Editing Tamil language (section)

=== Old Tamil ===
{{Main|Old Tamil language}}
[[File:Mangulam inscription.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|[[Mangulam]] [[Tamil-Brahmi|Tamil Brahmi]] inscription in Mangulam, [[Madurai district]], Tamil Nadu, dated to Tamil [[Sangam period]] ({{Circa|400 BCE|200 CE}})|left]]

Old Tamil is the period of the Tamil language spanning the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The earliest records in Old Tamil are short inscriptions from  300 BCE to 700 CE. These inscriptions are written in a variant of the [[Brahmi script]] called [[Tamil-Brahmi]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Mahadevan|2003|pp=90–95}}</ref> The earliest long text in Old Tamil is the ''[[Tolkāppiyam]]'', an early work on Tamil grammar and poetics, whose oldest layers could be as old as the late 2nd century BCE.<ref name="Lehmann 1998 75"/><ref name="Zvelebil 1973"/> Many literary works in Old Tamil have also survived. These include a corpus of 2,381 poems collectively known as [[Sangam literature]]. These poems are usually dated to between the 1st century BCE and 5th century CE.<ref name="Lehmann 1998 75"/><ref name="Zvelebil 1973"/>