'Tamil' (தமிழ௠;
IPA ) is a
Dravidian language spoken predominantly by
Tamils in
India and
Sri Lanka, with smaller communities of speakers in many other countries. It is the official language of the Indian state of
Tamil Nadu, and also has official status in
Sri Lanka and
Singapore. With more than 77 million speakers, Tamil is one of the more widely spoken languages in the world.
Tamil has a literary tradition of over two thousand years.
[ Companion Studies to the History of Tamil Literature, Kamil V. Zvelebil, , , BRILL Academic, 1992, ] The earliest epigraphic records found date to around 300 BCE and the
Tolkappiyam, oldest known literary work in Tamil, has been dated variously between second century BCE and fifth century CE.
[Kamil Veith Zvelebil, ''Companion Studies to the History of Tamil Literature'', pp12][See K.A. Nilakanta Sastry, A History of South India, OUP (1955) pp 105] Tamil was declared a
classical language of
India by the
Government of India in 2004 and was the first Indian language to have been accorded the status.
[8][9]
Tamil employs
agglutinative grammar, where suffixes are used to mark
noun class,
number, and
case, verb
tense and other grammatical categories. Unlike other
Dravidian languages, the
metalanguage of Tamil, the language used to describe the technical linguistic terms of the language and its structure, is also Tamil (rather than
Sanskrit).
[ Google Books version of the book ''The Smile of Murugan'' by Kamil Zvelebil Kamil Zvelebil ][10] According to a 2001 survey,
[11] there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil, of which 353 were dailies.
History
Palm-Leaf manuscripts in Tamil describing Indigenous medicine
Tamil is one of the ancient languages of the world with a 2200 year history.
13[ The Sanskrit Language, , Thomas, Burrow, Motilal Banarsidass Publications, 2001, ][12] The origins of Tamil are not transparent, but it developed and flourished in India as an independent language with a rich literature.
[13][14] More than 55% of epigraphical inscriptions in India were found in Tamil language
[15] Unlike in
Karnataka and
Andhra Pradesh where early inscriptions were written in Sanskrit, the early inscriptions in Tamil nadu used Tamil exclusively.
[16] Tamil has the oldest extant literature amongst the
Dravidian languages, but dating the language and the literature precisely is difficult. Literary works in India were preserved either in
palm leaf manuscripts (implying repeated copying and recopying) or through oral transmission, making direct dating impossible.
[17] External chronological records and internal linguistic evidence, however, indicate that the oldest extant works were probably compiled sometime between the 2nd century BCE and the 10th century CE.
[George Hart, "Some Related Literary Conventions in Tamil and Indo-Aryan and Their Significance" ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'', 94:2 (Apr - Jun 1974), pp. 157-167.][Kamil Veith Zvelebil, ''Companion Studies to the History of Tamil Literature'', pp12]
Epigraphic attestation of Tamil begins with rock inscriptions from the 2nd century BCE, written in
Tamil-Brahmi, an adapted form of the
Brahmi script.
[18][19] The earliest extant literary text is the
TolkÄppiyam, a work on poetics and grammar which describes the language of the classical period,
dated variously between the 1st BCE and 10th CE.
Tamil scholars categorise
Tamil literature and language into the following periods:
[20]
#
Sangam (100 BCE to 300 CE)
#Post-Sangam period (300 to 600 CE)
#Bhakthi period (600 to 1200 CE)
#Mediaeval Period (1200 to 1800 CE)
#Modern (1800 to the present)
The Sangam literature contains about 50,000 lines of poetry contained in 2381 poems attributed to 473 poets including many women poets.
[21][22] Many of the poems of Sangam period were also set to music.
[23] During the post-Sangam period, important works like
Thirukkural, and epic poems like
Silappatikaram,
Manimekalai, ''SÄ«vakacintÄmani'' were composed. The Bhakthi period is known for the great outpouring of devotional songs set to
pann music. Of those 9,295 Tevaram songs on
Saivism and 4,000 songs on
Vaishnavism are well known.
[24] The early mediaeval Period gave rise to one of the best known adaptations of the
Ramayana in Tamil, known as
Kamba Ramayanam and a story of 63
Nayanmars known as Periyapuranam.
Origin and development
Tamil belongs to the
southern branch of the
Dravidian languages. It is sometimes classified as being part of a
Tamil language family, which alongside Tamil proper, also includes the languages of about 35 ethno-linguistic groups
[25] such as the
Irula, and
Yerukula languages (see
SIL Ethnologue). 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 closest major relative of Tamil is Malayalam which is explained by the fact that until about the ninth century, Tamil and
Malayalam were dialects of one language,
[26] called "Tamil" by the speakers of both.
[27] Although many of the differences between Tamil and Malayalam evidence a pre-historic split between eastern and western dialects,
Some Observations on the Sub-Group Tamil-Malayalam: Differential Realizations of the Cluster
★ nt, A. Govindankutty Menon, , , Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1990
the process of separation of the two into distinct languages was not completed until sometime in the 13th or 14th century.
[28]
The origins and initial development of Tamil is similar to that of the other Dravidian languages and independent of Sanskrit.
31[29] During later centuries, however, Tamil, along with other Dravidian languages like
Telugu,
Kannada,
Malayalam etc., has been greatly influenced by
Sanskrit in terms of vocabulary, grammar and literary styles.
[30][31][32][33][34][35] A number of Sanskrit
loan words were also absorbed by Tamil during this period, reflecting the increased trend of Sanskritisation in the Tamil country.
[36]31 A number of authors of the late mediaeval period tried to resist this trend,
[37] culminating in the
puristic movement of the 20th century, led by
Parithimaar Kalaignar and
Maraimalai Adigal, which sought to remove the accumulated influence of Sanskrit on Tamil. This movement was called ''taṉit tamiḻ iyakkam'' (meaning ''pure Tamil movement'').
[38] As a result of this, Tamil in formal documents, public speeches and scientific discourses is largely free of Sanskrit loan words
[39] and it is estimated that the number of Sanskrit loan words in Tamil may actually have come down from about 50% to 20%.
[40]
Geographic distribution
Distribution of Tamil speakers in South India and Sri Lanka (1961).
Tamil is the first language of the majority in
Tamil Nadu,
India and
North Eastern Province,
Sri Lanka. The language is spoken by small groups of minorities in other parts of these two countries such as
Karnataka,
Kerala,
Andhra Pradesh, and
Maharashtra in case of India and
Colombo and the hill country in case of Sri Lanka.
There are currently sizeable
Tamil-speaking populations descended from colonial-era migrants in
Singapore,
Malaysia,
South Africa, and
Mauritius. Many people in
Guyana,
Fiji,
Suriname, and
Trinidad and Tobago have Tamil origins,
[41] but only a small number speak the language there. Groups of more recent migrants
from Sri Lanka and India exist in
Canada (especially
Toronto),
USA,
Australia, many
Middle Eastern countries, and most of the western
European countries.
Legal status
Tamil is the
official Language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Tamil is one of the official languages of the union territories of
Puducherry.
[42] [43][44] and the
Andaman & Nicobar Islands[45] It is one of 23 nationally recognised languages in the Constitution of
India. Tamil is an official language of
Sri Lanka and
Singapore.
In addition, with the creation in 2004 of a legal status for classical languages by the
government of India and following a political campaign supported by several Tamil associations
Classic case of politics of language
Tamil became the first legally recognised
classical language of India. The recognition was announced by the then
President of India, Dr.
Abdul Kalam, in a joint sitting of both houses of the
Indian Parliament on
June 6,
2004.
[47]
Dialects
Tamil is a diglossic language.
[48][49] 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. For example, the word for "here" —'' in ''Centamil'' (the classic variety)—has evolved into '' in the Kongu dialect of
Coimbatore, ''inga'' in the dialect of
Thanjavur, and '' in some
dialects of Sri Lanka. Old Tamil's '' (where '' means place) is the source of'' in the dialect of
Tirunelveli, Old Tamil '' is the source of '' in the dialect of
Ramanathapuram, and '' in various northern dialects.
Even now in Coimbatore area it is common to hear "" meaning "that place".
Although Tamil dialects do not differ significantly in their vocabulary, there are a few exceptions. The dialects spoken in
Sri Lanka retain many words and grammatical forms that are not in everyday use in
India,
[50] and use many other words slightly differently.
[51] The dialect of the
Iyers of
Palakkad has a large number of
Malayalam loanwords, has also been influenced by Malayalam syntax and also has a distinct Malayalam accent.
Hebbar and
Mandyam dialects, spoken by groups of Tamil
Vaishnavites who migrated to
Karnataka in the eleventh century, retain many features of the ''Vaishnava paribasai'', a special form of Tamil developed in the ninth and tenth centuries that reflect Vaishnavite religious and spiritual values.
[52] Several
castes have their own
sociolects which most members of that caste traditionally used regardless of where they come from. It is often possible to identify a person’s caste by their speech.
[53]
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,
Sankethi,
Hebbar, Tirunelveli,
Tamil Muslim and Madurai.
[54] The Tamil spoken in
Chennai (Madras)(Capital of Tamil Nadu) infuses
English words and is called
Madras Bashai.
[55]
Spoken and literary variants
The Tamil alphabet
In addition to its various dialects, Tamil exhibits different forms: a classical literary style modelled on the ancient language (''), a modern literary and formal style (''), and a modern
colloquial form (''). These styles shade into each other, forming a stylistic continuum. For example, it is possible to write '' with a vocabulary drawn from '', or to use forms associated with one of the other variants while speaking ''.
[56]
In modern times, '' is generally used in formal writing and speech. For instance, it is the language of textbooks, of much of
Tamil literature and of public speaking and debate. In recent times, however, '' has been making inroads into areas that have traditionally been considered the province of ''. Most contemporary
cinema,
theatre and popular entertainment on television and radio, for example, is in '', and many
politicians use it to bring themselves closer to their audience. The increasing use of '' in modern times has led to the emergence of unofficial ‘standard’ spoken dialects. In
India, the ‘standard’ '' is based on ‘educated non-brahmin speech’, rather than on any one dialect,
[57] but has been significantly influenced by the dialects of
Thanjavur and
Madurai. In
Sri Lanka the standard is based on the dialect of
Jaffna.
Writing system
Main articles: Tamil script
History of Tamil script.
Tamil is written using a script called the '', an
abugida belonging to the
Brahmic family. The Tamil script consists of 12
vowels, 18
consonants and one special character, the ''Äytam''. The vowels and consonants combine to form 216 compound characters, giving a total of 247 characters. As with other
Indic scripts, all consonants have an inherent vowel ''a'', which in Tamil, is removed by adding an overdot called a '', to the consonantal sign. Unlike most Indic scripts, the Tamil script does not distinguish between voiced and unvoiced
plosives. Instead, plosives are articulated with voice or unvoiced depending on their position in a word, in accordance with the rules of
Tamil phonology, as discussed below.
The Tamil script evolved from
Tamil-Brahmi or Tamili, which differed from Asokan Brahmi in a number of ways. By the 9th century, Tamil-Brahmi had evolved into more rounded characters, called ''
vatteluttu'' (meaning ''curved letters''), from which the modern script evolved. In the 18th century, some changes were made to the script by the Italian missionary Constanzo Beschi, known in Tamil as
Veeramamunivar, to make it easier to print. These included placing vowel markers in both the left and right of the consonants. Around 1935,
E.V.Ramaswamy Periyar suggested some further changes to make it amenable to
printing.
[ Alphabet Reforms ] Some of these suggestions were incorporated by the
M.G. Ramachandran government in 1978.
In addition to the standard characters, six characters taken from the
Grantha script, which was used in the Tamil region to write Sanskrit, are sometimes used to represent sounds not native to Tamil, that is, words borrowed from Sanskrit, Prakrit and other languages. The traditional system of writing loan-words, which involved respelling them in accordance with Tamil phonology remains.
[58]
Sounds
Main articles: Tamil phonology
Tamil phonology is characterised by the presence of
retroflex consonants, and strict rules for the distribution within words of voiced and unvoiced
plosives. Tamil phonology permits few consonant clusters, which can never be word initial. Native grammarians classify Tamil phonemes into vowels, consonants, and a "secondary character", the Äytam.
Vowels
Tamil vowels are called '' (''uyir'' – life, '' – letter). The vowels are classified into short ('') and long (five of each type) and two
diphthongs, /ai/ and /au/, and three "shortened" ('') vowels.
The long ('') vowels are about twice as long as the short 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.
Consonants
Tamil
consonants are known as '' (''mey''—body, ''—letters). The
consonants are classified into three categories with six in each category: ''—hard, ''—soft or
Nasal, and ''—medium.
Unlike most Indian languages, Tamil does not have
aspirated consonants. In addition, the voicing of
plosives is governed by strict rules in ''. Plosives are unvoiced if they occur word-initially or doubled. Elsewhere they are voiced, with a few becoming
fricatives ally.
Nasals and
approximants are always voiced.
[59]
A chart of the Tamil consonant
phonemes in the
International Phonetic Alphabet follows:
[60]:
For Modern Tamil (quotes Annamalai and Steever 1998: 100-28)
The sounds and are peripheral to the phonology of Tamil, being found only in loanwords and frequently replaced by native sounds. There are well-defined rules for elision in Tamil categorised into different classes based on the phoneme which undergoes elision.
Aytam
Classical Tamil also had a phoneme called the ''
Äytam'', written as ‘ஃ’. Tamil grammarians of the time classified it as a special character (''), but it is very rare in modern Tamil. The rules of pronunciation given in the TolkÄppiyam, a text on the grammar of Classical Tamil, suggest that the ''Äytam'' could have
glottalised the sounds it was combined with. It has also been suggested that the ''Äytam'' was used to represent the
voiced implosive (or closing part or the first half) of geminated voiced plosives inside a word.
[61]
Grammar
Main articles: Tamil grammar
Much of Tamil
grammar is extensively described in the oldest known grammar book for Tamil, the ''
TolkÄppiyam''. Modern Tamil writing is largely based on the 13th century grammar '' which restated and clarified the rules of the ''TolkÄppiyam'', with some modifications. Traditional Tamil grammar consists of five parts, namely '', ''col'', '', ''yÄppu'', ''. Of these, the last two are mostly applied in poetry.
[ "Five fold grammar of Tamil" ]
Similar to other Dravidian languages, Tamil is an
agglutinative language.
[62] Even though Tamil is characterised by its use of
retroflex consonants similar to the other
Dravidian languages, it also uses a unique liquid l (à®´à¯).
[63] Tamil words consist of a
lexical root to which one or more
affixes are attached. 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.
Morphology
Tamil nouns (and pronouns) are classified into two super-classes ('')—the "
rational" (''), and the "
irrational" ('')—which include a total of five classes (''pÄl'', which literally means ‘gender’).
Humans and
deities are classified as "rational", and all other nouns (
animals, objects, abstract nouns) are classified as irrational. The "
rational" nouns and pronouns belong to one of three classes (''pÄl'')—masculine singular, feminine singular, and rational plural. The "
irrational" nouns and pronouns belong to one of two classes - irrational singular and irrational plural. The ''pÄl'' is often indicated through suffixes. The plural form for rational nouns may be used as an
honorific, gender-neutral, singular form.
[64]
Suffixes are used to perform the functions of
cases or
postpositions. Traditional grammarians tried to group the various suffixes into eight cases corresponding to the cases used in
Sanskrit. These were the
nominative,
accusative,
dative,
sociative,
genitive,
instrumental,
locative, and
ablative. Modern grammarians 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.
[65] Tamil nouns can take one of four
prefixes, ''i'', ''a'', ''u'' and ''e'' which are functionally equivalent to the demonstratives in
English.
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 (''Ä“n'' 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 the suffixes, as well as 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.
Traditional grammars of Tamil do not distinguish between
adjectives and
adverbs, including both of them under the category ''uriccol'', although modern grammaraians tend to distinguish between them on morphological and syntactical grounds.
[66]
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.
[67]
In the first person plural, Tamil makes a distinction between
inclusive pronouns நாம௠''nÄm'' (we), நமத௠''namatu'' (our) that include the addressee and
exclusive pronouns நாஙà¯à®•à®³à¯ '' (we), எமத௠''ematu'' (our) that do not. The bifurcation of the First Person Plural pronoun (we in English) into inclusive and exclusive versions can be found in
other languages too.
Syntax
Tamil is a consistently
head-final language. The verb comes at the end of the clause, with typical word order
Subject Object Verb (SOV).
[68] However, Tamil also exhibits extensive ''scrambling'' (word order variation), so that surface permutations of the SOV order are possible with different
pragmatic effects. Tamil has
postpositions rather than
prepositions. Demonstratives and modifiers precede the noun within the noun phrase. Subordinate clauses precede the verb of the matrix clause.
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 '' ("completed")—or only a subject and object, without a verb such as '' ("That, my house"). Tamil does not have a
copula (a linking verb equivalent to the word ''is''). The word is included in the translations only to convey the meaning more easily.
Vocabulary
A strong sense of
linguistic purism is found in Modern Tamil.
[69] Much of the modern vocabulary derives from classical Tamil,
[70] as well as governmental and non-governmental institutions, such as the
Government of Sri Lanka, the
Tamil Virtual University, and
Annamalai University.
These institutions have generated technical dictionaries for Tamil containing
neologisms and words derived from Tamil roots to replace loan words from English and other languages. Since mediaeval times, there has been a strong resistance to the use of Sanskrit words in Tamil.
[71] As a result, the Prakrit and Sanskrit loan words used in modern Tamil are, unlike in some other Dravidian languages, restricted mainly to some spiritual terminology and
abstract nouns.
[72] Besides Sanskrit, there are a few loan words from Persian and Arabic implying there were trade ties in ancient times.
[73] Many
loan words from Portuguese and Dutch and English were introduced into colloquial and written Tamil during the colonial period.
Words of Tamil origin occur in other languages. Popular
examples in English are cash (''kaasu'', a small coin), cheroot ('' meaning "rolled up"),
[74] mango (from ''mangai''),
mulligatawny (from '' meaning pepper water), pariah (from ''paraiyar''), ginger (from ''ingi''), curry (from ''kari''), rice (from ''arici'') and catamaran (from '', கடà¯à®Ÿà¯ மரமà¯, meaning "bundled logs"),
pandal (shed, shelter, booth),
tyer (curd),
coir (rope).
[75]
See also
★
Languages of India
★
List of national languages of India
★
List of Indian languages by total speakers
★
Arwi
References
★ Herman Tieken(2001) ''Kavya in South India: Old Tamil Cankam Poetry''. Groningen: Forsten 2001
★ Hart, George L. (1975), ''The poems of ancient Tamil : their milieu and their Sanskrit counterparts''. University of California Press, Berkeley. ISBN 0520026721
★ Lehmann, Thomas (1989). ''A Grammar of Modern Tamil.'' Pondicherry, Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture.
★ Mahadevan, Iravatham (2003). ''Early Tamil Epigraphy from the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D.'' Cambridge, Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674012275
★ 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.
★ TolkÄppiyar, TolkÄppiyam IḷampÅ«raṇar uraiyuá¹aṉ (1967 reprint). Ceṉṉai, TTSS.
★
Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju (2003). ''The Dravidian Languages'', Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521771110.
Footnotes
1. Languages Spoken by More Than 10 Million People
2. Top 30 Languages by Number of Native Speakers: sourced from Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 15th ed. (2005)
3. TOP LANGUAGES, George Weber, , , Language Today, 1997
4. Official languages
5. Official languages of Tamilnadu
6. Official languages of Srilanka
7. Official languages of Singapore
8. BBC. India sets up classical languages. August 17, 2004. Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
9. The Hindu. Sanskrit to be declared classical language. October 28, 2005. Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
10. A.K. Ramanujam and V. Dharwadker (Ed.), The collected essays of A.K. Ramanujam, Oxford University Press 2000, p.111
11. India 2001: A Reference Annual 2001. Compiled and edited by Research, Reference and Training Division, Publications Division, New Delhi: Government of India, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
12. Introduction to Tamil CIIL
13. India as a Lingustic Area, M. B. Emeneau, , , Language, 1956
14. Caldwell, Robert
15. Students get glimpse of heritage Staff Reporter
16. A comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family of languages, , Robert, Caldwell, Trübner & co, 1875,
17. Dating of Indian literature is largely based on relative dating relying on internal evidences with a few anchors. I. Mahadevan’s dating of Pukalur inscription proves some of the Sangam verses. See George L. Hart, "Poems of Ancient Tamil, University of Berkeley Press, 1975, p.7-8
18. Tamil
19. Iravatham Mahadevan (2003). Early Tamil Epigraphy from the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
20. An Introduction to the History of Tamil People A. Velupillai
21. Rajam, V. S. 1992. A reference grammar of classical Tamil poetry: 150 B.C.-pre-fifth/sixth century A.D.. Memoirs of the American philosophical society, v. 199. Philadelphia, Pa: American Philosophical Society. p12
22. Dr. M. Varadarajan, ''A History of Tamil Literature'', (Translated from Tamil by E.Sa. Viswanathan), Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 1988 p.40
23. Carnatica. Tamil Music. Retrieved on 2007-08-16
24. P.Ramanatha Pillai (Ed), Panniru thirumuraip perunthirattu (Tamil), Saiva Siddhanta Publishers, Chennai, 1961 p.3-4
25. Prof. A.K. Perumal, Manorama Yearbook (Tamil) 2005 pp.302-318
26. The Dravidian Languages, , Bhadriraju, Krishnamurti, Cambridge University Press, 2003,
27. Rubies and Coral: The Lapidary Crafting of Language in Kerala, , Rich, Freeman, The Journal of Asian Studies, 1998
28. Dravidian Languages, , M.S., Andronov, Nauka Publishing House, 1970,
29. See Vaidyanathan’s analysis of an early medieval text in S. Vaidyanathan, "Indo-Aryan loan words in the Civakacintamani" ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'' 87:4. (Oct - Dec 1967), pp. 430-434.
30. "Literature in all Dravidian languages owes a great deal to Sanskrit, the magic wand whose touch raised each of the languages from a level of patois to that of a literary idiom" (Sastri 1955, p309)
31. Caldwell, Robert. 1974. A comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family of languages. New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corp, p87, 88
32. Trautmann, Thomas R. 2006. Languages and nations: the Dravidian proof in colonial Madras. Berkeley: University of California Press.
33. Takahashi, Takanobu. 1995. Tamil love poetry and poetics. Brill’s Indological library, v. 9. Leiden: E.J. Brill, p16,18
34. ''"The author endeavours to demonstrate that the entire Sangam poetic corpus follows the "Kavya" form of Sanskrit poetry"''-Tieken, Herman Joseph Hugo. 2001. KÄvya in South India: old Tamil Caá¹…kam poetry. Groningen: Egbert Forsten.
35. Vaiyapuri Pillai in Takahashi, Takanobu. 1995, p18
36. Sheldon Pollock, "The Sanskrit Cosmopolis 300-1300: Transculturation, vernacularisation and the question of ideology" in Jan E.M. Houben (ed.), ''The ideology and status of Sanskrit: Contributions to the history of the Sanskrit language'' (E.J. Brill, Leiden: 1996) at pp. 209-217.
37. ''See'' Ramaswamy’s analysis of one such text, the ''Tamil viá¹ututu'', in Sumathi Ramaswamy, "Language of the People in the World of Gods: Ideologies of Tamil before the Nation" ''The Journal of Asian Studies'', 57:1. (Feb. 1998), pp. 66-92.
38. Dr. M. Varadarajan, A History of Tamil Literature, (Translated from Tamil by E.Sa. Viswanathan), Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 1988- p.12 "Since then the movement has been popularly known as the Tanit-Tamil lyakkam or the Pure Tamil Movement among the Tamil scholars."
39. Passions of the Tongue: Language Devotion in Tamil India, 1891-1970, , Sumathy, Ramaswamy, University of California Press, 1997,
40. Movement for Linguistic Purism: The case of Tamil
41. World Language. Tamil Language. Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
42. Ramamoorthy, L. Multilingualism and Second Language Aquisition and Learning in Pondicherry. Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
43. Younger, Paul. Tamil Hinduism in Indenture-based Societies. Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
44. Joshua Project. Tamil People Listing. Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
45. Sunwani, Vijay K. Amazing Andamans and North-East India: A Panoramic View of States, Societies and Cultures. Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
46. Recognising a classic S.S. Vasan
47. Address to Parliament
48. Arokianathan, S. Writing and Diglossic: A Case Study of Tamil Radio Plays. Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
49. Francis Britto. ''Diglossia: A Study of the Theory, with Application to Tamil'' Language, Vol. 64, No. 1 (Mar., 1988), pp. 152-155. doi:10.2307/414796
50. Thomas Lehmann, "Old Tamil" in Sanford Steever (ed.), ''The Dravidian Languages'' Routledge, 1998 at p. 75; E. Annamalai and S. Steever, "Modern Tamil" in ibid. at pp. 100-128.
51. Kamil Zvelebil, "Some features of Ceylon Tamil" ''Indo-Iranian Journal'' 9:2 (June 1996) pp. 113-138.
52. Thiru. Mu. KovintÄcÄriyar, '' Lifco, Madras, 1978 at pp. 26-39.
53. Tamil dialects
54. Ethnologue.com: Tamil
55. ''Cool words on the campus ''. Metro Plus Pondicherry, The Hindu. Mar 18, 2006.
56. Harold Schiffman, "Diglossia as a Sociolinguistic Situation", in Florian Coulmas (ed.), ''The Handbook of Sociolinguistics''. London: Basil Blackwell, Ltd., 1997 at pp. 205 et seq.
57. Harold Schiffman, "Standardization or restandardization: The case for ‘Standard’ Spoken Tamil". ''Language in Society'' 27 (1998), pp. 359–385.
58. As recommended in the traditional grammar, the TolkÄppiyam. ''See'' TolkÄppiyam, NÅ«rpÄ 401, "vadacol kiLavi vadavezuttu oriii"; in Tamil, "வடசொற௠கிளவி வடவெழà¯à®¤à¯ தொரீஇ" This rule is in the Chapter on ''col'' ("word"), in the Section for ''eccaviyal'', எசà¯à®šà®µà®¿à®¯à®²à¯" ("extra items")
59. ''See e.g.'' the pronunciation guidelines in G.U. Pope (1868). ''A Tamil hand-book, or, Full introduction to the common dialect of that language''. (3rd ed.). Madras, Higginbotham & Co.
60. E. Annamalai and S.B. Steever, Modern Tamil in S.B. Steevar (Ed.)The Dravidian Languages, London and New York, Routledge 1998, p100-128
61. ''See generally'' F. B. J. Kuiper, "Two problems of old Tamil phonology", ''Indo-Iranian Journal'' 2:3 (September 1958) pp. 191-224, esp. pp. 191-207.
62. "Tamil is an agglutinative language"
63. "A Reference Grammar of Classical Tamil Poetry: 150 B.C.-Pre-Fifth/Sixth Century A.D. By V. S. Rajam"
64. "Classes of nouns in Tamil"
65. Harold Schiffman, "Standardization and Restandardization: the case of Spoken Tamil." ''Language in Society'' 27:3 (1998) pp. 359-385 and esp. pp.374-375.
66. A Grammar of Modern Tamil, , Thomas, Lehmann, Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture, 1989, at pp. 9-11
67. at p. 109.
68. "Tamil is a head-final language"
69. Sumathi Ramaswamy, En/Gendering Language: The Poetics of Tamil Identity" ''Comparative Studies in Society and History'' 35:4. (Oct. 1993), pp. 683-725.
70. For example Cre-A’s Modern Tamil Dictionary contains 15,875 words, of which only a small percentage of words, some with Grantha letters are loan words.
71. Sumathi Ramaswamy, "Language of the People in the World of Gods: Ideologies of Tamil before the Nation" ''The Journal of Asian Studies'', 57:1. (Feb. 1998), pp. 66-92.
72. Dr.T.P. Meenakshisundaram, A History of Tamil Language, Sarvodaya Ilakkiya Pannai, 1982 (translated) p. 241-2
73. Silapadhigaaram, Manimekalai, P.T.Srinivasa Iyengar’s "History of the Tamils: from the earliest times to 600 AD", Madras, 1929
74. Oxford English Dictinary Online
75. Entry in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary
External links
;General
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தமிழ௠All about tamil
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Ethnologue report
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Omniglot resource
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Rosetta Project Archive
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Language Museum report
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UCLA Tamil Profile
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Classical Tamil Website
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International Forum for Information Technology in Tamil
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Tamil Language & Literature
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A Video Essay on Tamil
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Quillpad - A predictive transliteration tool for typing in Tamil
;Online learning resources
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Tamil Language In Context – A project providing online Tamil lessons, including video lessons.
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Tamil Virtual University – Online Education Basic level to B.A. Tamilology for Tamil only.
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Web Assisted Learning and Teaching of Tamil –
University of Pennsylvania’s web based lessons for learning Tamil.
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