Tamil
Tamil is spoken as a native language by
between 35 and 55 million people in southeast India and north Sri Lanka, and in
emigrant communities in South Africa, Singapore and Malaysia, Germany &
Mauritius among others. It is the language spoken by tamilians, the inhabitants of Tamil Nadu. Tamil is one of the four oldest
languages in the world - Latin, Greek, Tamil and Sanscrit.
Tamil is a member of the Dravidian
Language family. Dating from the 3rd century BC, Tamil has the oldest written
records of any language in this family. It is considered by many scholars to be
close to its ancestor language, Proto-Dravidian.
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