Tamil is a rare language

I found a lone tamil book (a dictionary) in the library. I explored, but found no Hindi books. No Bengali books, or any other Indian languages, except some books Sanskrit.

Which was not unexpected. May be the University dont have Indic studies, there are only a few Indian students in the university, etc.

But the lone tamil book was kept in the "langues rare" (Rare languages) section. So tamil is a rare language? But tamil is spoken by 66 million people, more than the population of France. Tamil literature may not be the richest, but there sure are many a great tamil literature (starting from thirukkural). Tamil is one of the richest Indian languages in terms of vocabulary (they keep inventing words for new things, and due to the political spirit, everything written in English is translated to Tamil too), thanks to the Dravidian political spirit and renaissance.

So what does "rare language" mean to a Western mind? Or eg, what is Tamil to a western mind? A rare, crude language?

Which reminds me of a (Czech) friend who commented on a museum in Paris, "built by spending millions, designed by the best architect, opened by Chirac himself", intended to showcase the culture of aborigines in America and Australia, to make you feel that they also have a developed culture, but in fact they are having Europe's stone age like structures and contraptions, so he thinks the museum is causing the opposite of what it is intended for - instead of making you feel that the culture of aborigines is not bad, it makes you feel that they still live in stone age, and makes you feel that Europe is the best in the world.

I could not respond to it then. I didnt know what to make out of it. But later, I kept on thinking about it, and felt that how stupid he was. Obviously the aborigines in America or Australia (or andamans) wont have a super computer made of wood. The point is they have their own lifestyles, and they are happy with it, and its not for you to judge their lives and happiness and ask them to live like Europeans ("a high culture" in his opinion). Of course it will be good if they embrace modern things, but who are you to tell they live a sad life??

About Europe being a global leader etc, I could have countered him with the case of USA (best in science, technology, most other things, huge majority of nobel prize winners from there), so Europe is lagging behind. Europe is now old world, with the BRIC rising. etc. Just for the sake of argument.

Some Europeans dont like Americans. They care to mention some reasons for it (they are loud, they think the rest of the world dont exist, they are stupid), but is it not the same when the Europeans talk about rest of the world (the 3rd world, to be specific)?