Tamils are said to have migrated to a large number of countries during the past centuries. Subjective estimate about their number is available to us from various sources which deserve objective verification. The amount of works about their socio-cultural behaviour, economic status, language attitude, political participation, migratory pattern etc., is rather negligible. Though the field is wide open for intensive research, one does not find enough people coming forward to take up this challenging task. It is true, of course, that it is not possible for a few individuals to undertake investigations on a large scale covering so many countries without the support of well-established research centres and universities. I am indeed grateful to the Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture for having approved my proposal and providing me with the necessary financial support.
This study identifies three phases of Tamil dispersion to other parts of the world and prefers the term 'dispersed Tamils' to refer to them. Also identified in this work are the 'neo-Tamils', the non-Tamil communities in Tamil homeland who are permanently settled there for many centuries. Further, this work highlights the problems in getting the accurate linguistic profiles of different communities in a number of countries. Census anomaly, government policies and over-estimate of the cultural organisations are found to be some of the reasons. The need for an U.N. agency formulating uniform census norms to be followed in all the countries is emphasized. It has been pointed out how the census norms followed by the government of India act against the identity and preservation of the minor languages.
Factors that promoted the migration of the Tamils into other areas and of the non-Tamils into Tamil homeland are identified. It has been observed that the mothertongue loss is more a norm than an exception in the life of Tamils. Also, the role of religion in the life of dispersed Tamils is found to hasten the loss of mothertongue. It looks as though Tamils would not hesitate to switch their loyalty to another language for the sake of economic betterment even if it meant losing their linguistic identity. It is quite interesting that the neo-Tamils, on the other hand, retain their mothertongue at least in home domain for centuries, against all odds.
A number of people helped me in many ways and I am grateful to all of them. I am particularly thankful to Dr. L. Ramamoorthy, the then Director i/c., PILC, Dr. K.Rajayyan. Dr. R.Perialwar. Dr. Y.Subbarayalu, Dr. RM.Sundaram. Dr. A.Munian and Dr. J.Chemen. My sincere thanks are due to Dr. M.Elamaran, who went through the earlier draft & made necessary corrections.
It is regretted that due to certain technical constraints diacritic symbols could not be used.
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