Tamillanguage

Tamillanguage, commonly called Tamil, is a Dravidian language spoken by the Tamil people in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry, as well as in Sri Lanka and by Tamil communities across the world. It has a long literary history and a vibrant presence in education, media, and daily communication.

It belongs to the Dravidian language family, closely related to Malayalam and Kannada within the South Dravidian subgroup. Tamil is written using the Tamil script, an abugida derived from Brahmi; the script has ancient roots in Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions and the Pallava script, and the modern version is used in everyday writing.

Old Tamil is attested in Sangam literature from roughly the 1st century BCE to the 3rd century CE. The language has a continuous literary tradition through the medieval and modern periods. In 2004, the Government of India designated Tamil a classical language, recognizing its ancient heritage.

Tamil displays regional and diaspora varieties, including colloquial forms in Tamil Nadu, Sri Lankan Tamil, and Tamil varieties in Singapore, Malaysia, and Mauritius. Tamil is predominantly SOV (subject–object–verb) and agglutinative, with postpositions rather than prepositions, and a rich system of nominal and verbal suffixes. The Tamil script encodes vowels, consonants, and consonant-vowel combinations.

In addition to official use in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, Tamil is an official language in Sri Lanka and Singapore and is widely taught and used in education, media, and administration in other countries with Tamil-speaking communities.