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Tamil is the name for a person of a Dravidian culture group that is located primarily in Southern India and northeastern Sri Lanka. Tamil is also the name of the language spoken by Tamils. Tamils, like all Dravidian peoples, are aboriginal to Southern India and Sri Lanka. That is, Dravidian peoples are the earliest known inhabitants of that ...
The Tamil people, also known as Tamilar, Tamilians, or simply Tamils, are a dravidian ethnolinguistic group who natively speak the Tamil language and trace their ancestry mainly to India's southern state of Tamil Nadu, to the union territory of Puducherry, and to Sri Lanka.
The Tamil people, also known as Tamilar (Tamil: தமிழர், romanized: Tamiḻar, pronounced [t̪amiɻaɾ] in the singular or தமிழர்கள், Tamiḻarkaḷ, [t̪amiɻaɾɡaɭ] in the plural), Tamilians, or simply Tamils (/ ˈ t æ m ɪ l z, ˈ t ɑː-/ TAM-ilz, TAHM-), are an ethnolinguistic group who natively speak the ...
1. : a Dravidian language of Tamil Nadu state, India, and of northern and eastern Sri Lanka. 2. : a Tamil-speaking person or a descendant of Tamil-speaking ancestors. Examples of Tamil in a Sentence.
- History
- Geographic Distribution
- Culture
- Institutions
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Pre-historic period
The origins of the Tamil people, like those of the other Dravidian peoples, remain unknown, although genetic and archaeological evidence suggests a possible migration into India around 6000 B.C.E. The megalithic urn burials, dating from around 1000 B.C.E. and onwards, which have been discovered at various locations in Tamil Nadu, notably in Adichanallur, provide the earliest clear evidence of the presence of the Tamil people in modern Tamil Nadu. These burials conform to the descriptions of f...
Classical period
From around the third century B.C.E. onwards, three royal dynasties—the Cholas, the Cheras and the Pandyas—rose to dominate the ancient Tamil country. Each of those dynasties had its own realm within the Tamil-speaking region. Classical literature and inscriptions also describe a number of Velirs, or minor chieftains, who collectively ruled over large parts of central Tamil Nadu. Wars between the kings and the chieftains were frequent, as were conflicts with ancient Sri Lanka. Those wars appe...
Imperial and post-imperial periods
Although the Pallava records trace to the second century C.E., they arose to prominence as an imperial dynasty in the sixth century. Evidence suggests that the dynasty had been non-Tamil in origin, although they rapidly adopted the local culture and the Tamil language. The Pallavas sought to model themselves after great northern dynasties such as the Mauryas and Guptas. They therefore transformed the institution of the kingship into an imperial one, and sought to bring vast amounts of territo...
Indian Tamils
Most Indian Tamils live in the state of Tamil Nadu. They form the majority in the union territory of Pondicherry, a former French colony. Pondicherry comprises a subnational enclave situated within Tamil Nadu. Tamil communities exist in other parts of India, most emerging fairly recently, dating to the colonial and post-colonial periods, but some—particularly the Hebbar and Mandyam Tamils of southern Karnataka, the Tamils of Palakkad in Kerala, and the Tamils of Pune, Maharashtra—date back to...
Sri Lankan Tamils
Two groups of Tamils live in Sri Lanka today. The first, known as the Sri Lankan Tamils, either descended from the Tamils of the old Jaffna kingdom or migrated to the East coast. The second, known as the Indian Tamils or Hill Country Tamils, descended from bonded labourers sent from Tamil Nadu in the nineteenth century to work in tea plantations. Ceylon Tamils mostly live in the Northern and Eastern provinces and in the capital of Colombo, whereas hill-country Tamils largely live in the centr...
Tamil emigrant communities
Significant Tamil emigration began in the eighteenth century, when the British colonial government sent many poor Tamils as indentured labourers to far-off parts of the Empire, especially Malaya, South Africa, Fiji, Mauritius and the Caribbean. At about the same time, many Tamil businessmen also immigrated to other parts of the British Empire, particularly to Burma and East Africa. Many Tamils still live in those countries, and the Tamil communities in Singapore, Reunion Island, Malaysiaand S...
Language and literature
Tamils have strong feelings towards the Tamil language, often venerated in literature as "Tamil̲an̲n̲ai," "the Tamil mother". Historically, and contemporarily, Tamil language has been central to the Tamil identity. Like the other languages of South India, Tamil is a Dravidian language, unrelated to the Indo-European languages of northern India. The language has been far less influenced by Sanskrit than the other Dravidian languages, and preserves many features of Proto-Dravidian, though moder...
Visual art and architecture
Most traditional Tamil art take a religious form usually centering on Hinduism, although the religious element often only serves as a means of representing universal—and, occasionally, humanist—themes. Tanjore painting, originating in Thanjavur in the ninth century, represents the most important form of Tamil painting. The artist paints the image, using dyes, on cloth coated with zinc oxide, then decorates the painting with semi-precious stones as well as silver or gold thread. Painting emplo...
Performing arts
The traditional Tamil performing arts have ancient roots. The royal courts and temples have been centers for the performing arts since the classical period, and possibly earlier. Descriptions of performances in classical Tamil literature and the Natya Shastra, a Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts, indicate a close relationship between the ancient and modern artforms. A performance in the Tamil tradition aims to bring out the rasa,the flavor, mood, or feeling, inherent in the text, its q...
The global spread of the Tamil diaspora has hindered the formation of formal pan-Tamil institutions. The most important national institutions for Tamils have been the governments of the states where they live, particularly the government of Tamil Nadu and the government of Sri Lanka, which have collaborated in developing technical and scientific te...
Tamil languageTamil cuisineTamil JainsBerkson, Carmel. "The Life of Form." in The Life of Form in Indian Sculpture. Abhinav Publications, 2000. ISBN 8170173760.Bowers, F. Theatre in the East - A Survey of Asian Dance and Drama.New York: Grove Press, 1956.Casson, L. The Periplus Maris Erythraei: Text with Introduction, Translation and Commentary. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1989. ISBN 0691040605.Chaitanya, Krishna. A history of Malayalam literature. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1971. ISBN 8125004882.The Tamil people are an ethnic group from South Asia. Traditionally, they have been living in the southern parts of India, and the northeastern parts of Sri Lanka . The Tamil people number around 74 million in the world.
Anything that comes from this part of the world, or is connected to this particular culture or ethnicity, can be described as Tamil. This includes Tamil food (like dosa or sambar), Tamil art and music, Tamil literature, and Tamil script, which is the alphabet used for writing in the Tamil language.
