|
|
Article: Tamil literature. (Indian Literatures: In the Fifth Decade of Independence)
- Article from:
- World Literature Today
- Article date:
- March 22, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 University of Oklahoma. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Of the many spoken and written languages on the Indian subcontinent, the constitution recognizes fifteen. They are Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. Hindi has been given the status of India's official language, along with English. These fifteen languages belong to the two main language families: Indo-Aryan and Dravidian. Contemporary Indian literature includes, therefore, literature in any one of the fifteen languages, not excluding English. My understanding of literatures in other Indian languages, except Tamil, Sanskrit, and Hindi, has been only through English.
...