T an action was micro-durative, non-sustained or non-lasting, usually in combination with a time marker such as ?(?). In Middle Tamil, this usage evolved into a present tense marker – ki?(?) – which combined the old aspect and time markers.[48]
Middle Tamil is attested in a large number of inscriptions, and in a significant body of secular and religious literature.[53] These include the religious poems and songs of the Bhakthi poets, such as the Tevaram verses on Saivism and Nalayira Tivya Pirapantam on Vaishnavism, [54]and adaptations of religious legends such as the 12th century Tamil Ramayana composed by Kamban and the story of 63 shaivite devoteesknown as Periyapura?am.[55] Iraiya?ar Akapporu?, an early treatise on love poetics, and Na?ul, a 12th century grammar that became the standard grammar of literary Tamil, are also from the Middle Tamil period.[56]
Modern Tamil The Nannul remains the standard normative grammar for modern literary Tamil, which therefore continues to based on Middle Tamil of the 13th century rather than on Modern Tamil.[57] Colloquial spoken Tamil, in contrast, shows a number of changes. The negative conjugation of verbs, for example, has fallen out of use in Modern Tamil[58] – negation is, instead, expressed either morphologically or syntactically.[59]Modern spoken Tamil also shows a number of sound changes, in particular, a tendency to lower high vowels in initial and medial positions, [60] and the disappearance of vowels between plosives and between a plosive and rhotic.[61]
Contact with European languages also affected both written and spoken Tamil. Changes in written Tamil include the use of European-style punctuation and the use of consonant clusters that were not permitted in Middle Tamil. The syntax of written Tamil has also changed, with the introduction of new aspectual auxiliaries and more complex sentence structures, and with the emergence of a more rigid word order that resembles the syntactic argument structure of English.[62] Simultaneously, a strong strain of linguistic purism emerged in the early 20th century, culminating in the Pure Tamil Movement which called for removal of all Sanskritic and other foreign elements from Tamil.[63] It received some support from Dravidian parties and nationalists who supported Tamil independence.[64] This led to the replacement of a significant number of Sanskrit loanwords by Tamil equivalents, though many others remain.[65]
Geographic distributionDistribution of Tamil speakers in South India and Sri Lanka(1961). Tamil is the first language of the majority in Tamil Nadu, India and Northern Province, Eastern Province, Sri Lanka. The language is spoken by small groups of minorities in other parts of these two countries including Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra and others in case of India and Colombo, the hill country, in case of Sri Lanka. Previously Tamil had a wider distribution in India than what it is currently. Tamil or dialects of it were used widely in the state of Kerala as the language of administration, literature and common usage until the 12th century CE. Tamil was also used widely in inscriptions found in southern Andhra Pradesh districts of Chittoor and Nelloreuntil the 12th centure CE.