Ancient languages and alphabets

Nalaka Gunawardene and Vindana Ariyawansa

How many languages are being spoken by more than seven billion human beings currently alive in the world?

This is a difficult question to answer precisely, as some languages have various dialects, and some people speak multiple languages fluently.

It is generally estimated that there are around 6,700 distinctly recognizable languages in the world today. But many of them are spoken by fewer than 1,000 people – and so are in danger of being lost forever.

Greek, one of the oldest languages still in use, has a documented history of more than 3,500 years. It is also one of the earliest attested Indo-European languages, matched only by the Anatolian languages and Vedic Sanskrit. Over the millennia, however, many human languages have fallen into disuse and some are only remembered from historical records with no living users. Today’s Wiz Quiz offers a glimpse of the fascinating world of ancient languages.

1. The first written language was born around 3,300 BC and used cuneiform (wedge-shaped) elements instead of the previous pictograms, and writing direction was changed to follow left-to-right in horizontal rows. What is this oldest written language? It was spoken in Southern Mesopotamia (modern-day southeastern Iraq) from 4,000 BC and their first use of a writing system was registered in the city of Uruk and Jamdat Nasr.

2. In 1,000 BC, the Hebrew language used the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, but by 500 BC, during the exile to Babylon, it adopted the alphabet of the language used by most of the Middle East region population (lingua franca) at the time. Which language was it? This language was spoken by Jesus when alive, and is today spoken by the Assyrians. It used the 'cursive' Phoenician alphabet before creating a variation of it, introducing the ‘square’ style. In turn, variations on this alphabet created the (old) Hebrew and Nabataen alphabets. Adaptation and use of this language led to the virtual extinction of Hebrew language from daily use; it then remained as a literary and liturgical language.

Sunil Ariyaratne

3. At around the 8th Century BC, a new influential Afro-Asiatic language emerged, with scripts found in today's Yemen and Iraq. Curiously, the scripts showed that the language was written in a completely different alphabet than the one actually used today. Which language made this alphabetic switch? Thanks to the spread of Islam, languages like Persian and Urdu adopted this alphabet. It now has the largest number of speakers among the semitic family (200 million).

4. This Greek alphabet, direct ancestor of the Latin alphabet (among others) and consequently of most of the current western world, is actually a 9th Century BC close adaptation of an extinct Semitic alphabet. Which alphabet was it? This language’s original speakers were marine merchants who needed an instrument to write spoken languages, and ended up spreading their alphabet as far as Ireland. As is the case today, differently-spoken languages were written using the same set of elements.

5. ‘War Horse’ is a 2011 war drama film directed by Steven Spielberg, and his first film to be edited digitally as he famously held on to editing traditionally. The film is adapted from a children’s novel of the same name set before and during the First World War, first published in the UK in 1982. It was adapted in 2007 as a stage play, also of the same name. Who is the British author of the novel, who tried to adapt his own novel as a movie screenplay for five years before giving up, after which it was done by Richard Curtis and Lee Hall.

6. “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” These are the words of a tireless charity worker who dedicated her life to the poorest of the poor. Whose words are these?

7. “If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He is not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he's really needed.”

The late Czech writer, dramatist and political leader Valclav Havel not only said that -- but also lived a life committed to these ideals. After the Prague Spring in 1968, Havel was banned from the theatre in his own country and became more politically active.

He was also forced to take a job in a brewery, an experience he wrote about in his play Audience. In that play, he created a character who was actually a stand-in for himself; he later used the same character in two other plays. His ideals resonated strongly among those who shared underground literature in Czechoslovakia, several other Czech writers later wrote their own plays featuring the same character – a rare but effective way of literary creation and political defiance. What was this character’s name?

8. A total of 12 American astronauts landed on the Moon during the Apollo lunar missions in 1969 - 1972. They carried out various activities on the lunar surface mostly related to scientific experiments. Who is the only human being – one of the Apollo astronauts - to hit a golf ball on the Moon?

9. The new Sinhala feature film ‘Kusa Paba’ had its first theatrical screening on January 21 in Colombo to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the Sinhala cinema. The film is directed by Sunil Ariyaratne based on a story adopted for the screen from Kusa Jataka Buddhist story. Name the accomplished writer and film maker who wrote the screenplay of ‘Kusa Paba’, who did not live to see the film being made.

10. Silent movies went out of fashion decades ago – or so we thought. But 70 years after ‘talkies’ (movies with soundtracks) rendered the ‘silents’ commercially obsolete, a new French comedy-drama film has rekindled interest in that era.

‘The Artist’ is a new feature film released in 2011 starring Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo. The story takes place in Hollywood between 1927 and 1932 and focuses on a declining film star and a rising actress, as silent cinema fades out. Most of this film itself is silent, and it is in black-and-white. Since its release, it has received wide praise from critics and Dujardin won the best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival 2011. Name the Luthuania-born French director who directed this film.

11. All early movies were ‘silent’ – there was no synchronized sound but audiences were still eager to experience this new art firm. Sound was gradually introduced to the cinema in the 1920s, and films incorporating synchronized dialogue were known as 'talking pictures', or 'talkies'. At first, they were all short films. The earliest feature-length movies with recorded sound contained only music and sound effects. The first feature film originally presented as a ‘talkie’ was made with Vitaphone, the leading brand of sound-on-disc technology, and released in October 1927. It became a major hit, and soon, all films became ‘talking pictures’. What was this pioneering feature film?

12. The International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) is an international association of lawyers and lawyers’ organisations working for the elimination of nuclear arms, the strengthening of international law and the development of effective mechanisms for the peaceful settlement of international disputes. Founded in 1988 in Stockholm, IALANA has grown into a fully-fledged international citizens’ group with consultative status with the United Nations. Name the eminent Sri Lankan judge and legal scholar who heads IALANA.

13. Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka recently won the 2012 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature worth US Dollars 50,000 for his novel, ‘Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew’.

The novel, which tells the story of an alcoholic journalist’s quest to track down a missing cricketer of the 1980s, uses cricket as a device to reflect about Lankan society.

It earlier won the 2008 Gratiaen Prize for the best work of literary writing in English by a resident Lankan. Karunatilaka’s debut novel was also shortlisted for the Gratiaen Prize in 2000, but was never published. What was its title?

14. Cricket’s match fixing scandal which shook the whole cricket world ended with three Pakistani cricketers being given jail terms in England.

The players were sentenced in November 2011 at Southwark Crown Court of conspiracy to accept corrupt payments and conspiracy to cheat at gambling. The plot was uncovered in a News of the World sting operation to bowl deliberate no-balls in a Test match against England in 2010. One player found guilty was former Pakistan captain Salman Butt. Who were the other two?

15. This boxer is the only 4-time World Heavyweight champion, winning the WBA, WBC, and IBF titles in 1990, the WBA and IBF titles in 1993 and the WBA title in 1996 and 2000. His rematch with Mike Tyson took place on June 28, 1997. Known as ‘The Bite Fight,’ it was one of the most bizarre fights in history.

The infamous incident occurred in the third round, when Tyson bit him on one of his ears.

A moment later, the fight resumed and Tyson bit him on the other ear - ending the fight forfeiting this boxer the victory. Name this boxer, who recently visited Sri Lanka.

Last week’s answers

1. Vyanga
2. Joe Abeywickrama
3. Manomandira
4. ‘Me Sinhala Apage Ratai…’
5. Sarojini Naidu (1879 – 1949)
6. Sri Jayawardenepura University (then Vidyodaya University)
7. Margaret Thatcher
8. Sir Patrick Moore
9. Peter Benchley
10. John Williams
11. Ecuador, Chile
12. France
13. Blues
14. Spiridon Belokas
15. Emil Zatopek (1922 – 2000)