The Language of the Week: Tamil
I have realized that there are tens of
languages that
we’re not aware of… We only know the ones which are widely used- and it
is quite normal. In my opinion, if we are not aware of a language, we
are also not aware of this very culture. Culture begins with language…
I will try to write a blog post about “other” languages every week. I
hope, this new series will be beneficial for you and we can learn new
languages and cultures together.
You may have heard of the languages that I will write here, you can support my posts with your knowledge about these languages.
Who speaks Tamil?
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of
South India and North-east Sri Lanka. Tamil is also a national language
of Sri Lanka and an official language of Singapore and Mauritius. It is
also chiefly spoken in the states of Kerala, Karnataka,Andhra
Pradesh and Andaman and Nicobar Islands as one of the secondary
languages. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and was
declared a classical language by the government of India in 2004. Tamil
is also spoken by significant minorities in Malaysia, Canada, South
Africa, Fiji, Germany, USA, Netherlands, and Réunion as well as emigrant
communities around the world.
The long history of Tamil
Tamil is one of the longest surviving classical languages in the
world. It has been described as “the only language of contemporary India
which is recognizably continuous with a classical past” and having “one
of the richest literatures in the world”. Tamil literature has existed
for over 2000 years.
The earliest epigraphic records found on rock edicts and
hero stones date
from around the 3rd century BCE. The two earliest manuscripts from
India, to be acknowledged and registered by UNESCO Memory of the World
register in 1997 and 2005 were in Tamil.
Grammar
Tamil employs agglutinative grammar, where suffixes are used to
mark noun class, number, and case, verb tense and other grammatical
categories. Tamil’s standard metalinguisticterminology and scholarly
vocabularly is itself Tamil, as opposed to the Sanskrit that is standard
for most other Dravidian languages.
Letters
Visit our Facebook page to read and enjoy more posts about languages!
You can also follow me on Twitter.
Let’s get connected more! We are on Google+.
What about learning more about AIM Consulting?
