How did tamil originate?

Answer 1

Tamil is a Dravidian language of the Southern Dravidian group. The Dravidian languages have been in the Indian subcontinent as long as we can reconstruct although it's obvious that humans came there from Africa about 70,000 years ago or so. Linguistically, they predate the Indo-Aryan invasion and the retroflex consonants typical of all Indian languages have their origins in Dravidian languages and were borrowed into the Indo-Aryan languages.

Answer 2

The origins of Tamil, like the other Dravidian languages, but unlike most of the other established literary languages of India, are independent of Sanskrit. Tamil has the oldest literature amongst the Dravidian languages (Hart, 1975), but dating the language and the literature precisely is difficult. Literary works in India or Sri Lanka were preserved either in palm leaf manuscripts (implying repeated copying and recopying) or through oral transmission, making direct dating impossible. External chronological records and internal linguistic evidence, however, indicate that the oldest extant works were probably composed sometime between the 5th century BCE and the 2nd century CE.

The earliest extant text in Tamil is the Tolkāppiyam, a work on poetics and grammar which describes the language of the classical period, the oldest portions of this book may date back to around 200 BCE (Hart, 1975). Preliminary results from archaelogical excavations in 2005 suggest that the oldest inscriptions in Tamil may date atleast to around 500 BCE[1]. Apart from these, the earliest examples of Tamil writing we have today are rock inscriptions from the 3rd century BCE, which are written in an adapted form of the Brahmi script (Mahadevan, 2003). Linguists categorise Tamil literature and language into three periods: ancient (500 BCE to 700 CE), medieval (700 CE to 1500 CE) and modern (1500 CE to the present). During the medieval period, a number of Sanskrit loan words were absorbed by Tamil, which many 20th century purists, notably Parithimaar Kalaignar and Maraimalai Adigal, later sought to remove. This movement was called thanith thamizh iyakkam (meaning pure Tamil movement). As a result of this, Tamil in formal documents, public speeches and scientific discourses is largely free of Sanskrit loan words.

Answer 3

I am not sure what you mean the people the language or the state? Here is a web site that tells you about the people of Tamil.

http://tamilpeople.quickseek.com/

According to that site: The Tamil people are an ethnic group from South Asia with a recorded history going back more than two millennia.

hope that answers your question.