What is the oldest living language in the world?

Answer 1

Here's the problem with that question: since languages change with use, it's hard to say when something becomes a new language. English has been spoken for many centuries, but the English of just six hundred years ago would be almost unintelligible to a modern person. Hebrew was spoken thousands of years ago, but it's largely a resurrected language. Arabic and Icelandic have changed little over the centuries (a modern Icelander or Arab could read ancient texts in his language); Latin is still spoken, but as a scholarly language, not a national tongue. Modern Greek is Ancient Greek's direct descendent, but the sounds have changed. We might look at the most Undisturbed Peoples, such as the Acoma, the Khoisanor the Aranda and see what languages they speak, but since these left no written language, we can't compare the old with the new.

Ultimately, we can only speak of linguistic durability in relative terms, as for example we can say that Lithuanian is closest to the ancestoral tongue of the Indo-Europeans or that Basque may be a survival of some "Nostratic" tongue.

Answer 2

Tamil is considered one of the oldest living languages in the world, with a rich literary tradition dating back over 2,000 years. It is still spoken by millions of people in South India, Sri Lanka, and parts of Southeast Asia.