Tower of Babel: How the Kazakh language emerged

The peak of linguistic diversity on Earth may have occurred between one and three thousand years ago. This conclusion was reached by an international group of researchers, El.kz reports.

The biblical story of the Tower of Babel explains the emergence of multiple languages through the sudden division of humanity. Scientific reconstruction, however, describes a much longer process: the number of languages increased alongside population growth, reached its maximum level, and subsequently began to decline rapidly.

How languages were estimated in the absence of written records

Direct evidence of ancient speech has largely been lost. Since writing systems emerged approximately 6 thousand years ago, earlier linguistic landscapes must be reconstructed through indirect evidence.

Researchers analysed data on 171 hunter-gatherer and fishing communities. The size of these groups was used to estimate the population of ethnolinguistic communities before the widespread adoption of agriculture.

These data were then compared with reconstructions of global population dynamics. At the beginning of the Holocene epoch, the world’s population is estimated to have ranged between 4.4 and 7 mln people. The researchers assumed that individual ethnolinguistic communities generally used their own distinct languages.

There may have been fewer languages before agriculture

Approximately twelve thousand years ago, according to the estimates, humanity spoke between 4,500 and 6,200 languages.

Previously, the highest level of linguistic diversity was often associated with the end of the last Ice Age, when human populations lived in small and relatively isolated groups.

Today, the world has approximately 7,500 spoken and sign languages. This suggests that before the widespread expansion of agriculture, the number of languages may have been lower than it is today.

The development of sustainable food production accelerated population growth and human settlement. New communities emerged, and their languages gradually diverged. At the same time, the average size of societies increased, meaning that a single language came to be used by larger numbers of people.

When the “Golden Age” of languages occurred

The peak of linguistic diversity occurred between one and three thousand years ago. For researchers, such a late peak was unexpected, as this period was already characterised by the development of states, trade networks and large-scale political entities.

Many model-based trajectories indicate an increase of approximately 10 fold compared with the beginning of the Holocene epoch. This estimate compares the peak level of diversity with the early Holocene period, when the global population was significantly smaller.

At the height of linguistic diversity, humans may have spoken tens of thousands of languages. The authors do not provide an exact figure, as the study represents a global statistical reconstruction based on a broad range of possible scenarios.

Why the number of languages began to decline

The sharp decline in linguistic diversity occurred primarily during the last two millennia. Chronologically, it coincided with the expansion of large states and multinational empires.

Political centres promoted administrative and trade languages together with their institutions, technologies and cultural practices. Smaller communities became integrated into larger societies and gradually changed the languages used in everyday communication.

The model does not allow researchers to determine the role of individual empires or specific historical events. However, it demonstrates that large-scale linguistic decline began long before European colonial expansion. Colonisation later accelerated the displacement of indigenous languages in various regions of the world.

Why modern languages provide an incomplete picture of the past

Languages that belonged to expanding populations were more likely to survive until the present day. The speech of communities that were assimilated, displaced or reduced in size disappeared together with their last native speakers.

This historical selection process may have influenced the distribution of sounds and grammatical structures. Some linguistic features are widespread among modern languages due to the demographic success of the peoples who used them.

Along with languages, humanity lost unique ways of describing nature, kinship systems, social norms and oral traditions. A significant portion of this knowledge was never recorded in written sources.

How many languages exist today

According to UNESCO estimates, approximately seven thousand spoken and sign languages are currently in use worldwide. Different catalogues provide slightly different figures due to variations in counting methodologies and in the classification of languages and dialects.

Only 351 of these languages serve as languages of instruction. When children receive education exclusively in a more widely used language, the transmission of their home language to the next generation becomes weaker.

On average, one language disappears every two weeks. The process is considered complete when the last fluent speakers pass away or when the entire community shifts to another language.

The origins of the Kazakh language

Kazakh belongs to the Turkic language family and is classified within the Kipchak branch. Its closest linguistic relatives are considered to be the Karakalpak and Nogai languages, with which it shares common vocabulary, grammatical structures and phonetic characteristics. This classification is presented in the academic catalogue Glottolog.