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Tamils
The Tamils ( ), also known by their endonym Tamilar, are a Dravidian peoples, Dravidian ethnic group who natively speak the Tamil language and trace their ancestry mainly to the southern part of the Indian subcontinent. The Tamil language is one of the longest-surviving classical languages, with over two thousand years of Tamil literature, written history, dating back to the Sangam period (between 300 BCE and 300 CE). Tamils constitute about 5.7% of the Indian population and form the majority in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry. They also form significant proportions of the populations in Sri Lankan Tamils, Sri Lanka (15.3%), Tamil Malaysians, Malaysia (7%) and Indian Singaporeans, Singapore (5%). Tamils have migrated world-wide since the 19th century CE and a significant population exists in South Africa, Mauritius, Fiji, as well as other regions such as the Southeast Asia, Middle East, Caribbean and parts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sri Lankan Tamils
Sri Lankan Tamils ( or ), also known as Ceylon Tamils or Eelam Tamils, are Tamils native to the South Asian island state of Sri Lanka. Today, they constitute a majority in the Northern Province, Sri Lanka, Northern Province, form the plurality in the Eastern Province, Sri Lanka, Eastern Province and are in the minority throughout the rest of the country. #Society, 70% of Sri Lankan Tamils in Sri Lanka live in the Northern and Eastern provinces. Modern Sri Lankan Tamils descend from residents of the Jaffna kingdom, a former kingdom in the north of Sri Lanka and Vanni chieftaincies from the east. According to the anthropological and archaeological evidence, Sri Lankan Tamils have a very long History of Sri Lanka, history in Sri Lanka and have lived on the island since at least around the 2nd century Common Era, BCE. The Sri Lankan Tamils are mostly Hindus with a significant Christian population. Sri Lankan Tamil literature on topics including religion and the sciences flourishe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamil Diaspora
The Tamil diaspora refers to descendants of the Tamil people, Tamil speaking Emigration, immigrants who emigrated from their native lands in the southern Indian subcontinent (Tamil Nadu, Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry and Sri Lanka) to other parts of the world. They are found primarily in Tamil Malaysians, Malaysia, Arab states of the Persian Gulf, Tamil South Africans, South Africa, North America, Western Europe, and Singapore Tamils, Singapore. It can be divided into two main diasporic clusters, due to geographical, historical and cultural reasons, as Indian Tamil diaspora and Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora. Four groups make up the bulk of the Tamil diaspora: colonial-era descendants of migrants to Southeast Asia, South Africa, East Africa, the Caribbean, and Fiji; recent, educated Tamil immigrants primarily to the United States, U.S., Australia, and the United Kingdom, U.K.; Sri Lankan Tamil refugees who resettled primarily in Canada, Western and Northern Europe, and Ocea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indian Tamils Of Sri Lanka
Indian Tamils of Sri Lanka are Tamils, Tamil people of Indian origin in Sri Lanka. They are also known as Malayaga Tamilar, Hill Country Tamils, Up-Country Tamils or simply Indian Tamils. They predominantly descend from workers sent during the British Raj from South India, Southern India to Sri Lanka in the 19th and 20th centuries to work in coffee, tea and rubber plantations. Some also migrated on their own as merchants and as other service providers. These Tamil language, Tamil speakers mostly live in the central highlands, also known as the Malayakam or Hill Country, yet others are also found in major urban areas and in the Northern Province, Sri Lanka, Northern Province. Although they are all termed as Tamils today, some have Telugu people, Telugu and Malayalee origins as well as diverse South Indian caste origins. They are instrumental in the plantation sector economy of Sri Lanka. In general, socio-economically their standard of living is below that of the national average a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sri Lankan Moors
Sri Lankan Moors (; Arwi: ; ; formerly Ceylon Moors; colloquially referred to as Sri Lankan Muslims) are an ethnic minority group in Sri Lanka, comprising 9.3% of the country's total population. Most of them are native speakers of the Tamil language. The majority of Moors who are not native to Sri Lanka's Northern Province, Sri Lanka, Northern and Eastern Province, Sri Lanka, Eastern provinces also speak Sinhala language, Sinhalese as a second language. They are predominantly followers of Islam. The Sri Lankan Muslim community is mostly divided between Sri Lankan Moors, Indian Moors, Sri Lankan Malays and Sri Lankan Dawoodi Bohra, Bohras. These groups are differentiated by lineage, language, history, culture and traditions. The Sri Lankan Moors are of diverse origins with some tracing their ancestry to Arabs, Arab traders who first settled in Sri Lanka around the 9th century, and who intermarried with local Tamil and Sinhala women. Recent genetic studies, however, have suggested a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamil Language
Tamil (, , , also written as ''Tamizhil'' according to linguistic pronunciation) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. It is one of the longest-surviving classical languages in the world,. "Tamil is one of the two longest-surviving classical languages in India" (p. 7). attested since 300 BC, 300 BCE.: "...the most acceptable periodisation which has so far been suggested for the development of Tamil writing seems to me to be that of A Chidambaranatha Chettiar (1907–1967): 1. Sangam Literature – 200BC to AD 200; 2. Post Sangam literature – AD 200 – AD 600; 3. Early Medieval literature – AD 600 to AD 1200; 4. Later Medieval literature – AD 1200 to AD 1800; 5. Pre-Modern literature – AD 1800 to 1900" at p. 610 Tamil was the lingua franca for early maritime traders in South India, with Tamil inscriptions found outside of the Indian subcontinent, such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Egypt. The language has a well-documented history wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamilakam
Tamilakam () also known as ancient Tamil country as was the geographical region inhabited by the ancient Tamil people, covering the southernmost region of the Indian subcontinent. Tamilakam covered today's Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry, Lakshadweep and southern parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Traditional accounts and the '' Tolkāppiyam'' referred to these territories as a single cultural area, where Tamil was the natural language and permeated the culture of all its inhabitants. The ancient Tamil country was divided into kingdoms. The best known among them were the Cheras, Cholas, Pandyans and Pallavas. During the Sangam period, Tamil culture began to spread outside Tamilakam. Ancient Tamil settlements were also established in Sri Lanka (Sri Lankan Tamils) and the Maldives ( Giravarus). During the Prehistorical, Classical, Middle and Early Modern ages, the entire region of Tamilakam mostly remained unconquered by the Northern Indo-Aryan dynasties, ranging ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pongal (festival)
Pongal is a multi-day Hindu harvest festival celebrated by Tamils. The festival is celebrated over three or four days with Bhogi, Thai Pongal, Mattu Pongal and Kaanum Pongal, beginning on the last day of the Tamil calendar month of Margazhi, and observed on consecutive days. Thai Pongal is observed on the first day of the Tamil calendar month of Thai and usually falls on 14 or 15 January in the Gregorian calendar. It is dedicated to the solar deity Surya and corresponds to Makar Sankranti, the Hindu observance celebrated under various regional names across the Indian subcontinent. According to tradition, the festival marks the end of winter solstice, and the start of the Sun's six-month-long journey northwards called Uttarayana when the Sun enters Capricorn (astrology), Capricorn. The festival is named after the ceremonial "Pongal", which means "boiling over" or "overflow" in Tamil language and refers to the traditional Pongal (dish), dish prepared by boiling rice with cow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of India by population, sixth largest by population, Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, who speak the Tamil language—the state's official language and one of the longest surviving Classical languages of India, classical languages of the world. The capital and largest city is Chennai. Located on the south-eastern coast of the Indian peninsula, Tamil Nadu is straddled by the Western Ghats and Deccan Plateau in the west, the Eastern Ghats in the north, the Eastern Coastal Plains lining the Bay of Bengal in the east, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait to the south-east, the Laccadive Sea at the southern Cape (geography), cape of the peninsula, with the river Kaveri bisecting the state. Politically, Tamil Nadu is bound by the Indian sta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamil Community - Worldwide
Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka **Myanmar Tamils, Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Indian origin settled in Burma/Myanmar primarily during the British period **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people of Indian origin settled to Malaysia **Singapore Tamils, Tamil people of Indian origin settled in Singapore **Tamil diaspora, descendants of Tamil immigrants living outside of India and Sri Lanka * Tamil language, the native language of the Tamils * Tamiloid languages, Dravidian languages related to Tamil, spoken in India * Tamil script, the writing system of the Tamil language **Tamil (Unicode block), a block of Tamil characters in Unicode * Tamil dialects, referencing geographical variations in speech * Tamil culture, culture of the Tamil people * Tamil cuisine, cuisine of the Tamil people * Tamil cinema (other) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dravidian Peoples
The Dravidian peoples, Dravidian-speakers or Dravidians, are a collection of ethnolinguistic groups native to South Asia who speak Dravidian languages. There are around 250 million native speakers of Dravidian languages. Telugus form the largest Dravidian ethnic group, whilst Tamilians, Kannadigas and Malayalis form the vast-majority of the rest of Dravidian speakers. Dravidian speakers form the majority of the population of South India and are natively found in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Giraavaru people, Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. The four languages of these ethnic groups along with Urdu constitute the official languages of South India. Dravidian peoples are also present in Singapore, Mauritius, Malaysia, France, South Africa, Myanmar, East Africa, the Caribbean, and the United Arab Emirates through South Indian diaspora, recent migration. Proto-Dravidian language, Proto-Dravidian may have been spoken in the Indus civilization, suggesting a " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eelam
Eelam (, ''īḻam'', , also spelled Eezham, Ilam or Izham in English) is the native Tamil name for the South Asian island now known as Sri Lanka. Eelam is also the Tamil name for the spurge (a plant), toddy (an intoxicant) and gold. (Online edition at the University of Chicago) The exact etymology and the original meaning of the word are not clearly known, and there are number of conflicting theories. The retroflex approximant ''ḻ'' in ''īḻam'' is a characteristic phoneme for Dravidian languages that is now retained only in the closely related languages Tamil and Malayalam. Conventionally, it has been represented in the Latin script by the digraph ''zh''. History The earliest use of the word is found in a Tamil-Brahmi inscription as well as in the Sangam literature. The Tirupparankunram inscription found near Madurai in Tamil Nadu and dated on palaeographical grounds to the 1st century BCE, refers to a person as a householder from Eelam (''Eela-kudumpikan''). T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
