A DOSE OF VERY OLD JOKES
People were telling jokes long before anyone wrote down a novel.
Doză de bancuri is Romanian for a dose of jokes. Researchers have traced jokes with a clear set-up and punchline back to at least 1900 BC, and many of the oldest ones turn on the same subjects that still get laughs today. An independent informational guide.
1900 BC oldest recorded joke
THE SHORT ANSWER
A 2008 study at the University of Wolverhampton defined a joke as having a clear set-up and punchline.
That let it trace jokes back nearly 4,000 years.
SUMER
The oldest recorded joke is a Sumerian proverb about a young bride breaking wind, dated to at least 1900 BC and possibly as early as 2300 BC.
Date a jokeEGYPT AND BEYOND
By around 1600 BC an Egyptian papyrus held a joke in question-and-answer form, and a Sumerian tale from 1200 BC already uses the rule of three.
How they workTHE FIRST JOKE BOOK
The Greek Philogelos, or Laughter Lover, collects some 265 jokes and is often called the world's oldest joke book.
See the numbersHOW OLD IS THAT JOKE?
Pick a joke from the record books. The bar shows how far back it goes.
Dates are those given for each joke in the 2008 University of Wolverhampton list as reported in the press. Some are approximate.
TWO NUMBERS WORTH KNOWING
One figure on how far back jokes go,
one on the size of the first known joke book.
3,900 years
Age of the Sumerian proverb
Guinness World Records lists the Sumerian proverb as the oldest joke, dated to 1900 BC, around 3,900 years ago. It was found on tablets from the Old Babylonian period.
OLDEST JOKE · GUINNESS
≈ 265 jokes
Jokes in the Greek 'Laughter Lover'
Scientific American describes Philogelos as a collection of some 265 jokes, thought to date to the fourth or fifth century AD, and often cited as the world's oldest joke book.
PHILOGELOS · SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
The copy of Philogelos we read today was pieced together from surviving parts of different versions, so it may never have existed in exactly this form in the ancient world.
READING AN ANCIENT JOKE
Old jokes can feel strange because the world around them has changed. These are the patterns researchers and writers point to.
The Wolverhampton study only counted a joke if it had a clear set-up and punchline. That structure is already there in 1900 BC.
Some are witty proverbs, some are riddles and some use question and answer, just like many jokes told today.
The ox drivers of Adab, around 1200 BC, use the rule of three: the set-up is heard three times before the pay-off.
The study's lead researcher said what the oldest jokes share is a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion.
THE BARBER JOKE
One Philogelos story has an academic, a bald man and a barber taking turns on night watch. The bored barber shaves the sleeping academic's head; when woken, the academic rubs his scalp and says the barber has woken the bald man instead of him.
Scientific American notes that the collection may have worked like a musician's fake book: simple versions of jokes that each teller would dress up in their own style, which is how jokes are still passed on today.
Questions
According to a 2008 University of Wolverhampton study and Guinness World Records, it is a Sumerian proverb about a young bride breaking wind, dated to at least 1900 BC.
The study defined a joke as having a clear set-up and punchline structure. That definition let researchers trace jokes back to 1900 BC.
Philogelos, Greek for Laughter Lover, is often cited as the oldest. It holds some 265 jokes and is thought to date to the fourth or fifth century AD.
The study named a 10th-century riddle as the UK's oldest joke, and a line from a 1526 joke book about a 'crafty man of law' as its oldest one-liner.
It is Romanian for 'a dose of jokes'. This English-language page uses the name for a short history of the oldest jokes on record.
Sources
ABOUT THIS NAME
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