tamil
part of speech
noun (Tamil — the language; a Tamil, Tamils — the people); adjective (Tamil)
meaning for a pupil
1) Tamil is a language spoken by more than 70 million people, mainly in the state of Tamil Nadu in south India and in Sri Lanka, and also in Singapore, Malaysia and by communities in the UK, Canada and elsewhere. It is one of the oldest languages still spoken, with poems over 2,000 years old. tree →
2) A Tamil is a person whose people and language are Tamil. tree →
3) (adjective) Tamil describes the language, people or culture: Tamil food, Tamil script. tree →
sense in the lessons
In geography, RE and culture lessons, children meet Tamil festivals such as Pongal (harvest festival) and Hindu temples with tall towers. Tamil has its own script with rounded letters. Some English words come from Tamil, such as "curry" and "mango" (via Portuguese). Phrases: "speak Tamil", "Tamil script", "Tamil New Year".
examples
- My friend speaks Tamil at home and English at school. tree →
- Tamil is an official language in Sri Lanka and Singapore. tree →
- The word "curry" probably comes from a Tamil word. tree →
- Tamil families celebrate Pongal by cooking sweet rice. tree →
- The Tamil script looks curly and round. tree →
- Chennai is the biggest Tamil-speaking city in India. tree →
- Tamil poems have been written for more than 2,000 years. tree →
- But in the Tamil version, the process is described as being of a different and double nature. tree →
note
Always written with a capital T. Pronounced "TAM-il" (UK) or "TAH-mil". Tamil belongs to the Dravidian language family, not the same family as Hindi.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «tamil» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.