Tamil language

Tamil (/ˈtɑːmɪl/;[9] தமிழ் Tamiḻ [t̪amiɻ], pronunciation (help·info)) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. Tamil is an official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the sovereign nations of Sri Lanka and Singapore,[10][5] and the Indian Union territory of Puducherry. Tamil is also 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 also spoken by the Tamil diaspora found in many countries, including Malaysia, Myanmar, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia and Mauritius. Tamil is also natively spoken by the Sri Lankan Moors. One of 22 scheduled languages in the Constitution of India, Tamil was the first to be classified as a classical language of India.

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Tamil
Tamiḻ
தமிழ்
The word "Tamil" in Tamil script
Pronunciation	[t̪amiɻ]; pronunciation (help·info)
Native to	India , Sri Lanka and Singapore
Region	Tamil Nadu[lower-alpha 1] (India) Northern and Eastern Provinces (Sri Lanka)
Ethnicity	Tamils Sri Lankan Moors
Native speakers	78 million (2011–2019)[1] L2 speakers: 8 million (2011)[1]
Language family	Dravidian Southern Tamil–Kannada Tamil–Kodagu Tamil–Malayalam Tamil languages Tamil
Early forms	Old Tamil Middle Tamil
Dialects	See Below
Writing system	Tamil (Brahmic) Tamil-Brahmi (historical) Grantha (historical) Vatteluttu (historical) Pallava (historical) Kolezhuthu (historical) Arwi (Abjad) Tamil Braille (Bharati) Latin script (informal)
Signed forms	Signed Tamil
Official status
Official language in	India Tamil Nadu[2] Puducherry[3]  Sri Lanka[4]  Singapore[5] Organizations  ASEAN[6]
Recognised minority language in	Malaysia[7]  South Africa[lower-alpha 2][8]
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ta
ISO 639-2	tam
ISO 639-3	Either: tam – Modern Tamil oty – Old Tamil
Linguist List	oty Old Tamil
Glottolog	tami1289  Modern Tamil oldt1248  Old Tamil
Linguasphere	49-EBE-a
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Related
Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India Official Languages Commission Classical Languages of India List of languages by number of native speakers in India
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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 of India.[11][12] A. K. Ramanujan described it as "the only language of contemporary India which is recognizably continuous with a classical past".[13] The variety and quality of classical Tamil literature has led to it being described as "one of the great classical traditions and literatures of the world".[14] Recorded Tamil literature has been documented for over 2000 years.[15] The earliest period of Tamil literature, Sangam literature, is dated from c. 300 BC until AD 300.[16][17] It has the oldest extant literature among Dravidian languages. The earliest epigraphic records found on rock edicts and 'hero stones' date from around the 3rd century BC.[18][19] About 60,000 of the approximately 100,000 inscriptions found by the Archaeological Survey of India in India are in Tamil Nadu. Of them, most are in Tamil, with only about 5 percent in other languages.[20] Tamil language inscriptions written in Brahmi script have been discovered in Sri Lanka and on trade goods in Thailand and Egypt.[21][22] The two earliest manuscripts from India,[23][24] acknowledged and registered by the UNESCO Memory of the World register in 1997 and 2005, were written in Tamil.[25]

In 1578, Portuguese Christian missionaries published a Tamil prayer book in old Tamil script named Thambiran Vanakkam, thus making Tamil the first Indian language to be printed and published.[26] The Tamil Lexicon, published by the University of Madras, was one of the earliest dictionaries published in Indian languages.[27] According to a 2001 survey, there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil, of which 353 were dailies.[28]