The Oldest Language: 70,000 Year Old Clicks

The previous article in this series diving into the very surprising relationships between world languages revealed that the few linguists who have proposed to classify all world languages together generally agree that modern human languages began diverging from each other around 70,000 in Africa.

This article focuses on that first split in human languages.

Now, we Homo sapiens sapiens first became a separate species about 140,000 years ago. However, our genetic history suggests that we are all descended from a small group of around maybe as few as only forty (40!) people who lived and began separating from each other about 70,000 years ago. Why the seeming inconsistency?

Well, one of the best hypotheses out there suggests that around 70,000 years ago a worldwide natural catastrophe killed off most humans living then, and that only a few survived in the area of what is now South Africa. That is why we can find archaeological evidence of human bones going back 140,000 years, but our genetic history suggests only 70,000 years of divergence.

Most likely, that small group of surviving humans all began to speak similarly if they were not already, and so that language is the now the original human language. One way to refer to this sole remaining human language is Proto-World.

So, when the people speaking that original human language 70,000 years ago in South Africa split tribally into two separate groups for the first time going separate…