Portal:India/Today's selected article/April 24, 2006

The Tamil people are an ethnic group from South Asia with a recorded history going back almost two millennia. The oldest Tamil communities are those of southern India and north-eastern Sri Lanka. Unlike many ethnic groups, the Tamils have at no time been governed by a single political entity; Tamil&#818;akam, the traditional name for the Tamil lands, has always been under the rule of more than one kingdom or state. Despite this, the Tamil cultural identity has always been strong. Historically, this identity has been primarily linguistic, with Tamils being those whose first language was Tamil. In recent times, however, the definition has been broadened to also include emigrants of Tamil descent who maintain Tamil traditions, even when they no longer speak the language. Tamils are ethnically, linguistically and culturally related to the other Dravidian peoples of South Asia. There are an estimated 74 million Tamils around the world. Most Indian Tamils live in the state of Tamil Nadu, which includes the major part of the former Madras Presidency. Morover, Tamils are in clear majority in the union territory of Pondicherry, a former French colony is a subnational enclave situated geographically within Tamil Nadu. (more...).