[yongjik]

> ... something that is the result of being one of the oldest language families in the world.

That makes no sense. If we had a time machine, we'll be able to trace every modern language back to some African tribe that became the ancestor of all modern humans.

Perhaps you meant having a literary tradition that's among the oldest in the world, but even that doesn't necessarily explain why there would be so many homophones. Languages lose words all the time, even one with great literary traditions.

[truthexposer]

I meant the development of written languages happened independently across different regions of the world, and of course at some point, languages became mutually unintelligible, and language changes within the languages happened differently.

And while of course every language descends from another, and ancient Chinese isn't understandable to a modern Chinese speaker, there is a long tradition within the Chinese language, and change within the language hasn't been shaped by things as drastic as displacement of the linguistic community, or forced political rule under a foreign power, etc.