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Wednesday, April 17, 2024

Learn Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Related Languages


 Tamil is spoken in Tamil Nadu in India. 



Tamil Nadu means Tamil country. The capital is Chennai, formerly called Madras..

Tamil is also spoken in Sri Lanka. 


Lanka means island. Sri means resplendent.

Sri Lanka previously was called Ceylon. You might still see Celonese tea. Twinings Tea company websites uses both words, 

Singapore

Tamil is additionally one of the four national languages of Singapore. Tamil is spoken in Little India, where you find shops and restaurants. Also in schools for those whose family language is Tamil.

Learning Tamil

I could not find Tamil in Duolingo. But I could find Hindi, and one of the Indian languages has learning English as an option.

Wikipedia has articles on the language and the countries and places mentioned. Wikivoyage has a phrasebook for each country.

Quora has interesting discussion on saying hello and goodbye in Tamil.

Wikivoyage has a phrasebook. They say that Tamil language is spoken by 74 million people. 

Tamil is closely related to Malayalam, and more distantly related to Kannada and Telugu. It is not related to the languages spoken in northern India, but like other Indian languages has been heavily influenced by Sanskrit.

What to see in Tamil Nadu

The capital city, Chennai, has beaches. 

Huge Hindu temples. The religion of the majority is Hindu.

What to see in Sri Lanka

The majority religion is Buddhist.

What to see in Singapore

1 Little India has small shops, and huge Mustafa's department store.

2  Restaurants serve meat or vegetarian dishes, and Singapore's speciality, fish head curry, with white rice on green banana leaves. The banana Leaf Appollo is one of many South Indian restaurants, many of which are vegetarian.

 Little India has a museum about Indian immigration to Singapore. very interesting and visitor friendly. For example, when I was there you could try on hats and take a selfie..

Useful Websites

Singapore Indian Museum

https://www.indianheritage.gov.sg/en

Tamil Language

https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Tamil_phrasebook

Sri Lankan Tea

https://twinings.co.uk/collections/sri-lankan-tea

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