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The Indian Tamils (or Hill Country Tamils) are descendants of bonded labourers sent from Tamil Nadu to Sri Lanka in the 19th century to work on tea plantations. [110] [111] Most Sri Lankan Tamils live in the Northern and Eastern provinces and in the capital Colombo, and most Indian Tamils live in the central highlands. [109]
The Tamil language is spoken by native Sri Lankan Tamils and is also spoken by Indian Tamils of Sri Lanka and by most Sri Lankan Moors. Tamil speakers number around 4.8 million (29% of the population), making it the second largest language in Sri Lanka. There are more than 40,000 speakers of the Sri Lankan Malay language.
Sri Lankan Tamil dialects are distinct from the Tamil dialects used in Tamil Nadu, India.They are used in Sri Lanka and in the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora.Linguistic borrowings from European colonizers such as the Portuguese, English and the Dutch have also contributed to a unique vocabulary that is distinct from the colloquial usage of Tamil in the Indian mainland.
During the Crisis of the Sixteenth Century [note 2] up until the end of the British colonial period [note 3] many Southern Indian and Tamil speaking groups were transported or migrated to Sri Lanka, many of whom assimilated into the native Sri Lankan Tamil and Sinhalese populations. Today the two major Tamil communities are the Sri Lankan ...
In modern times, the Chetties have been assimilated either into Sinhala or Tamil resp. Vellalar society. [5] Most Chetties grow in Sinhala backgrounds. Hetti is another term used in this context, referring to the present generation of Chetties who do not have any relation to India but are solely from Sri Lanka.
Ceylon was used until it was replaced by Sri Lanka in 1972; the honorific Sri has been added to Lanka, a place mentioned in ancient texts and assumed to refer the country between the 10th [7] and the 12th centuries CE. [3] Other ancient names used to refer to Sri Lanka included Serendip in Persian, Turkic (Serendib/Särändib) and Eelam in Tamil.
The Tamil language is native to Tamil Nadu , Puducherry (India) and Sri Lanka, where most of the native Tamil speaking population is highly concentrated. Tamil is also recognized as a classical language by the Government of India in 2004 and was the first language to achieve such status. [1] Tamil is one of the 22 official languages of India. [2]
The spoken Tamil varieties in Sri Lanka although different from those of Tamil Nadu in India share some common features with the southern dialects of Tamil Nadu. Sri Lankan Tamil dialects retain many words and grammatical forms that are not in everyday use in Tamil Nadu, [5] [6] and use many other words slightly differently. [7] In general, Sri ...