Tamil (تَمِۻْ)
Tamil (ta, tam) belongs to the Tamil languages. Wikidata records about 75M speakers. It is written in Arabic script and Koleluttu. It is an official language in 2 countries, including Singapore and Sri Lanka.
Tamil uses its own script and has strong literary vs spoken diglossia; text usually expands considerably.
Expect text translated from English into Tamil to grow by roughly 25–40%, which matters for layouts, subtitles and page counts.
In the United States, 346,611 people aged 5+ speak Tamil at home (Census ACS), and 51,375 of them (15%) speak English less than "very well" — a key indicator of demand for Tamil translators and interpreters.
Translation guides
Where Tamil is official
- Singapore
- Sri Lanka
Rates for Tamil translation
Tamil falls in our south & southeast asian band: roughly $0.06–$0.14 per word for general commercial work. These are indicative ranges, not quotes — specialised, certified and rush work costs more, and literary translation is usually priced per 1,000 words.
For context, the median salaried translator or interpreter in the US earned $60,170 in May 2025 (BLS). See salaries by state →
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