Languages that were spoken in a historical period may evolve into later forms (like Ancient Greek into Modern Greek), or they may undergo language death and become extinct. Historical linguistics is the study of historical languages. The Greek language (Greek Ελληνικά, IPA // – Hellenic) is an Indo-European language with a documented history of some 3,000 years. ... Modern Greek (Νεοελληνική) is a dialect family that refers to the fifth stage of the evolution of the Greek language (the first four being Mycenean, Ancient Greek, Post-Classical or Hellenistic Greek and Medieval Greek), and it includes every dialect and idiom of Hellenic speech that exists in the world today. ... In linguistics, language death occurs when communication in a language stops or when theirs no native speakers. ... An extinct language is a language which is no longer natively spoken: it is estimated that one natural human language dies every two weeks. ... Historical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics) is primarily the study of the ways in which languages change over time, by means of examining languages which are recognizably related through similarities such as vocabulary, word formation, and syntax, as well as the surviving records of ancient languages. ...

List

Neolithic

Reconstructed proto-languages of the Neolithic or Chalcolithic. Proto-language may either refer to a language that preceded a certain set of given languages, or to system of communication during a stage in glottogony that may not yet be properly called a language. ... The Neolithic, (Greek neos=new, lithos=stone, or New Stone Age) was a period in the development of human technology that is traditionally the last part of the Stone Age. ... The Chalcolithic (Greek khalkos + lithos copper stone) period, also known as the Eneolithic or Copper Age period, is a phase in the development of human culture in which the use of early metal tools appeared alongside the use of stone tools. ...

• Proto-Indo-European
• Proto-Semitic

See Pie (disambiguation) for other uses of PIE. The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European languages. ... Proto-Semitic is the hypothetical proto-language of the Semitic languages. ...

Bronze Age

• Ancient Egyptian language
• Sumerian language (extinct)
• Akkadian language (extinct)
• Proto-Greek, Mycenaean Greek
• Proto-Indo-Iranian, Vedic Sanskrit
• Hittite language, Luwian (extinct)

Ebers Papyrus detailing treatment of asthma Records of the Ancient Egyptian language have been dated about 3000 BC. It is part of the Afro-Asiatic group of languages and is related to Berber and Semitic (languages such as Arabic and Hebrew). ... The Sumerian language of ancient Sumer was spoken in Southern Mesopotamia from at least the 4th millennium BC. Sumerian was replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language around 2000 BC, but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial and scientific language in Mesopotamia until about 1 AD. Then, it... Akkadian was a language of the Semitic family spoken in ancient Mesopotamia, particularly by the Assyrians and Babylonians. ... The term Indo-Iranian includes all speakers of Indo-Iranian languages, i. ... Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, the earliest sacred texts of India. ... The Hittite language is the dead language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who once created an empire centered on ancient Hattusa (modern Boğazköy) in north-central Turkey. ... Luwian (sometimes spelled Luwiyan) is an Anatolian language known in three forms: (1) Cuneiform Luwian, (2) Hieroglyphic-Luwian and (3), the somewhat later Lycian. ...

Iron Age

• Avestan language
• Old Persian (continued in Farsi).
• Latin
• the dialects of Ancient Greek, of which Attic was continued in the Koine and Modern Greek.
• Sanskrit, at least partly continued in Hindi and other Indo-Aryan languages
• Proto-Celtic
  • Proto-Insular Celtic, continued in modern Celtic languages
  • Continental Celtic (extinct)
• Proto-Germanic, continued in modern Germanic languages

Yasna 28. ... Sketch of the first column of the Behistun Inscription Old Persian is the oldest attested Persid language. ... Farsi can refer to: the language of Iran. ... Latin was the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... Ancient Greek, in Classical Antiquity before the development of the Koine as the lingua franca of Hellenism, was divided into several dialects. ... The Greek language (Greek Ελληνικά, IPA // – Hellenic) is an Indo-European language with a documented history of some 3,000 years. ... An attic is the story in a non-flat roof of a building. ... The Greek language (Greek Ελληνικά, IPA // – Hellenic) is an Indo-European language with a documented history of some 3,000 years. ... Modern Greek (Νεοελληνική) is a dialect family that refers to the fifth stage of the evolution of the Greek language (the first four being Mycenean, Ancient Greek, Post-Classical or Hellenistic Greek and Medieval Greek), and it includes every dialect and idiom of Hellenic speech that exists in the world today. ... The Sanskrit language ( संस्कृता वाक्) is one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family and is not only a classical language, but also an official language of India. ... Hindi (हिन्दी) is a language spoken in most states in northern and central India. ... The Indo-Aryan languages form a subgroup of the Indo-Iranian languages, thus belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. ... Proto-Celtic, also called Common Celtic, is the putative ancestor of all the known Celtic languages. ... The Insular Celtic language hypothesis groups the Goidelic languages, which include Irish, Scottish Gaelic and the recently extinct Manx, together with the Brythonic languages, of which the modern ones are Welsh, Breton, and the moribund Cornish. ... Celtic languages are the languages spoken by the ancient Celts and their modern descendants, the Gaels, Welsh, Cornish and Bretons. ... The Continental Celtic languages are those Celtic languages that are neither Goidelic nor Brythonic. ... Map of the Pre-Roman Iron Age culture(s) associated with Proto-Germanic, ca 500 BC-50 BC. The area south of Scandinavia is the Jastorf culture Proto-Germanic, the proto-language believed by scholars to be the common ancestor of the Germanic languages, includes among its descendants Dutch, Yiddish... The Germanic languages form one of the branches of the Indo-European (IE) language family, spoken by the Germanic peoples who settled in northern Europe along the borders of the Roman Empire. ...

Medieval languages

• Vulgar Latin (continued in the Romance languages)
• Gothic language (extinct)
• Old High German, Middle High German (continued in Modern German
• Old English, Middle English (continued in Modern English)
• Old French (continued in Modern French)
• Old Norse (continued in modern Scandinavian languages)

Vulgar Latin (in Latin, sermo vulgaris) is a blanket term covering the vernacular dialects of the Latin language spoken mostly in the western provinces of the Roman Empire until those dialects, diverging still further, evolved into the early Romance languages — a distinction usually assigned to about the ninth century. ... The Romance languages, also called Romanic languages or New Latin Languages, are a subset of the Italic languages, specifically the descendants of the Latin dialects spoken by the common people in what is known as Latin Europe (Italian/Portuguese/Spanish Europa latina, French Europe latine, Romanian Europa latină) as Vulgar... The Gothic language (*gutiska razda, 𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌹𐍃𐌺) is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths and specifically by the Visigoths. ... Old High German is the earliest recorded form of the modern German language, and was spoken from the middle of the 9th to the end of the 11th century. ... Middle High German is an ancestor of the modern German language, and was spoken from 1050 to about 1500. ... German (called Deutsch in German; in German the term germanisch is equivalent to English Germanic), is a member of the western group of Germanic languages and is one of the worlds major languages. ... Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) is an early form of the English language that was spoken in parts of what is now England and southern Scotland between the mid-fifth century and the mid-twelfth century. ... Middle English is the name given by historical philologists to the diverse forms of the English language spoken in England from around the 12th to the 15th centuries— from after the Norman invasion by William the Conqueror in 1066 to the mid to late 15th century, when the Chancery Standard... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Old French is a term sometimes used to refer to the langue doïl, the continuum of varieties of Romance language spoken in territories corresponding roughly to the northern half of modern France and parts of Belgium and Switzerland during the period roughly from 1000 to 1300 A.D... French (français, langue française) is one of the most important Romance languages, outnumbered in speakers only by Spanish and Portuguese. ... This is the approximate extent of Old Norse and related languages in the early 10th century. ...

Early Modern age

• Early Modern English