What is the most ancient language? What is the oldest and newest language currently in existence? The most ancient languages in the world
Sumerian language. The first written evidence dates back to 3200 BC. e. Written monuments in this language were discovered at the archaeological site of Jemdet Nasr in Iraq. Sumerian was the language of the ancient Sumerians, whose appearance dates back to the 4th millennium BC. e.
Sumerian is also considered an isolated language that has no family ties with other languages.
Akkadian language. The first mention of the Akkadian language dates back to 2800 BC. e.
Written evidence of this language has been found in the Shaduppum region of Iraq. This language was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia, but is now considered dead. The language got its name from the city of Akkad, large center Mesopotamian civilization of that time. The first texts written in Akkadian appeared during the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. e.
Thousands of texts have been discovered in excavations so far. The Akkadian language served as a means of communication between two peoples who lived in ancient times on the territory of the modern Middle East. The language began to fade away in the 8th century. BC e.
Egyptian language. The indigenous language of Egypt belongs to the Afro-Asiatic language family. The first written monuments of this language date back to 3400 BC. e.
The first written evidence of the Egyptian language was found in the tomb of Pharaoh Seth-Peribsen. Until the end of the 7th century AD. e., this language existed in the form of the Coptic language.
The modern version of the language is known as Egyptian Arabic, which replaced Coptic after the Muslim conquest of Egypt. However, the Coptic language still exists today as the language of worship of the Coptic Church. written language speech
Eblaite language. A Semitic language, now dead, Eblaitic was once the dominant language, beginning in 2400 BC. e.
Thousands of tablets with inscriptions in this language were found during archaeological excavations of the ruins of the city of Ebla. It was spoken in the 3rd millennium BC. e. V ancient city Ebla, between Aleppo and Hama, now in Western Syria. Considered to be the second oldest written Semitic language after Akkadian, the language is now considered dead. Minoan language. This language was widely spoken in the 2nd century BC. e.
It was the language of ancient Crete. Today the language is considered an isolate, since its connection with other languages has not been established.
Hittite. The first mention of the Hittite language dates back to 1650. BC e. Today it is a dead language, but it was once spoken by the Hittites, a people in north-central Anatolia. The language fell into disuse after the collapse of the Hittite Empire.
Greek language. Greek is considered one of the oldest written living languages in the world. First entries on Greek date back to 1400 BC. e.
With 34 centuries of written history, this language has the longest written history of any Indo-European language. Greek is the native language of the peoples inhabiting the Balkan Peninsula. Today, Greek is spoken by approximately 13 million people.
Chinese. The first written evidence in Chinese dates back to the 11th century. BC e.
Over 1 billion people speak Chinese today, making it one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. The Chinese language consists of a group of dialects, of which Putonghua (standard Chinese) ranks first in terms of the number of speakers. The group as a whole and other language variants are called Chinese.
Man, being essentially an ordinary animal with ordinary instincts, nevertheless differs from other animals in his ability to speak, while transmitting “oral” information. There are quite a few languages on our planet, but the principle of verbal communication remains the same for any nation. All people belong to the same, so to speak, “linguistic family.”
There are primitive languages, the ancestors of modern languages, that appeared at the dawn of mankind. It is difficult to say which language arose first, but modern scientists are inclined to believe that absolutely all modern languages of the world have the same root - the same language spoken by the inhabitants of southern Europe at the end of the Ice Age.
Thanks to this ancient progenitor language, with the help of which ancient people communicated approximately 13-16 thousand years ago, 7 other languages appeared, forming the ancient Eurasian “superfamily”, from which the remaining languages emerged.
Modern languages are developing very quickly and have already lost their ancestry; most words will be replaced in languages with the advent of new technologies and notations. According to statistics, words change approximately every 2-4 thousand years.
But some “foundational” words remain in modern languages. A team of scientists from the University of Reading, led by evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel, found that some words tend to be pronouns, numerals and adverbs, have remained unchanged through hundreds of centuries.
In order to find out which words were not initially subject to changes and sound in Eurasian languages the same way as several dozen, or even hundreds of centuries ago, scientists from the University of Reading created and applied computer modeling. Linguistic scientists identified 23 words that were found in at least four Eurasian languages, including the pronouns “I”, “we”, and the nouns “man”, “mother”.
Interesting results were also discovered, such as the verb “spit” and the nouns “bark” and “worm”. Linguistic scientists called these words “super-stable”, since they have not changed for 12-15 thousand years.
They are present in such language families as Indo-European, Altaic (modern Turkish, Uzbek, Mongolian), Chukchi-Kamchatka (languages of northeastern Siberia), Dravidian (languages of southern India), Eskimo, Kartvelian (Georgian and other similar languages) and Ural (Finnish, Hungarian and others).
Ancient words
In total, we counted 23 “super stable” words left over from the Ice Age:
“you”, “I”, “no”, “that”, “we”, “give”, “who”, “this”, “what”, “man”, “you”, “old”, “mother” "", "hear", "hand", "fire", "pull", "black", "flow", "bark", "ash", "worm", "spit"
List of the most ancient languages
Sumerian language- 2900 BC
Egyptian- 2700 BC
Akkadian- 2400 BC
Eblaite— 2400 BC
Elamite— 2300 BC
Hurrian- 2200 BC
Hittite- 1650 BC
Luwian- 1400 BC
Huttian— 1400 BC
Greek- 1400 BC
Ugaritic-1300 BC
How exactly did the different different languages spoken by various peoples of the world today is still unknown. Scientists, including linguists, anthropologists, and other specialists, build various schemes, talk about language families and groups, and the influence of cultures. But there is still no answer. In this regard, I recall a fairly well-known story about one Egyptian pharaoh named Psammetichus.
This worthy ruler wanted to find out which language is the oldest in the world. He decided to conduct an experiment: on his orders, two newborn children were given to be raised by goatherds. The teachers were forbidden to talk to the children and began to wait for the results.
After some time, the children said the first word and it sounded like this: “bekos.” The pharaoh's nimble subjects checked which language had this word. It turned out that the word meant “bread” in Phrygian. The experiment was considered successful, and Phrygian was considered the oldest language.
It is difficult to say how much authenticity there is in this story, but it is known quite widely. You can read about the Phrygian language in specialized literature (links at the end of the article), and we suggest getting acquainted in more detail with other equally ancient languages.
Sumerian and Akkadian languages
Often, when talking about the ancient kingdoms and cultures of Sumer and Akkad, they are combined into one Sumerian-Akkadian kingdom with one culture. Geographically, these ancient kingdoms were located in the area between the Tigris and Euphrates. Historically, in this region, one state replaced another in a very short period of time by historical standards.
The Sumerian language was spoken in the territory of Southern Mesopotamia for a very, very long time: from the 4th to the 3rd millennium BC. The writing of the Sumerians has reached us and therefore linguists were able to quite fully describe this ancient language. Sumerian is a written language, the form of writing is cuneiform.
The Sumerian language was discovered in the 19th century. It was then that it was deciphered; the term “Sumerian language” was introduced into science by Julius Oppert. This language also has a self-name, which when translated sounds like “noble language” or “native language”. The family ties between Sumerian and other languages have not yet been established. One of the features of this language is the absence of a category of time.
Around 2000 B.C. Sumerian replaced Akkadian in colloquial speech. This language was spoken by three peoples: Akkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians. The writing was recorded using Sumerian cuneiform. Akkadian belongs to the Semitic group of languages. The oldest known monument in Akkadian dates back to the 25th century BC. The most famous monument in the Akkadian language is the ancient epic "The Tale of Gilgamesh".
Eblaite language is the second most ancient language of the Semitic group after Akkda. It was widespread in 3 thousand BC. in the west of the territory of modern Syria. Approximately 5 thousand clay tablets have survived to this day, which were found in 1974 - 1976 during excavations of the ancient city of Ebla. The first person to decipher and translate the tablets was Giovanni Pettinato.
The Elamite language existed around the same time as Sumerian and, like Sumerian, has no established genetic connections with other languages. They spoke this language from about 3 to 1 thousand BC. in the ancient kingdom of Elam, whose capital was the city of Susa. Today this is the southwest of Iran, the provinces of Khuzestan and Lurestan. Gradually, the Elamite language was replaced by Persian and eventually lost. The history of this language is divided into Old Elamite, Middle Elamite, New Elamite and Achaemenid periods.
Hurric and Hutt languages
Which language group the Hurrians belong to has not yet been established. This people lived in northern Mesopotamia, in the south of the Armenian Highlands and adjacent regions. Scientists believe that the closest language to Hurrian was ancient state Urartu, and modern languages North Caucasus are distantly related to him. The latter is not supported by everyone. The Hurrians used Akkadian cuneiform and some of its variants for writing. This ancient language has no less than 6 dialects - a very impressive characteristic. The first grammar of the Hurrian language was compiled by Ephraim Avigdor Speiser in 1941.
Hattic is one of the least studied ancient languages: very few sources have survived. This language was spoken by the ancient population of the northeastern part of Asia Minor inside the bend of the Galis River (modern Kyzyl-Yrmak). In the 20th century, the idea was expressed that Huttian is related to the Western Caucasian languages.
- Linguistic encyclopedic dictionary.
- Great Soviet Encyclopedia.
- Languages of the world. Ancient relic languages of Western Asia.
- Free electronic encyclopedia Wikipedia, section "Phrygian language".
- Kaneva I.T. Sumerian language.
- Lipin L.A. Akkadian language.
- Kaplan G.H. An outline of the grammar of the Akkadian language.
- Free electronic encyclopedia Wikipedia, section "Elam".
- Free electronic encyclopedia Wikipedia, section "Elamite language".
- "The Epic of Gilgamesh."
- Ivanov V.V. Hittite and Hurrian literature.
- Ivanov V.V. Hurrian and Hutt etymologies
The development of language is reminiscent of biological evolution - it happens every minute, generation after generation, so it is difficult to determine where one language ends and another begins, developing from it. Thus we cannot say that one language is more ancient than another; they are all the same age as humanity. And yet, each of the languages described below has something special - something ancient - that sets them apart from the crowd.
Oldest of the Living
Hebrew
Hebrew has an interesting situation, since it almost fell out of use around 400 AD. and was used only in worship by Jews around the world. However, after the rise of Zionism in the XIV - XX centuries. Hebrew has undergone a process of revival and has become official language Israel. Although the modern version differs from the biblical version, Hebrew speakers fully understand everything written in the Old Testament and related books. Since the first speakers of Modern Hebrew were often Yiddish, Modern Hebrew has many similarities with this other Hebrew language.
Tamil
Spoken by about 78 million people and the official language of India, Sri Lanka and Singapore, Tamil is the only ancient classical language that has survived into modern times. It belongs to the Dravidian family, which includes languages spoken mainly by people living in southern and eastern states India. Researchers have found inscriptions in Tamil that date back to the third century BC, and it has been in continuous use since then. Unlike Sanskrit, another ancient Indian language that fell out of common use around 600 BC. and almost became used only for worship, Tamil continued to develop and is now the 20th most spoken language in the world.
Lithuanian
Most European languages belong to the Indo-European language family, but they began to separate from each other around 3500 BC. They developed into dozens of other languages, including German, gradually losing the features common to them all. However, one of these languages, which belongs to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family, more than the others, retains the features of a language that linguists call Proto-Indo-European (PIE), which they suggest was in use around 3500 BC. It is not known why, but Lithuanian has retained more PIE sounds and grammatical rules than its other linguistic counterparts, and can therefore be called one of the most ancient languages in the world.
Farsi
Have you ever heard of Farsi? Farsi is spoken today mainly in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. You may have heard, and, probably, in connection with this, your imagination draws a picture of a genie emerging from a bottle. In essence, it is the same language, just under different names. Farsi is a direct descendant of Old Persian, which was the language of the Persian Empire. Modern Persian emerged around 800 AD, and what distinguishes it from many modern languages is that it has changed relatively little since then. Today's Persian speakers can take, for example, a text written in 900 AD. and read it with even less difficulty than a native English speaker might read, say, Shakespeare.
Icelandic
Icelandic is another Indo-European language that belongs to the Scandinavian branch (for comparison, English also belongs to the Germanic languages, but to the West Germanic branch). Many Germanic languages have, over the course of their development, lost some of the features that their other Indo-European counterparts have, but Icelandic has developed much more conservatively and has retained many of these features. Danish rule in the country from 14th to 20th centuries. also had little influence on Icelandic, so it has changed little since the Vikings brought it with them when they settled the area, and Icelandic speakers can easily read sagas written centuries ago.
Macedonian
The Slavic language group, which includes Russian, Czech and Croatian, among others, is relatively young. They began to separate from their common ancient ancestor, a common Slavic (or Proto-Slavic) language, when Cyril and Methodius introduced language standards, creating what is today called Old Church Slavonic, and created an alphabet for it. In the 9th century they contributed to the spread of this ancient language to the north along with the spread of Christianity among the Slavs. They came from a land slightly north of Greece, perhaps what is now Macedonia, and Macedonian (along with its closest relative) is the language closest to Old Church Slavonic.
Basque
Basque is a real linguistic mystery. Its speakers are the Basque people, who live in Spain and France, but Basque itself has nothing in common with any of the Romance languages (which include Spanish), or, in fact, with any other language in the world. For several decades, linguists have tried to clarify its ancient linguistic ancestry, but none of the theories has been able to withstand criticism. The only one for sure known fact is that it existed before the appearance of Romance languages in this territory - that is, before the Romans brought Latin to this land, which eventually developed into French and Spanish.
Finnish
Finnish was not used in writing until the 16th century, but it has a much deeper, ancient history. It belongs to the Finno-Ugric language family, which also includes Estonian, Hungarian and several languages that are used by national minorities in Siberia. Despite this, Finnish contains many loanwords that have been introduced into it from other language families over many centuries. In many cases, Finnish has preserved these loanwords in a form closer to the original than the languages from which they were borrowed. For example, the word aiti, meaning "mother", comes from Gothic - which, of course, is no longer used. Word kuningas(“king”) comes from the Old Germanic word * kuningaz– which no longer exists in any Germanic language.
Georgian
The Caucasus region is a real find for linguists. The main languages of the three South Caucasus countries: Armenia. Azerbaijan and Georgia belong to three completely different language families - Indo-European, Turkic and Kartvelian. – the most widespread among the Kartvelian languages, and is the only Caucasian language with an ancient literary tradition. Its melodic and unique alphabet is also quite ancient - it was adapted from Aramaic around the third century BC. Although it is not an isolated language in the same sense as Basque, there are only four Kartvelian languages in the world, all of them used by national minorities in Georgia, and none of them is related to any language in the world.
Irish Gaelic
Although Irish Gaelic is spoken as a first language by only a small majority of Irish people today, it has a deep history. It belongs to the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family. It existed on the islands that are today Great Britain and Ireland long before the Germanic tribes came to this territory. Irish Gaelic developed from Scots and Manx (which was formerly used on the Isle of Man), but what makes it included in this list is that it has the oldest vernacular literature in Western Europe. While other European countries spoke their own languages but used Latin writing, the Irish used their own language for writing.
It is technically impossible to isolate the oldest language. Most modern languages are grouped into families, each of which has a common ancestor. For example, English, German, Russian, Spanish, Hindi, Italian and many others developed from the Proto-Indo-European language, which linguists reconstruct from data from descendant languages.
It is also impossible to say that some language has reached us without changes. For example, modern English is very different from Old English, modern Greek is very different from the language of the Iliad and Odyssey, and in China people from different regions often do not understand each other due to dialect differences, let alone over a time span of several centuries. Therefore, in words the language of, for example, Italy is very old, but, nevertheless, it is not the same Latin that the Romans used.
Oldest of the Living
As an exception, one can imagine Hebrew. It was recreated from Hebrew, the first language of the Jews, which was virtually extinct by the 3rd century. Many enthusiasts did this, the most famous of whom was Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who devoted his entire life to the revival of Hebrew. Of course, the language has undergone numerous changes (including because full descriptions and there are no Hebrew dictionaries), but among all the others it has greatest number ancient details that actually existed a thousand years ago. Ironically, Hebrew can be considered the newest, if you look at it in isolation from ancient Hebrew - so modern Hebrew is about a hundred years old.
Hebrew is one of the most ancient languages actively used today
Tamil
Spoken by about 78 million people and the official language of India, Sri Lanka and Singapore, Tamil is the only ancient classical language that has survived into modern times. It belongs to the Dravidian family, which includes languages primarily spoken in the southern and eastern states of India. Researchers have found inscriptions in Tamil that date back to the third century BC, and it has been in continuous use since then. Unlike Sanskrit, another ancient Indian language that fell out of common use around 600 BC. and almost became used only for worship, Tamil continued to develop and is now the 20th most spoken language in the world.
Have you ever heard of Farsi? Farsi is spoken today mainly in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. You may have heard of Persian, and your imagination probably draws a picture of a genie emerging from a bottle. In essence, it is the same language, just under different names. Farsi is a direct descendant of Old Persian, which was the language of the Persian Empire. Modern Persian emerged around 800 AD, and what distinguishes it from many modern languages is that it has changed relatively little since then. Today's Persian speakers can take, for example, a text written in 900 AD. and read it with even less difficulty than a native English speaker might read, say, Shakespeare.
Farsi was spoken by the inhabitants of the Persian Empire
Macedonian
The Slavic language group, which includes Russian, Polish, Czech and Croatian, among others, is relatively young. They began to separate from their common ancient ancestor, Common Slavic (or Proto-Slavic), when Cyril and Methodius introduced language standards, creating what is today called Old Church Slavonic, and created an alphabet for it. In the 9th century they contributed to the spread of this ancient language to the north along with the spread of Christianity among the Slavs. They came from a land slightly north of Greece, perhaps what is now Macedonia, and Macedonian (along with its closest relative, Bulgarian) is the closest to Old Church Slavonic.
The Latin language (self-name - Lingua latina), or Latin is the language of the Latin-Faliscan branch of the Italic languages of the Indo-European language family. Today it is the only active, although limitedly used (not spoken) Italian language on Earth. Latin is one of the most ancient written Indo-European languages. Today, Latin is the official language of the Holy See, the Order of Malta and the Vatican City State, as well as, to some extent, the Roman Catholic Church. A large number of words in European (and not only) languages are of Latin origin.
Latin is the official language of the Holy See, the Order of Malta and the Vatican City State
Chinese
The first writings in Chinese date back 3,000 years to the Zhou Dynasty. Over time, Chinese has evolved, and today 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language. It is the most popular language in the world in terms of the number of speakers.
Greek
The earliest Greek writing dates back to 1450 BC. Greek is used predominantly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus. It is spoken by approximately 13 million people. The language has a long and rich history and is one of the oldest European languages.
Armenian
Belongs to the family of the Indo-European language group. According to the latest data, it has existed since 450 BC.
Irish Gaelic
Although Irish Gaelic is spoken as a first language by only a small majority of Irish people today, it has a deep history. It belongs to the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family. It existed on the islands that are today Great Britain and Ireland long before the Germanic tribes came to this territory. From Irish Gaelic developed Scots and Manx (which was formerly used on the Isle of Man), but what makes it included on this list is that it has the oldest vernacular literature in Western Europe. While other European countries spoke their own languages but used Latin writing, the Irish used their own language for writing.
Extinct languages of ancient people
The first written evidence dates back to 3200 BC. Written monuments in this language were discovered at the Jemdet Nasr archaeological site in Iraq. Sumerian was the language of the ancient Sumerians, whose origins date back to the 4th millennium BC. Sumerian is also considered an isolate that has no family ties with other languages on the planet.
After the decline of the Sumerian civilization, the Sumerian language was studied for a long time in Mesopotamia, since most religious and literary texts were written in it
The language spoken by the ancient Egyptians who inhabited the Nile Valley north of the first of the Nile cataracts. Forms one of the branches of Afroasiatic languages, called Egyptian. It has a number of similarities in phonetics and morphology with the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic family, and therefore at one time some authors classified it as Semitic; another fairly popular point of view at one time was to recognize it as an intermediate link between the Semitic, Berber-Libyan and Cushitic branches; both of these interpretations are currently rejected.
The oldest documents in ancient Egyptian known to us date back to the reign of the 1st dynasty and date back to the end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. Almost all stone monuments of this period are covered with hieroglyphic verbal-syllabic writing, which retains the features of pictographic writing. Since ancient times, business documentation has used a special kind of hieroglyphic cursive writing; After the period of the Fifth Dynasty (about 2500 BC), to which the oldest papyrus records date, this cursive writing began to be called hieratic writing. After the 7th century BC. On the basis of hieratic writing, a super-cursive form was formed - demotic writing, which remained in use until the end of the 5th century. AD The monumental (pictorial) form of Egyptian writing was rarely used after the advent of hieratic.
It is customary to distinguish several periods in the history of ancient Egypt. The oldest, called Old Egyptian, dates back to the 32nd–22nd centuries. BC.; it is represented in the phonetically recorded hymns and spells found in the pyramids; for centuries these texts were transmitted orally. The next period in the history of Ancient Egyptian is Middle Egyptian, which remained the literary language of Egypt from the 22nd to the 14th centuries. BC.; for some purposes it continued to be used during Roman rule. After about 1350 BC Middle Egyptian gives way to Late Egyptian (or New Egyptian) both in literary texts and in official documents. Late Egyptian remained in use until around the 7th century. BC. did not replace demotic with Egyptian - the language of demotic texts. Around the 2nd century. AD The Greek alphabet began to be used to record ancient Egyptian texts, and from that time on, the ancient Egyptian began to be called Coptic. The last known record in hieratic writing dates back to the 3rd century. AD; demotic – 5th century. AD; from this moment on, ancient Egyptian is considered dead.
The oldest documents known to us in the ancient Egyptian language date back to the reign of the 1st dynasty and date back to the end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd millennium BC
Akkadian
The first mention of Akkadian dates back to 2800 BC. Written evidence of this language has been found in the Shaduppum region of Iraq. It was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia but is now considered dead. It got its name from the city of Akkad, a major center of Mesopotamian civilization of that time. The first texts written in Akkadian appeared during the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. Thousands of texts have been discovered in excavations so far. Akkadian served as a means of communication between two peoples who lived in ancient times in the territory of the modern Middle East. The language began to fade away in the 8th century. BC.
Eblaite
A Semitic language, now dead, Eblaitic was once the dominant language, dating back to 2400 BC. Thousands of tablets with inscriptions in this language were found during archaeological excavations of the ruins of the city of Ebla. It was spoken in the 3rd millennium BC. in the ancient city of Ebla, between Aleppo and Hama, now in Western Syria. Considered to be the second oldest written Semitic language after Akkadian, it is now considered dead.
Hittite
The first mention of Hittite dates back to 1650. BC. Today it is a dead language, but it was once spoken by the Hittites, a people in north-central Anatolia. The language fell into disuse after the collapse of the Hittite Empire.
Minoan
This language was widely spoken in the 2nd century BC. It was the language of ancient Crete. Today it is considered an isolate, since its connection with other languages has not been established.
Pramirova
It is the hypothetical ancestor of all the world's existing languages, the oldest from which all modern living languages and language families, as well as known dead languages, descend, just as the widely accepted Proto-Indo-European, reconstructed by linguists, is the ancestor of all the world's Indo-European languages.
Arguments for the existence of the primeval are based on anthropology, the direction of human migrations, and the assumption of the ability of prehistoric people to speak. Great amount The time that has passed since the era of the existence of the primeval world does not allow making direct linguistic statements about its nature. The methods of historical linguistics used in this case turn out to be useless.
The theory of monogenesis states that all known languages descended from a common ancestor, but it may be that different languages arose independently in different groups of ancient people from their methods of communication that existed before the emergence of language as we understand it now.
It is worth noting that this language is not necessarily the first in general, it is only the ancestor of all current languages. In the past, others could have existed side by side with it, which then became extinct. For example, a hypothesis is being discussed about whether Neanderthals could speak. If they could, their language most likely did not descend from the proto-world.
What about Russian?
Russian refers to largest languages world: in terms of the number of speakers it ranks fifth after Chinese, English, Hindi and Spanish. All Slavic languages show great similarities among themselves, but the ones closest to Russian are Belarusian and Ukrainian. The three of these languages form the East Slavic subgroup, which is part of the Slavic group of the Indo-European family.
The ancestor of modern Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian languages was an Old Russian (or East Slavic) language
The ancestor of modern Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian was the Old Russian (or East Slavic) language. In its history, two main eras can be distinguished: preliterate (from the collapse of the Proto-Slavic language to the end of the 10th century) and written. What this language was like before the advent of writing can only be found out through a comparative historical study of Slavic and Indo-European languages, since no Old Russian writing existed at that time.
The collapse of Old Russian led to the emergence of Russian (or Great Russian), distinct from Ukrainian and Belarusian. This happened in the 14th century, although already in the 12th-13th centuries, phenomena emerged in the Old Russian language that distinguished the dialects of the ancestors of the Great Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians from each other. The basis of modern Russian was the northern and north-eastern dialects of Ancient Rus' (by the way, literary Russian also has a dialect basis: it was composed of the central Central Russian dialects of Moscow and the villages surrounding the capital).