Tamil is the oldest of the Dravidian languages. Along with Chinese, Greek, Sanskrit and others, it is one of the world's classical languages. Tamil literature spans 4000 years. This language was the first to develop a distinct prose form of writing among the classical languages of the world. Tamil is the only language among the old languages that has a history of 2000 or more years of existence. With slight variation in scripts and usage, the language still thrives. The literatures written in 200 BC are still learnt and used in normal speeches. The Tamil Thirukkural is second only to the Bible in number of published translations. Over the course of the language's development, many words from other languages have been absorbed. For instance, Tamil spoken in Tamil Nadu has a significant number of words from Sanskrit, English, Dutch, French and Urdu. The letter 'ழ' of 'தமிழ்' (Tamil) is pronounced like a retroflex 'r', and is often transliterated as "zh". Local usages of Tamil vary. There are differences in its usage not only among countries but even within Tamil Nadu, a region of India where Tamil is the predominantly spoken language. Tamil is one of the recognized languages for official correspondence in four countries viz, India, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia. In both Canada and Myanmar, the Tamil speaking population is about one million. There are about 80 million Tamil speakers worldwide. Tamil is a Dravidian language, like most south Indian languages. Other Dravidian languages include Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Tulu.