Languages of Tamil Nadu

-Purvi Gupta 

Since Tamil people belong to Dravidian community, their language also comes under Dravidian language that is Tamil, which is spoken by the people of Tamil Nadu, a 4^th largest state in the country and located towards the south. Tamil is the official language of the country and one of the classical languages of the world. And apart from Tamil there are also other south Indian languages spoken such as Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, and even English. Tamil was the first language to be classified as classical language of India, among the 22 scheduled languages and is also one of the longest surviving languages.  As the official language law was passed for Tamil to be made as the official language, the government since then ordered Tamil to be taught in private schools. Tamil is considered to have the most ancient non- Sanskritic literature among all the other Indian languages in the country. Apart from Tamil, Telugu is also the common language of Tamil Nadu spoken by one tenth of the population. Kannad is the language spoken by 1.58% of population of Tamil Nadu and also in Karnataka and Kerala. Apart from the 1.58% of people speaking Kannad, there are also other 1% people speaking Malayalam and is also spoken by people living in Kanyakumari. And as for English there was 17% rise in English speakers in Tamil Nadu but only 0.03% of them use it in day-to-day life.