Tamil Language: Dravidian language native to South India and Sri Lanka
Tamil is a Dravidian language.
It is spoken in the Tamil Nadu and other states of India and parts of Sri Lanka. Many people in Singapore and Malaysia also speak it. Many people speaking Tamil live in various places around the world.
| Tamil | |
|---|---|
| தமிழ் Tamiḻ | |
 | |
| Pronunciation | [t̪amiɻ];  pronunciation (help·info) |
| Native to | India Sri Lanka |
| Ethnicity | Tamil people |
Native speakers | 75 million (2011–2015) L2 speakers: 6 million |
Dravidian
| |
Early forms | Old Tamil
|
| Tamil (Brahmic) Tamil-Brahmi (historical) Grantha (historical) Vatteluttu (historical) Pallava (historical) Kolezhuthu (historical) Arwi (Abjad) Tamil Braille (Bharati) Latin script (informal) | |
| Signed Tamil | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  India: Sri Lanka SingaporeOrganizations  ASEAN |
Recognised minority language in | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | ta |
| ISO 639-2 | tam |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:tam – Modern Tamiloty – Old Tamil |
Linguist List | oty Old Tamil |
| Glottolog | tami1289 Modern Tamiloldt1248 Old Tamil |
| Linguasphere | 49-EBE-a |
 | |
The Tamil language is part of the Dravidian language family, which includes Telugu, Odia, Kannada and Malayalam. According to a survey, 1863 newspapers are published in the Tamil language every day. The oldest text found in Tamil is a grammatical work called the Tolkāppiyam. Tamil has a long literary history, and is spoken by almost 100 million people.
Tamil script
The modern Tamil script is an abugida, much like the other brahmic scripts that surround it and from whom it developed from. The Tamil script has 18 consonants and 12 vowels and the āytam ஃ,. The āytam is used with other letters to represent sounds not native to the language (usually with the English sound f.) The vowels are written as symbols above, below or on either side of the consonant. There are 247 letters in its alphabet. Much like other brahmic scripts, it is written from left to right.
Tamil is the dominant language in the state of Tamil Nadu which is situated in India, and Northern provinces of Sri Lanka. It is also spoken by significant immigrant communities and the historical Tamil diaspora in like the United States, Germany, Fiji, Indonesia, France, Africa and Thailand and much more.
References
Other websites
Tamil at Wikibooks
Media related to Tamil language at Wiki Commons
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