Tamil is the official language of Sri Lanka, along with Sinhalese, which is spoken by 33% of Tamils.īurghers had traditionally spoken Sri Lankan Portuguese Creole, or Indo-Portuguese, which is on the verge of extinction.
The number of Tamil speakers worldwide is estimated at 75 million, of which 5.5 million live in Sri Lanka of these, the majority in Tamil Eelam.Īccording to the 2012 census, 98% of Sri Lanka’s ethnic Tamil population speaks Tamil, as do 98% of Moors and 38% of Burghers.
The main language in Tamil Eelam is Tamil, a Dravidian language which is also spoken in the neighbouring Indian state of Tamil Nadu, as well as in Singapore and other countries by the Tamil diaspora. Since the end of the war, the Tamil political movement has tried to achieve an agreement for an extended autonomy, or a federal agreement, for the two provinces within the Sri Lankan framework, to no success. The Eastern Province regained autonomy in 2008, and the Northern Province in 2013. In 2007 the province was divided into two (Northern Province and Eastern Province). In 1990 Sri Lanka’s President, Ranasinghe Premadasa, suspended autonomy after the province’s Chief Minister Annamalai Varadarajaperumal issued a unilateral declaration of independence. In 1988 the north and east of Sri Lanka formed the North-Eastern Province. In 1987, in an attempt to stop the war between the Sri Lankan army and the Tigers, the Sri Lankan Parliament passed the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which transferred a number of legislative and executive powers to the provinces. The Tamil Tigers were defeated by the Sri Lankan army in a final offensive in 2009, which caused the displacement of 300,000 Tamils. Political-military organization Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) launched a war of independence against the Sri Lankan army in 1983 and came to control large swathes of Tamil Eelam land over the next two decades, establishing a de facto independent quasi-state there. Even so, main Tamil party in Sri Lanka Tamil National Alliance (TNA) often refers only to Northern and Eastern provinces as being Tamil, leaving aside the Puttalam district.
The borders of Tamil Eelam referred to in the general information above correspond to those that the Tamil national movement devised in the 1980s and which, even today, continue to propose numerous Tamil organizations in the diaspora. The name literally means “Tamil Sri Lanka”, taking an ancient Tamil name ( Eelam) to refer to the whole island (the present Tamil name for it is Ilankai). Tamil Eelam is the name referring to the territory of Sri Lanka that the Tamil sovereignty movement regards as the national land of the Tamil people. Tamil Eelam General information Population 3,379,221 (2012 census) Area 21.952 km² Institutions Eastern province, Northern province, district of Puttalam (subdivisions of Sri Lanka) Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (Tamil diaspora) Major cities Trincomalee, Kilinochchi, Jaffna State administration Sri Lanka Territorial languages Tamil, Indo-Portuguese, Sinhalese Official languages Tamil, Sinhalese Major religion Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam National day Maaveerar or Heroes' Day (27 November)
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