It is spoken by the Iyengar community, a sect of Tamil Brahmins whose members adhere to Sri Vaishnavism.
The Iyengars developed a unique dialect of their own over the centuries, called the Sri Vaishnava Manipravalam.
The Tamil vernacular, in comparison, employs the terms tanīr or tannī to refer to potable water.
Similarly, Iyengars employ the term bhakshanam to refer to religious offerings of food, which is otherwise absent in standard Tamil.
In terms of grammar, enquiries in Iyengar Tamil often involve substitutions in the suffixes present in the vernacular, namely with élā and ōnō.