The oldest nation ever

[Redem]

Simply take an antique Nation or empire and make it last from there era to mine

[Imajin]

How old is "Antique"? 100 BC? 1000 BC? 301 AD?

You could do well with a surviving Byzantium, the Roman Empire founded in 30BC...

[Tyr]

Agree.
Needs better definition.

[benedict XVII]

Wouldn't China qualify anyway?

[Imajin]

Originally Posted by benedict XVII

Wouldn't China qualify anyway?

I suppose then you have another quandary on definition... Are states like the Khanate of the Great Khan (Yuan Dynasty) and the Empire of the Great Qing (Qing Dynasty) part of a continual "China"? Even if they are, did the Chinese Revolution that ended the monarchy establish a new state? What about the Chinese Civil War and the PRC?

[benedict XVII]

Originally Posted by Imajin

I suppose then you have another quandary on definition... Are states like the Khanate of the Great Khan (Yuan Dynasty) and the Empire of the Great Qing (Qing Dynasty) part of a continual "China"? Even if they are, did the Chinese Revolution that ended the monarchy establish a new state? What about the Chinese Civil War and the PRC?

The challenge says "nation", not "state". To the extent that you have a broad continuity in terms of ethnicity, culture and language, I'd say China qualifies.

[Imajin]

Originally Posted by benedict XVII

The challenge says "nation", not "state". To the extent that you have a broad continuity in terms of ethnicity, culture and language, I'd say China qualifies.

Well, he said "Nation or empire", so I assumed he meant something more along the lines of "state"...

[Tyr]

In that case so does Greece.
And Ireland.
Lots of places.

I'd guess San Marino is the oldest continuous nation. Been around pretty much unmolested since 300ad or there abouts.

[benedict XVII]

Originally Posted by Leej

In that case so does Greece.
And Ireland.
Lots of places.

I'd guess San Marino is the oldest continuous nation. Been around pretty much unmolested since 300ad or there abouts.

Greece could qualify, but is more recent than China. Ireland is even more recent.

It really looks like China has the longest heritage. Henryk, your opinion on this?

[Tyr]

Greece isn't definatly younger then China. Both have been about in a semi recognisable state for about 4000 years.
Ireland...Not so sure. The celts weren't all that different so those there before them.

Anyway this is about peoples here. Not nations.

[pa_dutch]

What about Ethiopia? Sweden is another possibility, seeing as Tacitus made reference to the nation of the "Suiones" as early as around 100 AD...

[Leo Caesius]

How about the Sicilians? First mentioned in the late 13th - early 12th century BCE!

If we're talking about ancient peoples, the Jews have a claim to a long and well-established pedigree. And if we're admitting the Chinese, we might as well admit the Egyptians as well. Unless we're only admitting nations that have preserved a form of their language from antiquity, in which case the various Aramaic-speaking ethnicities throughout the Middle East are a close contender with the Chinese for true antiquity. The Iranians also have a legitimate claim.

[benedict XVII]

Originally Posted by Leo Caesius

How about the Sicilians? First mentioned in the late 13th - early 12th century BCE!

If we're talking about ancient peoples, the Jews have a claim to a long and well-established pedigree. And if we're admitting the Chinese, we might as well admit the Egyptians as well. Unless we're only admitting nations that have preserved a form of their language from antiquity, in which case the various Aramaic-speaking ethnicities throughout the Middle East are a close contender with the Chinese for true antiquity. The Iranians also have a legitimate claim.

China: 2000-3000 BC
Greece: 1800-2500 BC (out of Crete really, but good enough, otherwise 1200-1000 BC)
Jews: 1200-1500 BC
Egypt: 2500-3500 BC, but I would qualify it as continuity in language / culture / religion not really there.
Iran: 1000-1200 BC (I'm taking Medans here)

Not really familiar with ethnies that would be linked to Sumerians who would be the ultimate winners, but I'd love to be educated.

[Nicksplace27]

Ethiopia has been the oldest unconquered republic, first bieng called Axum then Abbysnia. All the other ones you mentioned have been captured by other countries at one point or another.

[Tyr]

Just thought-
Natives.
Some native Americans are counted as being semi-independant nations.
Aborignees have had a significant impact on Australian culture.
Large parts of Africa retain the same tribes they've always had.
Africa is probally very good for this. Even though they've adopted modern technology they still have their standard age old cultural tribal feuds. Some tribes there are recent but others are OLD.

[pa_dutch]

If we're talking ethnicities and not states, I'd say the Nubians are contenders as well. Nubian cultures have been in existance since the founding of Egypt, and there is still a sizeable population of Nubians in southern Egypt and northern Sudan. Aren't there still Assyrians, too? I'm not sure if they're actually descendants of ancient Assyria or not.

[Leo Caesius]

Originally Posted by BenedictXVII

China: 2000-3000 BC
Greece: 1800-2500 BC (out of Crete really, but good enough, otherwise 1200-1000 BC)
Jews: 1200-1500 BC
Egypt: 2500-3500 BC, but I would qualify it as continuity in language / culture / religion not really there.
Iran: 1000-1200 BC (I'm taking Medans here)

Not really familiar with ethnies that would be linked to Sumerians who would be the ultimate winners, but I'd love to be educated.

This is a horribly complex issue, and please excuse me if I sound like I'm quibbling or being pedantic here (I am very pedantic, which I freely acknowledge, and for which I apologize). I don't mean to sound like I'm finding fault, at all. Honestly.

Those figures for China seem horribly bloated to me. The first Chinese dynasty, the Shang, which allegedly ruled from the 18th to the 12th centuries BCE, is semilegendary, and at any rate we don't get any texts in Chinese until the 12th century (the famous jiaguwen or Oracle Bone texts). As written languages go, that puts Chinese roughly in the same league as Hebrew and Aramaic (some would say that Hebrew predates Aramaic, and the archaeological evidence is older) and slighly older than Greek (if you don't include Linear B) or slighly younger (if you do). Of course, if you include Linear B, I'd argue that you also have to count Ugaritic and the Canaanite glosses in the Amarna letters. But that's a different story.

All of these pale before Egyptian, which was first recorded around the turn of the 3rd millennium BCE and continued to be used until sometime between the 14th and the 17th century BCE. It is still preserved as a liturgical language by the Coptic Church.

If we're counting semi-legendary dynasties, then you also have to include Zarathustra and the Kayanians (12th century BCE? 6th century BCE? Who knows?). What about the civilization represented by the Vedas (which were complete by the 15th c. BCE), and which is undoubtedly ancestral to modern India?

The other problem raised is the issue of continuity of language/culture/religion. There's no guarantee that the language of the jiaguwen has any relation to Mandarin today. The Chinese used an ideographic system, which could be adopted and adapted for use by most analytical languages. At one point these "chinese ideograms" were employed by most of the languages in the region, and are still used (to a limited extent) by the Japanese and the Koreans. Plus, the Chinese adopted Buddhism (which came from India) and the other traditional Chinese religions - Taoism and Confucianism - are innovations of their own. The Arabs recognized the antiquity of the Egyptians, preserving the ancient Aramaic (and before that Akkadian) name for the region, and the Copts preserved their language well after the 14th century. So the Chinese may in fact be no more of a direct descendant from the Shang than the Egyptians are from the Pharaohs. The only thing that really distinguishes them, in my mind, is the continuity of script, if not of language.

If that's the case, however, then the Lebanese use a cursive variant of the script that they adopted nearly 3500 years ago, and transmitted to the west - and they also speak a Semitic language which, in comparison with comparison with the complex of languages which we've labeled "dialects" of Chinese, would appear so close as to be just another dialect (the Semitic languages are refreshingly close to one another; it makes my job much easier). Also, the name Lebanon appears in Sumerian texts, making the name of the country much older than that of China. Does that mean that Lebanon, which became independent in 1943, is the oldest surviving nation? The Lebanese would say that it is. After all, Lebanon's chief cities were all founded in the Bronze Age and attested in the texts of New Kingdom Egypt, and they've remained continuously occupied since.

The Sumerians are so out there that I'd argue that nothing surviving today is anything like them - linguistically, culturally, ethnically, and certainly not religiously. The oldest surviving group in Iraq today is the Mandaean sect, and they date back to the 2nd c. CE - earlier if you consider them part of the whole Aramaean complex of cultures. They have fastidiously preserved their language, culture, religion, and script since at least that time, in the face of many enemies and hard times.

If we want to go for true continuity of language/culture/religion, then I'm afraid that India is the only legitimate contestant. This is ironic, considering that "Indian" nationalism, and the idea of an "Indian" nation, is fairly recent. But then, that's the problem we face with all of these groups.

[benedict XVII]

Originally Posted by Leo Caesius

This is a horribly complex issue, and please excuse me if I sound like I'm quibbling or being pedantic here (I am very pedantic, which I freely acknowledge, and for which I apologize). I don't mean to sound like I'm finding fault, at all. Honestly.

Those figures for China seem horribly bloated to me. The first Chinese dynasty, the Shang, which allegedly ruled from the 18th to the 12th centuries BCE, is semilegendary, and at any rate we don't get any texts in Chinese until the 12th century (the famous jiaguwen or Oracle Bone texts). As written languages go, that puts Chinese roughly in the same league as Hebrew and Aramaic (some would say that Hebrew predates Aramaic, and the archaeological evidence is older) and slighly older than Greek (if you don't include Linear B) or slighly younger (if you do). Of course, if you include Linear B, I'd argue that you also have to count Ugaritic and the Canaanite glosses in the Amarna letters. But that's a different story.

All of these pale before Egyptian, which was first recorded around the turn of the 3rd millennium BCE and continued to be used until sometime between the 14th and the 17th century BCE. It is still preserved as a liturgical language by the Coptic Church.

If we're counting semi-legendary dynasties, then you also have to include Zarathustra and the Kayanians (12th century BCE? 6th century BCE? Who knows?). What about the civilization represented by the Vedas (which were complete by the 15th c. BCE), and which is undoubtedly ancestral to modern India?

The other problem raised is the issue of continuity of language/culture/religion. There's no guarantee that the language of the jiaguwen has any relation to Mandarin today. The Chinese used an ideographic system, which could be adopted and adapted for use by most analytical languages. At one point these "chinese ideograms" were employed by most of the languages in the region, and are still used (to a limited extent) by the Japanese and the Koreans. Plus, the Chinese adopted Buddhism (which came from India) and the other traditional Chinese religions - Taoism and Confucianism - are innovations of their own. The Arabs recognized the antiquity of the Egyptians, preserving the ancient Aramaic (and before that Akkadian) name for the region, and the Copts preserved their language well after the 14th century. So the Chinese may in fact be no more of a direct descendant from the Shang than the Egyptians are from the Pharaohs. The only thing that really distinguishes them, in my mind, is the continuity of script, if not of language. If that's the case, however, then the Lebanese use a cursive variant of the script that they adopted nearly 3500 years ago, and transmitted to the west - and they also speak a Semitic language which, in comparison with comparison with the complex of languages which we've labeled "dialects" of Chinese, would appear so close as to be just another dialect (the Semitic languages are refreshingly close to one another; it makes my job much easier). Also, the name Lebanon appears in Sumerian texts, making the name of the country much older than that of China. Does that mean that Lebanon, which became independent in 1943, is the oldest surviving nation? The Lebanese would say that it is. After all, Lebanon's chief cities were all founded in the Bronze Age and attested in the texts of New Kingdom Egypt, and they've remained continuously occupied since.

The Sumerians are so out there that I'd argue that nothing surviving today is anything like them - linguistically, culturally, ethnically, and certainly not religiously. The oldest surviving group in Iraq today is the Mandaean sect, and they date back to the 2nd c. CE - earlier if you consider them part of the whole Aramaean complex of cultures.

If we want to go for true continuity of language/culture/religion, then I'm afraid that India is the only legitimate contestant. This is ironic, considering that "Indian" nationalism, and the idea of an "Indian" nation, is fairly recent. But then, that's the problem we face with all of these groups.

Thanks for that great piece of education! And of course you're right, I had forgotten the Indians.

This said, if we added to the language/script/culture criterium, the notion of being conscious of being part of one people, how would this affect our ranking?

Greeks develop that conscience around 1200 BC, Jews at about the same time, Chinese pobably earlier, Egyptians much earlier but with a tricky continuity question, Indian seems much more recent... What's your take on ths?

[NapoleonXIV]

As Leej mentioned, if by survival you're going to use speaking the same language and existing in largely the same way then the native Australians are estimated to be 40,000 years old, I've read somewhere. This is supposedly reflected in their language(s) (there are apparently several dialects, all having great similarity, but only to each other), which in many respects is more complicated than any other in the world. Strangely, this is seen as indicative of great antiquity since languages are seen as becoming more streamlined and simpler through contact with other languages and cultures over time.

I think, the above is cobbled together from a little research and my own recollections, it may be entirely wrong.

[Leo Caesius]

It's a tough call. If you take the Semites under consideration as a whole - and the Semitic family of languages and nations are certainly as closely related as the various Chinese ethnicities, in all senses save the political - I think a case could be made for a consciousness of a group identity as early as the time of the authorship of the book of Genesis. The "Table of Nations" in Genesis 10 is the source for our classification of the Semitic family.

We don't tend to think of Semites as one group - they appear to be fairly diverse, what with the Hebrews (the Levant, Judaism), the Arabs (the peninsula, Islam), the Ethiopians (Africa, Orthodox Christianity and Islam), and sundry other groups, but if you examine them closely they share so much. Their histories are closely intertwined. Their religions are much closer to one another than the religions that evolved in other parts of the world. The scripts used in this region are all descended from one script, the abjad script, that was probably developed sometime after the 19th c. BCE - the Jews use the Aramaic form that was once current in Assyria, the Ethiopians use another form once popular in the Arabian peninsula, with the addition of vowels from the Indian scripts, and the Arabs use a cursive form of the abjad script.

If we consider the Semites as one broadly defined group, like the Chinese, who differ from the Chinese only in that they were rarely politically unified, then they have a pretty strong claim. Old Akkadian, the first attested Semitic language, starts appearing on the scene by 2800 BCE, and entire texts are being composed in it by 2500 BCE.

So, the earliest date for our "Table of Nations" is probably the 12th c. BCE, since it mentions the Philistines. I'm not sure when the Chinese first developed a national consciousness, but I'm sure Hendryk can set us straight.