What is the oldest language in the world?

Answer 1

Pre-Summary:

We don't actually know. The below suggestions do have some value as speculation about the oldest currently known language. However, they may not be correct.

This is because the first languages were not written down. They were spoken-only languages, so there is no record of them and therefore we will never know which was oldest.

However, the oldest text (aka written language) ever found was Sumerian. We have evidence of Sumerian documents dating back 5,000 years. By far, this is the oldest text ever discovered. But that doesn't mean Sumerian is the oldest language, there were certainly more before it.

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Suggestion 1

There are several contenders to the title of "Oldest Language". It is next to impossible for historians to pinpoint exactly which is the absolute oldest. The decision of which is the oldest is usually highly opinionated.

The contenders are:

• Mandarin Chinese
• Sumerian
• Tamil
• Hebrew
• Lithuanian
• Gothic
• Sanskrit

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Suggestion 2:

Sanskrit is the oldest language in the world, please see references below.

Vedic Sanskrit is the oldest attested language of the Indo-Iranian language family. It is the language of the Vedas, the oldest Shruti texts of Hinduism, compiled over the period of the mid 4th to mid 3rd millennium BCE. It can be said that Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Tamil are the oldest major languages which are still spoken today.

Sanskrit was also suggested as the best language for use in Computational Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence by NASA. It is the only language in the world which is scientifically precise as was discovered by the NASA scientist Rick Briggs as published in the Artificial Intelligence Magazine

Rick Briggs:

"As we shall see, there was a language spoken among an ancient scientific community that has a deviation of zero. This language is Sanskrit."

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Suggestion 3:

Sanskrit. An Indo-Aryan Language system dating back to 15000 BCE (Before Common Era). One of 22 official languages of India.

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Suggestion 4:

Brahmi script is said to be the oldest language. It was found on the ruined sites on clay tablets etc. Archaeologists believe it to be the oldest language.
There are claims that ancient historical facts of Old Tamil date back to around 7000 BC. Some consider Sumerian (a language that dates back to circa 5000 BC) to be an archaic form of Tamil .

Tamil is also said to be the mother of Dravidian Tongues by many researchers. Modern Tamil, Malayalam , Kannada, Tulu are considered as originating from Ancient Tamil. The other remaining Dravidian language Telugu is considered to have originated from Kannada.

Scientific basis:

Archaeological discoveries have so far found that Tamil was in use since 1000 BC - 500 BC, with the discoveries of ruins in Adichanallur among other places.

Tamil is usually regarded as the one that is least influenced by Sanskrit of all other languages in India & so this has led many scholars & researchers to hypothesize that Tamil & Sanskrit were contemporaries.

However an underwater city has been found off the coast of Tamil nadu (South Eastern India) which was called as Poompuhar in Tamil literature, these findings were popularized by researcher Graham Hancock with his research work in circa 2002 (watch his very recent & important interview by following the link provided below in the Sources and related links section).

Until then, Poompuhar was considered as myth & mocked at, similar to how Troy's existence was considered as myth until it was discovered & found to be true. Hancock estimates that the ruined underwater city might be at least 9,500 years old or closer to the last ice age (10,000 BC), when ice melted to raise the sea level, which would account for the disappearance of many other ancient port cities & civilizations around the world (like Dwaraka off Gujarat coast, Yonaguni ruins near Japan, new underwater ruins near Alexandra, Egypt, etc).

But there has apparently not been much interest from Indian/Tamil nadu governments to research it more to discover the hidden past.

There are references in Ramayana & Mahaharata to some of the Tamil kings and kingdoms/empires. Also trade contacts between ancient Tamil kingdoms & Greece, Egypt, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand have been found. Some researchers consider the Indonesian empire Sri Vijaya as part of Chola empire.

Finally, we'll have to wait for some more time to let science tell us the truth.

Answer 2

It is difficult to determine the absolute oldest language in the world, as languages evolve and change over time. However, some of the oldest recorded languages include Sumerian, Egyptian, Sanskrit, and Hebrew. These languages have ancient written records that date back thousands of years.

Answer 3

No. Hebrew evolved from older languages,such as Old Canaanite. No one knows what the first spoken language was.