Is Tamil one of the oldest language in the world?

Question

I'm half Tamil and half Mauritian. I used to speak 4 languages when I was little. Creole(broken French), English, French and Tamil. Now I can understand when people speak French but cant actually speak French. And the biggest shame is that I totally forgot how to speak Tamil. I heard that Tamil is one if the oldest language in the world. Dunno if its true or not. If it is ill be sooooo ashamed.

BTW i can still speak english and creol :)

Answer 1

People often say things like this, but it's pretty silly. ALL languages are old. All languages come from other languages that come from other languages all the way back.



There are so many languages that claim to be "the oldest in the world". Chinese does. Some Turkish nationalists do. Lots do for Hebrew and Sanskrit. Some do for Korean and Japanese. And for Mayan. It's a fundamentally superficial approach to the importance or value of a language.



A less silly thing is to ask about how old literatures are. And it is true that Tamil literature is among the 20 oldest.Here they are in approximate order. I'm trying to just list those with significant bodies of literature, not those which survive only in fragments.



Sumerian

Egyptian

Elamite

Babylonian

Hittite

Sanskrit

Greek

Chinese

Hebrew

Avesta/Old Persian

Pali

Tamil

Answer 2

Tolkappiyam is dated between 300 and 800BC. There are several other written records of language that pre date Tolkappiyam. Hieroglyphics in Egypt date back several thousand years, so do the inscriptions in the cuneiform script of the Sumerian civilization, as far back as 3400-5000BC. If you mean to say that Tamil is the oldest language 'still' spoken (as opposed to extinct), we would have to consider a popular analogy- suppose a ship sailed out from a port. A few days later the sail got torn so it had to be changed, later the hull started disintegrating so it was also changed, a few more days later the cabin too started deteriorating and had to be pulled down and a new one was built. In this manner within a year the entire ship had been completely changed; not a single part of it remained the same. So finally the ship returned to the port after a year. Can the ship that arrived at the port be called the same ship that sailed out from the port? In the same manner the Tamil language spoken today is so greatly removed from the Tamil of two thousand and five hundred years ago that the two versions of Tamil are completely unintelligible to each other- would they still be called the same language? Or was the Tamil of the Tolkappiyam era a different language, a proto-Dravidian parent language from which the modern dialects of Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada and modern Tamil gradually diverged? Even if we accept that both these 'Tamils' are in fact one language, then the Chinese language, with its written records that dates back to 6600BC (in the form of pictographic inscriptions in the Jiahu script) would be the oldest 'living' language, pre dating Tamil by several **milleniums**!

Answer 3

Tamilz is the Oldest living language, excavation in Aadhichanallur at Thirunelvelle , Tamil Nadu, India shows that the Tamil peoples are living here since 60,000 years. They used a kind of writing known as Vatteluthu (writing in round) and their literature's are 10,000 years old. Tamil has well structured Grammar, more than 600,000 vocabulary of its own. Tamil literature was created and compiled and discussed among the scholars, experts and then it was accepted. There are 6 Classical languages in the world, Tamil, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Chinese and samaskritham. Among those 6 classical languages Tamil is the LIVING OLDEST Language in the world with a history of 60,000 years. Their land mas was submerged in the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal because of Tsunami and it is known as "Kumari kandam". Kumari kandam had 60 small countries in it. Tamiz(Tamil) தமிழ் is the OLDEST of all the living language in the world and 80 million people are speaking தமிழ்(tamiz) and they are spread out in 80 countries.

Answer 4

Tamil is mother of all languages. No question in my mind. Only reason its not accepted because tamils never qa conquering type. They are more like explorers. Even most english words has tamil roots , Even korean spoken language has 500 words. Afriican people use tamil words , All australian aborigin words written old tamil. The world combinaton sounds exactly like tamil. So if you go any corner , the old tribal language will sound like tamil. No one living language can boast that in the world. Not one language. Hebrew ,sanskrit and all may be max 3000 years old. Tamil probably go back to 20000+ years , may be more. My theory is dravidians who came from africa moves out to various direction. And i really think australia to india probably connected through land mass long time ago.