Tamil language

The Tamil or Támil (autoglottonymous தமிழ் támiḻ [ˈtamiɻ]) is a Dravidian language spoken mainly in Tamil Nadu (India) and northeastern Sri Lanka. It is the Dravidian language with the second largest number of speakers after Telugu and is the one with the greatest literary development. Currently it is estimated that it has about 70 million speakers.

There are also notable groups of speakers in Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore (where it is one of the four official languages of the country), the island of Zanzibar (Tanzania) and, recently, in various major European cities, including London..

It has a rich and ancient literary tradition: the first writings of this language, consisting of lyric poetry and a grammar, date back to the first century AD. c.

The Tamil writing system is descended from the Brahmi alphabet. It combines consonants with vowels to create unique syllabic characters, but unlike the other Brahmi-derived scripts, it does not have characters that represent sounds with more than one consonant. Currently, as Tamil is receiving great influence from other languages, its writing system is having problems when it comes to representing the new words.

Historical, social and cultural aspects

Legal Status and Geographic Distribution

Tamil is the official language of the state of Tamil Nadu, India. It is one of the official languages of the Union Territories of Pondicherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It is one of the 23 nationally recognized languages in the Indian Constitution. Tamil is also one of the official languages of Sri Lanka and Singapore. In Malaysia, primary education in some public schools is also conducted entirely in Tamil.

Furthermore, with the creation in 2004 of a legal statute for classical languages by the Indian government and after a political campaign supported by various Tamil associations, Tamil became the first legally recognized classical language on the subcontinent. The recognition was announced by the then President of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam, at a joint session of both houses of the Indian Parliament on June 6, 2004.

History

Modern Tamil derives from Old Tamil spoken between the III century B.C. C. and the |VI|d|s}} century, although this is rather an ancestor language with differences from modern Tamil. More than 55% of the epigraphic inscriptions found in Hindustan are written in the Tamil language. The literature of ancient Tamil is the oldest extant among the Dravidian languages. It is difficult to date ancient Tamil and its literature precisely. Many Indian literary works were preserved in manuscript (by copying and collecting) or through oral transmission, and it is impossible to date them. Internal linguistic evidence and external chronological references indicate that the earliest known work was probably done between the II century B.C. C. and the 16th century d. c.

Old Tamil evolved into Middle Tamil (7th and 10th century AD), which in turn is the origin of modern Tamil and the Malayalam language, which is generally quite close to modern Tamil.

Linguistic description

Classification

Tamil is a southern Dravidian language. Old Tamil is especially close with Old Kannada. In addition to these two languages, a Proto-Tulu-Kodaga probably existed, and these three languages form the ancestors of the modern Southern Dravidian dialect block.

Grammar

Like the other Dravidian languages, modern Tamil is an agglutinative language, predominantly suffixing and with preferred syntactic order and regens post rectum. The name distinguishes two genres: animated vs. not animated.

Writing system

Consonants

* Non-native Tamil sounds

Vowels

1723 Tamil Bible.

The forms of u and ū can change for each letter

Numbers

Texts

• Aintiram

Example

Pronunciation:

Àciriyar vakuppukku. nu.aintār.

Avar u.ē nu.aintavuṭa. mānavarka. e.unka.ar.
Va.ava. maṭum ta. arukil ni.u konnaimiirunta mānaavi ka.imo.iyuṭa. pēcik konaṭiruntā..

Nā. ava.ai eccarittē..

Tamil script:

....

.......
.............

....

Spanish translation:

The teacher entered the classroom.

As soon as he got in, the students got up.
Except Valen who spoke to his neighbor Kanimozhi.

I warned him.