h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Eh? What's the oldest word in the world that still (seems to) sound, or is spelt, the same now as it was X amount of years ago?




And how do you know?

urgh!!!?

only spelled like this in modern times in the english speaking world

"Ugh".

It was the main use of dialogue in the film One Million Years BC, is how I know. And it's 1,002,008 years old (approximately).

RF

you forgot the female call of distress

aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeee!!!!

racel welch in a fur bikini

Wheeel

ook!

Let.


From t'Bible innit.

In the beginning there was nothing.
And God said "Let there be light"
And there was still nothing - but you could see it.

Maybe somebody in the oldest trade in the world could enlighten us?

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Easy, its from 'the oldest profesion',
Fifty quid'

But seriously.
I'd imagine whatever it is I can't prounce it, can't write it, and my keyboard and pc don't support the character set; Its bound to be a chinese dialect word/phrase/symbol; if asides anythign else, they've one of the longest going back written historys, which is what we need to gain evidence that it remains unchanged... Or maybe one of the other ancient type languages, that has a long written history.... But I'm not sure how many of them still relaly have widespread use in any modern forms
Innit traces back to about circa 5000 BC and I know thats true cause my mate Dave told me so in the boozer last week.

Obviously it's AAAAAARGGGGHHHH.

As in "move along dear boy, there's a rather large predator coming our way."

The first written evidence of course was from Joseph of Aramathea.

"Hello...

... I'm creating the Universe, can't see a damn thing at the moment...

...about seven days...

...yeah, monday sounds good, I'll call you back when I'm done here."

The oldest words are the ones that are the same or similar in the most languages.

As languages diversified, newer words coming in to each language differ more from each other (although this is no longer the case, with globalisation, ie. hamburger is not one of the oldest words in the world).

Words for mother are quite common; mama, maman, mutti &c. because they're easy to say before a baby's vocal chords have closed. I'm not sure if this applies worldwide but it is true for many European languages.

>> Let.


From t'Bible innit. <<

Ah, but if you're going down that route then the word is only 6,012 years old (using the 4,004 BC calculation by bishop Ussher), so is easily trumped by Raquel Welch.

RF

Fire, as in Fire! Fire! Fire!

"ouch" probably precedes "fire", by a few seconds.

and ... before that?

Mmmm...warm!

RF

<<Words for mother are quite common; mama, maman, mutti &c. because they're easy to say before a baby's vocal chords have closed. I'm not sure if this applies worldwide but it is true for many European languages>>


Even in Chinese it's 'muqin' or 'mama'