Tamil is a Dravidian language related to Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam
among others. As one of the few living classical languages, it has an
unbroken literary tradition of over two millenia with the earliest
writings having been dated to circa 500 B.C. Tamil, like other
Dravidian languages, is agglutinative and the writing is largely
phonetic. It is spoken by a majority of people in Tamil Nadu and
northern and north-eastern Sri Lanka while a significant emigrant
population lives in Singapore, Malaysia and other parts of the world.
It is officially recognised in India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, and South
Africa.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_language
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1828:
Spelling reformer Noah Webster copyrighted the first edition of his
dictionary of American English.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Webster)
1865:
John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln with a Deringer pistol at
Ford's Theatre.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkes_Booth)
1912:
The transatlantic ocean liner RMS Titanic collided with an iceberg on
her maiden voyage.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic)
1931:
The Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed by a provisional government
led by Niceto Alcalá-Zamora.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niceto_Alcal%E1-Zamora)
1970:
An oxygen tank aboard the NASA spacecraft Apollo 13 exploded.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13)
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Wikiquote of the day:
"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible
worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true." -- James Branch Cabell
(
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Branch_Cabell)