My dear The language is one of the main criteria and it is necessary for any king who is conquering the countries. I want to know our great Rajajraja cholan knows any other language other than tamil. Whether Kalki mentioned about this. I hope he may know Pali as he is much interested in Budhisam etc. Members may please inform their research on this area
Rajaraja Chola - 1 in addition to Tamil undoubtedly knew Sanskrit, Granthaha, Pali, Telugu, Kannada, 'may be' to certain extant Sinhalese.
Tamil was his mother tounge and court lanuage. All the Cheppedukal of Raja Raja Chola are with his Meikeerthi in Tamil. The "same Cheppudukal" during the period of Rajendra Cholan had additional informations on his confiirmation of grants made by his father in Sanskrit and Granthaka.
As one of the major languages in the north at that time he would have known to some extent Pali being, with Buddhisem being a living religion in Chola country of that period and also being a patroniser of Buddhism.
His son-in-law Vishnuvarthanan king of Vengi Nadu who married his daughter Kundavi was a Telugu. With this new relationship he would have know much Telugu too.
Rajaraja Chola, captured Gangapaadi, Thadikaipaadi and Nolambapaadi, which all were regions of then Karnaataka country and brought it under his rule. Hence he would have versant in Kannada Language.
He captured northern half of Sri Lanka and ruled from quite number of years hence he would have known to some extent too.
As a person constantly on travel, i have picked up many languages. It is very easy to learn an indian language if you have good knowledge of Tamil and Sanskrit.
You can see many Namakkal drivers speaking 6 - 7 languages.
As a king who was trained in many subjects, he would have known 5-6 languages by 20 itself.
I'm sure he had several translators in his employ anyway. So, he may not have known all of those.
Even Telugu to converse with his Telugu son in law is not essential; take a look at European royalty marrying into other European royalty without knowing the languages or customs before marriage. His daughter would definitely have had to learn, but I don't know if he would have had to. After all, between Sanskrit and (maybe) Pali, they would have had a common tongue, even without translators.
It's all a question of exactly how hands-on he was in dealing with the other lands.
RRC's mother was Vanamadevi ,daughter of Malayaman of Tirukovilur. Sundara Chola's mother,Kalyani (Arinjaya Chola's wife), was from the Vaithumbaraya clan, as given by Kalki in PS.
I suppose either Prakrutham or Pali which were existed at that time. Because most of the inscriptions in North India are either Prakrutham or Pali language.