Explore the age of languages and your linguistic history. Calculate how old languages are historically and how long you've been speaking them.
This calculator compares your personal timeline with the deep history of human language. Each language has an estimated age based on historical and linguistic research โ from the first written records or reconstructed origins of that language family.
The calculation takes into account:
Note that language ages are approximations based on historical linguistics โ languages evolve continuously and pinpointing an exact "birth year" is impossible. These estimates represent when each language emerged as a recognizable form.
Below are the estimated ages of languages in our database, based on earliest written records and scholarly consensus:
| Language | Estimated Age | Origin Period |
|---|---|---|
| Sanskrit | ~3,500 years | Vedic period (~1500 BC) |
| Greek | ~3,400 years | Mycenaean Greek (~1400 BC) |
| Chinese (Mandarin) | ~3,200 years | Oracle bone script (~1200 BC) |
| Hebrew | ~3,000 years | Biblical Hebrew (~1000 BC) |
| Latin | ~2,700 years | Old Latin (~700 BC) |
| Arabic | ~1,500 years | 5th-6th century AD |
| English | ~1,500 years | Arrival in Britain (5th century) |
| Japanese | ~1,400 years | Old Japanese (8th century) |
| Turkish | ~1,300 years | Old Turkic (8th century) |
| French | ~1,200 years | From Latin (9th century) |
| German | ~1,200 years | Old High German (8th century) |
| Hindi | ~1,200 years | Apabhramsha period |
| Armenian | ~1,100 years | Old Armenian (5th century) |
| Dutch | ~1,100 years | Old Dutch (9th century) |
| Georgian | ~1,100 years | Old Georgian (5th century) |
| Spanish | ~1,000 years | From Vulgar Latin (10th century) |
| Italian | ~1,000 years | From Latin (11th century) |
| Russian | ~1,000 years | Old East Slavic (10th century) |
| Korean | ~1,000 years | Old Korean |
| Swedish | ~1,000 years | Runic Swedish |
| Portuguese | ~900 years | 12th century |
| Polish | ~900 years | Old Polish (10th century) |
| Czech | ~900 years | Old Czech (12th century) |
| Hungarian | ~900 years | Old Hungarian (10th century) |
| Finnish | ~800 years | Old Finnish (13th century) |
| Icelandic | ~800 years | Old Norse (12th century) |
| Ukrainian | ~800 years | Ruthenian (14th century) |
| Romanian | ~800 years | From Latin (10th century) |
| Norwegian | ~800 years | Old Norwegian (11th century) |
| Danish | ~800 years | Old Danish (12th century) |
| Thai | ~700 years | Sukhothai period (13th century) |
| Vietnamese | ~700 years | Old Vietnamese (13th century) |
| Persian (Farsi) | ~1,100 years | New Persian (9th century) |
| Bengali | ~1,000 years | Old Bengali (10th century) |
| Urdu | ~500 years | Delhi Sultanate (14th century) |
| Punjabi | ~700 years | Old Punjabi (12th century) |
| Marathi | ~800 years | Old Marathi (11th century) |
| Gujarati | ~600 years | Old Gujarati (14th century) |
| Telugu | ~1,000 years | Old Telugu (11th century) |
| Tamil | ~2,300 years | Sangam literature (300 BC) |
| Malay | ~700 years | Old Malay (7th century) |
| Indonesian | ~100 years | Standardized in 1928 |
| Filipino/Tagalog | ~700 years | Old Tagalog (10th century) |
| Swahili | ~600 years | Old Swahili (14th century) |
| Catalan | ~900 years | Old Catalan (12th century) |
| Galician | ~800 years | Old Galician (12th century) |
| Basque | ~2,000+ years | Pre-Indo-European |
| Welsh | ~1,500 years | Old Welsh (6th century) |
| Irish | ~1,600 years | Old Irish (4th century) |
| Scottish Gaelic | ~1,200 years | Old Irish (8th century) |
| Maltese | ~800 years | From Arabic (11th century) |
| Albanian | ~600 years | Old Albanian (15th century) |
| Esperanto | ~140 years | Created in 1887 |
Understanding the age of languages gives us perspective on human history, migration patterns, and cultural evolution. Languages are living artifacts that carry thousands of years of human experience.
Languages preserve the history, traditions, and worldview of entire civilizations.
Learning languages at different ages shapes brain development and cognitive abilities.
Every language is a unique way of seeing and describing the world around us.
Language ages reveal migration patterns, conquests, and cultural exchanges across millennia.