UR: A Video Essay on Tamil - Part 1    To view a video, click on your connection speed
Location: India   Length: 26 min        56k      300k      700k      56k      300k      700k
In south India is a culture with a continuous literary tradition more than 2000 years old. With 80 million speakers, Tamil is one of few languages besides Greek that is both classical and modern. This video essay outlines in images and music the development of the rich Tamil culture and writing systems. The origins of its earliest written script, found on cave walls, is a mystery. Some say it descends from the still undeciphered Indus script used 4000 years ago in modern Pakistan and northwestern India and that the Indus people spoke Dravidian, ancestral to Tamil.