Talk:Tamils
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Tamils article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the subject of the article. |
Article policies
|
| Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
 | This article is written in Indian English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, analysed, defence, realise) and some terms may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
 | Tamils is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed. | |||||||||||||||
 | This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on September 24, 2005. | |||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
| Current status: Former featured article | ||||||||||||||||
 | This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to multiple WikiProjects. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | The contentious topics procedure applies to this article. This article relates to the region of South Asia (India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal), broadly construed, including but not limited to history, politics, ethnicity, and social groups. Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. |
Tissamaharama Tamil Brahmi inscription
Presently scholars identify this as a Brahmi inscription and not a Tamil Brahmi Inscription. Read the article Tissamaharama inscription No. 53. Sources:
(1) Falk, H. (2014). Owners’ Graffiti on Pottery from Tissamaharama. Zeitschrift für Archäologie Aussereuropäischer Kulturen. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag. pp.45-94
(2) Dias, M. (2021). The South Indian ascendancy depicted in the Tamil inscriptions in Sri Lanka from the 3rd century BCE to 12th century ACE. Ancient Ceylon. No.27. pp.43-58. -- L Manju (talk) 17:25, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- No not all presently scholars identify this as brahmi inscription. Some identify this as Tamil Brahmi inscription. You first read the article you mentioned, out of 5 scholars, 3 identify it as Tamil brahmi. So your statement is not correct that presently scholars identify this as brahmi not Tamil brahmi. Ranithraj (talk) 06:24, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
Genetics of Tamils
I am not sure why this is not being discussed MuhammadRaymen01 (talk) 06:26, 9 January 2026 (UTC)
Claim about language longevity
The following sentence contains some factual information, but it is misleading in its current phrasing:
"Tamil is one of the longest-surviving languages, with over two thousand years of written history, dating back to the Sangam period (between 300 BCE and 300 CE)."
Specifically, claiming that any living language survived/existed more or less time than any other living language is scientifically unsound. Every language is gradually dervived from an older language, and all existing languages ultimately trace back their existance (and survival) to pre-historic times, that we have no way to measure scientifically. In other words, the language encoded by the writings in the Sangam period has the same relationship with contemporary Tamil that contemporary French or Italian have with Latin writings from 300 BCE to 300 CE.
The addition of such gratuitous claims to a page dedicated to an ethnicity does not add any value to the article, and it risks fueling chauvinistic sentiments and racial tensions for no other reasons that stating the obvious in a tendentious way regarding some very ancient and cool writings. ~2026-71959-9 (talk) 09:06, 2 February 2026 (UTC)