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.
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.
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.
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.
Though we can not ascertain the world's oldest language, other languages including Chinese and Egyptian are older than Tamil.
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.
The earliest Tamil writing is attested in inscriptions and potsherds from the 5th century bce. Three periods have been distinguished through analyses of grammatical and lexical changes: Old Tamil (from about 450 bce to 700 ce), Middle Tamil (700–1600), and Modern Tamil (from 1600).
"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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
The world's youngest language, coming in at only 100 years old (officially), is the South African language of Afrikaans. Surprised? Afrikaans, the natively spoken language of 7 million South Africans, was born from the white Dutch, French, and German colonizers in South Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries.
According to Hindu legend, Tamil or in personification form Tamil Thāi (Mother Tamil) was created by Lord Shiva. Murugan, revered as the Tamil God, along with sage Agastya, brought it to the people.
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.
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.
Comparative linguist Kang Gil-un identifies 1300 Dravidian Tamil cognates in Korean. He suggests that Korean is probably related to the Nivkh language and influenced by Tamil.
Recognized as one of the foremost linguists in Japan, Ono was Professor of Linguistics at Gakushuin University in Tokyo. In his research, Professor Ono asserted that both Tamil and Japanese share a common ancestry.
It is believed that Lord Shiva played 'Thiruvilayadal' to test the knowledge of Tamil poets. The above would only mean that Tamil language is connected with Gods. When it is connected with Gods, it is a Godly language.
The Tamil people are an ethnic group from South Asia with a recorded history going back more than two millennia. The oldest Tamil communities are those of southern India and northeastern Sri Lanka.
The Tamils are native to modern state of India known as Tamil Nadu and the northern and eastern part of Sri Lanka.
The Pandya are the earliest mentioned of the Tamil ruling chieftains. They first appeared in Greek writings in the fourth century B.C.E. and were said to have sent ambassadors to Roman emperors.