Tamil (language)

Indian classical language, the second oldest after Sanskrit; and among the oldest classical languages in the world. Tamil belongs to the Dravidian family of languages. It originated in present-day Tamil Nadu in southern India; recent archaeological evidence suggests that the earliest Tamil inscriptions — written in a variant of the Brahmi script known as Tamil-Brahmi — date roughly to the sixth century BCE. It has also had a presence in Sri Lanka since at least the third century BCE. The earliest Tamil literature dates to the late centuries BCE, beginning with a corpus of classical bardic poetry known as Sangam poetry. Historically, during Pallava and Chola rule, Tamil was also written in the Vattezhuthu and Grantha scripts; by the fifteenth century, the blueprint of the present script and alphabet was established. Since the nineteenth century, it has been standardised further. The etymology of the word Tamil is unknown, but medieval commentaries suggest it means ‘sweetness’ or ‘coolness’. The other Dravidian languages of southern India — Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam — emerged from historical interactions between Tamil and other languages, primarily Sanskrit. It is an official language in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore, and widely spoken in Malaysia, Mauritius and other countries.