Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language that is spoken mainly in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is one of the classical languages of the world, with a rich literature spanning over 2000 years. It is claimed that classical Tamil is comprehensible to speakers of the modern language.
Tamil evolved independently of Sanskrit (which belongs to a distinct linguistic family), but has borrowed a number of words from it in later centuries. It has a rather small phoneme set. Like most writing systems in India, it is phonetic in nature - each (compound) character is a syllable, and is always pronounced the same way.
The 'l' in the word 'Tamil' is pronounced like a retroflex 'r'.
- (Add IPA symbol here)
Tamil is an official language in the following countries:
See also:
- Tamil - the people
External links:
Kalaivani, a Malaysian Tamil Information Exchange [1];
Tamil inayam offers Learn Basic Tamil; Tamil inayam offers Learn Spoken Tamil; Tamil Inayam offers Basic Tamil Dictionary;
University of Pennsylvania provides web based courses for learning and teaching Tamil;
Tamil virtual University has the largest digitalised tamil literature and web based courses for learning and teaching Tamil