There are many Tamil loanwords in other languages. The Tamil language, primarily spoken in southern India and Sri Lanka, has produced loanwords in many different languages, including Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, English, Malay, native languages of Indonesia, Mauritian Creole, Tagalog, Russian, and Sinhala and Dhivehi.
In Ancient Greek
Tamil loanwords in Ancient Greek came about due to the interactions of Mediterranean and South Indian merchants. Tamil loanwords entered the Greek language throughout different periods in history. Most words had to do with items of trade that were unique to South India. Although there is general consensus that there are Tamil loanwords in Ancient Greek, few of the words have competing etymologies as well.
In Hebrew
Tamil loanwords in Biblical Hebrew are of particular importance in that they are the earliest attestation of the Tamil language. These words were incorporated into the writing of the Hebrew Bible starting before 500 BCE. Although a number of authors have identified many Biblical and post-Biblical words of Tamil, Old Tamil, or Dravidian origin, a number of them have competing etymologies and some Tamil derivations are considered controversial.
In English
In Malay (including Malaysian and Indonesian) Interaction between Tamil speakers and Malay speakers has been established from ancient time. Tamil influence has been around such as Palava usage as ancient script in Indonesia (Palava dynasty was existed on 275 CE–897 CE) and Chola invasion of Srivijaya in 1025. Tamil mainly entered the lexicon of Classical Malay (and by extension, its modern Malaysian and Indonesian standard variants) with the immigration of South Indian traders and labourers who settled around the Strait of Malacca. Henceforth, loanwords from Tamil, while also an Indian language (though not Indo-European like Sanskrit), mainly exist in the fields of commerce and cuisine, the latter like Chinese and unlike Sanskrit. See also Wiktionary:Appendix:Malay words of Tamil origin.
In Mauritian Creole
In Tagalog Close contact through commercial networks between India and Maritime Southeast Asia for more than two millennia, bolstered by the establishment of Tamil as a literary language in India starting from the 9th century, allowed the spread of Dravidian loanwords in several local languages of Southeast Asia, including Old Malay and Tagalog. A list of Tagalog words with Tamil origins are shown below.
In Réunion Creole
In Russian
In Sinhala Sinhala words of Tamil origin came about as part of the more than 2,000 years of language interactions between Sinhala and Tamil in the island of Sri Lanka, as well as through Dravidian substratum effect on the Sinhala Language.
In Sinhala words
In the following list, Tamil words are romanised in accordance with Tamil spelling. This results in seeming discrepancies in voicing between Sinhala words and their Tamil counterparts. Sinhala borrowing, however, has taken place on the basis of the sound of the Tamil words; thus, the word ampalam, [ambalam], logically results in the Sinhala spelling ambalama, and so forth. However, the Tamil language used here for comparison is Tamil as spoken in Sri Lanka.
In Sinhala verbs Several verbs have been adopted into Sinhala from the Tamil language. The vast majority of these are compound verbs consisting of a Tamil origin primary verb and a Sinhala origin light verb.
See also Wiktionary:Appendix:Malay words of Tamil origin List of countries and territories where Tamil is an official language Tamil population by cities Tamil population per nation Tamil language Tamil people Tamilisation
References
