Tamil belongs to the Dravidian family, which contains about two dozen living languages mostly spoken in southern and eastern India. All of these are descended from a single ancestor, Proto-Dravidian (PD). PD was not written down, since its speakers were illiterate, but
specialists estimate that it was probably spoken around 4000 BC. Some time after that date, PD began to break up into several distinct languages, which formed the ancestors of the four main groups of Dravidian recognized today. South Dravidian, to which Tamil belongs, is thought to have been the last group to split off, perhaps around 1500 BC. Tamil, therefore, probably separated from its closest relatives around 1000-500 BC.
The first written text in Tamil is an inscription usually dated to 254 BC. This makes Tamil the first Dravidian language to be recorded, and one of the first languages of India to be written.
The striking thing about Tamil is that it is the only Indian language which has a continuous and uninterrupted written tradition dating back as far as 2000 years. In the north, the written tradition of the Indo-Aryan languages is discontinuous: the Indo-Aryan languages that were written down 2000 years or more ago are not the direct ancestors of the ones that have been written more recently.
specialists estimate that it was probably spoken around 4000 BC. Some time after that date, PD began to break up into several distinct languages, which formed the ancestors of the four main groups of Dravidian recognized today. South Dravidian, to which Tamil belongs, is thought to have been the last group to split off, perhaps around 1500 BC. Tamil, therefore, probably separated from its closest relatives around 1000-500 BC.
The first written text in Tamil is an inscription usually dated to 254 BC. This makes Tamil the first Dravidian language to be recorded, and one of the first languages of India to be written.
The striking thing about Tamil is that it is the only Indian language which has a continuous and uninterrupted written tradition dating back as far as 2000 years. In the north, the written tradition of the Indo-Aryan languages is discontinuous: the Indo-Aryan languages that were written down 2000 years or more ago are not the direct ancestors of the ones that have been written more recently.
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