Tamil language

**Tamil (தமிழ், Tamiḻ)** is a Dravidian language native to the Tamil people, primarily spoken in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry, as well as in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka. It ranks among the world’s oldest continuously spoken classical languages, with written records dating back to around 300 BCE.

Historically, Tamil served as the common tongue for early maritime traders across South India, and inscriptions in the language have been discovered in places as far-flung as Indonesia, Thailand, and Egypt. Its literary tradition is well documented, notably through the Sangam literature—a collection of over 2,000 poems. The Tamil script evolved from Tamil Brahmi, later passing through the vatteluttu script before the modern standardized form emerged. Grammatically, Tamil is agglutinative, allowing the formation of complex words by stringing together multiple morphemes.

Today, Tamil is the official language of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry in India, and one of the official languages of both Sri Lanka and Singapore. Large Tamil-speaking diaspora communities exist worldwide. In 2004, Tamil became the first language in India to be granted classical language status by the central government.

**Etymology** The earliest surviving Tamil literary works and commentaries credit the Pandiyan kings with organizing long-term assemblies called Tamil Sangams, which researched, developed, and refined the language. While the language itself is referred to as “Tamil” in these texts, the exact origin of the name and when it was first applied remain unclear. The oldest extant Tamil text, *Tholkappiyam* (dated as early as the 2nd century BCE), contains the earliest attested use of the name. Around the same period (150 BCE), the Hathigumpha inscription of the Jain king Kharavela of Kalinga mentions a “Tamira Samghatta” (Tamil confederacy). The *Samavayanga Sutra* (3rd century BCE) references a script called “Damili.”

Linguist Franklin Southworth proposes that the name derives from *tam-miḻ* > *tam-iḻ*, meaning “self-speak” or “our own speech.” Kamil Zvelebil suggests *tam-iḻ*, where *tam* means “self” and *-iḻ* connotes “unfolding sound,” or alternatively a derivation from *tamiḻ* < *tav-iḻ* < *tak-iḻ*, meaning “the proper process (of speaking).” Southworth finds this unlikely, given the early use of the compound *centamiḻ* (“refined speech”) in literature. The University of Madras’s *Tamil Lexicon* defines “Tamil” as “sweetness,” while S. V. Subramanian interprets it as “sweet sound” (*tam* = sweet, *il* = sound). David Shulman, citing Cuntaramurti’s *Tevaram*, notes that the phrase “Do you know proper Tamil?” could imply “Do you know how to behave properly as a male lover should?”—suggesting that at some point, “Tamil” meant something like “knowing how to love,” and that “to know Tamil” could also mean “to be a civilized being.”

**Classification** Tamil belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian language family, which includes about 26 languages native to the Indian subcontinent. It is also part of a Tamil language family that, besides Tamil proper, encompasses roughly 35 ethno-linguistic groups, such as the Irula and Yerukula languages.

Its closest major relative is Malayalam; the two began diverging around the 9th century CE. Although many differences between them reflect a prehistoric split of the western dialect, Malayalam did not fully separate as a distinct language until the 13th or 14th century. Kannada is also relatively close to Tamil and shares the structure of formal ancient Tamil. While there are variations, Kannada preserves many older Tamil words with little change, even as Tamil itself has evolved in modern usage. Kannada, like Malayalam, also incorporates some Sanskrit vocabulary due to its proximity to northern India.

**History**

**Legendary origins** According to Hindu tradition, Tamil (personified as Tamil Thāi, or Mother Tamil) was created by Lord Shiva. Murugan, revered as the Tamil god, along with the sage Agastya, brought the language to the people.

**Historical origins** Tamil, like other Dravidian languages, descends from Proto-Dravidian, likely spoken around the third millennium BCE in the region of the lower Godavari river basin. Material evidence suggests that Proto-Dravidian speakers were associated with the Neolithic cultures of South India. Scholars divide the attested history of Tamil into three periods: Old Tamil (300 BCE–700 CE), Middle Tamil (700–1600), and Modern Tamil (1600–present).

**Brahmi script** Of the roughly 100,000 inscriptions discovered by the Archaeological Survey of India in India, about 60,000 are in Tamil Nadu. Most of these are in Tamil, with only about 5 percent in other languages such as Telugu, Kannada, Sanskrit, and Marathi. In 2004, skeletons buried in earthenware urns dating from at least 696 BCE were found at Adichanallur; some urns bore writing in Tamil Brahmi script and contained remains of Tamil origin. Between 2017 and 2018, 5,820 artifacts were uncovered at Keezhadi and sent to Beta Analytic in Miami, Florida, for accelerator mass spectrometry dating.