Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c22.s1.t3.3

c22.s1.t3.3

Accepting, in the absence of a more satisfactory explanation, that these Brāhmī documents represent oldest specimens of the Tamil language that we have, we find that the orthography was halting and defective, suggesting that the Tamil language during the 3rd century B.C. was being reduced to writing for the first time.⁴