Tamil language

Tamil
Tamiḻ
தமிழ்
The word "Tamil" in the Tamil script
Pronunciation[t̪amiɻ] ⓘ
Native toIndia and Sri Lanka
RegionSouthern India
Ethnicity
Native speakers
L1: 79 million (2011–2019)[2]
L2: 8 million (2011)[2]
Dravidian
Early forms
Dialects
Signed Tamil
Official status
Official language in
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated byIndia

Sri Lanka

Singapore

Malaysia

Canada United States

Language codes
ISO 639-1ta
ISO 639-2tam
ISO 639-3Either:
tam – Modern Tamil
oty – Old Tamil
oty Old Tamil
Glottologtami1289  Modern Tamil
oldt1248  Old Tamil
Linguasphere49-EBE-a
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[b] (தமிழ், Tamiḻ, pronounced [t̪amiɻ] ⓘ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. It is one of the two longest-surviving classical languages in India, along with Sanskrit,[10][11] attested since c. 300 BCE.[12][13][14][15][16]

The term "Tamil" has its origins in the ancient Tamil Sangams, where it was first recorded in the Tholkappiyam around the 2nd century BCE. The language belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian language family and shares close ties with Malayalam and Kannada. Despite external influences, Tamil has retained a sense of linguistic purism, especially in formal and literary contexts.

Tamil was the lingua franca for early maritime traders, with inscriptions found in places like Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Egypt. The language has a well-documented history with literary works like Sangam literature, consisting of over 2,000 poems. Tamil script evolved from Tamil Brahmi, and later, the vatteluttu script was used until the current script was standardized. The language has a distinct grammatical structure, with agglutinative morphology that allows for complex word formations.

Tamil is predominantly spoken in Tamil Nadu, India, and the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka. It has significant speaking populations in Malaysia, Singapore, and among diaspora communities. Tamil has been recognized as a classical language by the Indian government and holds official status in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, and Singapore. The language has seen efforts to purify it by reducing the influence of Sanskrit and other foreign loanwords. Tamil maintains its classical literary tradition while adapting to modern changes in colloquial speech and writing. Its phonology is characterized by a rich set of consonants and vowels, and it has a script that differs from other Indic scripts by its use of visible marks to indicate vowel omission.

  1. ^ Talbot 2001, pp. 27–37
  2. ^ a b Modern Tamil at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
    Old Tamil at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
  3. ^ Official languages of Tamil Nadu, Tamil Nadu Government, archived from the original on 21 October 2012, retrieved 1 May 2007
  4. ^ Report of the Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities in India: 50th report (delivered to the Lokh Sabha in 2014) (PDF), National Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities, Ministry of Minority Affairs, Government of India., p. 155, archived from the original (PDF) on 8 July 2016, retrieved 8 June 2017
  5. ^ "Official Languages Policy". languagesdept.gov.lk. Department of Official Languages. Retrieved 20 May 2021.
  6. ^ Republic of Singapore Independence Act 1965 (No. 9 of 1965, 1985 Rev. Ed.), s7.
  7. ^ "Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 – Chapter 1: Founding Provisions", www.gov.za, South African Government
  8. ^ School languages, LINGUAMON, archived from the original on 2 September 2015, retrieved 26 March 2016
  9. ^ "Tamil, n. and adj". OED Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 24 January 2023.
  10. ^ Stein, B. (1977), "Circulation and the Historical Geography of Tamil Country", The Journal of Asian Studies, 37 (1): 7–26, doi:10.2307/2053325, JSTOR 2053325, S2CID 144599197. "Tamil is one of the two longest-surviving classical languages in India" (p. 7).
  11. ^ Steever 1998, p. 6. "one of India's two classical languages, alongside the more widely known Indo-Aryan language Sanskrit".
  12. ^ Definitive Editions of Ancient Tamil Works
  13. ^ Abraham, S.A. (2003), "Chera, Chola, Pandya: Using Archaeological Evidence to Identify the Tamil Kingdoms of Early Historic South India" (PDF), Asian Perspectives, 42 (2): 207, doi:10.1353/asi.2003.0031, hdl:10125/17189, S2CID 153420843
  14. ^ Zvelebil 1992, p. 12: "...the most acceptable periodisation which has so far been suggested for the development of Tamil writing seems to me to be that of A Chidambaranatha Chettiar (1907–1967): 1. Sangam Literature – 200BC to AD 200; 2. Post Sangam literature – AD 200 – AD 600; 3. Early Medieval literature – AD 600 to AD 1200; 4. Later Medieval literature – AD 1200 to AD 1800; 5. Pre-Modern literature – AD 1800 to 1900"
  15. ^ Maloney, C. (1970), "The Beginnings of Civilization in South India", The Journal of Asian Studies, 29 (3): 603–616, doi:10.2307/2943246, JSTOR 2943246, S2CID 162291987 at p. 610
  16. ^ Subramaniam, T.S. (29 August 2011), "Palani excavation triggers fresh debate", The Hindu, Chennai, India


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