Sri Lankan Tamils

Sri Lankan Tamils (Tamil: இலங்கை தமிழர், ilankai tamiḻar ^? also Tamil: ஈழத் தமிழர், īḻat tamiḻar ^?) or Ceylon Tamils, also known as Eelam Tamils in Tamil, are members of the Tamil ethnic group native to the South Asian island state of Sri Lanka. According to anthropological and archaeological evidence, Sri Lankan Tamils have a very long history in Sri Lanka and have lived on the island since around the 2nd century BCE. Most modern Sri Lankan Tamils claim descent from residents of Jaffna Kingdom, a former kingdom in the north of the island and Vannimai chieftaincies from the east. They constitute a majority in the Northern Province, live in significant numbers in the Eastern Province, and are in the minority throughout the rest of the country. 70% of Sri Lankan Tamils in Sri Lanka live in the Northern and Eastern provinces.

Although Sri Lankan Tamils are culturally and linguistically distinct, genetic studies indicate that they are closely related to Sinhalese ethnic group in the island. The Sri Lankan Tamils are mostly Hindus with a significant Christian population. Sri Lankan Tamil literature on topics including religion and the sciences flourished during the medieval period in the court of the Jaffna Kingdom. Since the beginning of the Sri Lankan Civil War in the 1980s, it is distinguished by an emphasis on themes relating to the conflict. Sri Lankan Tamil dialects are noted for their archaism and retention of words not in everyday use in the Tamil Nadu state in India.

Tamils

The Tamils (Tamil: தமிழர், tamiẓar (singular) ^?[t̪ɐmɪɻɐɾ], or Tamil: தமிழர்கள், tamiẓarkaḷ (plural) ^?[t̪ɐmɪɻɐɾxɐɭ]), also known as Tamilians or Tamilans, are a Dravidian ethnic group who speak Tamil as their mother tongue and trace their ancestry to the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the Indian Union territory of Puducherry, or the Northern and Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. Tamil people with a population of about 77 million living around the world are one of the largest and oldest of the existing ethno-linguistic cultural groups of people in the modern world to exist without a state of their own. Tamils comprise 24.87% of the population in Sri Lanka, 5.91% in India, 5.83% in Mauritius, 5% of the population in Singapore and 5.7% of the population in Malaysia.

Thousands of years ago, urbanisation and mercantile activity along the western and eastern coast of what is today Kerala and Tamil Nadu led to the development of four large Tamil political states Chera dynasty, Chola dynasty, Pandyan Dynasty and Pallava dynasty and a number of smaller states warring amongst themselves for dominance. Among languages spoken today, the Tamil language is the oldest written language among Indian languages. Between the 3rd century BCE and the 3rd century AD, Tamil people produced native literature that came to be called Sangam literature.

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka (/sriːˈlɑːŋkə, -ˈlæŋkə/ or ⁱ/ʃriː-/;Sinhalese - ශ්‍රී ලංකාව, Tamil Ilaṅkai), officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and known from the beginning of British colonial rule until 1972 as Ceylon (/sᵻˈlɒnˌ seɪ-ˌ siː-/), is an island country in South Asia near south-east India.

Sri Lanka has maritime borders with India to the northwest and the Maldives to the southwest. Its documented history spans 3,000 years, with evidence of pre-historic human settlements dating back to at least 125,000 years. Its geographic location and deep harbours made it of great strategic importance from the time of the ancient Silk Road through to World War II.

A diverse and multicultural country, Sri Lanka is home to many religions, ethnic groups, and languages. In addition to the majority Sinhalese, it is home to large groups of Sri Lankan and Indian Tamils, Moors, Burghers, Malays, Kaffirs and the aboriginal Vedda. Sri Lanka has a rich Buddhist heritage, and the first known Buddhist writings of Sri Lanka, the Pāli Canon, dates back to the Fourth Buddhist council in 29 BC. The country's recent history has been marred by a thirty-year civil war which decisively ended when Sri Lankan military defeated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2009.

Sri Lankan

Sri Lankan can refer to: