Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language.^[8] 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.

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Tamil
தமிழ் Tamiḻ
Pronunciation	[t̪amiɻ]; pronunciation
Native to	India Sri Lanka
Ethnicity	Tamil people
Native speakers	75 million (2011–2015)[1][2] L2 speakers: 6 million[1]
Language family	Dravidian Southern Tamil–Kannada Tamil–Kodagu Tamil–Malayalam Tamil languages Tamil
Early forms	Old Tamil Middle Tamil
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[3] Puducherry[4]  Sri Lanka  Singapore Organizations  ASEAN[5]
Recognised minority language in	Malaysia[6]  South Africa[7]
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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Man speaking Tamil (Wikitongues Project).

Spoken Tamil

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.^[9][10] 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.