Digital Tamil

Tiruvalluvar & Thirukkural

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Tiruvalluvar (First Century BCE) was a Tamil poet born in southern India.
As with many Indian sages, there is some uncertainty concerning the details of his life. His date of birth may have been as early as 200 BCE or as late as 800 CE. His birth place is usually said to be Madras (now called Chennai) where a temple has been built in his name. However, an argument has been made that he was a king of the region of Kanyakumari at the southern tip of India, renouncing his estate in the same manner as Gotama Buddha. There is also a claim made of Brahmin descent, although this has to be explained by recourse to illegitimacy. The 'Tiru' part of his name is an honorific given to him as a mark of respect. 'Valluvar' is perhaps a respectful form of 'Valluvan', which indicates 'weaver' or 'town crier'. This in turn may refer to his caste or occupation, or may be his name. The uncertainty arises, of course, because the occupation he is most famous for is that of poet.

Tiruvalluvar wrote in the Dravidian language of southern India, an older tongue than the Aryan languages of the north.
He expressed his philosophy in the Kural, a collection of 1330 short, pithy couplets, primarily in the form of maxims.
These are divided into three main sections: virtue, wealth, and love, but the subject matter ranges far wider than these titles suggest.
Tiruvalluvar covers, for example, such things as gambling, espionage, medicine, folly and military forts. There is very little abstract philosophizing or reference to the transcendental; he is practical and down to earth. Tiruvalluvar is aware that poverty can be utterly destructive and that virtue without some wealth to sustain it is rarely possible. He also recognizes the essential part played by the farmer in supporting society. As for learning, while Tiruvalluvar praises it, he emphasizes that it is something that is useless unless passed on to others.

The word “kural” applies in general to something that is short or abridged. More specifically it describes a poetic couplet in which the two lines have fourteen syllables. In the Kural the couplets are arranged in groups of 10 in 133 chapters. Each chapter deals with a particular subject and gives Tiruvalluvar’s views on different aspects of it. By this means he is able to put forward a wide ranging humanitarian guide to life at home and in the local community. In the extracts that follow, the number of the couplet is indicated.

Eminent scholars have written about Thiruvalluvar from within INDIA & Outside

Sl.No	Scholar	Views & Comments about The SAINT
1	Fr. Emmons E. White	The author of the KURAL was a kindly, libel-minded man and his poetry is a kind of synthesis of the best moral teachings of his age.
2	Dr. Will Durant	Thiruvalluvar a weaver, wrote in the most difficult of Tamil makers a religious and philosophical work - the KURAL - expounding moral and political ideals.
3	Rev. Dr. J. Lazarus	It is refreshing to think that a nation which produced so great a man (Thiruvalluvar) and so unique a work (KURAL) cannot be a hopeless, despicable race. The morality he preached could not have grown except on an essentially moral soil.
4	Rev. J. Lazarus	He (Thiruvalluvar) throws the purity of Bunyan's English completely into the shade. No known Tamil work can even approach the purity of KURAL. It is a standing rebuke to the modern Tamil. Thiruvalluvar has clearly proved the richness, melody and power of his mother tongue.
5	Dr. A. A. Macdonell	The poet (Thiruvalluvar) in fact, stands above all races, caste and sects inculcating a general human morality and worldly wisdom. Not only the ethical content of the book but skill with which the author gives his aphorisms, a poetical setting in a difficult metre have evoked admiration.
6	Dr T.P.Meenakshisundaram	Thiruvalluvar has become a tradition by himself and various anecdotes and folk-stories have gathered around his name. His wife's name is given as VACUKI and she is described as a embodiment of chastity.
7	Sri. SaneGuruji	Great thinkers belong to the World. Thiruvalluvar belongs not only to Tamilnadu but also to the Whole of India, nay (no) to the whole world. He wrote for the benefit of the whole mankind.
8	Mahakavi Subramania Bharathi	Tamil Nadu gave unto the World Valluvar And won thereby great reknown."
9	Mahatma Gandhi	Thiruvalluvar was a Tamil Saint and Weaver by tradition. He is said to have lived in the first century B.C. He gave us the famous Thirukkural, holy maxims described by Tamilians as the Tamil Veda and by M. Ariel as one of the highest and purest expressions of human thought. The maxims number 1330. These have been translated into many languages. There are several English translations.
10	Zahir Hussain	Thiruvalluvar was one of the greatest product of Indian culture. The saint's dealism, his philosophy, humane practical sense and universal ethical code had mingled into main stream of Indian culture, and had become part of the common culture heritage and philosophers if India.

References

Subramaniyam, Ka Naa, Tiruvalluvar and his Tirukkural. Bharatiya Jnanpith: New Delhi 1987.

External links

Tirukural - Easy to navigate web site and well laid out.
Introduction to Kural and its author: திருக்குறளும் திருவள்ளுவரும்
Thirukural of Thiruvalluvar- திருவள்ளுவரின் திருக்குறள் - Online in Tamil & in English
Thirukural :: DR.KALAIGNAR URAI - Thirukural with contemporary explanatory notes by M. Karunanidhi. Available online in Tamil.
Thirukkural in different languages of the world: Thirukkural is now available in many languages online at this site. Translations in French (Français), Russian (Русский), Hindi (हिन्दी), Malayalam (മലയാളം) and Arabic (العربيه) are already on. Other languages to follow include Latin (Latina), Polish (Polski), Kannada (ಕನ್ನಡ), Bangla (বাংলা), Urdu (اردو), Gujarati (ગુજરાતી) and Telugu (తెలుగు).
Thirukural on Internet and Translations - Links to Internet resources on Thirukural
Palm leaf manuscript - A sample photograph of palm leaf manuscript

Online English translations

Tirukural - Easy to navigate web site and well laid out.
Thirukkural - Translations by Rev.Dr.G.U. Pope, Rev W H Drew, Rev John Lazarus, and Mr F W Ellis.
Weaver's Wisdom: Ancient Precepts for a Perfect Life - Translation by the Himalayan Academy
IIT Madras site that can be viewed with any browser
The Holy Kural - Tirukural translation oversighted by Gurudeva, Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, student of the Sri Lankan sage Yogaswami and the founder of the Himalayan Academy.

Book edition: Thirukkural (Original in Tamil with English Translation) by W.H. Drew (Translator), John Lazarus (Translator), W. H. Drew - ISBN 8120604008

References

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Modern works

Kāṅkēyar (1840). Uriccol nikaṇṭurai. Putuvai, Kuver̲an̲mā Accukkūṭam.
Mahadevan, Iravatham (2003). Early Tamil Epigraphy from the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. Cambridge, Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674012275.
Natarajan, T. (1977), The language of Sangam literature and Tolkāppiyam. Madurai, Madurai Publishing House.
Pope, GU (1862). First catechism of Tamil grammar: Ilakkaṇa vin̲aviṭai - mutar̲puttakam. Madras, Public Instruction Press.
Pope, GU (1868). A Tamil hand-book, or, Full introduction to the common dialect of that language. (3rd ed.). Madras, Higginbotham & Co.
Rajam, VS (1992). A Reference Grammar of Classical Tamil Poetry. Philadelphia, The American Philosophical Society. ISBN 087169199X.
Schiffman, Harold F. (1998). "Standardization or restandardization: The case for 'Standard' Spoken Tamil". Language in Society 27, 359–385.
Schiffman, Harold F. (1999). A Reference Grammar of Spoken Tamil. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521640741.
Asher, Ron and E. Annamalai (2002) Colloquial Tamil: The Complete Course for Beginners Routledge. ISBN 0415187885

Ancient works

Pavaṇanti Muṉivar, Naṉṉūl Mūlamum Viruttiyuraiyum, (A. Tāmōtaraṉ; ed., 1999), International Institute of Tamil Studies, Chennai.
Pavaṇanti, Naṉṉūl mūlamum Kūḻaṅkaittampirāṉ uraiyum (A. Tāmōtaraṉ ed., 1980). Wiesbaden, Franz Steiner Verlag.
Taṇṭiyāciriyar, Taṇṭiyāciriyar iyaṟṟiya taṇṭiyalaṅkāram: Cuppiramaṇiya Tēcikar uraiyuṭaṉ. (Ku. Mutturācaṉ ed., 1994). Tarmapuri, Vacanta Celvi Patippakam.
Tolkāppiyar, Tolkāppiyam Iḷampūraṇar uraiyuṭaṉ (1967 reprint). Ceṉṉai, TTSS.

External links

Grammar

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Main article: Tamil grammar

An excerpt from Tolkaappiyam

Much of Tamil grammar is extensively described in the oldest available grammar book for Tamil, the Tolkāppiyam. Modern Tamil writing is largely based on the 13th century grammar Naṉṉūl which restated and clarified the rules of the Tolkāppiyam, with some modifications. Traditional Tamil grammar consists of five parts, namely eḻuttu, col, porul, yāppu, aṇi. Of these, the last two are mostly applicable in poetry.

Tamil, like other Dravidian languages, is an agglutinative language. Tamil words consist of a lexical root to which one or more affixes are attached. In written Tamil, the morphemes that make up individual words are usually easily separable and analysable.

Most Tamil affixes are suffixes. Tamil suffixes can be derivational suffixes, which either change the part of speech of the word or its meaning, or inflectional suffixes, which mark categories such as person, number, mood, tense, etc. There is no absolute limit on the length and extent of agglutination, which can lead to long words with a large number of suffixes, which would require several words or a sentence in English.

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Parts of speech

The first category of words in Tamil is peyarcol or "name-words", a broad classification which includes all nouns, numerals, pronouns and some adjectives. The peyarcol are divided into two classes (tiṇai) - the "rational" (uyartiṇai), and the "irrational" (aḵṟiṇai), each of which has its own sub-classes. Humans and deities are normally classified as "rational", and animals, objects and everything else as irrational. However, these classifications are not absolute - the irrational form can be used contemptuously for humans. The collective form for rational nouns is also used as an honorific, and a gender-neutral singular form. The "many" form of irrational nouns - which technically ought to serve as a plural - is rarely used in speech or writing. Person, number (singular and plural) and gender are often indicated through suffixes.

Suffixes are also used to perform the functions of cases or postpositions. Traditional grammars tried to group the various suffixes into 8 cases corresponding to the cases used in Sanskrit. These were the nominative, accusative, dative, sociative, genitive, instrumental, locative, and ablative. Modern grammarians, however, argue that this classification is artificial, and that Tamil usage is best understood if each suffix or combination of suffixes is seen as marking a separate case. (Schiffman, 1999). Tamil nouns can also take one of four prefixes, i, a, u and e which are functionally equivalent to demonstratives in English.

Like Tamil nouns, Tamil verbs are also inflected through the use of suffixes. A typical Tamil verb form will have a number of suffixes, which show person, number, mood, tense and voice.

Person and number are indicated by suffixing the oblique case of the relevant pronoun (ēn in the above example). The suffixes to indicate tenses and voice are formed from grammatical particles, which are added to the stem.
Tamil has two voices. The first indicates that the subject of the sentence undergoes or is the object of the action named by the verb stem, and the second indicates that the subject of the sentence directs the action referred to by the verb stem.
Tamil has three simple tenses - past, present, and future - indicated by simple suffixes, and a series of perfects, indicated by compound suffixes. Mood is implicit in Tamil, and is normally reflected by the same morphemes which mark tense categories.

Tamil has no articles. Definiteness and indefiniteness are either indicated by special grammatical devices, such as using the number "one" as an indefinite article, or by the context. In the first person plural, Tamil makes a distinction between inclusive pronouns that include the listener and exclusive pronouns that do not. Tamil does not distinguish between adjectives and adverbs - both fall under the category uriccol.

Verb auxiliaries are used to indicate attitude, a grammatical category which shows the state of mind of the speaker, and his attitude about the event spoken of in the verb. Common attitudes include pejorative opinion, antipathy, relief felt at the conclusion of an unpleasant event or period, and unhappiness at or apprehension about the eventual result of a past or continuing event.

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Sentence structure

Word order in Tamil is rather rigid. Except in poetry, the subject must precede the object, and the verb must conclude the sentence. In a standard sentence, therefore, the order is usually Subject Object Verb (SOV).

Tamil is a null subject language. Not all Tamil sentences have subjects, verbs and objects. It is possible to construct valid sentences that have only a verb - such as muṭintuviṭṭatu ("It is completed") - or only a subject and object, such as atu eṉ vīṭu ("That is my house"). The elements that are present, however, must follow the SOV order. Tamil does not have an equivalent for the word is and the word is included in the translations only to convey the meaning.

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Vocabulary

See also: Wiktionary's list of Tamil words and list of words of Tamil origin

Modern Tamil vocabulary still retains most of the words from classical Tamil. Due to this and because of the emphasis on learning classical works like Tirukkural, classical Tamil is comprehensible in various degrees to most native speakers of today. However, a number of Sanskrit loan words have been adapted and used commonly in modern Tamil. But, unlike some other Dravidian languages, these words are restricted mainly to spiritual terminology and abstract nouns. Besides Sanskrit, there are a few loan words from Persian and Arabic implying trade ties in ancient times. Since around the 20th century, English words have also begun to be used freely in colloquial Tamil. Some modern technical terminology is borrowed from English, though attempts are being made to have a pure Tamil technical terminology. Many individuals, and some institutions like the Government of Sri Lanka and Tamil Virtual University have generated technical dictionaries for Tamil.

There are also many instances of Tamil loan words in other languages. Popular examples are cheroot (churuttu meaning "rolled up"), mango, mulligatawny (from milagu thanni meaning pepper water) and catamaran (from kattu maram, கட்டு மரம், meaning "bundled logs"). For more such words, see here.

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Examples

A sample passage in Tamil script with a Romanised transcription:

ஆசிரியர் வகுப்பறையுள் நுழைந்தார்.
அவர் உள்ளே நுழைந்தவுடன் மாணவர்கள் எழுந்தனர்.
வளவன் மட்டும் தன் அருகில் நின்றுகொண்டிருந்த மாணவி கனிமொழியுடன் பேசிக் கொண்டிருந்தான்.
நான் அவனை எச்சரித்தேன்.

aasiriyar vakuppaRaiyuL nuzhainthaar.
avar uLLE nuzhainthavudan maaNavarkaL ezhunthanar.
vaLavan mattum than arukil ninRu kondiruntha maaNavi kanimozhiyudan pEsik kondirunthaan.
naan avanai echarithEn.

English translation of the passage given above:

The teacher entered the classroom.
As soon as he entered, the students got up.
Valavan alone was talking to Kanimozhi who was standing next to him.
I warned him.

Notes:

Tamil does not have articles. The definite article used above is merely an artefact of translation.
To understand why Valavan would want to be warned, it is necessary to comprehend asian social etiquette. It is considered impolite to be distracted when a person of eminence (the teacher in this case) makes an entry and the teacher may feel insulted or slighted.

Word (romanised)	Translation	Morphemes	Part of speech	Person, Gender, Tense	Case	Number	Remarks
aasiriyar	Teacher	aasiriyar	noun	n/a, gender-neutral, n/a	Nominative	honorific plural indicated by suffix ar	use of aasiriyai for feminine gender (in honorific sense) is not uncommon
vakuppaRaiyuL	inside the class room	vakuppu+aRai +uL	adverb	n/a	Locative	n/a	Sandhi (called puṇarci in Tamil) rules in Tamil require complicated euphonic changes during agglutination (such as the introduction of y in this case)
nuzhainthaar	entered	nuzhainthaar	verb	third, gender-neutral, past		honorific plural	the masculine and feminine equivalents nuzhainthaan and nuzhainthaaL are almost invariably replaced by the collective nuzhainthaar in a honorific context
avar	He	avar	pronoun	third, gender-neutral, n/a	Nominative	honorific plural indicated by suffix ar	the masculine and feminine forms avan and avaL are not used in a honorific sense
uLLE	inside	uLLE	adverb	n/a		n/a
nuzhainthavudan	upon entering	nuzhaintha + udan	adverb	n/a		n/a	Sandhi rules require a v to be inserted between a a and a u during agglutination.
maaNavarkaL	students	maaNavarkaL	collective noun	n/a, masculine, often used with gender-neutral connotation, n/a	Nominative	plural indicated by suffix aL
ezhunthanar	got up	ezhunthanar	verb	third, gender-neutral, past		plural
VaLavan	VaLavan (name)	VaLavan	Proper noun	n/a, masculine, usually indicated by suffix n, n/a	Nominative	singular
mattum	alone	mattum	adjective	n/a		n/a
than	his (self) own	than	pronoun	n/a, gender-neutral, n/a		singular
arukil	near (lit. "in nearness")	aruku + il	adverb	n/a	Locative	n/a	The postposition il indicates the locative case
ninRu kondiruntha	standing	ninRu + kondu + iruntha	adverb	n/a		n/a	the verb has been morphed into an adverb by the incompleteness due to the terminal a
maaNavi	student	maaNavi	pronoun	n/a, feminine, n/a		singular
kanimozhiyudan	with Kanimozhi (name of a person)	kanimozhi + udan	adverb	n/a	Comitative	n/a	the name Kanimozhi literally means sweet language
pEsik kondirunthaan	had been chatting	pEsi + kondu +irunthaan	verb	third, masculine, past perfect		singular	continuousness indicated by the incompleteness brought by kondu
naan	I	naan	pronoun	first person, gender-neutral, n/a	Nominative	singular
avanai	him	avanai	pronoun	third, masculine, n/a	Accusative	singular	the postposition ai indicates accusative case
echarithEn	cautioned	echarithEn	verb	first, indicated by suffix En, gender-neutral, past		singular, plural would be indicated by substituting En with Om

Sounds

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The Tamil alphabet has 12 vowels and 18 consonants. These combine to form 216 compound characters. There is one special character (aaytha ezutthu), giving a total of 247 characters.

	A Tamil tongue twister (info)
	The sentence literally means: "An old pauper stepped on a banana peel, and slipped, slithered, and fell"
	Problems listening to the file? See media help.

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Vowels

The vowels are called uyir ezhuthu (uyir - life, ezhuthu - letter). The vowels are classified into short and long (five of each type) and two diphthongs.

The long (nedil) vowels are about twice as long as the short (kuRil) vowels. The diphthongs are usually pronounced about 1.5 times as long as the short vowels, though most grammatical texts place them with the long vowels.

	Short			Long
	Front	Central	Back	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u	iː		uː
Mid	e	(ə)	o	eː		oː
Open		a		(æː)	aː	(ɔː)

The diphthongs of Tamil are

The vowels /ə/, /æː/, and /ɔː/ are peripheral to the phonology of Tamil, occurring only in loanwords.

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Consonants

The consonants are classified into three categories with six in each category: vallinam - hard, mellinam - soft or nasal, and idayinam - medium. Tamil has very restricted consonant clusters (eg: never word initial etc.) and has neither aspirated nor voiced stops. Some scholars have suggested that in Chenthamil (which refers to Tamil as it existed before Sanskrit words were borrowed), stops were voiceless when at the start of a word and voiced allophonically otherwise. However, no such distinction is observed by most modern Tamil speakers.

A chart of the Tamil consonant phonemes in the International Phonetic Alphabet follows:

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar
Stop	p (b)	t̪ (d̪)	t	ʈ (ɖ)	c (ɟ)	k (g)
Nasal	m	n̪		ɳ	ɲ
Fricative	(f)			(ʂ)	(ɕ)
Approximant	ʋ	ɾ̪		ɻ	j	(x)
Lateral approximant		l̪		ɭ

The sounds /b/, /d̪/, /ɖ/, /ɟ/, /g/, /f/, /ʂ/, /ɕ/, /x/ are peripheral to the phonology of Tamil, being found only in loanwords and frequently replaced by native sounds.

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Special character

Akh

A shield

The special character 'ஃ' (pronounced 'akh') is called āytham in the Tolkāppiyam (see Tolkāppiyam 1:1:2). The āytham is rarely used by itself: it normally serves a purely grammatical function as an independent vowel form, the equivalent of the overdot diacritic of plain consonants. The rules of pronunciation given in the Tolkāppiyam suggest that the āytham could have glottalised the sounds it was combined with. Although the character was common in classical Tamil, it fell out of use in the early modern period and is now very rare in written Tamil. It is occasionally used with a 'p' (as ஃப) to represent the phoneme [f].

The āytham is also called ahenam (literally, 'the "ah" sound'). Its resemblance to the three dots that were found on shields in mediaeval times, and the similarity of the name āytham to the word āyutham meaning 'weapon' or 'tool' has resulted in it often being called āyutha ezhuthu (literally, 'the war-weapon letter').

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Phonology

Unlike most other Indian languages, Tamil does not have aspirated consonants. The Tamil script also does not distinguish between voiced and unvoiced sounds, although both are present in the spoken language. Voiced and unvoiced sounds are not quite allophones, however. Tamil speakers are aware of the difference, and the Tolkāppiyam cites detailed rules as to when a letter is to be pronounced with voice and when it is to be pronounced unvoiced. The letter 't', for example, was to be pronounced voiced if it was at the beginning of a word, doubled or followed by another hard consonant, and unvoiced otherwise.

With the exception of one rule - the pronunciation of the letter c at the beginning of a word - these rules are largely followed even today in pronuncing centamil. The position is, however, much more complex in relation to spoken koduntamil. The pronunciation of southern dialects and the dialects of Sri Lanka continues to reflect these rules to a large extent, though not completely. In northern dialects, however, sound shifts have changed many words so substantially that these rules no longer describe how words are pronounced. In addition many, but not all, Sanskrit loan words are pronounced in Tamil as they were in Sanskrit, even if this means that consonants which should be unvoiced according to the Tolkāppiyam are voiced.

Phonologists are divided in their opinion over why written Tamil did not distinguish between voiced and unvoiced characters. One point of view is that Tamil never had conjunct consonants or voiced stops - voice was rather the result of elision or sandhi. Consequently unlike Indo-European languages and other Dravidian languages, Tamil did not need separate characters for voiced consonants. A slightly different theory holds that voiced consonants were at one stage allophones of unvoiced consonants, and the lack of distinction between the two in the modern script merely reflects that.

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Elision

Elision is the reduction in the duration of sound of a phoneme when preceded by or followed by certain other sounds. There are well-defined rules for elision in Tamil. They are categorised into different classes based on the phoneme which undergoes elision.

Kutriyalukaram - the vowel u
Kutriyalikaram - the vowel i
Aiykaarakkurukkam - the diphthong ai
Oukaarakkurukkam - the diphthong au
Aaythakkurukkam - the special character akh (aayutham)
Makarakkurukkam - the phoneme m

Writing system

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Main article: Tamil script

The letter ழ் is a consonant believed to be unique to Tamil and Malayalam

Tamil writing is phonetic, and is subject to well-defined rules of elision and euphony. The present script used to write Tamil text is believed to have evolved from the Brahmi script of the Ashoka era. Later, a southern variant of the Brahmi script evolved into the Grantha script, which was used to write both Sanskrit and Tamil texts. Between the 6th and 10th centuries, a new script called vettezhuthu (meaning letters that are cut) evolved in order to make it easy for creating inscriptions on stone. Some people also call this vattezhuthu (meaning curved letters). Some major changes, such as the introduction of the overdot diacritic for pure consonants and the ligatures for the compounds of the vowel "E", etc., were made to the script on suggestions from Veeramaamunivar. Around 1935, Periyar suggested some changes to make it amenable to printing. Some of these suggestions were incorporated by the M.G. Ramachandran government in 1975.

While the script was still evolving, many Sanskrit words were borrowed into Tamil. To facilitate writing these words, some characters from the Grantha script are still retained. However, there are many purists who would argue against the use of such characters as there are well-defined rules in the Tolkāppiyam for Tamilising loan words.

Spoken and literary variants

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Tamil is the official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and is one of 22 nationally recognised languages under the Indian Constitution. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore, and has constitutional recognition in South Africa.

In addition, Tamil was recognised as a classical language by the Government of India in 2004, following a campaign by several Tamil associations supported by academics from India and abroad, most notably Professor George L. Hart, who occupies the Chair in Tamil Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. (See his statement.) It was the first Indian language to be so recognised. The recognition was announced by the President of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam, in a joint sitting of both houses of the Indian Parliament on June 6, 2004. (See item 41 of his address and the BBC news item on the formal approval by the Indian Cabinet.)

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Spoken and literary variants

The opening of the book of Genesis in a 18th century Tamil bible. The language is centamil.

In addition to its various dialects, Tamil also exhibits a rather sharp diglossia between its formal or classic variety, called centamil, and its colloquial form, called koduntamil, a broad term which traditionally referred to all spoken Tamil dialects rather than any one standard form. Diglossia has existed in the language since ancient times - the language used in early temple inscriptions differs quite significantly from the language of classical poetry. In consequence, standard centamil is not based on the speech of any one region, a fact which has helped keep the written language mostly the same across various Tamil speaking regions.

In modern times, centamil is generally used in formal writing and speech. It is, for example, the language of textbooks, of much of Tamil literature and of public speaking and debate. In recent times, however, koduntamil has been making inroads into areas that have traditionally been considered the province of centamil. Most contemporary cinema, theatre and popular entertainment on television and radio, for example, is in koduntamil, and many politicians use it to bring themselves closer to their audience.

Spoken dialects did not have much prestige: The grammatical rules of literary centamil were believed to have been formulated by the gods and therefore seen as being the only correct speech (see, for example, Kankeyar, 1840). In contrast to most European languages, therefore, Tamil did not have a standard spoken form for much of its history. In modern times, however, the increasing use of koduntamil has led to the emergence of unofficial 'standard' spoken dialects. In India, the 'standard' koduntamil is based on 'educated non-brahmin speech', rather than on any one dialect (Schiffman, 1998), but has been significantly influenced by the dialects of Thanjavur and Madurai. In Sri Lanka the standard is based on the dialect of Jaffna.

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Dialects

Tamil dialects are mainly differentiated from each other by the fact that they have undergone different phonological changes and sound shifts in evolving from Old Tamil. Thus the word for "here" - inge in chentamil (the classic variety) - has evolved into inga in the dialect of Thanjavur, ingane in the dialect of Tirunelveli, inguttu in the dialect of Ramanathapuram, ingale and ingade in various northern dialects and ingai in some dialects of Jaffna.

Although most Tamil dialects do not differ very significantly in their vocabulary, there are a few exceptions. The dialects spoken in Sri Lanka retain many words that are not in everyday use in India, and use many other words slightly differently. The dialect of the Iyers of Palakkad has a large number of Malayalam loanwords, and has also been influenced by Malayalam syntax. Finally, the Hebbar and Mandyam dialects, spoken by groups of Tamil Vaishnavites who migrated to Karnataka in the 11th century, retains many features of the Vainava paribasai, a special form of Tamil designed in the 9th and 10th centuries to reflect Vaishnavite religious and spiritual values.

Tamil dialects vary according to both region and community. Several castes have their own dialects which most members of that caste traditionally used regardless of where they come from. Some of these differences have begun to fade away in recent years as a result of the anti-casteist movement, but many traces remain and it is often possible to identify a person's caste by their speech.

The Ethnologue lists twenty-two current dialects of Tamil, including Adi Dravida, Aiyar, Aiyangar, Arava, Burgandi, Kasuva, Kongar, Korava, Korchi, Madrasi, Parikala, Pattapu Bhasha, Sri Lanka Tamil, Malaya Tamil, Burma Tamil, South Africa Tamil, Tigalu, Harijan, Sanketi, Hebbar, Tirunelveli and Madurai. Other known dialects are Kongu and Kumari.

Although not a dialect, the Tamil spoken in Chennai (Capital of Tamil Nadu) infuses English words and is called Madras Bashai.

Legal status

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Geographic distribution

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Tamil is the first language of the majority in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and in northern and northeastern Sri Lanka. The language is also spoken in other parts of these two countries, most notably in the Indian states of Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra, and in Colombo and the hill country in Sri Lanka.

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, Tamil-speaking indentured servants from India and Sri Lanka were sent to many parts of the British empire where they founded Tamil-speaking communities. There are currently sizeable Tamil-speaking populations descended from them in Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa, and Mauritius. Many people in Guyana, Fiji, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago have Tamil origins, but the language is spoken only by a small number there.

Groups of more recent emigrants - refugees from the Sri Lankan civil war, as well as economic migrants such as engineering, IT, medical professionals and academics - exist in Canada (especially Toronto), Australia, the USA and most western European countries.

Classification

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Tamil is a member of the Tamil language family, which includes the Irula, Kaikadi, Betta Kurumba, Sholaga, and Yerukula languages. This group is a subgroup of the Tamil-Malayalam languages, which falls under a subgroup of the Tamil-Kodagu languages, which in turn is a subgroup of the Tamil-Kannada languages. The Tamil-Kannada languages belong to the southern branch of the Dravidian language family.

Malayalam, spoken by the people of Kerala state (which borders Tamil Nadu) closely resembles Tamil in vocabulary, syntax and writing system.

History of Tamil

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Like the other Dravidian languages, but unlike most of the other established literary languages of India, the origins of Tamil are independent of Sanskrit. Tamil has the longest unbroken literary tradition amongst the Dravidian languages. Tamil tradition dates the oldest works to several millennia ago, but the earliest examples of Tamil writing we have today are in inscriptions from the 3rd century BCE, which are written in an adapted form of the Brahmi script (Mahadevan, 2003). Dating the earliest literary works themselves is difficult, in large part because they were preserved either in palm leaf manuscripts (implying repeated copying and recopying) or through oral transmission. Internal linguistic evidence, however, indicates that the oldest extant works were probably composed sometime between the 2nd century BCE and the 3rd century CE. The earliest available text is the Tolkāppiyam, a work on poetics and grammar which describes the language of the classical period, portions of which date back to around 200 BCE. Archaelogical evidence obtained from inscriptions excavated in 2005 dates the language to around 1000 BCE.^[1] The most significant epic written in the ancient Tamil language is the Silappadikaram, composed around 200-300 CE.

Linguists categorise Tamil literature and language into three periods: ancient (200 BCE to 700 CE), medieval (700 CE to 1500 CE) and modern (1500 CE to the present). During the medieval period, a number of Sanskrit loan words were absorbed by Tamil, which many 20th century purists, notably Parithimaar Kalaignar and Maraimalai Adigal, later sought to remove. This movement was called thanith thamizh iyakkam (meaning pure Tamil movement). As a result of this, Tamil in formal documents, public speeches and scientific discourses is largely free of Sanskrit loan words. Between 800 and 1000 CE, Malayalam is believed to have evolved into a distinct language.

Tamil - An Introduction

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Tamil is a classical language and one of the major languages belonging to the Dravidian language family. Spoken predominanty by Tamilians in South India and Sri Lanka, it has smaller communities of speakers in many other countries. As of 1996, it was the 18th most spoken language in the world with over 74 million speakers worldwide.

As one of the few living classical languages, Tamil has an unbroken literary tradition of over two millennia. The written language has changed little during this period, with the result that classical literature is as much a part of everyday Tamil as modern literature. Tamil schoolchildren, for example, are still taught the alphabet using the átticúdi, an alphabet rhyme written around the first century CE.

The name 'Tamil' is an anglicised form of the native name தமிழ் (IPA /tæmɪɻ/). The final letter of the name, usually transcribed as the lowercase l or zh, is a retroflex r. In phonetic transcriptions, it is usually represented by the retroflex approximant.