What is tamil?How ancient is it?

Answer 1

TAMIL (தமிழ் tamiḻ) is a classical language and the oldest of the Dravidian language family and, possibly, the oldest language in the world. It is also the Dravidian language with the oldest extant literature. Spoken predominantly by Tamils in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Singapore, it has smaller communities of speakers in many other countries. As of 1996, it was the eighteenth most spoken language[citation needed], with over 74 million speakers worldwide. It is one of the official languages of India, Singapore, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.

Tamil is one of the few living classical languages and has an unbroken literary tradition of over two millennia[citation needed]. The high level of diglossia exhibited by Tamil and the prestige accorded to classical Tamil have resulted in much of the vocabulary and forms of classical Tamil being preserved in modern literary Tamil, such that the higher registers of literary Tamil tend towards the classical language[citation needed]. The classical language also forms an important part of Tamil-medium education; for example, verses from the Tirukkural, a classical work, are taught in primary school. The ordinary form of the modern language used in speech and writing, in contrast, has undergone significant changes, to the extent that a person who has not learnt the higher literary form will have difficulty understanding it.

The name 'Tamil' is an anglicised form of the native name தமிழ் (IPA /t̪ɐmɨɻ/). The final letter of the name, usually transcribed as the lowercase l or zh, is a retroflex r. In phonetic transcriptions, it is usually represented by the retroflex approximant.

The origins of Tamil, like the other Dravidian languages, are unknown, but unlike most of the other established literary languages of India, are independent of Sanskrit[citation needed]. 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 in 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). Apart from these, the earliest examples of Tamil writing we have today are rock inscriptions from the 3rd century BCE, which are written in Tamil-Brahmi, 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 2

Tamil is a Dravidian language.
Tamil is said to be existing for more than 2000 years and they have historical evidence for tamil's existence.
It is said that some of tha major languages that are practised in modern era has their origin from tamil.
the people who speak tamil are called tamilians.

Answer 3

Are you from Lithuania ?
There are no points for asking questions.