LANGUAGES

Language is an essential part of human communication. As per an estimate, 7,168 languages are cu ditche spoken in the world and nearly 40 petto Percent of them are considered endangered

Some languages are spoken by fewer than 1,000 people, while more than half of the world's population uses one of just 23 tongues

But what is the oldest of them? While we can't really know what's the first language ever spoken, linguists and historians agree that these are the oldest languages:

1. Spoken predominantly in southern India and Sri Lanka, Tamil is one of the oldest classical languages in the world, with a literary tradition spanning over two millennia

2. An ancient Indo-Aryan language of India, Sanskrit is known as the language of classical Hindu philosophy, literature, and religious texts such as the Vedas and Upanishads

3. Ancient Egyptian, particularly its written form in hieroglyphs, is one of the earliest known languages, with inscriptions dating back to around 3200 BCE

4. An ancient Semitic language spoken in Mesopotamia, Akkadian was used as a lingua franca in the region from around 2500 BCE and was the language of the Epic of Gilgamesh

5. The written Chinese language has a continuous history of more than 3,000 years, with Classical Chinese texts dating back to the Zhou dynasty (1046-256 BCE)

6. The language of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), Hebrew has been spoken for several thousand years, with a revived form used as the official language of Israel today

7. Ancient Greek has a documented history spanning over 3,000 years, from the Mycenaean civilization of the 16th century BCE to its modern form spoken today in Greece and Cyprus

Ancient Languages

1. Sumerian (circa 4500 years old): Spoken in ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq).

2. Ancient Egyptian (circa 3200 years old): Spoken in ancient Egypt.

3. Tamil (circa 2000 BCE): Spoken in southern India and Sri Lanka.

4. Chinese (circa 1200 BCE): Spoken in ancient China.

5. Akkadian (circa 2500 BCE): Spoken in ancient Mesopotamia.

Classical Languages

1. Latin (circa 700 BCE): Spoken in ancient Rome.

2. Greek (circa 800 BCE): Spoken in ancient Greece.

3. Sanskrit (circa 1500 BCE): Spoken in ancient India.

Living Languages

1. Tamil (circa 2000 BCE): Still spoken by millions in southern India and Sri Lanka.

2. Chinese (circa 1200 BCE): Still spoken by billions in China and worldwide.

3. Arabic (circa 500 CE): Still spoken by millions in the Middle East and North Africa.

The ages listed are approximate and represent the earliest known written records of each language.

These languages have not only survived the test of time but have also evolved and influenced many other languages