Tamil language

Tamil
தமிழ் Tamiḻ
Pronunciation	[t̪amiɻ]; pronunciation (help·info)
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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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.

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.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Tamil language at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
2. ↑ "Scheduled Languages in descending order of speaker's strength - 2011" (PDF). Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India. Archived (PDF) from the original on 14 November 2018. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
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. ↑ Languages of ASEAN, retrieved 7 August 2017
6. ↑ School languages, LINGUAMON, archived from the original on 2 September 2015, retrieved 26 March 2016
7. ↑ "Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 – Chapter 1: Founding Provisions", www.gov.za, South African Government
8. ↑ /ˈtæmɪl/ Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student’s Handbook, Edinburgh
9. ↑ Stein, Burton (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
10. ↑ Steever, Sanford B. "The Dravidian languages", First Published (1998), pp. 6–9. ISBN 0-415-10023-2