How is tamil immortal

[mahadevan]

In human history many languages have come and gone, some were long living than the others. Tamil looks like one long living language. Most of its ancient contemporaries are dead languages now. How is Tamil vibrant for milineums ?

[abbydoss1969]

Well, I'm an not an expert on tamil, but the ancient tamil is really dead, isn't? What we speak is derivative of that tamil quite unrelated to it!

[aravindhan]

Well, I'm an not an expert on tamil, but the ancient tamil is really dead, isn't? What we speak is derivative of that tamil quite unrelated to it!

Most certainly not.

The distance between the Tamil of a thousand years ago and modern Tamil is approximately that between Shakespearean and modern English. 10th and 12th century poems such as the Kamba Ramayanam and the magnificent Kalingathu Parani actually present fewer problems of comprehension for persons educated in Tamil than Shakespeare does for persons educated in English.

The distance between classical Tamil of the Sangam period and modern Tamil is less than that between the English of Chaucer's time and modern English. The changes in the poetic metaphor and the conventions on prosody since the Sangam period present bigger obstacles than the change in the language.

[mahadevan]

That is why Tamil is declared as a classical language and not specifically sangam/ancient Tamil. The relative ease with which we can understand ancient works in tamil with the knowledge of todays tamil, has earned Tamil the sobriquet 'Kanni Tamil'

[Uthappam]

ha. mahadevan. Tamil is immortal because of you and me. Keep it going man!

[mahadevan]

Hi Uthappam you are doing a great job man

[rajraj]

Last week I had dinner with linguist and he said something that surprised me. ' Tamil has the distinction of being the only language in the world to be in longest continuous use without any change.' Till then I thought Greek would have that distinction. Apparently Greek has changed over the centuries. May be, Aravindhan can shed some light. Or I will ask my linguist friend next time I meet him.

[sivajayan]

Last week I had dinner with linguist and he said something that surprised me. ' Tamil has the distinction of being the only language in the world to be in longest continuous use without any change.' Till then I thought Greek would have that distinction. Apparently Greek has changed over the centuries. May be, Aravindhan can shed some light. Or I will ask my linguist friend next time I meet him.

Well they teach here in Europe the old greek beside Latin which is old too. I only know that if you want to study theology you need to learn old greek too. Because a lot of stuff is written in that ancient greek.

[bis_mala]

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[aravindhan]

Last week I had dinner with linguist and he said something that surprised me. ' Tamil has the distinction of being the only language in the world to be in longest continuous use without any change.' Till then I thought Greek would have that distinction. Apparently Greek has changed over the centuries. May be, Aravindhan can shed some light. Or I will ask my linguist friend next time I meet him.

I'm not sure. Modern Greek is different from both Ancient Greek (the language used by Homer, Plato and others) and "Koine Greek" (the language of the Gospels), because it has been very significantly influenced by Turkish, Italian and Latin. However, in the 18th century, a new form of Greek called Katharevousa was created, which attempted to cleanse all foreign influences from Greek and bring the language closer to the ancient form (by, for example, using verb endings closer to those of ancient Greek than the spoken language). This form is no longer used, but it has influenced modern Greek quite a bit, and therefore brought it closer to the ancient language. I think most educated Greeks can read the New Testament in the original with only a little difficulty. Ancient Greek is more difficult, but I don't know whether it's easier or harder for a native speaker of Greek to read ancient Greek than for a Tamil to read sangam Tamil.