From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Tamil language

Tamil language

Tamil well as emigrant communities around the

world.[1] It is the administrative language of
????? tamiḻ the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and the first
Pronunciation [t̪əmɨɻ] (Listen) Indian language to be declared as a classical
language by the government of India in 2004.
Spoken in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore, where it
has an official status; with significant
Tamil literature has existed for over two
thousand
minorities in Canada, Malaysia, Mauritius, years.[8] The earliest epigraphic re-
and Réunion, and emigrant communities cords found date from around the third cen-
around the world.[1] tury BCE.[9] The earliest period of Tamil liter-
Total ature,
68 million native,[2][3] 77 million total [2] Sangam literature, is dated from the
speakers 300 BCE – 300 CE.[10][11] Inscriptions in
Tamil Language from 1st century BCE and
Ranking 20, 16,[1] 15(native speakers)
2nd century CE have been discovered in
Language Dravidian Egypt and Thailand.[12][13] The first two an-
family Southern cient manuscripts from India,[14][15] to be ac-
Tamil-Kannada knowledged and registered by UNESCO
Tamil-Kodagu
Tamil-Malayalam
Memory of the World register in 1997 &
Tamil 2005 were in Tamil.[16] According to a 2001
survey, there were 1,863 newspapers pub-
Writing Tamil script
lished in Tamil, of which 353 were dailies.[17]
system
More than 55% of the epigraphical inscrip-
Official status tions - about 55,000 - found by the Archaeolo-
Official [4][5] gical Survey of India in India are in the Tamil
India,
language in [6]
language.[18]
Sri Lanka, and
[7]
Singapore.

Regulated by No official regulation

Language codes
ISO 639-1 ta
ISO 639-2 tam
ISO 639-3 tam
This page contains Indic text. Without
rendering support you may see irregular
vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts.
More...
Tamil is written in a non-Latin script.
Tamil text used in this article is
transliterated into the Latin script
according to the ISO 15919 standard.
Tamil (????? tamiḻ; IPA: [t̪əmɨɻ]) is a Dravidi-
an language spoken predominantly by Tamil
people of the Indian subcontinent. It has offi-
cial status in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore.
Tamil is also spoken by significant minorities
in Malaysia, Mauritius, Vietnam, Réunion as
Classification
Tamil belongs to the southern branch of the
Dravidian languages, a family of around
twenty-six languages native to the Indian
subcontinent.[19] It is also classified as being
part of a Tamil language family, which along-
side Tamil proper, also includes the lan-
guages of about 35 ethno-linguistic
groups[20] such as the Irula, and Yerukula
languages (see SIL Ethnologue).
The closest major relative of Tamil is
Malayalam. Until about the ninth century,
Malayalam was a dialect of Tamil[21] Al-
though many of the differences between
Tamil and Malayalam evidence a pre-historic
split of the western dialect,[22] the process of
separation into distinct language, Malayalam
was not completed until sometime in the 13th
or 14th century.[23]
Etymology
The exact period when the name "Tamil"
came to be applied to the language is

1
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
unclear, as is the precise etymology of the
name. Southworth suggests that the name
comes from tam-miz > tam-iz ’self-speak’, or
’one’s own speech’.[24] Zvelebil suggests an
etymology of tam-iz, with tam meaning "self"
or "one’s self", and "-iz" having the connota-
tion of "unfolding sound". Alternately, he sug-
gests a derivation of tamiz < tam-iz < *tav-iz
< *tak-iz, meaning in origin "the proper pro-
cess (of speaking)."[25]
History
Ancient Tamil inscription at the Bri-
hadeeswara Temple in Thanjavur
The earliest epigraphic attestations of Tamil
date to c. the 3rd century BCE.[26][27] It
flourished in India as a language with a rich
literature during the Sangam period (300
BCE to 300 CE).[26][28] With an estimated
30,000 inscriptions, Tamil has the largest
number of inscriptions in South Asia.[29]
The Tamil Sangam literature is the oldest
extant literature in any Dravidian lan-
guage[30] Literary works in India were pre-
served either in palm leaf manuscripts (im-
plying repeated copying and recopying) or
through oral transmission, making direct dat-
ing impossible.[31] External chronological re-
cords 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.[32][33][34]
Tamil scholars categorize the history of
the language into three periods,
• Old Tamil (300 BC - 700 CE),
• Middle Tamil (700 - 1600)
• Modern Tamil (1600–present).[35]
2
Tamil language
Old Tamil
Epigraphic attestation of Tamil begins with
rock inscriptions from the 3rd century BC,
written in Tamil-Brahmi, an adapted form of
the Brahmi script.[36] The earliest extant
grammatical treatise is the Tolkāppiyam, a
work on poetics and grammar that describes
the language of the classical period, dated
variously between the 3rd century BCE and
5th century CE.
The Sangam literature contains about
50,000 lines of poetry contained in 2,381
poems attributed to 473 poets including
many women poets.[37][38] Many of the
poems of Sangam period were also set to mu-
sic.[39]
During the post-Sangam period of Old
Tamil, important works like Thirukkural and
epic poems were composed, including Silap-
patikaram, Manimekalai, Sīvakacintāmani,
Valaiyapathi and Kundalakesi. These latter
five works are known as the five great epics.
Middle Tamil
The Bhakthi period is known for the great
outpouring of devotional songs set to pann
music, including over eight thousand
Tevaram verses on Saivism and Nalayira
Divya Prabandham (four thousand verses) on
Vaishnavism.[40] The mediaeval period gave
rise to a popular adaptation of the Ramayana
in Tamil, known as Kamba Ramayanam (12th
century) and a story of 63 Nayanmars known
as Periyapuranam (13th century).[41]
In the later medieval period (14th to 16th
century), Tamil became increasingly
Sanskritized, to the point of the emergence of
a mixed language known as maṇippiravāḷam.
Modern Tamil
In the early 20th century, the Pure Tamil
Movement called for removal of all Sanskritic
and other foreign elements from Tamil.[42] It
received some support from Dravidian
parties and nationalists who supported Tamil
independence.[43] This led to the replace-
ment of a significant number of Sanskrit
loanwords by Tamil equivalents.[44] Tamil
writers have won the Jnanpith awards twice.
Geographic distribution
Tamil is the first language of the majority in
Tamil Nadu, India and North Eastern
Province, Sri Lanka. The language is spoken
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Tamil language

President of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam, in a joint

sitting of both houses of the Indian Parlia-
ment on June 6, 2004.[52][53][54]
See also: States of India by Tamil speakers

Dialects
Region specific variations
Tamil is a diglossic language.[55][56] Tamil
dialects are primarily differentiated from
each other by the fact that they have under-
gone different phonological changes and
sound shifts in evolving from Old Tamil. For
example, the word for "here"—iṅku in
Centamil (the classic variety)—has evolved
into iṅkū in the Kongu dialect of Coimbatore,
Distribution of Tamil speakers in South India
and Sri Lanka (1961). inga in the dialect of Thanjavur, and iṅkai in
some dialects of Sri Lanka. Old Tamil’s iṅkaṇ
(where kaṇ means place) is the source of
by small groups of minorities in other parts
iṅkane in the dialect of Tirunelveli, Old Tamil
of these two countries such as Karnataka,
iṅkaṭṭu is the source of iṅkuṭṭu in the dialect
Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra in
of Ramanathapuram, and iṅkaṭe in various
case of India and Colombo, the hill country,
northern dialects. Even now in Coimbatore
north and east in case of Sri Lanka.
area it is common to hear "akkaṭṭa" meaning
There are currently sizeable Tamil-speak-
"that place". Although Tamil dialects do not
ing populations descended from colonial-era
differ significantly in their vocabulary, there
migrants in Malaysia, Singapore, Burma, Vi-
are a few exceptions. The dialects spoken in
etnam, South Africa, and Mauritius. Some
Sri Lanka retain many words and grammatic-
people in Guyana, Fiji, Suriname, and Trinid-
al forms that are not in everyday use in In-
ad and Tobago have Tamil origins,[45] but
dia,[57] and use many other words slightly
only a small number speak the language
differently.[58]
there. Groups of more recent migrants from
Sri Lanka and India exist in Canada (espe- Loanword variations
cially Toronto), USA, Australia, many Middle
See also: Indo-Aryan loanwords in Tamil and
Eastern countries, and most of the western
Loan words in Sri Lankan Tamil
European countries.
The dialect of the district of Palakkad in Ker-
ala has a large number of Malayalam loan-
Legal status words, has also been influenced by Malay-
alam syntax and also has a distinct Malay-
Tamil is the official language of the Indian
alam accent. Hebbar and Mandyam dialects,
state of Tamil Nadu. It is one of the official
spoken by groups of Tamil Vaishnavites who
languages of the union territories of Pondich-
migrated to Karnataka in the eleventh cen-
erry[46][47] and the Andaman & Nicobar Is-
tury, retain many features of the Vaishnava
lands[48] It is one of 23 nationally recognised
paribasai, a special form of Tamil developed
languages in the Constitution of India. Tamil
in the ninth and tenth centuries that reflect
is also one of the official languages of Sri
Vaishnavite religious and spiritual values.[59]
Lanka and Singapore. In Malaysia, 543[49]
Several castes have their own sociolects
primary education government schools are
which most members of that caste tradition-
available fully in Tamil medium.
ally used regardless of where they come
In addition, with the creation in 2004 of a
from. It is often possible to identify a per-
legal status for classical languages by the
son’s caste by their speech.[60] Tamil in Sri
government of India and following a political
Lanka incorporates loan words from Por-
campaign supported by several Tamil associ-
tuguese,Dutch and English also.
ations[50][51] Tamil became the first legally
recognised Classical language of India. The
recognition was announced by the then

3
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Tamil language

Spoken and literary vowels, 18 consonants and one special char-

acter, the āytam. The vowels and consonants
variants combine to form 216 compound characters,
giving a total of 247 characters. All conson-
In addition to its various dialects, Tamil ex-
ants have an inherent vowel a, as with other
hibits different forms: a classical literary
Indic scripts. This inherency is removed by
style modelled on the ancient language
adding an overdot called a puḷḷi, to the con-
(sankattamiḻ), a modern literary and formal
sonantal sign, whereas no such distiction is
style (centamiḻ), and a modern colloquial
there in other Indic scipts. The Tamil script
form (koṭuntamiḻ). These styles shade into
does not differentiate voiced and unvoiced
each other, forming a stylistic continuum.
plosives. Instead, plosives are articulated
For example, it is possible to write centamiḻ
with voice depending on their position in a
with a vocabulary drawn from caṅkattamiḻ, or
word, in accordance with the rules of Tamil
to use forms associated with one of the other
phonology.
variants while speaking koṭuntamiḻ.[61]
In modern times, centamiḻ is generally
used in formal writing and speech. For in-
stance, it is the language of textbooks, of
much of Tamil literature and of public speak-
ing and debate. In recent times, however,
koṭuntamiḻ has been making inroads into
areas that have traditionally been considered
the province of centamiḻ. Most contemporary
cinema, theatre and popular entertainment
on television and radio, for example, is in
koṭuntamiḻ, and many politicians use it to
bring themselves closer to their audience.
The increasing use of koṭuntamiḻ in modern An eleventh century vaṭṭeḻuttu inscription,
times has led to the emergence of unofficial from the Brihadisvara temple in Thanjavur
‘standard’ spoken dialects. In India, the
‘standard’ koṭuntamiḻ is based on ‘educated In addition to the standard characters, six
non-brahmin speech’, rather than on any one characters taken from the Grantha script,
dialect,[62] but has been significantly influ- which was used in the Tamil region to write
enced by the dialects of Thanjavur and Sanskrit, are sometimes used to represent
Madurai. In Sri Lanka the standard is based sounds not native to Tamil, that is, words
on the dialect of Jaffna. borrowed from Sanskrit, Prakrit and other
languages. The traditional system prescribed
by classical grammars for writing loan-words,
Writing system which involves respelling them in accordance
See also: Vatteluttu and Grantha script with Tamil phonology, remains, but is not al-
ways consistently applied.[63]

History of Tamil script.
Tamil is written using a script called the
vaṭṭeḻuttu. The Tamil script consists of 12
Sounds
Tamil phonology is characterised by the pres-
ence of retroflex consonants, multiple rhot-
ics. Tamil does not distinguish phonologically
between voiced and unvoiced consonants;
phonetically, voice is assigned depending on
a consonant’s position in a word.[64] Tamil
phonology permits few consonant clusters,
which can never be word initial. Native gram-
marians classify Tamil phonemes into vowels,
consonants, and a "secondary character", the
āytam.

4
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Tamil language

Short Long
Front Central Back Front Central Back
Close i u iː uː
? ? ? ?
Mid e o eː oː
? ? ? ?
Open a (ai) aː (aw)
? ? ? ??

Labial Dental Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar

Plosives p (b) t̪ (d̪) ʈ (ɖ) tʃ (dʒ) k (g)
? ? ? ? ?
Nasals m n̪ ṉ ɳ ɲ ŋ
? ? ? ? ? ?
Tap ɾ̪
?
Trill r
?
Central approximants ʋ ɻ j
? ? ?
Lateral approximants l̪ ɭ
? ?

Vowels intervocalically. Nasals and approximants are

Tamil vowels are called uyireḻuttu (uyir – life,
eḻuttu – letter). The vowels are classified into
short (kuṟil) and long (five of each type) and
two diphthongs, /ai/ and /au/, and three
"shortened" (kuṟṟiyal) vowels.
The long (neṭil) 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 grammatic-
al texts place them with the long vowels.
Consonants
Tamil consonants are known as meyyeḻuttu
(mey—body, eḻuttu—letters). The consonants
are classified into three categories with six in
each category: valliṉam—hard, mel-
liṉam—soft or Nasal, and iṭayiṉam—medium.
Unlike most Indian languages, Tamil does
not distinguish aspirated and unaspirated
consonants. In addition, the voicing of
plosives is governed by strict rules in
centamiḻ. Plosives are unvoiced if they occur
word-initially or doubled. Elsewhere they are
voiced, with a few becoming fricatives
always voiced.[65]
As commonplace in languages of India,
Tamil is characterised by its use of more than
one type of coronal consonants. Retroflex
consonants include the retroflex approximant
/ɻ/ (?) (example Tamil), which among the
Dravidian languages is also found in Malay-
alam (example Kozhikode), disappeared from
Kannada in pronunciation at around 1000 AD
(the dedicated letter is still found in
Unicode), and was never present in Te-
lugu.[66] Dental and alveolar consonants also
contrast with each other, a typically Dravidi-
an trait not found in the neighboring Indo-
Aryan languages.
A chart of the Tamil consonant phonemes
in the International Phonetic Alphabet fol-
lows:[67]
Phonemes in brackets are voiced equivalents.
Both voiceless and voiced forms are repres-
ented by the same character in Tamil, and
voicing is determined by context. The sounds
/f/ and /ʂ/ are peripheral to the phonology of
Tamil, being found only in loanwords and fre-
quently replaced by native sounds. There are

5
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
day month year debit credit
? ? ? ? ? ?
well-defined rules for elision in Tamil cat-
egorised into different classes based on the
phoneme which undergoes elision.
Āytam
Classical Tamil also had a phoneme called
the Āytam, written as ‘?’. Tamil grammarians
of the time classified it as a dependent phon-
eme (or restricted phoneme[68] ) (cārpeḻuttu),
but it is very rare in modern Tamil. The rules
of pronunciation given in the Tolkāppiyam, a
text on the grammar of Classical Tamil, sug-
gest that the āytam could have glottalised the
sounds it was combined with. It has also been
suggested that the āytam was used to repres-
ent the voiced implosive (or closing part or
the first half) of geminated voiced plosives in-
side a word.[69] The Āytam, in modern Tamil,
is also used to convert pa to fa (not the retro-
flex zha (ɻ)) when writing English words us-
ing the Tamil script.
Numerals & Symbols
Apart from the usual numerals, Tamil also
has numerals for 10, 100 and 1000. Symbols
for day, month, year, debit, credit, as above,
rupee, numeral are present as well.
Grammar
Tamil employs agglutinative grammar, where
suffixes are used to mark noun class, num-
ber, and case, verb tense and other grammat-
ical categories. Tamil’s standard metalin-
guistic terminology and scholarly vocabularly
is itself Tamil, as opposed to the Sanskrit that
is standard for most other Dravidian lan-
guages.[70][71]
Much of Tamil grammar is extensively de-
scribed in the oldest known 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, por-
uḷ, yāppu, aṇi. Of these, the last two are
mostly applied in poetry.[72]
Tamil language
8 9 10 100 1000
? ? ? ? ?
as above rupee numeral
? ?
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 categor-
ies 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 in-
to two super-classes (tiṇai)—the "rational"
(uyartiṇai), and the "irrational"
(aḵṟiṇai)—which include a total of five classes
(pāl, which literally means ‘gender’). Humans
and deities are classified as "rational", and all
other nouns (animals, objects, abstract
nouns) are classified as irrational. The "ra-
tional" nouns and pronouns belong to one of
three classes (pāl)—masculine singular, fem-
inine singular, and rational plural. The "irra-
tional" nouns and pronouns belong to one of
two classes - irrational singular and irrational
plural. The pāl is often indicated through suf-
fixes. The plural form for rational nouns may
be used as an honorific, gender-neutral, sin-
gular form.[73]
Suffixes are used to perform the functions
of cases or postpositions. Traditional gram-
marians tried to group the various suffixes in-
to eight cases corresponding to the cases
used in Sanskrit. These were the nominative,
accusative, dative, sociative, genitive, instru-
mental, locative, and ablative. Modern gram-
marians argue that this classification is artifi-
cial, and that Tamil usage is best understood
if each suffix or combination of suffixes is
seen as marking a separate case.[74] 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 per-
son, number, mood, tense and voice.
6
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Person and number are indicated by
suffixing the oblique case of the relevant
pronoun. 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. Tamil verbs also mark
evidentiality, through the addition of the
hearsay clitic ām.[75]
Traditional grammars of Tamil do not distin-
guish between adjectives and adverbs, in-
cluding both of them under the category ur-
iccol, although modern grammarians tend to
distinguish between them on morphological
and syntactical grounds.[76] Tamil has a large
number of ideophones that act as adverbs in-
dicating the way the object in a given state
"says" or "sounds".[77]
Tamil does not have 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.[78] In the first person plural,
Tamil makes a distinction between inclusive
pronouns ???? nām (we), ???? namatu (our)
that include the addressee and exclusive pro-
nouns ??????? nāṅkaḷ (we), ???? ematu (our)
that do not.[78]
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).[79] However, word order in Tamil is
also flexible, 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 ob-
jects. It is possible to construct
7
Tamil language
grammatically valid and meaningful sen-
tences which lack one or more of the three.
For example, a sentence may only have a
verb—such as muṭintuviṭṭatu
("completed")—or only a subject and object,
without a verb such as atu eṉ vīṭu ("That [is]
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
See also: Wiktionary:Category:Tamil lan-
guage and Wiktionary:Category:Tamil
derivations
The vocabulary of Tamil is mainly Dravidian.
A strong sense of linguistic purism is found in
Modern Tamil[80], which opposes the use of
foreign loan-words.[81] Nonetheless, a num-
ber of words used in classical and modern
Tamil indicate borrowing from languages of
neighbouring groups, or with whom the
Tamils had trading links, including Munda
(e.g. tavaḷai "frog" from Munda tabeg), Malay
(e.g. cavvarici "sago" from Malay sāgu),
Chinese (e.g. campān "skiff" from Chinese
san-pan) and Greek (e.g. ora from Greek
ὥρα). In more modern times, Tamil has im-
ported words from Arabic, Persian, Urdu and
Marathi, reflecting groups that have influ-
enced the Tamil area at various points of
time, and from neighbouring languages such
as Telugu, Kannada and Sinhala. During the
modern period, words have also been bor-
rowed from European languages, such as
Portuguese, French and English.[82]
The strongest impact of purism in Tamil
has been on loanwords from Sanskrit. During
its history, Tamil, along with other Dravidian
languages like Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam
etc., was influenced by Sanskrit in terms of
vocabulary, grammar and literary
styles, [83][84][85][86] reflecting the increased
trend of Sanskritisation in the Tamil coun-
try.[87] Tamil vocabulary never became quite
as heavily Sanskritised as that of the other
Dravidian languages, and unlike in those lan-
guages, it was and remains possible to ex-
press complex ideas - including in science,
art, religion and law - without the use of
Sanskrit loan words.[88] In addition, Sanskrit-
isation was actively resisted by a number of
authors of the late medieval period,[89] cul-
minating in the 20th century in a movement
called taṉit tamiḻ iyakkam (meaning pure
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tamil movement), led by Parithimaar
Kalaignar and Maraimalai Adigal, which
sought to remove the accumulated influence
of Sanskrit on Tamil.[90] As a result of this,
Tamil in formal documents, literature and
public speeches has seen a marked decline in
the use Sanskrit loan words in the past few
decades,[91] under some estimates having
fallen from 40-50% to about 20%[92]. 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.[93]
In the twentieth century, institutions and
learned bodies have, with government sup-
port, generated technical dictionaries for
Tamil containing neologisms and words de-
rived from Tamil roots to replace loan words
from English and other languages.[42]
Words of Tamil origin occur in other lan-
guages. Popular examples in English are che-
root (curuṭṭu meaning "rolled up"),[94] mango
(from mangai),[94] mulligatawny (from miḷaku
taṉṉir meaning pepper water), pariah (from
paraiyar), ginger (from ingi), curry (from
kari),[95] and catamaran (from kaṭṭu maram,
????? ????, meaning "bundled logs"),[94] pan-
dal (shed, shelter, booth),[94] tyer (curd),[94]
coir (rope).[96]Tamil words are also found in
Sinhala and Malay.
See also
• Tamil script
• Tamil literature
• Invocation to Goddess Tamil
• List of Tamil people
• Official languages of India
• List of Indian languages by total speakers
• List of Indian languages by number of
native speakers
• List of languages by first written accounts
References
• Caldwell, Robert. 1974. A comparative
grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian
family of languages. New Delhi: Oriental
Books Reprint Corp.
• 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
8
Tamil language
California Press, Berkeley. ISBN
0520026721
• Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju (2003). The
Dravidian Languages. Cambridge
Language Surveys. Cambridge University
Press. ISBN 0521771110.
• 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
• Meenakshisundaram, T.P. (1965). A
History of Tamil Language. Poona: Deccan
College.
• Johann Philip Fabricius (1933 and 1972),
Tamil and English Dictionary. based on
J.P. Fabricius Malabar-English Dictionary,
3rd and 4th Edition Revised and Enlarged
by David Bexell. Evangelical Lutheran
Mission Publishing House, Tranquebar;
called Tranquebar Dictionary.
• 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.
Footnotes
[1] ^ Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005.
Ethnologue: Languages of the World,
Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL
International.
[2] ^ "Top 30 Languages by Number of
Native Speakers: sourced from
Ethnologue: Languages of the World,
15th ed. (2005)". Vistawide - World
Languages & Cultures.
http://www.vistawide.com/languages/
top_30_languages.htm. Retrieved on
2007-04-03.
[3] "Languages Spoken by More Than 10
Million People". MSN Encarta.
http://encarta.msn.com/
media_701500404/
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Languages_Spoken_by_More_Than_10_Million_People.html.
Retrieved on 2007-04-02.
[4] "Official languages". UNESCO.
http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/
ev.php-
URL_ID=22495&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html.
Retrieved on 2007-05-10.
[5] "Official languages of Tamilnadu".
Tamilnadu Government.
http://www.tn.gov.in/welcometn.htm.
Retrieved on 2007-05-01.
[6] "Official languages of Srilanka". State
department, US. http://www.state.gov/r/
pa/ei/bgn/5249.htm. Retrieved on
2007-05-01.
[7] "Official languages and national
language". Constitution of the Republic
of Singapore. Government of Singapore.
http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/non_version/
cgi-bin/
DisplayContent.pl?DOCID=1999-REVED-
CONST&VID=931158661-003601&WEF=latest&TYPE=simple&mode=and&version=currentVersion&
Retrieved on 2008-04-22.
[8] Kamil V. Zvelebil (1992). Companion
Studies to the History of Tamil
Literature. BRILL Academic. p. 12. ISBN
9004093656. "p12 - ...the most
acceptable periodisation which has so far
been suggested for the development of
Tamil writing seems to me to be that of A
Chidambaranatha Chettiar (1907–1967):
1. Sangam Literature - 200BC to AD 200;
2. Post Sangam literature - AD 200 - AD
600; 3. Early Medieval literature - AD
600 to AD 1200; 4. Later Medieval
literature - AD 1200 to AD 1800; 5. Pre-
Modern literature - AD 1800 to 1900..."
[9] Maloney, Clarence (1970). "The
Beginnings of Civilization in South
India". The Journal of Asian Studies 23
(3): 603–616. doi:10.2307/2943246.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2943246. at
p. 610
[10] Classical Tamil, Government of India
[11] Chera, Chola, Pandya: Using
Archaeological Evidence to Identify the
Tamil Kingdoms of Early Historic South
India - Abraham, Shinu Anna, Asian
Perspectives - Volume 42, Number 2,
Fall 2003, pp. 207-223 University of
Hawaii Press
[12] "Tamil Brahmi script in Egypt". The
Hindu. 2007-11-21.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2007/11/21/
stories/2007112158412400.htm.
Retrieved on 2008-11-11.
9
Tamil language
[13] "Tamil-Brahmi inscription on pottery
found in Thailand". The Hindu.
2006-07-16. http://www.hindu.com/2006/
07/16/stories/2006071603952000.htm.
Retrieved on 2008-11-11.
[14] http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-
URL_ID=3839&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION
[15] http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-
URL_ID=17246&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTIO
[16] http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-
URL_ID=3838&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION
[17] 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.
[18] Staff Reporter (November 22, 2005).
"Students get glimpse of heritage". The
Hindu. http://www.thehindu.com/2005/
11/22/stories/2005112215970400.htm.
Retrieved on 2007-04-26.
[19] Krishnamurti 2003, p. 19
[20] Prof. A.K. Perumal, Manorama Yearbook
(Tamil) 2005 pp.302-318
[21] Freeman, Rich (February 1998). "Rubies
and Coral: The Lapidary Crafting of
Language in Kerala". The Journal of
Asian Studies 57 (1): 38–65 at p.39.
doi:10.2307/2659023.
[22] A. Govindankutty Menon (1990). "Some
Observations on the Sub-Group Tamil-
Malayalam: Differential Realizations of
the Cluster *nt". Bulletin of the School of
Oriental and African Studies, University
of London 53 (1): 87–99.
[23] Andronov, M.S. (1970). Dravidian
Languages. Nauka Publishing House. pp.
21.
[24] Southworth, Franklin C. (1998). "On the
Origin of the word tamiz". International
Journal of Dravidial Linguistics 27 (1):
129–132.
[25] Zvelebil, Kamil V. (1992). Companion
Studies to the history of Tamil literature.
Leiden: E.J. Brill. at pp. x-xvi.
[26] ^ M. B. Emeneau (Jan-Mar 1956). "India
as a Linguistic Area". Language 32 (1):
5. doi:10.2307/410649. "Of the four
literary Dravidian languages, Tamil has
voluminous records dating back at least
two millennia.".
[27] Burrow, Thomas (2001). The Sanskrit
Language. Motilal Banarsidass
Publications. pp. 337. ISBN 8120817672.
"…In the case of Tamil the literary
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
tradition goes back for at least two
thousand years…"
[28] Caldwell, Robert
[29] Morrison, Kathleen D.; Mark T. Lycett
(1997). "Inscriptions as Artifacts:
Precolonial South India and the Analysis
of Texts". Journal of Archaeological
Method and Theory 4 (3): 219, 224.
doi:10.1007/BF02428062.
[30] Zvelebil, Kamil (1975). Tamil Literature.
Leiden: E.J. Brill. pp. 5–21, 50–53. ISBN
9004041907.
[31] 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
[32] 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.
[33] Kamil Veith Zvelebil, Companion Studies
to the History of Tamil Literature, pp12
[34] See K.A. Nilakanta Sastry, A History of
South India, OUP (1955) pp 105
[35] Thomas Lehmann, "Old Tamil" in Sanford
Steever (ed.), The Dravidian Languages
Routledge, 1998 at p. 75
[36] Iravatham Mahadevan (2003). Early
Tamil Epigraphy from the Earliest Times
to the Sixth Century A.D. Cambridge,
Harvard University Press.
[37] 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
[38] Dr. M. Varadarajan, A History of Tamil
Literature, (Translated from Tamil by
E.Sa. Viswanathan), Sahitya Akademi,
New Delhi, 1988 p.40
[39] Marr, John Ralston (1985). The Eight
Anthologies. Madras: Institute of Asian
Studies. at pp. 370-373.
[40] Varadarajan, M. (1988). A history of
Tamil literature. Madras: Sahitya
Akademi.
[41] Varadarajan, M. (1988). A history of
Tamil literature. Madras: Sahitya
Akademi. at pp. 155-157
10
Tamil language
[42] ^ Ramaswamy, Sumathy (1997).
"Laboring for language". Passions of the
Tongue: Language Devotion in Tamil
India, 1891–1970. Berkeley: University of
California Press. http://content.cdlib.org/
view?docId=ft5199n9v7&chunk.id=ch4.
[43] Ramaswamy, Sumathy (1997). "Laboring
for language". Passions of the Tongue:
Language Devotion in Tamil India,
1891–1970. Berkeley: University of
California Press. http://content.cdlib.org/
view?docId=ft5199n9v7&chunk.id=ch4.
"Dravidianism, too, lent its support to the
contestatory classicist project, motivated
principally by the political imperative of
countering (Sanskritic) Indian
nationalism... It was not until the DMK
came to power in 1967 that such
demands were fulfilled, and the pure
Tamil cause received a boost, although
purification efforts are not particularly
high on the agenda of either the
Dravidian movement or the Dravidianist
idiom of tamiḻppaṟṟu."
[44] Krishnamurti 2003, p. 480
[45] McMahon, Suzanne. "Overview of the
South Asian Diaspora". University of
California, Berkeley.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/SSEAL/
SouthAsia/overview.html. Retrieved on
2008-04-23.
[46] Ramamoorthy, L. Multilingualism and
Second Language Acquisition and
Learning in Pondicherry. Retrieved on
2007-08-16.
[47] Younger, Paul. Tamil Hinduism in
Indenture-based Societies. Retrieved on
2007-08-16.
[48] Sunwani, Vijay K. Amazing Andamans
and North-East India: A Panoramic View
of States, Societies and Cultures.
Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
[49] http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/540/
handouts/sparadox/sparadox.html
[50] "Classic case of politics of language".
The Telegraph.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040928/
asp/frontpage/story_3813391.asp.
Retrieved on 2007-04-20. "Members of
the committee felt that the pressure was
being brought on it because of the
compulsions of the Congress and the
UPA government to appease its ally, M.
Karunanidhi’s DMK."
[51] S.S. Vasan. "Recognising a classic". The
Hindu. http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
fl2122/stories/20041105004310600.htm.
Retrieved on 2007-05-14.
[52] Thirumalai, Ph.D., M. S. (November
2004). "Tradition, Modernity and Impact
of Globalization - Whither Will Tamil
Go?". Language in India 4.
http://www.languageinindia.com/
nov2004/tamilglobalization1.html.
Retrieved on 2007-11-17.
[53] BBC. India sets up classical languages.
August 17, 2004. Retrieved on
2007-08-16.
[54] The Hindu. Sanskrit to be declared
classical language. October 28, 2005.
Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
[55] Arokianathan, S. Writing and Diglossic: A
Case Study of Tamil Radio Plays.
Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
[56] 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
[57] 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.
[58] Kamil Zvelebil, "Some features of Ceylon
Tamil" Indo-Iranian Journal 9:2 (June
1996) pp. 113-138.
[59] Thiru. Mu. Kovintācāriyar, Vāḻaiyaṭi vāḻai
Lifco, Madras, 1978 at pp. 26-39.
[60] "Tamil dialects". Encyclopædia
Britannica Online See Tamil language..
http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9071110.
Retrieved on 2007-03-28.
[61] 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.
[62] Harold Schiffman, "Standardization or
restandardization: The case for
‘Standard’ Spoken Tamil". Language in
Society 27 (1998), pp. 359–385.
[63] Fowler, Murray (1954). "The Segmental
Phonemes of Sanskritized Tamil".
Language 30 (3): 360–367. doi:10.2307/
410134. at p. 360.
[64] Schiffman, Harold F.; Arokianathan, S.
(1986). "Diglossic variation in Tamil film
and fiction". in Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju;
Masica, Colin P.. South Asian languages:
structure, convergence, and diglossia.
New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN
8120800338. at p. 371
11
Tamil language
[65] 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.
[66] ""A Reference Grammar of Classical
Tamil Poetry: 150 B.C.-Pre-Fifth/Sixth
Century A.D. By V. S. Rajam"".
http://books.google.com/
books?id=2Qwf3pAxJpUC&pg=PA40&ots=kqeR3TbY
Retrieved on 2007-06-01.
[67] E. Annamalai and S.B. Steever, Modern
Tamil in S.B. Steevar (Ed.)The Dravidian
Languages, London and New York,
Routledge 1998, p100-128
[68] Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju (2003). The
Dravidian Languages. Cambridge
Language Surveys. Cambridge
University Press. pp. 154. ISBN
0521771110.
[69] 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.
[70] Kamil Zvelebil. "Google Books version of
the book The Smile of Murugan by Kamil
Zvelebil". http://books.google.com/
books?id=VF2VMUoY_okC&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=
dYD8Nla0#PPA4,M1. Retrieved on
2007-05-22.
[71] A.K. Ramanujam and V. Dharwadker
(Ed.), The collected essays of A.K.
Ramanujam, Oxford University Press
2000, p.111
[72] ""Five fold grammar of Tamil"".
http://www.southasia.upenn.edu/tamil/
lit.html. Retrieved on 2007-06-01.
[73] ""Classes of nouns in Tamil"".
http://books.google.com/
books?id=AfwCAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA156&dq=%2
Retrieved on 2007-06-01.
[74] Harold Schiffman, "Standardization and
Restandardization: the case of Spoken
Tamil." Language in Society 27:3 (1998)
pp. 359-385 and esp. pp.374-375.
[75] Steever, Sanford B. (2002). "Direct and
indirect discourse in Tamil". in
Güldemann, Tom; von Roncador,
Manfred. Reported Discourse: A Meeting
Ground for Different Linguistic Domains.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing
Company. pp. 91–108. ISBN
9027229589. at p. 105.
[76] Lehmann, Thomas (1989). A Grammar of
Modern Tamil. Pondicherry: Pondicherry
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Institute of Linguistics and Culture. at
pp. 9-11
[77] Swiderski, Richard M. (1996). The
metamorphosis of English: versions of
other languages. New York: Bergin &
Garvey. pp. 61. ISBN 0-89789-468-5.
[78] ^ Annamalai, E.; Steever, S.B. (1998).
"Modern Tamil". in Steever, Sanford B..
The Dravidian Languages. London:
Routledge. pp. 100–128. ISBN
0415100232. at p. 109.
[79] ""Tamil is a head-final language"".
http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/
schuh/lx001/Discussion/d02.html.
Retrieved on 2007-06-01.
[80] Sumathi Ramaswamy, En/Gendering
Language: The Poetics of Tamil Identity"
Comparative Studies in Society and
History 35:4. (Oct. 1993), pp. 683-725.
[81] Krishnamurti 2003, p. 480.
[82] Meenakshisundaram 1965, pp. 169-193
[83] "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);
Trautmann, Thomas R. 2006. Languages
and nations: the Dravidian proof in
colonial Madras. Berkeley: University of
California Press; "The author endeavours
to demonstrate that the entire Sangam
poetic corpus follows the "Kavya" form of
Sanskrit poetry"-Tieken, Herman Joseph
Hugo. 2001. Kāvya in South India: old
Tamil Caṅkam poetry. Groningen: Egbert
Forsten; Vaiyapuri Pillai in Takahashi,
Takanobu. 1995, p18.
[84] 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.
[85] Caldwell, Robert. 1974. A comparative
grammar of the Dravidian or South-
Indian family of languages. New Delhi:
Oriental Books Reprint Corp, p87, 88
[86] Takahashi, Takanobu. 1995. Tamil love
poetry and poetics. Brill’s Indological
library, v. 9. Leiden: E.J. Brill, p16,18
[87] 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
12
Tamil language
Sanskrit language (E.J. Brill, Leiden:
1996) at pp. 209-217.
[88] Trautmann, Thomas R. (1999).
"Hullabaloo About Telugu". South Asian
Research 19 (1): 53–70. doi:10.1177/
026272809901900104. at p. 64;
Caldwell, Robert. 1974. A comparative
grammar of the Dravidian or South-
Indian family of languages. New Delhi:
Oriental Books Reprint Corp, p 50; Ellis,
F.W. (1820), "Note to the introduction"
in Campbell, A.D., A grammar of the
Teloogoo language. Madras: College
Press, pp. 29-30.
[89] See Ramaswamy’s analysis of one such
text, the Tamil viṭututu, 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.
[90] 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 tanittamil iyakkam or the Pure Tamil
movement among the Tamil scholars."
[91] Ramaswamy, Sumathy (1997). "Laboring
for language". Passions of the Tongue:
Language Devotion in Tamil India,
1891–1970. Berkeley: University of
California Press. http://content.cdlib.org/
view?docId=ft5199n9v7&chunk.id=ch4.
"Nevertheless, even impressionistically-
speaking, the marked decline in the use
of foreign words, especially of Sanskritic
origin, in Tamil literary, scholarly, and
even bureaucratic circles over the past
half century is quite striking."
[92] Krishnamurti 2003, p. 480
[93] Dr.T.P. Meenakshisundaram, A History
of Tamil Language, Sarvodaya Ilakkiya
Pannai, 1982 (translated) p. 241-2
[94] ^ "Oxford English Dictionary Online".
Oxford English Dictionary.
http://dictionary.oed.com. Retrieved on
2007-04-14.
[95] "Entry in the Merriam-Webster
Dictionary". Merriam-Webster
Dictionary. http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/curry. Retrieved
on 2008-04-17.
[96] "Entry in the Merriam-Webster
Dictionary". Merriam-Webster
Dictionary. http://www.m-w.com/
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Tamil language

dictionary/coir. Retrieved on • Tamil Language & Literature

2007-04-14. • Tamil Language In Context – A project
providing online Tamil lessons, including
External links video lessons.
• Statement on the Status of Tamil as a
• UCLA Tamil Profile Classical Language

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