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by LordGronk 1025 days ago
I think a better and more interesting question would, perhaps, be “What is the most conservative language as supported by written and spoken evidence (the variations of ancient greek dialects tracking with orthographic differences shows that it can be done). And Anglo-saxon is not the same as modern English to any degree. 1066 and the great vowel shift saw to that. A great book on the history, and conservative nature of Egyptian is “The Ancient Egyptian Language: An Historical Study” by James Allen. If you really want to get into the weeds “Ancient Egyptian Phonology” by the same author. The latter in particular points out the extreme similarities to more rural Coptic dialects and Egyptian as found in the Heqanakht papyri.