Indian Tamil dialect of Sri Lanka
Indian Tamil dialect of Sri Lanka or Upcountry Tamil dialect or Estate Tamil (ET) is a Tamil dialect spoken by the descendants of indentured South Indian labourers who were brought to Sri Lanka during British colonization and South Indians who migrated to Sri Lanka for better prospects. ET is often misunderstood as Indian Tamil as the people who speak this dialect can trace their ancestry back to South India but much research has not been done regarding this dialect due to the misunderstanding that there is absolutely no difference between ET and Indian Tamil. However research shows that ET is a dialect that heavily differs from Indian Tamil for multiple reasons. The ancestors of ET speakers migrated from different parts of South India and they spoke different dialects of Tamil. For example, grandmother for Pallar community was “attay” while for Kudiyar it was “ammayi”. In the last century these different dialects of Indian Tamil co-existed in close proximity in the hill country and it evolved into what is currently known as Estate Tamil. Moreover there are dialectal differences within ET due to different types of language contact. Language contact between the different dialects of Indian Tamil and Sinhala after Sinhala