Which is the oldest living language ?
@vickyblogs (341)
India
January 23, 2016 2:15am CST
There are thousands of languages spoken presently -- though some are without the script -- across the globe. Undoubtedly, each language has got its own importance not only in its region but also in different parts of the world. Linguists differ in their opinion regarding this subject. Some scholars argue Tamil is the oldest language while others insist Sanskrit as the oldest language.
Egyptian and Sumerian languages are also considered by few as the oldest languages. Hebrews, the language of Jewish people is also considered as the oldest language for the Old Testament Scriptures were written in the Hebrew language.
This is one of the subjects which has diverse opinions based on the deep study -- with the archeological evidence and written scripts -- on the origin of languages.
What's your opinion on this subject?
5 people like this
5 responses
@garymarsh6 (23401)
• United Kingdom
23 Jan 16
My wife can speak Tamil infact she used to teach Tamil. I could not get my tongue around half the words and as for the writing well impossible for me to learn,
3 people like this
@vickyblogs (341)
• India
24 Jan 16
@garymarsh6
It's not an impossible thing. Greman missionary Ziegenbalg translated the whole Bible into Tamil from Hebrew and Greek. Constanzo Beschi, an Italian priest was a classical writer of Tamil Literature. Perhaps, it's my mother tongue.
1 person likes this
@topffer (42156)
• France
23 Jan 16
The Basque language is a good candidate, although it is only spoken today by about half a million people in Spain and France. An old hypothesis says that it could be derived from the language spoken by Cro-Magnon men, in this area between 40000 BC and 10000 BC. Several geneticists working on the origin of people have written more recently that the Basques and their language could have a Magdalenian origin, i.e. 16000 BC.
2 people like this
@louievill (28851)
• Philippines
23 Jan 16
Cro -magnon wow! I wonder if there is a similar language here in Asia that was derived from the Java man
2 people like this
@topffer (42156)
• France
23 Jan 16
@louievill I do not know if there are studies for Asia and Oceania, but I would not be surprised to read that oldest languages than Basque have survived in Australia or New-Guinea (800 different languages, disappearing actually).
2 people like this
@louievill (28851)
• Philippines
23 Jan 16
@topffer good answer and good research as always my friend
2 people like this
@louievill (28851)
• Philippines
23 Jan 16
The oldest language is sign language and body language 
2 people like this
@vickyblogs (341)
• India
24 Jan 16
@louievill (5597) But, we are discussing on the language that has the script and which is being spoken now.
@vickyblogs (341)
• India
24 Jan 16
@Inlemay It seems to be true according to some research scholars.
1 person likes this
@petatonicsca (7070)
• Japan
23 Jan 16
I would guess Chinese is also a candidate. But from what I know about Western linguistics, they have done more research on Indo-European languages.
2 people like this
@pgntwo (22408)
• Derry, Northern Ireland
24 Jan 16
Some research on the roots of modern Indo-European languages shows a very handy map of those languages, but not sure about the languages of the Australasian geographies:
A discussion on another thread here on myLot started me wondering: How close are we, linguistically-speaking? There is a school of though that says all...
1 person likes this
@vickyblogs (341)
• India
24 Jan 16
@petatonicsca (71)
I think the evidence to prove this fact is not so strong. Most of the linguistic research
tend to prove some other languages.
