Top 10 Classical Languages
Tamil is the most dominant language of South Asia. It survived several invasions, and we still have traces of Tamil scripts. Our literature talks about the trade of Tamils with Greek, Roman, and other European countries.
On the other hand, some so-called Tamil liberation groups exploit the Tamil language, culture, and traditions for their own goals. Tamils are lovely people who share food and resources with their neighbors. Tamils should feel proud of their language and must not fall victim to terrorism in the name of language.
Armenian derives directly from the Proto-Indo-European family and may stand at the root of the Indo-European languages due to the new hypothesis of the language family's origin in the Armenian Highlands. At the same time, it is pleasing to the ear, logical, and very expressive as a contemporary language.
There is a lot of logic in Armenian vocabulary, and the alphabet is almost perfect. Armenian has many different, subtle ways (sometimes hard to explain) to express various emotions and attitudes.
Stuff you should know about Latin: There exist different forms of Latin, and the easiest one for people who know Spanish is Neo Latin. Latin is a subject-object-verb language and has no words such as the, of, with, and shall, as well as some extras like yes and no. The closest one to no is non, which means not or nor, depending on the sentence, of course. When referring to the language, you say Latin lingua, but lingua also means tongue in Latin, so lingua Latin basically means the Latin tongue. Latin is a language beautiful in music, from classical to death metal. Many words have been taken from Latin.
Assyrian, also Neo-Aramaic, is the language of Jesus Christ. It sounds like a mixture of Arabic and Hebrew.
From Homeric texts to Greek philosophy, drama, medicine, Christian classics, patristics, and Byzantine manuscripts, Greek is the language that carries a vast cultural memory. This memory extends to medieval, modern, and contemporary European culture and the Latin corpus. It has a unique influence on monotheistic religions and cultures through original texts and commentaries (Arab world, Slavic world, Iranian world). Greek is the basis for the world's largest theological traditions (in terms of the number of members), and it is also the basis for modern and contemporary scientific inquiry (in medicine, natural sciences, mathematics, etc.).
Additionally, Greek is pretty much why people started classifying languages as "classic" in the first place. In a way, it is the definition of a classical language. All languages are important, though, and this ranking makes no sense.
According to the Bible, God said, "A light shall be" in Hebrew. Hebrew was the one language until the Tower of Babel. Throughout the years, Hebrew was spoken by Jewish religious people, and all their holy books are written in Hebrew. Since 1948, it has been the official language in Israel.
Anything that has to do with Vikings is cool in my book!
The best tongue and the sweetest rhymes. This is the language of paradise. Allahu akbar.
Eloquent and deeply rich when spoken in its classical form.
The Newcomers
Yes, Malayalam is one of the big classical languages. Many people misunderstand and think it is a mixture of Tamil and Sanskrit. However, with the approval of the Government of India, it is recognized as a classical language.
The Malayalam language contains many Tamil words and numerals, and its letters resemble Tamil letters.
Malayalam is the child of Tamil and Sanskrit. It has pure Tamil words not used by Tamils now.
The Persian language is derived from Middle Persian, which is related to Old Persian, so it has a long history. The first Persian inscriptions are written in the 5th century B.C., and the language is somehow still alive.
About Persian literature, it goes without saying that it is rich and impressive. According to the definition of "classical languages," I think Persian is the most classical language in the world.
One of the oldest languages still in use today. Rich classical literature, a long tradition of scripture, and one of the only languages in the world to have survived the Arab onslaught and the Arabization of the Islamic world. All of these show the power behind the Persian language.
Kannada is one of the oldest languages in India. It is very simple, sweet, and easy to both learn and use. It is definitely better than Tamil, which sounds very harsh and ugly. I have no idea how it is in the #1 place. It does not even deserve to be in the top 10. Just because a language is old does not mean it is better. Kannada has very beautiful literature and script. It is 99.99 percent logically correct and has been declared the second language with a beautiful and perfect script in the world after some European language. It definitely deserves to be in the #1 spot, so people please vote up and help this amazing language reach the #1 spot where it deserves to be.
Sanskrit is the real classical language. It is the most perfect language in the world. Its vast history spans four millennia. Sanskrit remained the language of all the intellectual people of South Asia and Southeast Asia for thousands of years. It was the court language of several major empires.
Sanskrit is the literary language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Most of their sacred texts, like the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, and epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, are written in Sanskrit. Apart from these, Sanskrit also produced vast scientific literature in mathematics, medicine, and astronomy. Its works in dramas and poetry are of high literary value and are incomparable to any other in the ancient world.
Hindi is not a traditional language. It is a mixture of Devanagari, a North Indian language, and Urdu. Unfortunately, it has become the most spoken language in India, mainly in North India. Tamil language has the status of India's national language when compared with its tradition and classical scripts.
Hindi is definitely a classical language.
Telugu is the sweetest language. It has a very good script.
Every language has its greatness, and every culture has its specialty. Some may be old, and some may be new!
I have seen people saying that Tamil is the mother language for Telugu. Laughing out loud, well, Telugu belongs to the Dravidian family, as do Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, and Tulu. Tamil hasn't given birth to Telugu.
Here are my reasons: Take a Persian person, he would definitely say that his language is the oldest language. Take an African, he would claim that all cultures originated from them. A Telugu person would feel proud because their dynasties ruled most parts of India, like the Sathavahana Dynasty or Shalivahana Dynasty (Marathi term), Kalaiyargalin Dynasty, and Veera Pandya Katta Bomman. The first Indian freedom fighter is Katta Bomman, a Telugu king who ruled a jurisdiction of South Tamil Nadu called Panchalan Kurichi. His Telugu name was Gatti Bheemudu, which is known to be Strong Bheema.
Madurai Queen Rani Mangamma, Chennai King Damarla Venkatadri, and many more are examples. If we start saying this, Tamilians would feel downcast and find it hard to accept these facts. But a Tamilian claims that Telugu is their daughter language. Telugu has a rich text that completely differs from Tamil, but it is similar to its sister language Kannada.
Telugu is an abbreviated word from the Trailinga Dynasty and not from Tamil. Let's accept this fact. Telugu has a great influence of Aryan and Dravidian words, as well as people. Prakrit and Sanskrit played a vital role in the Telugu language, just as Tamil and Tamizhagam differ from both Telugu and Tenugu. The word Tenugu is abbreviated from Tamil, meaning sweetest, but Tenugu is not a daughter of the Tamil language. Tamils just gave the word Tenugu but did not give birth to the language.
The plenty of words in the Telugu language show its specialty, even in script. Tamil script has very few letters compared to the Telugu language. With respect to the Tamil language, my... more
Marathi is such a beautiful language. It was derived from Maharashtri Prakrit, and it is older than Hindi. Marathi has a unique kind of boldness and energy to it, but it is also very pleasant to hear.
Marathi is an Aryan language with significant Dravidian vocabulary influence. It is one of the oldest languages in India.
Marathi is the most beautiful and complete language.
Closest living language to Sanskrit.
So brash, so exciting! A powerful language indeed.
