Researchers from Reading University have identified the oldest words in English and other Indo-European languages that are still in use. "I" and "we" are among the oldest unsurprising, well you didn't expect it to be "antidisestablishmentarianism" did you? The researchers have set up a web site which catalogues how words have changed over time allowing people to insert a date and see what words were used at the time.
They have also created a computer model to analyse the rate of change and see which words could become extinct. "Bad" is one of them apparently.
Update (06/03/09) : i am a historian not a linguist so felt the above story was interesting but a bit odd, proper linguists have found the whole thing rather baffling and laughable. Oh well!
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