தமிழ்
Tamil
- Global speakers: 80,989,130
- Glottocode: tami1289
- ISO 639-3: tam
Community leaders at New York's Tamil Sangam estimate that 5500-6000 Tamil families live in New York City and Long Island, comprising roughly 18,000-20,000 individuals (cf. 2015-2019 American Community Survey data, which estimated 5,122 speakers in NYC). The community is split roughly evenly between Sri Lankan Tamils, most of whom live on Staten Island, and South Indian Tamils, who are spread out across all five boroughs, with concentrations in Queens and New Jersey, including a linguistically distinct community of Iyengar Tamils and a community of Guyanese Tamils who have established a temple (or kovil) in Rosedale. Flushing's major Hindu Temple Society of North America was founded by a Tamil in 1970, and Tamil-owned restaurants exist across the city, including Anjappar and an outpost of the famous Saravanaa Bhavan chain in Manhattan's Curry Hill. While Tamil remains vigorous, often spoken at home and with a long and proud literary tradition, Tamil families also encourage children to attend courses at organizations like the New York Tamil Academy to learn grammar and script from the Kural, a central text of the Tamil people composed sometime between 300 BCE and 500 CE.
Sites
NYC neighborhoods or towns in the metro region where the language community has a significant site, marked by a point on the map: