Oldest Language?

This is old news, but still: In late 2016 Science News reported on the work of archeologist and epigraphy Douglas Petrovich, who claims that “Israelites living in Egypt transformed that civilization’s hieroglyphics into Hebrew 1.0 more than 3,800 years ago, at a time when the Old Testament describes Jews living in Egypt. . . . Hebrew speakers seeking a way to communicate in writing with other Egyptian Jews simplified the pharaohs’ complex hieroglyphic writing system into 22 alphabetic letters.”

Petrovich is not the first to make this proposal, and of course he’s not convinced everyone. The report continues:

Petrovich says his big break came in January 2012. While conducting research at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, he came across the word ‘Hebrews’ in a text from 1874 B.C. that includes the earliest known alphabetic letter. . . . Armed with the entire fledgling alphabet, he translated 18 Hebrew inscriptions from three Egyptian sites. Several biblical figures turn up in the translated inscriptions, including Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his half-brothers and then became a powerful political figure in Egypt, Joseph’s wife Asenath and Joseph’s son Manasseh, a leading figure in a turquoise-mining business that involved yearly trips to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Moses, who led the Israelites out of Egypt, is also mentioned, Petrovich says.

Old news, but, given that we’ve waited millennia for the discovery, fairly new news.