The Tamil people (Tamil: தமிழர், tamiẓar (singular) ? [t̪ɐmɪɻɐɾ], or Tamil: தமிழர்கள், tamiẓarkaḷ (plural) ? [t̪ɐmɪɻɐɾxɐɭ]), also known as Tamilians, Tamilans, or simply Tamils, are a Dravidian ethnic group who speak Tamil as their mother tongue and trace their ancestry to the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the Indian Union territory of Puducherry, or the Northern, Eastern Province and Puttalam District of Sri Lanka. Tamil people with a population of about 77 million living around the world are one of the largest and oldest of the existing ethno-linguistic cultural groups of people in the modern world. Tamils comprise 24.87% of the population in Sri Lanka, 5.91% in India, 10.83% in Mauritius, 5% in Singapore and 5.7% in Malaysia.