A report of the Linguistic Survey of India-Tamil Nadu (LSI-TN), was published in July.
This was released by the Language Division of the office of the Registrar-General & Census Commissioner of India (RG&CCI).
The report classifies the languages of Badaga, Chetti Bhasha, Irula/Iruliga, Kathodi, Kota, Maliyad, Pania, Toda, Solaga and Urali as the mother tongues of the ‘Dravidian family’ spoken in Tamil Nadu.
Besides, it identifies another mother tongue, Saurashtra/Saurashtri, spoken in some parts of the State, as belonging to the ‘Indo-Aryan family’.
According to the report, 60 million speakers, mainly in southern India, and 68 million worldwide speak Tamil.
The 2011 Census had pointed out that 96 mother tongues with a speakers’ strength of over 10,000 were recorded in Tamil Nadu.
Overall, people speaking 142 mother tongues were identified in the Tamilnadu State.
Tamil is spoken as the first language by 88.37% of the State’s population.
In Tamil Nadu, there are speakers of Telugu (5.87%), Kannada (1.78%) and Malayalam (1%).