Tamil is the language of the Tamil people, most of whom live in India's Tamil Nadu state and Sri Lanka. There are also groups of Tamil speakers in Myanmar, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

Tamil belongs to the Dravidian language family, which also includes about 20 other tongues spoken mainly in southern India. The term "Dravidian" comes from a Sanskrit word meaning "south." The most important Dravidian languages are Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Gondi, Kurukh, and Tulu. Brahui, another Dravidian tongue, is spoken in parts of Iran and Pakistan.

Except for classical Sanskrit (an Indo-European ancestor of the Hindi language), Tamil is the oldest written language in India. Going back nearly 2,000 years, its rich literary history includes epics, religious and nonreligious poetry, philosophy, and moral instructions.

Tamil is written in its own alphabet, which evolved from Grantha, an ancient Southern India alphabet.

Tamils have resisted the encroachment of the more widespread Hindi language and have even purged borrowed Sanskrit words from Tamil.

Tamil itself has loaned words to other languages. In English, the word "pariah" comes from Tamil.