Tamil people :
 Tamil People (also called Tamils or Tamilians) are a
Dravidian language speaking people from the Indian
subcontinent with a recorded history going back more than
two millennia. The oldest Tamil communities are those of
southern India and north-eastern Sri Lanka.
There are also a number of Tamil emigrant communities scattered around the
world, especially in central Sri Lanka, Malaysia, South
Africa, Singapore, Pakistan and Mauritius with more recent
emigrants found in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, United
States, and Europe. There are an estimated 77 million Tamils
around the world.
The art and architecture of the Tamil people encompass some
of the greatest contributions of India to the art world. The
music, the temple architecture and the stylised sculptures
favoured by the Tamil people are still being learnt and
practised. The classical language of Tamil, one of the
oldest languages in India, has the oldest extant literature
amongst other Dravidian languages.
Unlike many ethnic groups, Tamils were not governed by a
single political entity during most of their history;
Tamilakam, the traditional name for the Tamil lands, was
politically united for only a brief period, between the 9th
and 12th centuries, under the Chola Empire. The Tamil
identity is primarily linguistic, although in recent times
the definition has been broadened to include emigrants of
Tamil descent who maintain Tamil cultural traditions, even
if they no longer regularly speak the language. Tamils are
ethnically, linguistically and culturally related to the other Dravidian peoples of the Indian subcontinent.
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