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Tamil History
The Tamil people’s history is one that is long and
complex. The Tamil people are the decedents of India’s
Dravidian family of people. Tamil is the oldest existing
literature among any other languages spoken by the
Dravidian people. The culture, music, dance, and
architecture, since its origin, are still being taught,
learned and practised to this day. The extent of how
old the language itself is not known but writings have
been dated back to 200 BCE. Unlike other ethnic
communities, the Tamil people were not governed by any
single ruling body during most of their originating
history. There have been three major kingdoms in the
history of the Tamil people; the Chera, Chola and Pandya
Kingdoms. The three kingdoms had ruled the Tamil lands
from ancient times till about the 15th
century; when the constant bombardment of Muslim
invasions had an economical and resource strain on the
empires. The Chola Kingdom existing from the 9th
century to 12th century was one of the
largest and prominent Tamil kingdoms ruling over present
day countries such as Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore,
Indonesia and even reaching parts of South Africa. Due
to the land barriers and between lands, adaptations of
the Tamil language arose such as Malayalam, Telugu and
Kannada.
In the present time the Tamil language is spoken by over
74 million people world wide and being the official
languages of Tamil Nadu (a state of India), Sri Lanka,
Malaysia and Singapore. There are many large Tamil
speaking communities in countries like South Africa and
in the Indian Ocean islands of Réunion and Mauritius
(due to the Chola empire’s conquest of the southern
hemisphere). There are also other large Tamil
communities located in Fiji, Guyana, Suriname and
Trinidad and Tobago. This is mainly due to the
colonization of India and Sri Lanka by European
occupants. In such countries the language has mainly
been forgotten even though they are closer decedents of
the Tamil people. After India received its independence
many of the educated Tamil people left Tamil Nadu for
economic and financial gain to other developed nations
such as Canada, United States of America, England and
many other Eastern European countries. After Sri Lanka’s
independence many conflicts occurred between the
majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils which later
erupted in a civil war in the country. This civil war
had caused many people to leave the country in search of
refuge and freedom. Due to this great wave of emigration
from Sri Lanka, many more Tamils have gathered outside
of their countries of origin.
The largest Sri Lankan Tamil community outside of Sri
Lanka itself is in Toronto with more than 350,000
members in the community. Nevertheless, the Tamil
community outside of South Asia has been very prosperous
and is still flourishing.
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