Talk:Tamil people/Archive 1

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This morning, a serious of vandalisms were carried out by the IP 203.115.205.56, reverted by myself and JeremyA (talk • contribs). --149.159.72.70

Contents

Important proposal

I feel that the current article is in a bad shape. Shall we rewrite the article from scratch following the Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic Groups Template? Volunteers please signup below. -- Sundar (talk • contribs) 05:27, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

  1. Brhaspati (talkcontribs) 21:03, 2005 Mar 30 (UTC) (Yes, good idea.)
  2. Sundar (talk • contribs) 05:06, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC) (Signing up myself.)
  3. Arvind 00:45, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)(Yes, will help as much as I can)


I've copied the template to Tamil people/temp. -- Brhaspati (talkcontribs) 23:01, 2005 Apr 1 (UTC)

Well done by Arvind (Vadakkan) and Brhaspathi in improving the article. -- Sundar (talk • contribs) 05:06, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC) Following is the discussion from Talk: Tamil people/temp:

Mauritius

Should Mauritius be listed here? From what I know, Tamil is not spoken there extensively, but many of the residents are of Tamil origin. Does this qualify? -- Brhaspati (talkcontribs) 23:17, 2005 Apr 1 (UTC)

Take a look at my edits - does that fix it appropriately? Arvind 22:21, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yes! That seems to describe the situation perfectly. -- Brhaspati\talk/contribs 22:58, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)

General comments

  • I've made a start on the "History" and "Geographical distribution" sections. The problem I'm having is that I'm not too sure how to intelligibly separate "History" from "Geographic distribution". Should the Sri Lankan conflict go under "History" or "Geographic distribution? Should the "svaya mariyadai iyakkam" (and the Dravidian movement generally) go under History, Geographic Distribution, or Culture? My instinct is to put everything after independence under "Geographic distribution", but I'm not sure how logical that is.
  • As I was writing, I kept thinking that we will have to proof all of this very carefully for NPOV.
  • Should we put a notice on the Tamil people page saying that the article is being rewritten, and asking them to make changes here?
  • Religion figures for India are Hinduism (88.7%), Christianity (5.7%), Islam (5.3%), Jainism (<0.1%). Does anyone know where we can get figures for Sri Lanka? And (eek) do we or don't we count Sri Lankan Muslims as Tamil, given the huge amount of politics associated with that question?
-- Arvind 22:21, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
My personal opinion is to list the Dravidian movement etc under History. Geographical Distribution should probably only say where Tamil people are found today, while History should mention when and why. -- Brhaspati\talk/contribs 22:58, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)
I'm thinking it may be useful to have a section on "Society", covering the family structures, the caste system, festivals, and so on - things that don't fit readily within culture, but are nonetheless important and interesting. If we do that, the Dravidian movement will probably fit well into that. We should also discuss at least briefly the so-called "Dravidian" religious beliefs - the aiyyanars, nadukals, amman, pattini, and so on, and that too may fit better within "society" than "culture". There's enough to talk about under "culture" on language, literature, and classical arts! --Arvind 18:39, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
NPOV - we can probably remove any alleged POV if we quote the source immediately after each "bold" statement. This should probably deflect criticism from the article to the references. -- Brhaspati\talk/contribs 23:10, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)
I see your point. The difficulty is going to be finding sources that aren't biased. Perhaps we could solve it by citing a fair balance of biased sources. --Arvind 18:39, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The CIA World Factbook mentions Sinhalese 74%, Tamil 18%, Moor 7%, Burgher, Malay, and Vedda 1% for Sri Lanka. It has a different idea of Sri Lankan history though. -- Brhaspati\talk/contribs 23:14, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)
Thanks. What I've not been able to find is a breakup of Sri Lankan Tamils by religion (how many are Christians and how many are Hindus). I guess we'll just leave that out. I'll try to find some sources to cite for the history, to justify the "divergence" from the CIA World Factbook. --Arvind 18:39, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Well, the overall religion breakup for Sri Lanka is Buddhist 70%, Hindu 15%, Christian 8%, Muslim 7% (1999). We don't know exactly how these are correlated with the ethnicities. Eg: are the Sinhalese largely Buddhist and Tamils largely Hindu? And other questions like this. But omitting this for now should probably be OK. I'll hunt around for data. If we find anything we can add it with a citation. -- Brhaspati\talk/contribs 23:17, 2005 Apr 11 (UTC)

History

Please take a look at the history section. Is it too long? I think it's fine largely because I don't think I'll be able to condense 2500 years of history into anything shorter! But do others think it would it better to hive it off into a separate Tamil history article, with just two or three paragraphs here? --Arvind 18:39, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Continue your good work with the history section. In due course, when it becomes too long (2500 years' history!), we can hive off a separate article like History of Russia etc. -- Sundar (talk • contribs) 04:34, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

Indian Tamils were stripped of their nationality?

Arvind, in this section, you seem to have added "Indian Tamils were stripped of their nationality and were forcibly repatriated to India" which is confusing. Where did this happen? Shall I presume in Sri Lanka? -- Sundar (talk • contribs) 04:34, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

I've copyedited that section. Can you check if that version is OK? -- Sundar 08:44, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)
Take a look at [1]. I've reworded the section a bit more - it was a little too strong. Arvind 11:24, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have corrected the sequence of events of the Indian Tamils' disenfranchisement. I also added a section on MGR and Thondaman. 220.247.240.241 17:36, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Shall we update the main article?

Hi, as you might know, Tamil language is being featured on April 14. We can expect some visitors to visit Tamil people that day. It would be good if the article is reasonably good that day and also if the skeleton was in place, it might help in improving the article. So, if we can wrap up the culture section, we can update the actual article with the temp one. For the arts section, can we take a summary of the arts listed currently in the article? -- Sundar (talk • contribs) 08:48, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

I thought this was a good idea, so I went ahead and did it - hope that was OK. Could you please read and edit that article? Also, would it be a good idea to shift this discussion page there as well? Arvind 22:32, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Sure. -- Sundar (talk • contribs) 04:37, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)
Wow. Great Stuff. -- RC 14:37, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

Comments by an anon moved from the article space

The articles in this web site are so nice.but, i think we can improve the speed of downloading the pages by eliminating the background pictures of the web pages.B'coz personnaly i feel that those pictures doesnt play a major role in publising the information about the great Tamilians

-- A Tamilian

Religion

Kudos goes to Sundar and Arvind for the *great* work. But, the religion part is messed up, IMHO. Tamil culture was originally free from religion. I understand that the word "Tamil hinduism" is used to handle neutrality--but unfortunately no truth; the Tamil gods and worships are still not accepted as "Hinduism" by orthodox hindus. I don't want to edit/mess your great your; just thought of pointing out the technicall error. --Rrjanbiah 18:21, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I had little part in the recent improvement. I do agree that the gods worshipped by ancient tamilians and the methodology of worship are not standard "vedic hinduism". But, that doesn't mean the tamilians were rationalists/atheists all along. Think of the "ayyanaar temples" in every village, "iRai vaNakkam" in most clasical works etc. AFIK, only after the "pakuththaRivu iyakkam" by Periyar and others did atheism take hold. So "Tamil hinduism" is just a convenient and approximate name for "Tamil religion". AFIK, hinduism was never an "organised" religion. Any body, who doesn't practise any other organised religion and lives in India was called, though loosely, a Hindu. But these days, the ancient practices are currently subsumed under hinduism. This is what the section tells i.e. in present tense. Though I'm no big fan of religion, we need to accept the reality. -- Sundar (talk • contribs) 03:46, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)
I'm afraid I'm responsible for that section. Basically, as Sundar points out, I was trying to describe Tamil religion as it is today and give a very brief idea of its historical roots.
the Tamil gods and worships are still not accepted as "Hinduism" by orthodox hindus.
I don't think orthodox hindus have a problem with accepting it as Hinduism, only hindutva-people. But that's not a very important issue. The worship of the aiyyanars, Murugan, and Amman have things in common with the forms of worship of northern Indian gods, so it also (to me) makes logical sense to treat it as a Tamil variant of a broader hinduism. After all, even the shamanistic practices of many Himalayan tribes is called Hinduism.
Tamil culture was originally free from religion.
I've heard this, but I'm not too sure about it - there is plenty of religion in the ettutokai, for example. But I think we should have an article on the Tamil sangam period, where we can also discuss Tamil religious beliefs in that period. I would love to see a good article about how Tamil religious beliefs evolved over the years, how Murugan came to be identified with Karthikeya, and so on, but I don't know enough to write that effectively. Incidentally, what is your opinion on this article[2] by Professor George Hart? Arvind 00:45, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
Even I would love to see such articles. While we are at it, let me ask Arvind a couple of things that I always wanted to.
1. Where did you get to read all the books and research papers that you cite in these articles. If you've soft copies of any of them, can you send it over to me by e-mail to my yahoo.com id sundarbecse.
I have a collection of books and articles on Tamil culture, many inherited from my grandfather (and great-grandfather), and several of my own. There are a few good resources online too - New-Kolam has some very interesting articles, for example. And there is the article by George Hart I linked to above. Arvind 11:14, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. -- Sundar (talk • contribs) 05:55, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
2. minor suggestion: while editing sections, do not put your comment within /* */ as in /* Religion - a couple of points */ because the /* */ creates an automatic link in the recent changes. To me it appears like #Religion - a couple of points, which is a non-existent section. You can write your edit summary outside /* */ like /* Religion */ - a couple of points. -- Sundar 05:57, May 11, 2005 (UTC)
Ooops! Noted. Arvind 11:14, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

The last Chera king is said to have converted to Islam and travelled to Arabia to become a companion of Muhammad, and the mother of one of the early Pallava kings is believed to have been Christian.

Would be nice if a link is provided to the document that supports this. Companion of Mumammad - sounds implausible. Calvinkrishy

I've qualified it as a "popular legend" (which it is) - does that fix your concern? Arvind 00:07, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
Haven't heard about this one! Informative, thanks.Calvinkrishy 15:36, May 27, 2005 (UTC)

How about adding reference to Alwars, Nayanmars in the religion section? Calvinkrishy 15:36, May 27, 2005 (UTC)

Statistics on distribution of Tamils in India

An anonymous user added these statistics in the article. They're more than 30 years old, and a little too much detail for this article in my opinion, so I've removed them. If anyone has more up-to-date statistics, there may be a case for an artice on Language distribution in India or some such thing. -- Arvind 14:04, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

State/Union Territory Tamil-Speaking The distribution of Tamil-speaking population found in the States of India according to the book ‘Distribution of Languages in India in States and Union Territories’, 1971, is given below

  • Andhra Pradesh 552,42 1.27
  • Assam & Meghalaya 2992 0.02
  • Bihar 15,167 0.03
  • Gujarat 15,995 0.06
  • Jammu & Kashmir 823 0.02
  • Kerala 505,340 2.37
  • Madhya Pradesh 28,735 0.07
  • Tamil Nadu 34,817,421 84.51
  • Maharashtra 233,988 0.46
  • Karnataka 990,409 3.38
  • Orissa 9160 0.04
  • Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. 6128 0.02
  • Rajasthan 3564 0.01
  • Uttar Pradesh 9222 0.01
  • West Bengal 21,454 0.05
  • Andaman and Nicobar Islands 14,518 12.62
  • Delhi 37,343 0.92
  • Lackshadeep, and Minicoy Islands 113 0.35
  • Manipur 834 0.08
  • Tripura 82 ----
  • Dadra and Nagar Haveli 11 0.01
  • Goa, Daman, and D 3347 0.39
  • Pondicherry 419,830 88.95
  • Nagaland 469 0.09
  • Arunachal Pradesh 638 0.14

Canada too?

Phenomenal work to all those who have contributed to this article. I hadn't looked at it in awhile, and when I came back it was like a butterfly that had come out of its cocoon. Under the section of the table with 'significant populations in', I wonder if Canada would qualify? There are many Tamils in the Toronto area, specially Sri Lankan emigrants and their descendents. There are at least one or two Tamil Hindu temples I know of in the Toronto area. Does anybody have any population figures? QuartierLatin1968 17:44, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

There are over 150,000 Tamils in the Toronto area alone. Additionally England, Australia and parts of Europe have significant diaspora populations.

Canada has 300,000 Tamils, it's a widely known statistic in Canada.

Australia

Im just curious as to know the number of tamils in Australia. How many tamils are there throughout Australia?

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