What was the first language ever used, and when did the English language come about?

Arpeggionist

The earliest spoken language was a very sophisticated system of grunts. The earliest written languages were Semitic languages and Egyptian. Hebrew and Chinese are the oldest still spoken languages in the world. The first writings in the English language were written by Chaucer and Caxton(?) about 1,000 years ago. Oct 18 04, 1:25 AM

Baloo55th

Languages normally don't spring up fully formed and new. They evolve out of other languages. French, Spanish and Portuguese are branches off Latin, while Italian is rather more a directly evolved Modern Latin. You can look at snapshots of language (books, poems, etc) and say this is Modern English, that is Medieval English and so on. There is no sudden change between them in real life. There are people who wish to fossilise language - which happened in France with the Academy - but most go with the changes. There are a few languages that came into being fully formed. Esperanto and Volapuk are two examples. These are artificial languages created to be easy to learn and use and to be international ways of communication. Trouble with them is they lack expressivity and poetry. And people seem to prefer to use English as the current Lingua Franca. (Lingua Franca was an earlier means of communication around the Mediterranean between people who travelled and traded and needed to communicate with lots of different languages.) Oct 18 04, 4:09 AM