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Tamil language

Tamil (English: /ˈtæmɪl/; தமமழழ Tamiḻ [ttɐmɨɻ], About this sound pronunciation (help·info)) is a Dravidian
language predominantly spoken by the Tamil people of India and Sri Lanka, and by the Tamil diaspora, Sri
Lankan Moors, Burghers, Douglas, and Chindians. Tamil is an official language of two countries: Sri Lanka
and Singapore.[12][13] It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the Indian Union
Territory of Puducherry. It is used as one of the languages of education in Malaysia, along with English,
Malay and Mandarin.[14][15] Tamil is spoken by significant minorities in the four other South Indian
states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and the Union Territory of the Andaman and
Nicobar Islands. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India.

Tamil

தமமழழ Tamil

Word Tamil.svg

Pronunciation

[ttɐmɨɻ]; About this sound pronunciation (help·info)

Native to

India

Sri Lanka

Ethnicity
Tamil people

Native speakers

70 million (2007)[1]

8 million L2 speakers in India (no date)[2]

Language family

Dravidian

Southern

Tamil–Kannada

Tamil–Kodagu

Tamil–Malayalam

Tamil languages

Tamil

Early forms

Old Tamil

Middle Tamil

Writing system

Tamil alphabet (Brahmic)

Arwi Script (Abjad)

Tamil Braille (Bharati)

Tamil-Brahmi (historical)

Vatteluttu (historical)

Pallava (historical)

Kolezhuthu (historical)

Grantha (historical)

Latin script (informal)

Signed forms

Signed Tamil

Official status

Official language in

Sri Lanka

Singapore

India:

Tamil Nadu[3]

Puducherry[4]

Andaman & Nicobar Islands[5]

Recognised minority

language in

Malaysia[6]

Mauritius[7]

South Africa[8]

ASEAN[9]

Language codes

ISO 639-1

ta

ISO 639-2

tam

ISO 639-3

Variously:

tam – Modern Tamil

oty – Old Tamil

ptq – Pattapu Bhashai

Linguist List

oty Old Tamil

Glottolog

tamil1289 Modern Tamil[10]

oldt1248 Old Tamil[11]

Linguasphere

49-EBE-a

Idioma tamil.png

This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question
marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols,
see Help:IPA.

This article contains Indic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes,
misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Indic text.

Tamil is written in a non-Latin script. Tamil text used in this article is transliterated into the Latin script
according to the ISO 15919 standard.

Tamil is one of the longest-surviving classical languages in the world.[16][17] It is stated as 20th in the
Ethnologue list of most-spoken languages worldwide.[18] Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions from 500 BC have
been found on Adichanallur[19] and 2,200-year-old Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions have been found on
Samanamalai.[20] A study conducted by Germany's Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human
History found that the Dravidian language family, of which Tamil is a part, may be approximately 4000–
4500 years old.[21][22] It has been described as "the only language of contemporary India which is
recognizably continuous with a classical past."[23] The variety and quality of classical Tamil literature has
led to it being described as "one of the great classical traditions and literature of the world".[24]

A recorded Tamil literature has been documented for over 2000 years.[25] The earliest period of Tamil
literature, Sangam literature, is dated from ca. 300 BC – AD 300.[26][27] It has the oldest extant
literature among Dravidian languages.[16] The earliest epigraphic records found on rock edicts and 'hero
stones' date from around the 3rd century BC.[28][29] More than 55% of the epigraphical inscriptions
(about 55,000) found by the Archaeological Survey of India are in the Tamil language.[30] Tamil language
inscriptions written in Brahmi script have been discovered in Sri Lanka and on trade goods in Thailand
and Egypt.[31][32] The two earliest manuscripts from India,[33][34] acknowledged and registered by the
UNESCO Memory of the World register in 1997 and 2005, were written in Tamil.[35]

In 1578, Portuguese Christian missionaries published a Tamil prayer book in old Tamil script named
Thambiraan Vanakkam, thus making Tamil the first Indian language to be printed and published.[36] The
Tamil Lexicon, published by the University of Madras, was one of the earliest dictionaries published in
the Indian languages.[37] According to a 2001 survey, there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil,
of which 353 were dailies.[38]

Classification

History

Geographic distribution

Legal status

Dialects

Spoken and literary variants

Writing system

Phonology

Grammar

Vocabulary

Influence

See also

Footnotes

References

Further reading

External links

Last edited 2 days ago by Materialscientist

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