I am Vijayavel Kannappan from India, and I am doing research at the Water Resources Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa. I am from the southern part of India, from a state called Tamil Nadu. The Tamil language is widely spoken in our state, and it is my mother tongue. Tamil is the official language (primary) of our state, and English is the secondary language.

Your first name	Vijayavel
Your last name	Kannappan
E-mail:	viji222@rediffmail.com
Preferred name(s) of your language	Tamil
Alternative names	Tamalsan, Tambul, Tamili, Tamal, Damulian
Language classification	Dravidian, Southern, Tamil-Kannada, Tamil-Kodagu, Tamil-Malayalam, Tamil
Geographical areas where spoken	Tamil Nadu and neighboring states, India. Also spoken in Bahrain, Fiji, Germany, Malaysia (Peninsular), Mauritius, Netherlands, Qatar, Réunion, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom.
Approximate number of monolingual speakers	62,405,679
Approximate number of fluent speakers	55,000,000
Other languages spoken in area/country	Telugu, Kannada, Urdu, Malayalam, English
Official language(s) in your country	Tamil
Language(s) used at school as a child	Tamil, English
Language(s) used by teachers today	Tamil, English
Do the representatives of neighboring ethnic groups learn to speak your language	Yes
If the answer to the above question is yes, please specify	People who live on the border of other states near Tamil Nadu like Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh also speak Tamil
Does your language have a widely accepted writing system?	Yes
If you answered yes, what materials are written?	Books, News Papers, Media etc.
NUMBERS	Yengal
one	Ondru
two	Irandu
three	Moondru
four	Naangu
five	Aindhu
six	Aaaru
seven	Yelu
eight	Yettu
nine	Onbadhu
ten	Pathu