The most Ancient Language is?

Answer 1

It all depends on what you mean by "oldest language" (see SUMMARY at end!)

1) Do you mean one that is still an everyday, spoken 'living language?

Note that LIVING languages, such as those we use for day-to-day communication, are ALWAYS changing, but generally do so gradually, so that they maintain a connection with the past. Thus, for instance, we speak of "English" of the 8th century A.D. and of today, recognizing their organic connection. Yet in what sense are they "the same language"?

Looking at it this way, the question is almost impossible to answer, because we might take ANY language back generation by generation through the millennia.

And beware of being fooled by what we CALL the language! The fact that we still use the name "Tamil" for a language, does not mean the CURRENT version is any closer to what was used 2500 years ago than French and Italian are to Latin (for, in fact, these "Romance" languages are basically LIVING Latin, changed through the centuries).


2) Perhaps you are interested in the oldest language spoken in ANY form.. that is, language which is still used today in something close to ancient forms, but not necessarily in daily speech. As noted above, this really does not happen with daily living languages. But some are preserved (or revived) for SPECIAL use. Best example of this is liturgical and scholarly languages. By this measure, we would have to go with "Classical Sanskrit" of the first millennium B.C., which is still used for liturgical purposes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit

(Note that this is part of why a form of Latin --besides its 'daughter languages' - persisted... for use in the church [liturgical] and as a common language among scholars for different nations.)


3) Now if you want to know about the most ancient WRITTEN language, that is, the language for which we have found the most ancient decipherable evidence, most would answer the Sumerian language of lower Mesopotamia, for which we have writings from perhaps 3400 or 3500 B.C. This culture is credited with first inventing a system of writing (at least the oldest one to survive).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer#Language_and_writing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform_script

But ancient Egyptian writings have also been recovered from the 4th millennium B.C., and some have argued that certain ones might predate the Sumerian.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_language
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2002/04/16/MN229801.DTL

It's also probably in this category that we ought to consider ancient inscriptions with Chinese characters, though that's not quite the same as the "Chinese language"
http://www.chineseandchina.net/history-chinese-characters


4) Finally, if you want the most ancient WRITTEN language that is spoken today in some form or another -- a combination of the categories above, with all the caveats-- you might choose something like Hebrew, since we have written forms of it from the 9th to 10th century BC, and a modern version of it has in the past century become an everyday spoken language. (In fact, given the unusual history of Modern Hebrew, this language may be much closer than many others to what is preserved of the ancient forms.)


SUMMARY -- for the oldest language that is. ..
1) "living" = impossible to answer (but see #4)
2) liturgical =Sanskrit
3) written forms found =Sumerian (Egyptian close behind) or some form of Chinese?
4) written in some form, with a modern-day version = Hebrew?

Answer 2

Most Ancient Language

Answer 3

Okay, I'm going to start out by saying, that it's NOT Hebrew, Sanskrit, Latin, or Tamil. Sumerian is a good Guess, but off base.
First of all, the reason Sanskrit and Latin are NOT is because they both come from the same parent language: Indo-European and back farther yet, Proto-Indo-European. That means, by default there was a language older than both of them since they both come from it (try being born before your parents were, I dare you).
And along similar logics, Hebrew comes from a parent language of Afro-Asiatic, and Tamil comes from Dravidian, or probably it's parent Proto-Dravidian, so it can't be Tamil.

Now Sumerian is a bit closer, but I'll tell you this, Sumerian is a written language and I am almost sure the most Ancient language probably was never written. Also Proto-Indo-European beats it by at least a 1000 years, maybe more, they say PIE goes back to maybe 10,000 BC.

Now there is a Theory that says there was a language many, many, many years ago, probably before 20,000 BC, maybe a long time before then, which all the major languages of today come forth from. So this language, called Proto-Nostratic, would be the mother language of all the great language families in the world, maybe even spoken by everyone on the planet (that speaks or writes).
Now, this is just a theory. It's a reconstructed language, based on other reconstructed languages, which makes it's structure have very flimsy support, but nevertheless.

If you want more info, feel free to come to me.

Answer 4

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
The most Ancient Language is?

Answer 5

The father of all language is Tamil and still remains and rules the world. Tamil is probably the first Indian language to be computerised because it is spoken in a dozen countries. It is living legend.

No other language is associated with so many countries as native language. English is not native language it is adopted by all countries which speak English.

Let us not not discuss about dead languages like hebru and sanscrit. People threw them away as not required.

The superiority of Tamil is proved by the movies. The film Sivaji has 800 prints in circulation throughout the world. It shows that Tamil has 350% more audience than the best Hindi movies released internationally.

Answer 6

Latin or Sanskrit can be old languages but when it come to the most Ancient nothing is more ancient than
Tamil Language

Answer 7

TAMIL IS THE MOST ANCIENT

nOT Latin, Not Sanskrit not Sumerian

Why not Sanskrit ?

Tamils who were the builders of the Indus valley civilization. When the Aryan people moved into India (they were not invaders but moved in as pastorialists/nomads over a period of time starting from around 1800 bc (long after the Indus valley culture had died, due to the shifting of the river indus)

Much of whats core to todays hinduism actually was taken from the native Dravidian people, i need not mention that shiva (siva in tamil ) derives his name from "sivappu"(red). he was a pre-aryan indus deity, the triple horned meditative indus figurines are ample evidence of this
The Aryans created Sanskrit as a sense of language idendification with the influence of Tamil language

Why not Sumerian ?
Sumerian do date back 5000bc , yes it is an ancient language, but not older than Tamil, Tamil language is around from the Time of 10 000bc , the begining of the laguage is still unknown,
Infact archeoligical text do classify Tamil being a Lemurian Origin and Sumerian is a language formed with the influence of Archaic Tamil.
The mother of the Dravidian tongues, through Tamil, other languages like Brahui, Telugu, Kannada, Tulu are some of the offshoot languages which were once known to be a dialects of Tamil, in later period became an independant Tongue .
So 10 000BC is how much Tamil language date back which speaks for itself no other languages in the world can be as ancient as Tamil

Answer 8

the most ancient language is Latin, who has played an important role in history of the world.

Answer 9

Sanskrit,all the manuscript of Hinduism are written in Sanskrit and Hinduism is the most ancient religion so i believe Sanskrit is the most ancient language known to mankind.

Answer 10

The most ancient languages that are still used are Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. I believe Hebrew came first, but I'm not entirely sure.