2. Sanskrit – 1500 BC (circa. 3500 years old) With its oldest texts dating back to around 1500 BCE, Sanskrit is probably the second oldest language in the world still being used today.
Greek is the third oldest language in the world. Latin was the official language of the ancient Roman Empire and ancient Roman religion. It is currently the official language of the Roman Catholic Church and the official language of the Vatican City. Like Sanskrit, it is a classical language.
What is the first language? Sumerian can be considered the first language in the world, according to Mondly. The oldest proof of written Sumerian was found on the Kish tablet in today's Iraq, dating back to approximately 3500 BC.
Though we can not ascertain the world's oldest language, other languages including Chinese and Egyptian are older than Tamil.
However, it is generally acknowledged that Tamil has one of the oldest written traditions among living languages, while Sanskrit has been recognized as one of the oldest recorded languages in the world.
"Tamil is not only an international language, it is like a mother of all languages in the world,"' he said. Tamil scholar Devaneya Pavanar had established that Tamil is the primary classical language of the world, he said.
Tamil is not derived from Sanskrit, although the two did influence each other throughout history. While Sanskrit is an Indo-European language, Tamil comes from the Dravidian language family. So, Tamil and Sanskrit are not directly related.
What do you think? We do know Tamil is a classical language older than Latin, Greek, and Egyptian. And we know that it is oldest known language still in significant use. The earliest written work of Tamil is The Tolkāppiyam, which dates back between 2300 and 3000 years ago, based on linguistic and other evidence.
Recorded Tamil literature has been documented for over 2000 years. The earliest period of Tamil literature, Sangam literature, is dated from c. 300 BC until AD 300. It has the oldest extant literature among Dravidian languages.
Meaning 1500+2022 = 3522 years old. Tolkāppiyam is a Tamil Scientific literature written with information about World's oldest Tamil Civilization and Continent called Kumari Kandam (meaning young continent). The closest English name is known as Lemuria.
Aramaic is best known as the language Jesus spoke. It is a Semitic language originating in the middle Euphrates. In 800-600 BC it spread from there to Syria and Mesopotamia. The oldest preserved inscriptions are from this period and written in Old Aramaic.
The Adamic language, according to Jewish tradition (as recorded in the midrashim) and some Christians, is the language spoken by Adam (and possibly Eve) in the Garden of Eden.
In the beginning, Sanskrit stood as mother of all languages and encouraged all languages and was the reason for their growth and prosperity. One may note that most of the works in Sanskrit have been translated into other Indian languages.”
Old English – the earliest form of the English language – was spoken and written in Anglo-Saxon Britain from c. 450 CE until c. 1150 (thus it continued to be used for some decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066).
1. Tamil (5000 years old) - Oldest Living Language of the World. Source Spoken by 78 million people and official language in Sri Lanka and Singapore, Tamil is the oldest language in the world. It is the only ancient language that has survived all the way to the modern world.
Hinduism in Tamil Nadu finds its earliest literary mention in the Sangam literature dated to the 5th century BCE.
Sanskrit scholars always called Tamil as a sister language, and others as daughters. Thus Sanskrit can borrow from Tamil but not from others. The fact that Sanskrit words form 40% of Tamil vocabulary even today, hence Sanskrit is older.
Tholkappiyam is the oldest Tamil literature. It was composed 2000 years ago. As per Tamil language experts Tholkappiyam dates to before 350BC.
Across multiple sources, Mandarin Chinese is the number one language listed as the most challenging to learn. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center puts Mandarin in Category IV, which is the list of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers.
In the 4th century, the Pallava dynasty created a new script for Tamil and the Grantha alphabet evolved from it, adding the Vaṭṭeḻuttu alphabet for sounds not found to write Sanskrit.
The Tamil language has absorbed many Indo-Aryan, Prakrit, Pali and Sanskrit loanwords ever since the early 1st millennium CE, when the Sangam period Chola kingdoms became influenced by spread of Jainism, Buddhism and early Hinduism. Many of these loans are obscured by adaptions to Tamil phonology.
Tamil is one of the most challenging to read and speak, but it is not the most difficult language out there. According to the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), Japanese, Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin), Korean, and Arabic are the hardest languages.
The Importance of Tamil
Some key reasons include: Tamils account for more than 20% of the population in India, making them one of the largest linguistic groups in the country. Tamil is the official language of Sri Lanka, and it is spoken by nearly 75% of the population.