Erm, except Greek *is* one of the oldest Indo-European languages, in that the Hellenic branch split away very early in the history of the Indo-European language family. It's more complicated than that, of course, but essentially the BBC is correct, even if their explanation is very simplified.

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* [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/greek/guide/facts.shtml BBC’s website]] claims that “Greek is one of the oldest Indo European languages …” That statement doesn’t make sense since all Indo-European languages originate from Indo-European (hence the name) and are therefore the same age.
** Technically the website would be accurate. English is an Indo-European language, yet you would be hard pressed to find someone 3000 years ago who spoke it. Not all Indo-European languages spawned into existence in the same day.
*** You would also be hard-pressed to find somebody who spoke modern Greek 3000 years ago. What, did you think modern Greek and ancient Greek are the same language? Nope, they are just as different from each other as modern English is from its ancestor Anglo-Saxon, and Italian is from its ancestor Latin. The only difference is that both languages have the same name. And that’s exactly why there can’t be an “oldest language”: Languages constantly and seamlessly evolve. You can’t objectively set starting and end points to define how “old” a language is. And saying that a language is particularly old just because it shares its name with an ancestor is just silly.

10th May '13 2:09:18 PM ironballs16

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19th Apr '13 4:52:49 AM Twentington

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18th Apr '13 8:58:45 AM jmcdavid

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12th Apr '13 12:02:03 PM SirSmellyArseII

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