Tamil (தமிழ்)  is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinet. It has official status in India,Sri Lanka and Singapore. Tamil is also spoken by significant minorities in Malaysia, Mauritius, Vietnam, Reunion as well as emigrant communities around the world. It is the administrative language of the Indian State of Tamil Nadu, and the first Indian language to be declared as a classical language by the government of India in 2004. Tamil is the only Indian Language which is not influnced or derived from Sanskrit.

Tamil literature has existed for over two thousand years. The earliest epigrapic  records found date from around the third century BC.  The earliest period of Tamil literature, Sangam literature is dated from the 3rd century BC to 6th century AD. Inscriptions in Tamil Language from 1st century BCE and 2nd century have been discovered in Egypt and Thailand. The Sangam-era literary work, Thirukural, written by Thiruvalluvar, is the most translated literary work next to the Holy Bible.

Tamil scholars categorize the history of the language into three periods,

• Old Tamil (300 BC - 700 AD),
• Middle Tamil (700AD - 1600AD)
• Modern Tamil (1600AD–present).

Old Tamil

Epigraphic attestation of Tamil begins with rock inscriptions from the 3rd century BC, written in Tamil-Brahmi, an adapted form of the Brahmi script. The earliest extant literary text is the Tolkāppiyam, a work on poetics and grammar which describes the language of the classical period, dated variously between the 3rd century BC and 5th century AD.

During the post-Sangam period of Old Tamil, important works like Thirukkural, and epic poems were composed, including Silappatikaram, Manimekalai, Sīvakacintāmani, Valaiyapathi and Kundalakesi which are known as the five great epics.

Middle Tamil

The Bhakthi period is known for the great outpouring of devotional songs set to pann music, including over eight thousand Tevaram verses on Saivism and four thousand verses on Vaishnavism. The mediaeval period gave rise to a popular adaptation of the Ramayana in Tamil, known as Kamba Ramayanam (12th century) and a story of 63 Nayanmars known as Periyapuranam (13th century).

In the later medieval period (14th to 16th century), Tamil became increasingly Sanskritized, to the point of the emergence of a mixed language known as maṇippiravāḷam. 

Modern Tamil

Today's tamil possess region specific variations. Tamil dialects are primarily differentiated from each other by the fact that they have undergone different phonological changes and sound shifts in evolving from Old Tamil. An example, the word for "here"—iṅku in Centamil (the classic variety)—has evolved into iṅkū in the Kongu dialect of Coimbatore, inga in the dialect of Thanjavur, and iṅkai in some dialects of Sri Lanka. Old Tamil's iṅkaṇ (where kaṇ means place) is the source of iṅkane in the dialect of Tirunelveli, Old Tamil iṅkaṭṭu is the source of iṅkuṭṭu in the dialect of Ramanathapuram, and iṅkaṭe in various northern dialects.

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(c) Chandrachoodan