Which langauage is older? Telugu or Tamil?

Question

Of both Telugu and Tamil,which langauage is generated from which langauage?

Answer 1

Tamil is one of the oldest languages with vast amount of literature dating back to more than 2000 years ago and originating probably 4000 years ago." Suresh

"It is a written language as well and has a very developed alphabet. It originates in Tamil Nadu in Southern India and is also spoken in Sri Lanka. Significant numbers of Tamils are also found in Singapore, Malaysia, Mauritius and in many European cities. As the English first settled in Madras, capital of Tamil Nadu when they arrived in India, some Tamil words have become incorporated in to English eg Pariah, Catamaran, Ayah." Raj

"This language originates in Tamil Nadu, South India. It is also spoken in Sri Lanka." Farzana

"This is a dravidian language. It is the root language such as Malayalam, Telengu and Kannada the South Indian Languages. Its origin is supposed to be more than 7000 years old according to historians and archaeologists. It is spoken by over 70 millions over the world. In the UK there are about 800,000 Tamils. It is a sweet language. It is both spoken and written in the world. There are some old literature of wisdom in this language and they are being translated in many foreign languages including English. The origin of this language can be traced to the ancient civilization of Mohande Jaro-Harappa in Pakistan." Dr C P Thiagarajah

Answer 2

Tamil is older. Actually both the languages are derived form a common ancestor. So technically, both are same age. But, Telugu got changed a lot with many sanskrit words, whereas Tamil had little change. So, Tamil is considered as older.
Malayalam and Kannada diverged between Telugu and Tamil. Most of Kannada words can be found either in Tamil or Telugu. So, if you know both Tamil and Telugu, you can understand Kannada.
Similarly Malayalam was a slang of Tamil until the 8th century. After that it became a separate language. So, Tamil and Malayalam are inter understood-able.
What i conclude is none of them are older than the other, but emerged from a common ancestor.
...................
But if you see the ancient literature, Tamil has one of the most ancient written form and most of the ancient writing found by archaeologists are in Tamil, followed by Kannada and Sanskrit.

Answer 3

Tamil

Answer 4

Tamil is older.
Actually of all the languages in the Dravidian family, Tamil is the oldest having developed just before the beginning of the christian era. Tamil literature began to develope b/w 200 BC to 300 AD and is associated with the Sangam literature. All the other Dravidian languages(including Telugu)developed late in the christian era

Answer 5

Both were originated at a same time...any way telugu is sweeeeeetest language than Tamil...observe it..

Answer 6

Seems to be Telugu:
"There is hardly any direct evidence referring to the state of this language after 1700 BCE. However, from indirect evidence and a combination of transformational and lexico-statistical analyses, we can conclude that this language eventually blossomed into Northern, Central, and Southern sub-families. The central Dravidian sub-family evolved into Telugu and several other tribal languages of central and eastern India. The southern sub family gave rise to Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Kodagu and Tulu as well as some other non-literate tribal languages. The monumental Linguistic Survey of India (pub. 1906) carried out more than a century ago lists many of these languages. A more recent classification, a list of over 70 languages in the Dravidian family and some relevant statistics can be found at the ETHNOLOGUE site. There are several changes in this list compared to the Linguistic Survey of India (Ed. -G.A. Grierson). For example, Grierson listed the Savara language under the Munda family, where as the Ethnologue site places it in the Telugu sub-family. Further research may reveal that some of these languages are actually dialects of other languages. Conversely, more languages may be re-classified from existing regional variants. But it is certain that dozens of languages of south India belong to the Dravidian family. This root family has most likely descended from the Saraswati-Sindhu civilization. Thus, the ancient predecessor to Telugu and other Dravidian languages had a script as depicted in the Indus seals. In spite of several imaginative attempts, this script remains undeciphered.

{Traditionally, within south India, the word Dravidian meant Tamilian. The two words are etymologically related to each other. However since the middle of the nineteenth century, perhaps because of the lack of a better word, Dravidian is increasingly being used to denote the commonality in South Indian roots and culture."

BUT

The origins of both languages are obscure, so it's up for grabs:
"The origins of Tamil, like the other Dravidian languages but unlike most of the other established literary languages of India, are independent of Sanskrit. Tamil has the oldest literature amongst the Dravidian languages (Hart, 1975), but dating the language and the literature precisely is difficult. Literary works in India or Sri Lanka were preserved either in palm leaf manuscripts (implying repeated copying and recopying) or through oral transmission, making direct dating impossible. External chronological records and internal linguistic evidence, however, indicate that the oldest extant works were probably composed sometime between the 5th century BCE and the 2nd century CE."

"Telugu words appear in the Maharashtri Prakrit anthology of poems (the Gathasaptashathi) collected by the first century BC Satavahana King Hala( Popularly believed to be collected by GUNADHYA). Telugu speakers were probably the oldest peoples inhabiting the land between the Krishna and Godavari rivers."

Conclusion? We'll probably never know for absolutely certain. And, come to think on it, does it really matter very much which is older?

Answer 7

Tamil.

Answer 8

Dr Siva Thiagarajah

Answer 9

Ofcourse Tamil it is heritage language older than sanskrit .

Answer 10

I think its tamil. as tamilians are dravidians who are a very old race.