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The 'l' in the word 'Tamil' is pronounced like a retroflex 'r', and is often transliterated as "zh". The letter 'ழ' which is found in 'தமிழ்' (Tamil) is believed to have unique pronunciation and not found in any other languages. See Tamil alphabet.
| Tamil (தமிழ்) | |
|---|---|
| Pronunciation (Approximate; no phonetic symbol available yet for the unique final 'l'): | tha-mi-zh SAMPA: /t{mIl/ IPA: /tæmɪɻ/ |
| Spoken in: | India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia |
| Region: | Tamil Nadu and neighboring states |
| Total speakers: | 63 million |
| Ranking: | 18 |
| Genetic classification: |
Dravidian Southern |
| Official status | |
| Official language of: | India, Sri Lanka, Singapore |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639ISO 639 is one of several international standards that lists short codes for language names. ISO 639 consists of different parts, of which two parts are currently published. The other parts are works in progress. Parts of ISO 639 There are two items for I-1: | ta |
| ISO 639-2: | tam |
| SIL: | TCV |
Tamil's origins are independent of Sanskrit (which is from the Indo-European language family and the ancestor of many Indian languages). The oldest available book on Tamil Grammar is Tolkaappiyam.
The earliest records date from inscriptions from 200 BC. Other early works exist ,which were preserved on manuscripts made by palm-leaf and through oral transmission. Part of this rich and varied literary output includes a Tamil indigenous grammatical tradition independent of that of the ancient Sanskrit grammarians. The earliest text which describes the language of the classical period is the Tolkappiyam (dating from around 200 BC); another dates from the year 1000 AD.
Three stages appear in the written records: ancient (200 BC to 700), medieval (700 - 1500) and modern (1500 to the present). Sometime between 800 AD and the turn of the millennium, Malayalam, a very closely related Dravidian language, split off and became a distinct language.
During the medieval period, Tamil absorbed many loan words from Sanskrit in the verbal system, but in the 1900s attempts were made to purge Tamil of its Sanskrit loans with the result that modern scientific and bureaucratic terminology is Tamil-based and not Sanskrit-based as in other Indic languages.
Quite significantly for its age, Tamil seems to have undergone minimal changes and adaptations over the years. Classical Tamil is quite comprehensible to speakers of the modern language. The ancient Tamil book Tirukkural is an example. The verses from the book are often taught to young students of the language at the primary level, and they pick up the lines in the ancient dialect with little difficulty.
Many English words including katamaran and ginger are originally from tamil (Kattu maram - logs tied together, Ingi).