The earliest inscription in the Tamil language is engraved in rock shelters and caves, mostly in Tamil Nadu, especially in the area near Madurai. They are in a script known as Tamil-Brahmi, an adoption of Brahmi for writing the Tamil Language.
Three Southern scripts emerged in the early medieval period-Grantha, Tamil, and Vatteluttu. The first of these was used for writing Sankskrit, the second and third for writing Tamil.
These three scripts may have emerged out of Southern Varieties of Brahmi; or they may have emerged from some other earlier southern scripts.
The Tamil scripts first appeared in the Pallava territory in the 7th century CE.
Something similar to the modern Telegue and Kannada script took shape in the 14th-15th centuries, while the Malayalam script developed out of Grantha at about the same time.
