650,000 on the Spanish territory and 50,000 in France. It is also the last ancient language recognized as an official language of a country (Spain).
Basque’s roots date to the second century BC and the language predates the Roman occupation of the Iberian Peninsula. Unlike its contemporary, Latin, Basque hasn’t branched out into “daughter” languages like French, Spanish and Italian, which are the children of Latin.
Fun fact – during The Second World War, Basque was used by code talkers for radio and telephone transmissions in the US army, together with Native American languages.