The ancient Tamil land was ruled by three famous lines of kings, namely, Cera (ceerar), Chola (coolar) Pandiya (paantiyar). The land ruled by them was Chera Nadu (ceera naatu) \u2013Chera country, Chola Nadu (coola naatu)-Chola country and Pandiya Nadu (paantiya naatu)-Pandiaya country respectively.<\/p>\n
The landmass covered by the present-day Kerala State formed a major part of Chera Nadu, the Central and Northern parts of present Tamil nadu were the then Chola nadu and the Southern part of Tamil Nadu was the Pandiya Nadu.<\/p>\n
Tamils are of Dravidian origin. Many historians claim that the Dravidians, before the dawn of the history of the Tamils, were spread all over India. For various reason they eventually split into small groups. Consequently, the original language also split into different languages. Tamil is found to have retained about 80 per cent features of the original Dravidian language.<\/p>\n
There are three major sub-groups in the Dravidian family of language, namely, South Dravidian, Central Dravidian and North Dravidian. <\/p>\n
The language of the South Dravidian sub-group is mainly,<\/p>\n
1.\tTamil
\n2.\tMalayalam
\n3.\tKodagu
\n4.\tKota
\n5.\tToda
\n6.\tKannada
\n7.\tTulu<\/p>\n
The languages of the Central Dravidian sub-group are mainly:<\/p>\n
8.\tTelugu
\n9.\tGondi
\n10.\tKonda
\n11.\tPengo
\n12.\tManda
\n13.\tKui
\n14.\tKuvi
\n15.\tKolami
\n16.\tNayki
\n17.\tParji
\n18.\tGadba<\/p>\n
The languages of the North Dravidian sub-group are mainly:<\/p>\n
19.\tKurukh
\n20.\tMalto
\n21.\tBrahmi<\/p>\n
Tamil is spoken predominantly in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is spoken also in several other Indian states. In addition, Tamil speaking populations are found in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, Fiji Islands and South Africa. Recent Tamil immigrants are found all over the world.
\nThe distribution of Tamil-speaking population found in the States of India according to the book \u2018Distribution of Languages in India in States and Union Territories\u2019 published by the Central Institute of Indian Languages is given below:<\/p>\n
________________________________________________________________________
\nState\/Union Territory\t\t Tamil-Speaking
\n\t\t\t\t Population Percentage<\/p>\n
Andhra Pradesh\t\t 55242 1.27
\nAssam & Meghalaya 2992\t\t 0.02
\nBihar\t\t\t\t\t 15167\t\t\t 0.03
\nGujarat\t\t\t\t 15995\t\t\t 0.06
\nJammu & Kashmir\t\t\t 823\t \t 0.02
\nKerala\t\t\t\t\t 505340\t\t\t 2.37
\nMadhya Pradesh\t\t\t 28735\t\t\t\t0.07
\nTamil Nadu\t\t\t \t 34817421\t\t\t 84.51
\nMaharashtra\t\t\t\t 233988\t\t\t\t 0.46
\nKarnataka\t\t\t\t 990409\t\t\t\t 3.38
\nOrissa\t\t\t\t\t 9160\t\t\t\t 0.04
\nPunjab and Himachal Pradesh.\t 6128\t\t\t\t 0.02
\nRajasthan\t\t\t\t 3564\t\t\t\t 0.01
\nUttar Pradesh\t\t\t\t 9222\t\t\t\t 0.01
\nWest Bangal\t\t\t\t 21454\t\t\t\t 0.05
\nAndaman and Nicobar Islands\t 14518\t\t\t\t12.62
\nDelhi\t\t\t\t 37 343 \t 0.92
\nLackshadeep, and Minicoy Islands\t 113\t\t\t 0.35
\nManipur\t\t 834\t\t 0.08
\nTripura\t\t\t\t\t 82\t\t\t —-
\nDadra and Nagar havel 11 \t\t 0.01
\nGoa, Daman, and D 3347 \t\t 0.39
\nPondicherry\t\t 419830 \t 88.95
\nNagaland\t\t\t\t 469\t\t\t 0.09
\nArunachal Pradesh\t\t 638\t\t 0.14<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The ancient Tamil land was ruled by three famous lines of kings, namely, Cera (ceerar), Chola (coolar) Pandiya (paantiyar). The land ruled by them was Chera Nadu (ceera naatu) \u2013Chera country, Chola Nadu (coola naatu)-Chola country and Pandiya Nadu (paantiya naatu)-Pandiaya country respectively. The landmass covered by the present-day Kerala State formed a major part […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":289,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,491],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people-and-culture","category-people-and-language"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.la.utexas.edu\/tamilscript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.la.utexas.edu\/tamilscript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.la.utexas.edu\/tamilscript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.la.utexas.edu\/tamilscript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/289"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.la.utexas.edu\/tamilscript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/sites.la.utexas.edu\/tamilscript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":836,"href":"https:\/\/sites.la.utexas.edu\/tamilscript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions\/836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.la.utexas.edu\/tamilscript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.la.utexas.edu\/tamilscript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.la.utexas.edu\/tamilscript\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}