Final answer:
The Old Egyptian language would likely be rated as 2 on a scale of 1-5 for age. It dates back to between 2600 BCE and 2000 BCE and is one of the earliest forms of the Egyptian language, preceding the text on the Rosetta Stone by several centuries.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Old Egyptian language would likely fall at 2 on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being the oldest and 5 being the newest. The Egyptian language evolved over several millennia, with the Old Egyptian period considered to date back to around 2600 BCE to 2000 BCE, which makes it one of the earlier stages of the Egyptian language development.
Following the Old Egyptian period, the language transitioned into Middle Egyptian, which was used from approximately 2000 BCE to 1350 BCE, and then into the New Kingdom phase where the language became what we know as Late Egyptian. This Late period of the language continued to be in use until the Ptolemaic Period, which lasted until about 332 BCE and eventually gave way to Demotic and then Coptic, in the last phase of the ancient Egyptian language.
The Rosetta Stone has played a pivotal role in understanding the ancient Egyptian language and script. Carved in 196 BCE, it included text in three scripts, which made it possible to translate the previously undecipherable Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Old Egyptian language, which predates the Rosetta Stone, is a testament to Egypt's long-lasting civilization, which exercised considerable influence on neighboring cultures throughout the Mediterranean for more than 3000 years.