Tamil language: Encyclopedia II - Tamil language - History

Tamil language - History

Like the other Dravidian languages, but unlike most of the other established literary languages of India, the origins of Tamil are independent of Sanskrit. Tamil has the longest unbroken literary tradition amongst the Dravidian languages. Tamil tradition dates the oldest works to several millennia ago, but the earliest examples of Tamil writing we have today are in inscriptions from the 3rd century BCE, which are written in an adapted form of the Brahmi script (Mahadevan, 2003), though many linguists see coded Tamil words in deciphering Indus valley seals and scripts. Dating the earliest literary works themselves is difficult, in large part because they were preserved either in palm leaf manuscripts (implying repeated copying and recopying) or through oral transmission. Internal linguistic evidence, however, indicates that the oldest extant works were probably composed sometime between the 5th century BCE and the 2nd century CE. The earliest available text is the Tolkāppiyam, a work on poetics and grammar which describes the language of the classical period, portions of which date back to around 500 BCE. Linguists say that for any language to have a well laid out Grammar work, it should have been atleast a 1000 years old by then.

Purananoorru, a collection of poems on kings, people, culture and social customs of that time, documented on a Chera king sending food supplies to the warring sides in the Mahabharatha war's Kurukshetra battlefield (c.900 BCE). It also mentions on the invasion of a Nanda king successfully driven back (c.450 BCE), and an unbeatable alliance of Tamil kings which stopped the Mauryan attack in 272-271 BCE (king Kharavela of Kalinga mentions in a stone inscription of 157 BCE that he broke that alliance which had lasted for 113 years).

Mahavamso, the Sinhalese chronicle mentions a Chola prince Ellaalan conquering the island in 205 BCE.The Sumerian kinglist from stone tablets excavated by archaeologists mention a king by name Tammuzi whose emblem was a fish who came from Kuadam, and seized the throne of Ur in 2600 BCE - that correlates with the legend of Kuadam being the capital in the second Sangam period before the second flood.

Archaeological evidence obtained from Tamil Brahmi inscriptions excavated in 2005 shows the language flourishing around 1000 BCE and establishes that Brahmi script was first used for writing Tamil much earlier than for Pali or Sanskrit( earliest inscriptions of the latter is dated to the 3rd century in the Ashoka reign ).^[1] The most significant epic written in the ancient Tamil language are the Silappadikaram composed around 100-113 CE and the Manimegalai composed around 115-118 CE. Ettuthogai and Paththupaattu are significant collections of ancient Sangam Tamil literature.

Ancient poet-scholar Nakkeerar(c.60-130 CE) documented that the ancient Tamil academy of Pandyan kings were classified into 3 periods: from 9875 BCE to the first "Flood" in 4450 BCE at Tenmadurai; from 4450 BCE to the second flood in 1750 BCE at Kuadam or Kapadapuram; from 1750 BCE till the present day(140 CE) at Madurai.Ancient Tamil literature glorify a lost continent ("Kumari kandam" of the east, similar to the Atlantis of the west)

Linguists categorise Tamil literature and language into three periods: ancient (500 BCE to 700 CE), medieval (700 CE to 1500 CE) and modern (1500 CE to the present). During the medieval period, a number of Sanskrit loan words were absorbed by Tamil, which many 20th century purists, notably Parithimaar Kalaignar and Maraimalai Adigal, later sought to remove. This movement was called thanith thamizh iyakkam (meaning pure Tamil movement). As a result of this, Tamil in formal documents, public speeches and scientific discourses is largely free of Sanskrit loan words. Between 800 and 1300 CE, Malayalam,Telugu and Kannada were believed to have evolved into 3 distinct languages.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki