Tamil, the oldest of the Dravidian languages, 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, making it one of the world's oldest languages.
Tamil evolved independently of Sanskrit, but has borrowed a large number of words from it. 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] (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kalaivani/);
Tamil inayam offers Learn Basic Tamil (http://www.tamil.net/learn-tamil/); Tamil inayam offers Learn Spoken Tamil (http://www.tamil.net/spokentamil/); Tamil Inayam offers Basic Tamil Dictionary (http://www.tamil.net/learn-tamil/);
University of Pennsylvania provides web based courses for learning and teaching Tamil (http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/plc/tamilweb/);
Tamil virtual University (http://www.tamilvu.org/) has the largest digitalised tamil literature and web based courses for learning and teaching Tamil
Common misspelling and questions (FAQ)
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