The DMK government is celebrating the World classical language Tamil conference in Coimbatore city in Tamil nadu with pomp and show.The government of India bestowed Tamil the classical Language status in 2004. The Govt of India has laid down certain criteria for a language to be declared as a classical language.
They are ...
1. High Antiquity of its early texts or recorded history over a period of 1500-2000 years.
2. A body of ancient literature/texts which is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers.
3.The literary tradition to be original and not borrowed from another speech community.
4.The classical language and literature must be distinct from modern literature and there may also be a discontinuity between the classical language and its later forms or its offshoots.
Originally govt of India declared Tamil & Sanskrit as the two languages that met the classical language criteria.Following which there were several demands by Telugu and Kannada to be bestowed the same status.They were also given the classical language status by the government of India in 2008.As is the wont this issue was also made parochial by our politicians and Govt of India declared Kannada and Telugu also as Classical Languages in 2008.In the current conference the Tamilnadu CM has even echoed Tamil is the oldest language in the world.This is being said by many in the past also.This is said on the basis of the argument that Tamil was the language of the Lemuria continent (submeged in sea-not in existence now).It was also believed the human race had its origin in Lemuria continent Lakhs of years ago.It is also believed the insciptions from Indus valley had dravidan brahmi scripts and the oldest Dravidan language is Tamil.
Which is the oldest language of the world? The answer to the question depends on the objective consideration and bias of the question.The oldest language could have emerged in 100000 BC.No one knows what the language was or its ofshoots.But if we talk about oldest written languages of the world, it could be Arabic,Egyptian or Sumerian.Sumerian and Egyptian were the first world languages to start writing systems in 3200 BC.But if we say that it should also be a current living language,then it could be Tamil.But if we say it should be the oldest,written down language and curently living, then the oldest language of the world could be Chinese.
There is another school of thought who believe, out of the 6000 languages in the world there are only 6 root languages from which all other variations have emerged.They are, Hebrew once spoken by jews world over.Latin spoken by Romans,Greek spoken by the Greeks,Sanskrit spoken by Central Asia,the Mandarine spoken by the chinese and the Dravidan language Tamil.Out of these six languages.Hebrew is now an extinct language. Latin was widely spoken in the erstwhile Roman Empire and the current Italy. But the current official language of Italy is Italian ,a language derived from Latin and Latin is no longer spoken by any one.French, Spanish,and Italian came from Latin.Latin is now considered a dead language.Greek was another great language that produced great scholars like Aristotle,Pluto and Socrates.But today Greek is spoken by few people in Greece.But the modern Greek is far diffferent from the ancient Greek.Besides English and French is widely spoken in Greece now.Sanskrit did not have many native speakers in India.In the last census it was estimated still around 5000 people speak Sanskrit in India.But in the case of Chinese Mandarin and Tamil these these two languages are alive from its ancient period and is still evolving.
Tamil scholars have been demanding the classical language status for Tamil for over 150 years.This demand from Tamils arose during the british regime. The British Administration in India considered Sanskrit, Persian,Arabic as classical languages and made special provisions to develop these languages.The demand to include Tamil as a classical language started then.What ever be the merits of Tamil as one of the oldest living languages of the world,the Tamil speaking community has a duty towards preserving the antiquity of the language and also at the same time develop the language to the growing needs of the modern technology and continously update the language.
Given below is the English translation of a celebrated Tamil poem that is featured at the top of this post.
There are two things born from mountains,
shining so brilliantly that the great bow down,
driving the darkness from the earth circled by roaring waters.
One is the burning sun, a single wheel glowing like lightning,
and the other is Tamil that has no like.
