Talk:Tamils

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)