How much years old is Tamil language?
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.
Tamil (5000 years old)
Indian Language Tamil is 5000 years old and is the official language of Sri Lanka as well as Singapore. It is the part of the Dravidian family and is also the only language that has survived all the way to the modern world.
By order of appearance, Tamil would be considered the world's oldest language as it is over 5,000 years old, having made its first appearance in 3,000 BC. The literature collection in Tamil, which is a classical language, is very vast. It is also varied.
Though we can not ascertain the world's oldest language, other languages including Chinese and Egyptian are older than Tamil.
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 written origins of the language have been traced back to 1250 BC in the late Shang dynasty. Along with Tamil, Chinese is one of the oldest surviving languages in the world. Hebrew: While many believe that Hebrew has been used for the last 5000 years, its earliest written examples date only to 1000BC.
The Tolkappiyam, possibly the most ancient of the extant Sangam works, dated between the 3rd century BCE and 5th century CE, glorified Murugan, the favoured god of the Tamils.
This helped ensure that the modern Tamils could be described as both indigenous people of South India and the direct descendants of the people of Kumari Kandam. This, in turn, allowed them to describe the Tamil language and culture as the world's oldest.
While some of the languages in India are closely related to Sanskrit and actually derived most of their words from it, the closest to Tamil is Malayalam, a Tamil dialect that completely evolved into a separate language.
2. Sanskrit (5000 years old) - World's Oldest Language. Source Unlike Tamil, which is still a widely spoken language, Sanskrit is the oldest language in the world but fell out of common usage around 600 B.C. It is now a liturgical language - the holy languages found in the scriptures of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
Is Tamil the mother of all languages?
"Root Tamil words exist in many languages of the world in various modifications but retaining the semantic meaning. In the world languages, it is difficult to find a basic word that does not have some link with the Tamil word. Hence, Tamil has the status of the mother tongue in the world," the CM said.
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).
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.
There are four Dravidian langauges - Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam. Among them, Tamil is the oldest.
- Marathi (1500 – 2000 years)
- Odia (2000 years)
- Malayalam (2000 years)
- Telugu (1500 – 2000 years)
- Kannada (2000 years)
- Sanskrit (3000 years)
- Tamil (5000 years)
- Indian Languages and Knowledge-bases.
Such archaeological evidence provide ample proof to establish the antiquity of Tamil as an ancient language. Discoveries also point out that the first 'Tamil Sangam' existed in 8th century BC. Ancient Tamil words are still in use.
Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, a large collection of hymns, incantations, and religio-philosophical discussions which form the earliest religious texts in India and the basis for much of the Hindu religion. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Rigveda to be the earliest.
Some of these loan words are present in the earliest transcripts of the Bible. By the mid-nineteenth century, Christian missionaries trained in Biblical Hebrew noticed that there were words of Indian origin in the Bible, including from the Tamil language.
Most religious scholars and historians agree with Pope Francis that the historical Jesus principally spoke a Galilean dialect of Aramaic. Through trade, invasions and conquest, the Aramaic language had spread far afield by the 7th century B.C., and would become the lingua franca in much of the Middle East.
Malayalam evolved either from a western dialect of Tamil or from the branch of Proto-Dravidian from which modern Tamil also evolved. The earliest record of the language is an inscription dated to approximately 830 ce. An early and extensive influx of Sanskrit words influenced the Malayalam script.
Who is the father of Tamil?
Maraimalai Adigal (15 July 1876 – 15 September 1950) was a Tamil orator and writer and father of Pure Tamil movement.
It is believed that Tamil language is born out of pellet drum which fell from Lord Shiva while he was dancing. Another School of thought is that Lord Muruga created Tamil language.”
The Tamil language is one of the world's longest-surviving classical languages, with a history dating back to 300 BCE. Tamil literature is dominated by poetry, especially Sangam literature, which is composed of poems composed between 300 BCE and 300 CE.
Dravidians are thought of as the descendants of the earliest known inhabitants on India. They include the primitives Bhil and Gond tribes of the central and western hill forests and the Tamils of the south. The earliest Dravidians were hunters and cattle herders.
The unfolding archaeological and geological evidence is proving to be the historical validation that Tamil civilisation which reached a high-point during those two Tamil Sangams had their beginnings 11,000 years ago or circa 9,000 BC.
Tamil is older than Sanskrit and there is record of 'Tamil Sangam' dating back 4,500 years, he said. Raja also alleged there was a "hidden agenda" of the government behind reviving a "dying or a dead language". The DMK member said he was not against Sanskrit language but was against imposing any language on people.
- Italian.
- Korean.
- Tamil.
- Farsi.
- Hebrew.
- Aramaic.
- Chinese.
- Greek.
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.
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.
Japanese and Tamil share a nearly identical set of vowels (a, i, u, e, o). All of these vowels have both a short and long form. Furthermore, both Tamil and Japanese have two different nasal 'n' sounds, one of which never ends a word and one of which never begins a word.
Is Korean related to Tamil?
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.
Tamil speaking countries
With 83.05 million native speakers, Tamil has the highest prevalence in India. As a percentage of the total population, the largest share of around 18 percent is in Sri Lanka. A total of about 88.6 million people worldwide speak Tamil as their mother tongue.
2. Sanskrit – 1500 BC (circa. 3500 years old)
Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, a large collection of hymns, incantations, and religio-philosophical discussions which form the earliest religious texts in India and the basis for much of the Hindu religion. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Rigveda to be the earliest.