Is Hieroglyph the first written language?
450826
Cuniform is the oldest written language. The old testament was written in Hebrew and Chaldean (Daniel)
624794
Greek alphabet:\nThe Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since about the 9th century B.C.. It was the first true alphabet, that is, one with a symbol for each vowel and consonant, and is the oldest alphabet in use today. The letters are also used to represent numbers—Greek numerals—in the same sorts of contexts as  Roman numerals. Besides writing modern Greek, today its letters are used as mathematical symbols, as names of stars, in the names of fraternities and sororities, in the naming of supernumerary tropical cyclones, and for other purposes. The Greek alphabet originated as a modification of the Phoenician alphabet and in turn gave rise to the Latin, Cyrillic, and other alphabets, as documented in History of the alphabet. The Greek alphabet is unrelated to Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, earlier writing systems for Greek.\n\nΑ α alpha \nΒ β beta \nΓ γ gamma \nΔ δ delta \nΕ ε epsilon \nΖ ζ zeta \nΗ η eta \nΘ θ theta \nΙ ι iota \nΚ κ kappa \nΛ λ lambda \nΜ μ mu \nΝ ν nu \nΞ ξ xi \nΟ ο omicron \nΠ π pi \nΡ Ρ rho \nΣ σ, ς sigma \nΤ τ tau \nΥ υ upsilon \nΦ φ phi \nΧ χ chi \nΨ ψ psi \nΩ ω omega
650463
Prehistory refers to all periods before the invention of writing which we can currently translate and understand - art is not included as a writing system, so cave art is considered 'prehistoric' unless it is cave art as late as writing systems, in fact only around 7,000 years ago. \n\nHave a read of this Wikipedia article: \nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistory\n\nYou can also learn about earliest writings at: \nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing_system\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_language\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieroglyph\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_b
553381
Short answer: the BASIC order of our letters goes back through Latin, through Greek to Phoenician and the earliest alphabets invented by speakers of "Northwest Semitic" languages (the group that includes Hebrew). This order (with modifications necessitated by differences in the languages adapting the letters to their own languages) goes back to at least the mid 2nd millennium BC, but we really don't know why they did it this way!\n\nIn fact, the very NAME "alphabet" betrays these roots!\n\n-----------------\nFuller answer (hang on!):\n\nThe LATIN letters were derived from a form of the GREEK alphabet, and the term "alphabet" is based on the first two letters of the Greek alphabet --"alpha" and "beta" (so the idea of the word is the same as "a-b-c's"). But these Greek names are rather odd --meaningless, in fact. Why? That's because the Greeks borrowed a number of the NAMES for their letters from the source of the letters themselves, the seafaring traders of Phoenicia. The Phoenicians did not invent this system themselves, but were part of a cluster of related "Semitic" languages spoken centered in the regions later called Syria & Palestine. The letter-names are derived from actual words which BEGAN with the sound that letter is used to represent (e.g., "aleph", meaning "ox").\n\nWe can actually still see much of the original Semitic order of the letters in the Latin alphabet, and even more in the Greek. The original letters were at times used to represent a different sound from the original letter, esp when the original letter represented a sound unlike any in the language doing the borrowing. (This is how the Greeks came up with the first set of VOWELS, which were not part of the original Semitic alphabet.) The major changes/differences in ORDER were caused when the borrowing language dropped a letter it could not use... and more often by adding letters needed in the borrower's language. These new letters were most often added at the end, after "T", the final letter in the Semitic alphabets. Later, after the early Latin alphabet was well-established, some letters"split" into variants, which were listed next to their "parent" letter. Thus "I" and "J" come from one letter, "U" "V" and "W" were from one letter.\n\nSo when was did the SEMITIC order of the alphabet come about, and why? Our earliest proven examples of the letters in the basic order used to this day are clay tablets the list the letters in order (perhaps for training scribes?) from the ancient Syrian city of Ugarit (the language, re-discovered in the 1920s is called "Ugaritic"). These show us that this order existed by at least 1300 BC. (with some additional letters for sounds that were no longer found in later languages like Phoenician, Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic).\n\n(A few centuries later we find reflections of this order in the Bible. The clearest examples are "acrostic" poetic passages in which succeeding verses or sets of verses begins with the next letter of the alphabet. Psalm 119 is the most well-known example of this practice, and many English Bibles even mark the successive stanzas as "Aleph" "Beth", etc. )\n\nBut we still do not know why they adopted THIS order! Perhaps there is some ancient lost memory device or set of devices (story? set of sentences?) in which this particular order was found useful for remembering the various letters. Perhaps certain sounds were thought easy to group together (think of how "l m n" flows for us). Many believe the inventors of the alphabet were speakers of a Semitic language living in or near Egypt. So it is possible that the IDEA for an alphabets owed something to a part of the system of Egyptians hieroglyphics. In that case, perhaps the groupings of the letters and words may also be sug
282902
Hieroglyphics are just the pictorial alphabet.  So you don't translate English into hierglyphics, you transliterate.\n\nFor a true translation, you would convert the English text into Ancient Egyptian, and then transliterate the Roman characters into hieroglyphics.
937105
Symbols were all that was needed --\nfor people, animals that were hunted, basic concepts\nthat were commonly understood.\n\nThe sophistication of writing tools, paper, and alphabets to spell the spoken "names" for the images did not develop until later.\n\nLook up cuneiform or the progression from symbols to letters.
196809
Dimitri was not the first.  The first one to make it was a french scientist named Jibbera.  His hand writing was so terrible though, that people began to make fun of ineligble handwriting that we call it jibberish.  A few years later, Dimitri came up with it.  Too bad for the frenchman, need to work on that handwriting.
543701
I assume you mean which book of the New Testament was written first, because there are no existing original manuscripts as far as we know.\n\nThe general consensus is that some of Paul's letters are the oldest known manuscripts. There are speculations of earlier ones (e.g., "Q") but they are just that: speculations.
826077
The Rosetta Stone was written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, demotic characters and Greek. Greek was more widely known so it was used to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs.
250050
From what I remember reading, ink and paper were high commodities, not readily available to the common folk, the "Lords of the Manors" back then would actually hire a "scribe" to write letters and such to be posted, and were written very nicely in what has become known as "Old English" lettering. Some letters that were more "personal" were in cursive, just like you would have written a love letter today.
300429
It is not. Back then, each copy of the Bible had to be handwritten when they were reproduced. This means the scribes had free will to add/change anything they wanted. Also the Bible was translated from Greek and Hebrew to English. So its changed a lot, because there are no originals in existence. KJV went through the hands of countless scribes before being translated.  Even the dead sea scrolls are not the originals, just really old, close to original copies. And no, they're not in English
1018287
Some written languages use symbols to represent spoken words.  (Chinese, Korean and Japanese languages are good examples of this.  Ancient hieroglyphics is another example.)  Other written languages (like English) use letters to represent the smaller parts of words:  phenomes (or sounds).  The alphabet simply lists the letters we use to represent each one of those sounds.  Then we can arrange these letters in an endless number of ways to create words!
1065995
here is an excerpt about your question...\n\nThe first people to set aside special areas for storing and classifying written materials in order to assist the better functioning of various social groups were the Sumerians\n\nhttp://www.libraries.gr/nonmembers/en/history_mesopotamia_soumer.htm
365943
hey most of the discoveries were done by the Greek also English alphabets were not enough to describe them. Most of are scientific words are greet or Latin dear.
909210
The real question should be why you consider right to left written languages "crazy"?\nIs it because you were not trained to read from right to left?\nSome of the most beautiful languages, and most ancient ones, read and write right to left.\n\nCan you perhaps rephrase your question so that others may more seriously discuss it with you?
3247
0. \n\nIt was written in the documents for the newly born prince of Hittites, the oldest documented person in the history.
1001700
As a casual perusal of multiple reference works on this subject will reveal, the question, "Which is the oldest language?" quite easily generates several suggestions which almost always include one or more of the following venerable candidates: (in no particular order) SUMERIAN, AKKADIAN, CHINESE, EGYPTIAN, PHRYGIAN, SANSKRIT, PHOENICIAN, etc., etc. And, such a list, of course, obliges the questor to make his own limited choice...\n\nTHUS, a clear-cut answer to the question is not forthcoming, the experts aren't committing, and the end result (if the questor does indeed MAKE a choice) is arrived at kind of like pinning the tail on the donkey.\n\nA fundamental factor which lends to the above-cited indecisiveness in this field of study is the universally held notion (seemingly unassailable) that, historically, language should somehow show a developmental progression ranging from primitive rudiment to modern refinement. However, as the above list indicates, such is not the case! On the contrary, ancient languages are every bit as linguistically refined as the most trafficked languages of today! Furthermore, there is no historical evidence of earlier more rudimentary intermediate languages which provide a bridge between our supposed first grunts and snorts, and the sophisticated cadence of languages such as the above. So until such evidence is definitively in place, the experts remain in a holding pattern and continue to shove palliative lists at us from which we may make our personal choices.\n\nThus, in dealing with the question, "Which is the oldest language?," we continue to work with a theoretical linguistic model which suggests a developmental pattern which is not consequent with reality.