Along with Kannada, Telegu, and Malayalam, it is one of the
four Dravidian languages spoken largely in southern India.
Tamil is the most widely spoken language in contemporary
Tamil Nadu, one of the "linguistic states" established following
India's independence.
This state was created to bring individuals who spoke the
same language and had a same culture together under one administration.
Despite the fact that all four languages have literary and
cultural significance, Tamil has by far the most extensive literary history.
The Sangam literature, eight volumes of poetry that
concentrated equally on the exterior depiction of warfare or the inward
description of love, dates from the early years of the common period.
The three Tamil epics, the Shilappadigaram, Manimegalai, and
Shivaga-Sindamani, followed the Sangam literature.
Between the seventh and tenth centuries, the Alvars and the
Nayanars created devotional (bhakti) literature, with the former expressing
their devotion to Vishnu and the latter to Shiva.
Because it used daily vernacular language as a magnificent
vehicle for deep religious expression, its devotional poetry was unmatched in
Hindu religious history.
The Alvars' poetry became a foundational book for the
Shrivaishnava community, while the Nayanars' poems became a foundational text
for Shaiva Siddhanta, and both collections are still essential in Hindu
religious life.
Tamil is still a vibrant literary language and a source of
intense regional pride for the people who live there; some of the most violent
recent demonstrations in southern India were the so-called language riots,
protesting the imposition of Hindi as the government language, which was seen
as a deliberate attempt to marginalize Tamil language and culture.
~Kiran Atma
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