Within the Dravidian family, Tamil is part of the South Dravidian branch. Here are some languages closely related to Tamil:
Within the same branch:
* Malayalam: Spoken in Kerala, India. It's considered the closest relative of Tamil. They share a lot of vocabulary and grammatical similarities.
* Kannada: Spoken in Karnataka, India.
* Telugu: Spoken in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, India.
* Tulu: Spoken in coastal Karnataka, India.
* Kodava: Spoken in Kodagu district of Karnataka, India.
Other Dravidian languages that have some similarities with Tamil:
* Brahui: Spoken in Pakistan.
* Gondi: Spoken in central India.
* Kui: Spoken in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, India.
Important Note: While these languages share some similarities with Tamil, they are all distinct languages with their own unique features and dialects.