The word “democracy” is the English form of an originally ancient Greek coinage, a compound of demos (meaning people or masses) and kratos (power). The oldest democracy, literally speaking, was that of the fifth-century BC Athenians in ancient Greece.
However, claims are made that weaker forms and types of something vaguely democratic, at least in terms of public discussion, were around earlier than that – in ancient India, for instance. But if we understand democracy to be power in the form of majority decisionmaking by an empowered electorate, then classical Athens wins the prize for being first – although of course the Athenian electorate was made up only of free and legitimate adult men.