Social:Tamil language

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Short description: Dravidian language native to South India and Sri Lanka

Tamil
Tamiḻ
தமிழ்
Word Tamil.svg
The word "Tamil" in Tamil script
Pronunciation[t̪amiɻ] (About this soundlisten)
Native toIndia and Sri Lanka
RegionTamil Nadu[lower-alpha 1] (India)
Northern and Eastern Provinces (Sri Lanka)
EthnicityTamils
Sri Lankan Moors
Native speakers
L1: 78 million (2011–2019)e25
L2: 8 million (2011)[1]
Dravidian
  • Southern
Early forms
Old Tamil
  • Middle Tamil
Dialects
  • Eelam
  • Malesiyat
  • Bunagurr
  • Iyengar
  • Kongu
  • Chennai
  • Madurai
  • Tiruneveli
  • Sankethi
  • Estate
  • Central
  • Malabar †
Tamil (Brahmic)
Tamil-Brahmi (historical)
Grantha (historical)
Vatteluttu (historical)
Pallava (historical)
Kolezhuthu (historical)
Arwi (Abjad)
Tamil Braille (Bharati)
Latin script (informal)
Signed Tamil
Official status
Official language in
 India
 Sri Lanka[4]
 Singapore[5]
Recognised minority
language in
 Malaysia[6]
 South Africa[lower-alpha 2][7]
Language codes
ISO 639-1ta
ISO 639-1tam
ISO 639-3Either:
tam – Modern Tamil
oty – Old Tamil
oty Old Tamil
Glottologtami1289  Modern Tamil[8]
oldt1248  Old Tamil[9]
Linguasphere49-EBE-a
Idioma tamil.png
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Tamil (/ˈtæmɪl, ˈtɑːm-/ TAM-il, TAHM-;[10] தமிழ் Tamiḻ, pronounced [t̪amiɻ] (About this soundlisten)) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. Tamil is an official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the sovereign nations of Sri Lanka and Singapore,[11][5] and the Indian Union territory of Puducherry. Tamil is also spoken by significant minorities in the four other South Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It is also spoken by the Tamil diaspora found in many countries, including Malaysia, Myanmar, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia and Mauritius. Tamil is also natively spoken by the Sri Lankan Moors. One of 22 scheduled languages in the Constitution of India, Tamil was the first to be classified as a classical language of India.

Tamil is one of the longest-surviving classical languages in the world.[12][13] A. K. Ramanujan described it as "the only language of contemporary India which is recognizably continuous with a classical past".[14] The variety and quality of classical Tamil literature has led to it being described as "one of the great classical traditions and literatures of the world".[15] Recorded Tamil literature has been documented for over 2000 years.[16] The earliest period of Tamil literature, Sangam literature, is dated from c. 300 BC until AD 300.[17][18] It has the oldest extant literature among Dravidian languages. The earliest epigraphic records found on rock edicts and 'hero stones' date from around the 3rd century BC.[19][20] About 60,000 of the approximately 100,000 inscriptions found by the Archaeological Survey of India in India are in Tamil Nadu. Of them, most are in Tamil, with only about 5 percent in other languages.[21] Tamil language inscriptions written in Brahmi script have been discovered in Sri Lanka and on trade goods in Thailand and Egypt.[22][23] The two earliest manuscripts from India,[24][25] acknowledged and registered by the UNESCO Memory of the World register in 1997 and 2005, were written in Tamil.[26]

In 1578, Portuguese Christian missionaries published a Tamil prayer book in old Tamil script named Thambiran Vanakkam, thus making Tamil the first Indian language to be printed and published.[27] The Tamil Lexicon, published by the University of Madras, was one of the earliest dictionaries published in Indian languages.[28] According to a 2001 survey, there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil, of which 353 were dailies.[29]

Classification

Main page: Social:Dravidian languages

Tamil belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian languages, a family of around 26 languages native to the Indian subcontinent.[30] It is also classified as being part of a Tamil language family that, alongside Tamil proper, includes the languages of about 35 ethno-linguistic groups[31] such as the Irula and Yerukula languages (see SIL Ethnologue).

The closest major relative of Tamil is Malayalam; the two began diverging around the 9th century AD.[32] Although many of the differences between Tamil and Malayalam demonstrate a pre-historic split of the western dialect,[33] the process of separation into a distinct language, Malayalam, was not completed until sometime in the 13th or 14th century.[34]

History

Findings from Adichanallur in the Government Museum, Chennai
Keezhadi excavation site

Tamil, like other Dravidian languages, ultimately descends from the Proto-Dravidian language, which was most likely spoken around the third millennium BC, possibly in the region around the lower Godavari river basin. The material evidence suggests that the speakers of Proto-Dravidian were of the culture associated with the Neolithic complexes of South India.[35]

Among Indian languages, Tamil has the most ancient non-Sanskritic Indian literature.[36] Scholars categorise the attested history of the language into three periods: Old Tamil (300 BC–AD 700), Middle Tamil (700–1600) and Modern Tamil (1600–present).[37] In November 2007, an excavation at Quseir-al-Qadim revealed Egyptian pottery dating back to first century BC with ancient Tamil Brahmi inscriptions.[22] There are a number of apparent Tamil loanwords in Biblical Hebrew dating to before 500 BC, the oldest attestation of the language.[38] John Guy states that Tamil was the lingua franca for early maritime traders from India.[39]

In 2004, a number of skeletons were found buried in earthenware urns dating from at least 696 BC in Adichanallur. Some of these urns contained writing in Tamil Brahmi script, and some contained skeletons of Tamil origin.[40]

Between 2017 and 2018, 5,820 artifacts have been found in Keezhadi. These were sent to Beta Analytic in Miami, Florida for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dating. One sample containing Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions was claimed to be dated to around 580 BC.[41][42]

Legend

Explanation for Mangulam Tamil Brahmi inscription in Mangulam, Madurai district, Tamil Nadu, dated to Tamil Sangam period (c. 400 BC – c. 200 AD)
Tamil Brahmi script in the reverse side of the bilingual silver coin of king Vashishtiputra Sātakarni (c. AD 160) of Deccan. Rev: Ujjain/Sātavāhana symbol, crescented six-arch chaitya hill and river with Tamil Brahmi script[43][44][45][46] Obv: Bust of king; Prakrit legend in the Brahmi script

According to Hindu legend, Tamil or in personification form Tamil Thāi (Mother Tamil) was created by Lord Shiva. Murugan, revered as the Tamil God, along with sage Agastya, brought it to the people.[47]

Etymology

The earliest extant Tamil literary works and their commentaries celebrate the Pandiyan Kings for the organization of long-termed Tamil Sangams, which researched, developed and made amendments in Tamil language. Even though the name of the language which was developed by these Tamil Sangams is mentioned as Tamil, the period when the name "Tamil" came to be applied to the language is unclear, as is the precise etymology of the name. The earliest attested use of the name is found in Tholkappiyam, which is dated as early as late 2nd century BC.[48][49] The Hathigumpha inscription, inscribed around a similar time period (150 BCE), by Kharavela, the Jain king of Kalinga, also refers to a Tamira Samghatta (Tamil confederacy)[50]

The Samavayanga Sutra dated to the 3rd century BC contains a reference to a Tamil script named 'Damili'.[51]

Southworth suggests that the name comes from tam-miḻ > tam-iḻ "self-speak", or "our own speech".[52] Kamil Zvelebil suggests an etymology of tam-iḻ, with tam meaning "self" or "one's self", and "-iḻ" having the connotation of "unfolding sound". Alternatively, he suggests a derivation of tamiḻ < tam-iḻ < *tav-iḻ < *tak-iḻ, meaning in origin "the proper process (of speaking)".[53] However, this is deemed unlikely by Southworth due to the contemporary use of the compound 'centamiḻ', which means refined speech in the earliest literature.[52]

The Tamil Lexicon of University of Madras defines the word "Tamil" as "sweetness".[54] S. V. Subramanian suggests the meaning "sweet sound", from tam — "sweet" and il — "sound".[55]

Old Tamil

Mangulam Tamil Brahmi inscription in Mangulam, Madurai district, Tamil Nadu, dated to Tamil Sangam period (c. 400 BC – c. 200 AD)

Old Tamil is the period of the Tamil language spanning the 3rd century BC to the 8th century AD. The earliest records in Old Tamil are short inscriptions from 300 BC to 700 AD. These inscriptions are written in a variant of the Brahmi script called Tamil-Brahmi.[56] The earliest long text in Old Tamil is the Tolkāppiyam, an early work on Tamil grammar and poetics, whose oldest layers could be as old as the late 2nd century BC.[37][49] Many literary works in Old Tamil have also survived. These include a corpus of 2,381 poems collectively known as Sangam literature. These poems are usually dated to between the 1st century BC and 5th century AD.[37][49]

Middle Tamil

Middle Tamil inscriptions in Vatteluttu script in stone during Chola period c. 1000 AD at Brahadeeswara temple in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu

The evolution of Old Tamil into Middle Tamil, which is generally taken to have been completed by the 8th century,[37] was characterised by a number of phonological and grammatical changes. In phonological terms, the most important shifts were the virtual disappearance of the aytam (ஃ), an old phoneme,[57] the coalescence of the alveolar and dental nasals,[58] and the transformation of the alveolar plosive into a rhotic.[59] In grammar, the most important change was the emergence of the present tense. The present tense evolved out of the verb kil (கில்), meaning "to be possible" or "to befall". In Old Tamil, this verb was used as an aspect marker to indicate that an action was micro-durative, non-sustained or non-lasting, usually in combination with a time marker such as ṉ (ன்). In Middle Tamil, this usage evolved into a present tense marker – kiṉṟa (கின்ற) – which combined the old aspect and time markers.[60]

Modern Tamil

The Nannūl remains the standard normative grammar for modern literary Tamil, which therefore continues to be based on Middle Tamil of the 13th century rather than on Modern Tamil.[61] Colloquial spoken Tamil, in contrast, shows a number of changes. The negative conjugation of verbs, for example, has fallen out of use in Modern Tamil[62] – instead, negation is expressed either morphologically or syntactically.[63] Modern spoken Tamil also shows a number of sound changes, in particular, a tendency to lower high vowels in initial and medial positions,[64] and the disappearance of vowels between plosives and between a plosive and rhotic.[65]

Contact with European languages affected written and spoken Tamil. Changes in written Tamil include the use of European-style punctuation and the use of consonant clusters that were not permitted in Middle Tamil. The syntax of written Tamil has also changed, with the introduction of new aspectual auxiliaries and more complex sentence structures, and with the emergence of a more rigid word order that resembles the syntactic argument structure of English.[66] Simultaneously, a strong strain of linguistic purism emerged in the early 20th century, culminating in the Pure Tamil Movement which called for removal of all Sanskritic elements from Tamil.[67] It received some support from Dravidian parties.[68] This led to the replacement of a significant number of Sanskrit loanwords by Tamil equivalents, though many others remain.[69]

Geographic distribution

Tamil is the primary language of the majority of the people residing in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, (in India) and in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka. The language is spoken among small minority groups in other states of India which include Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India and in certain regions of Sri Lanka such as Colombo and the hill country. Tamil or dialects of it were used widely in the state of Kerala as the major language of administration, literature and common usage until the 12th century AD. Tamil was also used widely in inscriptions found in southern Andhra Pradesh districts of Chittoor and Nellore until the 12th century AD.[70] Tamil was used for inscriptions from the 10th through 14th centuries in southern Karnataka districts such as Kolar, Mysore, Mandya and Bengaluru.[71]

There are currently sizeable Tamil-speaking populations descended from colonial-era migrants in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines , Mauritius, South Africa, Indonesia,[72] Thailand,[73] Burma, and Vietnam. Tamil is used as one of the languages of education in Malaysia, along with English, Malay and Mandarin.[74][75] A large community of Pakistani Tamils speakers exists in Karachi, Pakistan , which includes Tamil-speaking Hindus[76][77] as well as Christians and Muslims – including some Tamil-speaking Muslim refugees from Sri Lanka.[78] There are about 100 Tamil Hindu families in Madrasi Para colony in Karachi. They speak impeccable Tamil along with Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi.[79] Many in Réunion, Guyana, Fiji, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago have Tamil origins,[80] but only a small number speak the language. In Reunion where the Tamil language was forbidden to be learnt and used in public space by France it is now being relearnt by students and adults.[81] Tamil is also spoken by migrants from Sri Lanka and India in Canada, the United States (especially New Jersey and New York City), the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Australia.

Legal status

Tamil is the official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the 22 languages under schedule 8 of the constitution of India.[82] It is one of the official languages of the union territories of Puducherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.[83][84] Tamil is also one of the official languages of Singapore. Tamil is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka, along with Sinhala.[11] It was once given nominal official status in the Indian state of Haryana, purportedly as a rebuff to Punjab, though there was no attested Tamil-speaking population in the state, and was later replaced by Punjabi, in 2010.[85] In Malaysia, 543 primary education government schools are available fully in Tamil as the medium of instruction.[86] The establishment of Tamil-medium schools has been in process in Myanmar to provide education completely in Tamil language by the Tamils who settled there 200 years ago.[87] Tamil language is available as a course in some local school boards and major universities in Canada and the month of January has been declared "Tamil Heritage Month" by the Parliament of Canada.[88][89] Tamil enjoys a special status of protection under Article 6(b), Chapter 1 of the Constitution of South Africa and is taught as a subject in schools in KwaZulu-Natal province.[90][91] Recently, it has been rolled out as a subject of study in schools in the French overseas department of Réunion.[92]

In addition, with the creation in October 2004 of a legal status for classical languages by the Government of India and following a political campaign supported by several Tamil associations,[93][94] Tamil became the first legally recognised Classical language of India. The recognition was announced by the contemporaneous President of India, Abdul Kalam, who was a Tamilian himself, in a joint sitting of both houses of the Indian Parliament on 6 June 2004.[95][96][97]

Dialects

Jambai Tamil Brahmi inscription near Tirukkoyilur in Villupuram district, Tamil Nadu dated to the early Tamil Sangam age (c. 400 BC)

Region-specific variations

The socio-linguistic situation of Tamil is characterised by diglossia: there are two separate registers varying by socioeconomic status, a high register and a low one.[98][99] Tamil dialects are primarily 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"—iṅku in Centamil (the classic variety)—has evolved into iṅkū in the Kongu dialect of Coimbatore, inga in the dialects of Thanjavur and Palakkad, and iṅkai in some dialects of Sri Lanka. Old Tamil's iṅkaṇ (where kaṇ means place) is the source of iṅkane in the dialect of Tirunelveli, Old Tamil iṅkiṭṭu is the source of iṅkuṭṭu in the dialect of Madurai, and iṅkaṭe in some northern dialects. Even now, in the Coimbatore area, it is common to hear "akkaṭṭa" 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,[37][100] and use many other words slightly differently.[101] Tamil dialects include Central Tamil dialect, Kongu Tamil, Madras Bashai, Madurai Tamil, Nellai Tamil, Kumari Tamil in India ; Batticaloa Tamil dialect, Jaffna Tamil dialect, Negombo Tamil dialect in Sri Lanka; and Malaysian Tamil in Malaysia. Sankethi dialect in Karnataka has been heavily influenced by Kannada.

Loanword variations

The dialect of the district of Palakkad in Kerala has many Malayalam loanwords, has been influenced by Malayalam's syntax, and has a distinctive Malayalam accent. Similarly, Tamil spoken in Kanyakumari District has more unique words and phonetic style than Tamil spoken at other parts of Tamil Nadu. The words and phonetics are so different that a person from Kanyakumari district is easily identifiable by their spoken Tamil. Hebbar and Mandyam dialects, spoken by groups of Tamil Vaishnavites who migrated to Karnataka in the 11th century, retain many features of the Vaishnava paribasai, a special form of Tamil developed in the 9th and 10th centuries that reflect Vaishnavite religious and spiritual values.[102] 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. .[103] For example, Tamil Brahmins tend to speak a variety of dialects that are all collectively known as Brahmin Tamil. These dialects tend to have softer consonants (with consonant deletion also common). These dialects also tend to have many Sanskrit loanwords. Tamil in Sri Lanka incorporates loan words from Portuguese, Dutch, and English.

Spoken and literary variants

In addition to its dialects, Tamil exhibits different forms: a classical literary style modelled on the ancient language (sankattamiḻ), a modern literary and formal style (centamiḻ), and a modern colloquial form (koṭuntamiḻ). These styles shade into each other, forming a stylistic continuum. For example, it is possible to write centamiḻ with a vocabulary drawn from caṅkattamiḻ, or to use forms associated with one of the other variants while speaking koṭuntamiḻ.[104]

In modern times, centamiḻ 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, 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 times has led to the emergence of unofficial ‘standard' spoken dialects. In India, the ‘standard' koṭuntamiḻ, rather than on any one dialect,[105] 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

Historical evolution of Tamil writing from the earlier Tamil Brahmi near the top to the current Tamil script at bottom
Tirukkuṟaḷ palm leaf manuscript

After Tamil Brahmi fell out of use, Tamil was written using a script called vaṭṭeḻuttu amongst others such as Grantha and Pallava. The current Tamil script consists of 12 vowels, 18 consonants and one special character, the āytam. The vowels and consonants combine to form 216 compound characters, giving a total of 247 characters (12 + 18 + 1 + (12 × 18)). All consonants have an inherent vowel a, as with other Indic scripts. This inherent vowel is removed by adding a tittle called a puḷḷi, to the consonantal sign. For example, ன is ṉa (with the inherent a) and ன் is ṉ (without a vowel). Many Indic scripts have a similar sign, generically called virama, but the Tamil script is somewhat different in that it nearly always uses a visible puḷḷi to indicate a 'dead consonant' (a consonant without a vowel). In other Indic scripts, it is generally preferred to use a ligature or a half form to write a syllable or a cluster containing a dead consonant, although writing it with a visible virama is also possible. The Tamil script does not differentiate voiced and unvoiced plosives. Instead, plosives are articulated with voice depending on their position in a word, in accordance with the rules of Tamil phonology.

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 adopted from Sanskrit, Prakrit, and other languages. The traditional system prescribed by classical grammars for writing loan-words, which involves respelling them in accordance with Tamil phonology, remains, but is not always consistently applied.[106] ISO 15919 is an international standard for the transliteration of Tamil and other Indic scripts into Latin characters. It uses diacritics to map the much larger set of Brahmic consonants and vowels to Latin script, and thus the alphabets of various languages, including English.

Numerals and symbols

Main page: Tamil numerals

Apart from the usual numerals, Tamil has numerals for 10, 100 and 1000. Symbols for day, month, year, debit, credit, as above, rupee, and numeral are present as well. Tamil also uses several historical fractional signs.

zero one two three four five six seven eight nine ten hundred thousand
௦ ௧ ௨ ௩ ௪ ௫ ௬ ௭ ௮ ௯ ௰ ௱ ௲
day month year debit credit as above rupee numeral
௳ ௴ ௵ ௶ ௷ ௸ ௹ ௺

Phonology

Tamil consonants[107]
Labial Dental Alveolar Retroflex Alveolo-palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m ம் (n̪) ந் n ன் ɳ ண் ɲ ஞ் (ŋ) ங்
Stop/Affricate p ப் t̪ த் (tːr ற்ற) ʈ ட் t͡ɕ ~ t͡ʃ ச்5 k க்
Fricative (f)1 s5 ஸ் (z)1 (ʂ)1 ஷ் (ɕ)1 ஶ் (x)2 (h)2 ஹ்
Tap ɾ ர்
Trill r ற்
Approximant ʋ வ் ɻ ழ் j ய்
Lateral approximant l ல் ɭ ள்

/f/, /z/, /ʂ/ and /ɕ/ are only found in loanwords and may be considered marginal phonemes, though they are traditionally not seen as fully phonemic.

Monophthongs[108]
Front Central Back
short long short long short long
Close i இ iː ஈ u உ uː ஊ
Mid e எ eː ஏ o ஒ oː ஓ
Open ä அ äː ஆ

Tamil has two diphthongs: /aɪ̯/ ஐ and /aʊ̯/ ஔ, the latter of which is restricted to a few lexical items.

Grammar


Tamil employs agglutinative grammar, where suffixes are used to mark noun class, number, and case, verb tense and other grammatical categories. Tamil's standard metalinguistic terminology and scholarly vocabulary is itself Tamil, as opposed to the Sanskrit that is standard for most Indo-Aryan languages.[109][110]

Much of Tamil grammar is extensively described 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, poruḷ, yāppu, aṇi. Of these, the last two are mostly applied in poetry.[111]

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 many suffixes, which would require several words or a sentence in English. To give an example, the word pōkamuṭiyātavarkaḷukkāka (போகமுடியாதவர்களுக்காக) means "for the sake of those who cannot go" and consists of the following morphemes:

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Morphology

Tamil nouns (and pronouns) are classified into two super-classes (tiṇai)—the "rational" (uyartiṇai), and the "irrational" (akṟiṇai)—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 "rational" nouns and pronouns belong to one of three classes (pāl)—masculine singular, feminine singular, and rational plural. The "irrational" nouns and pronouns belong to one of two classes: irrational singular and irrational plural. The pāl is often indicated through suffixes. The plural form for rational nouns may be used as an honorific, gender-neutral, singular form.[112]

peyarccol (Name-words)[113]
uyartiṇai
(rational) 		aḵṟiṇai
(irrational)
āṇpāl
Male 		peṇpāl
Female 		palarpāl
Collective 		oṉṟaṉpāl
One 		palaviṉpāl
Many
Example: the Tamil words for "doer"
ceytavaṉ
He who did 		ceytavaḷ
She who did 		ceytavar(kaḷ)
They who did 		ceytatu
That which did 		ceytavai
Those ones which did

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,[114] and that Tamil usage is best understood if each suffix or combination of suffixes is seen as marking a separate case.[105] Tamil nouns can take one of four prefixes: i, a, u, and e which are functionally equivalent to the demonstratives in English. For example, the word vazhi (வழி) meaning "way" can take these to produce ivvazhi (இவ்வழி) "this way", avvazhi (அவ்வழி) "that way", uvvazhi (உவ்வழி) "the medial way" and evvazhi (எவ்வழி) "which way".

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. 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.[115] Verb inflection is shown below using example aḻintukkoṇṭiruntēṉ; (அழிந்துக்கொண்டிருந்தேன்); "(I) was being destroyed".
அழி ந்து கொண்டு இரு ந்த் ஏன்
aḻi ntu koṇṭu iru nt ēn
root
destroy 		transitivity marker
intransitive 		aspect marker
continuous 		aspect marker
continuous 		tense marker
past tense 		person marker
first person,
singular

Traditional grammars of Tamil do not distinguish between adjectives and adverbs, including both of them under the category uriccol, although modern grammarians tend to distinguish between them on morphological and syntactical grounds.[116] Tamil has many ideophones that act as adverbs indicating the way the object in a given state "says" or "sounds".[117]

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.[118] In the first person plural, Tamil makes a distinction between inclusive pronouns நாம் nām (we), நமது namatu (our) that include the addressee and exclusive pronouns நாங்கள் nāṅkaḷ (we), எமது ematu (our) that do not.[118]

Syntax

Tamil is a consistently head-final language. The verb comes at the end of the clause, with a typical word order of subject–object–verb (SOV).[119][120] 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 objects. It is possible to construct grammatically valid and meaningful sentences 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

The vocabulary of Tamil is mainly Dravidian. A strong sense of linguistic purism is found in Modern Tamil,[121] which opposes the use of foreign loanwords.[122] Nonetheless, a number of words used in classical and modern Tamil are loanwords from the languages of neighbouring groups, or with whom the Tamils had trading links, including Munda (for example, tavaḷai "frog" from Munda tabeg), Malay (e.g. cavvarici "sago" from Malay sāgu), Chinese (for example, campān "skiff" from Chinese san-pan) and Greek (for example, ora from Greek ὥρα). In more modern times, Tamil has imported words from Urdu and Marathi, reflecting groups that have influenced the Tamil area at times, and from neighbouring languages such as Telugu, Kannada, and Sinhala. During the modern period, words have also been adapted from European languages, such as Portuguese, French, and English.[123]

The strongest effect of purism in Tamil has been on words taken 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,[124][125][126][127] reflecting the increased trend of Sanskritisation in the Tamil country.[128] Tamil vocabulary never became quite as heavily Sanskritised as that of the other Dravidian languages, and unlike in those languages, it was and remains possible to express complex ideas (including in science, art, religion and law) without the use of Sanskrit loan words.[129][130][131] In addition, Sanskritisation was actively resisted by a number of authors of the late medieval period,[132] culminating in the 20th century in a movement called taṉit tamiḻ iyakkam (meaning "pure Tamil movement"), led by Parithimaar Kalaignar and Maraimalai Adigal, which sought to remove the accumulated influence of Sanskrit on Tamil.[133] 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,[134] under some estimates having fallen from 40 to 50% to about 20%.[69] 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.[135]

In the 20th century, institutions and learned bodies have, with government support, generated technical dictionaries for Tamil containing neologisms and words derived from Tamil roots to replace loan words from English and other languages.[67] (As of 2019) the language had a listed vocabulary of over 470,000 unique words, including those from old literary sources. In November 2019, the state government issued an order to add 9,000 new words to the vocabulary.[136]

Influence

Words of Tamil origin occur in other languages. A notable example of a word in worldwide use with Dravidian (not specifically Tamil) etymology is orange, via Sanskrit nāraṅga from a Dravidian predecessor of Tamil nārttaṅkāy 'fragrant fruit'. One suggestion as to the origin of the word anaconda is the Tamil anaikkonda 'having killed an elephant'.[137] Examples in English include cheroot (curuṭṭu meaning 'rolled up'),[138] mango (from māṅgāy),[138] mulligatawny (from miḷaku taṇṇīr 'pepper water'), pariah (from paṟaiyar), curry (from kaṟi),[139] catamaran (from kaṭṭu maram 'bundled logs'),[138] and congee (from kañji 'rice porridge' or 'gruel').[140]

Sample text

The following is a sample text in literary Tamil of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The first line is the Tamil script; the second is romanized Tamil; the third is the International Phonetic Alphabet; the fourth is the gloss.

Script error: No such module "Interlinear".

See also

  • List of countries where Tamil is an official language
  • List of languages by first written accounts
  • Tamil keyboard
  • Tamil population by cities
  • Tamil population by nation
  • Tamil Loanwords in other languages
  • Tamil Shorthand

Footnotes

  1. ↑ as well as the enclaves of the Puducherry and Karaikal districts in the Union territory of Puducherry
  2. ↑ protected language
  1. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named e25
  2. ↑ Official languages of Tamil Nadu, Tamil Nadu Government, http://www.tn.gov.in/welcometn.htm, retrieved 1 May 2007 
  3. ↑ Report of the Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities in India: 50th report (delivered to the Lokh Sabha in 2014), National Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities, Ministry of Minority Affairs, Government of India., p. 155, http://nclm.nic.in/shared/linkimages/NCLM50thReport.pdf, retrieved 8 June 2017 
  4. ↑ "Official Languages Policy". Department of Official Languages. http://www.languagesdept.gov.lk/web/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=38&Itemid=163&lang=en. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Republic of Singapore Independence Act 1965 (No. 9 of 1965, 1985 Rev. Ed.), s7.
  6. ↑ School languages, LINGUAMON, http://www10.gencat.net/pres_casa_llengues/AppJava/frontend/llengues_detall_print.jsp?id=632&idioma=5, retrieved 26 March 2016 
  7. ↑ Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 – Chapter 1: Founding Provisions, South African Government, http://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/chapter-1-founding-provisions 
  8. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Tamil". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/tami1289. 
  9. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Old Tamil". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/oldt1248. 
  10. ↑ "Tamil, n. and adj.". Oxford University Press. https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/197399?redirectedFrom=tamil. 
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Department of Official Languages, Government of Sri Lanka, http://www.languagesdept.gov.lk, retrieved 13 September 2012 
  12. ↑ Stein, B. (1977), "Circulation and the Historical Geography of Tamil Country", The Journal of Asian Studies 37 (1): 7–26, doi:10.2307/2053325 . "Tamil is one of the two longest-surviving classical languages in India" (p. 7).
  13. ↑ Steever 1998, p. 6. "one of India's two classical languages, alongside the more widely known Indo-Aryan language Sanskrit".
  14. ↑ Zvelebil, Kamil (1973), The Smile of Murugan, BRILL, pp. 11–12, ISBN 978-90-04-03591-1, https://books.google.com/books?id=VF2VMUoY_okC&pg=PA11 
  15. ↑ Hart, George L. "Statement on the Status of Tamil as a Classical Language" , University of California, Berkeley, Department of South Asian Studies – Tamil
  16. ↑ Zvelebil 1992, p. 12: "...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"
  17. ↑ Definitive Editions of Ancient Tamil Works. Classical Tamil, Government of India
  18. ↑ Abraham, S.A. (2003), "Chera, Chola, Pandya: Using Archaeological Evidence to Identify the Tamil Kingdoms of Early Historic South India", Asian Perspectives 42 (2): 207, doi:10.1353/asi.2003.0031, http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/17189/1/AP-v42n2-207-223.pdf 
  19. ↑ Maloney, C. (1970), "The Beginnings of Civilization in South India", The Journal of Asian Studies 29 (3): 603–616, doi:10.2307/2943246  at p. 610
  20. ↑ Subramaniam, T.S. (29 August 2011), "Palani excavation triggers fresh debate", The Hindu (Chennai, India), http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article2408091.ece 
  21. ↑ "Students get glimpse of heritage", The Hindu (Chennai, India), 22 November 2005, http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/22/stories/2005112215970400.htm 
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 "Tamil Brahmi script in Egypt", The Hindu, 21 November 2007, http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tamil-brahmi-script-in-egypt/article1952611.ece, retrieved 5 January 2015 
  23. ↑ Mahadevan, Iravatham (24 June 2010), "An epigraphic perspective on the antiquity of Tamil", The Hindu (Chennai, India), http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/an-epigraphic-perspective-on-the-antiquity-of-tamil/article482654.ece 
  24. ↑ The I.A.S. Tamil Medical Manuscript Collection, UNESCO, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/memory-of-the-world/register/full-list-of-registered-heritage/registered-heritage-page-8/the-ias-tamil-medical-manuscript-collection/#c187096, retrieved 13 September 2012 
  25. ↑ Saiva Manuscript in Pondicherry, UNESCO, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/memory-of-the-world/register/full-list-of-registered-heritage/registered-heritage-page-8/saiva-manuscript-in-pondicherry/, retrieved 13 September 2012 
  26. ↑ Memory of the World Register: India, UNESCO, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/memory-of-the-world/register/access-by-region-and-country/in/#c184233, retrieved 13 September 2012 
  27. ↑ Karthik Madhavan (2010-06-20), "Tamil saw its first book in 1578", The Hindu, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/tamil-saw-its-first-book-in-1578/article476102.ece 
  28. ↑ Kolappan, B. (22 June 2014), "Delay, howlers in Tamil Lexicon embarrass scholars", The Hindu (Chennai), http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/delay-howlers-in-tamil-lexicon-embarrass-scholars/article6138747.ece, retrieved 25 December 2014 
  29. ↑ 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.
  30. ↑ Krishnamurti 2003, p. 19
  31. ↑ Perumal, A. K. (2005) Manorama Yearbook (Tamil), pp. 302–318.
  32. ↑ Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World, Elsevier, 2010, p. 297 
  33. ↑ Menon, A. G. (2009), "Some observations on the sub-group Tamil-Malayalam: Differential realizations of the cluster * ṉt", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 53: 87, doi:10.1017/S0041977X00021285 
  34. ↑ Andronov 1970, p. 21
  35. ↑ Southworth 2005, pp. 249–250
  36. ↑ Sivathamby, K (1974), "Early South Indian Society and Economy: The Tinai Concept", Social Scientist 3 (5): 20–37, doi:10.2307/3516448 
  37. ↑ 37.0 37.1 37.2 37.3 37.4 Lehmann 1998, pp. 75–76
  38. ↑ Rabin, C. Proceedings of the Second International Conference Seminar of Tamil Studies, p. 438
  39. ↑ Scroll.in – News. Politics. Culture., scroll.in, 6 February 2015, http://scroll.in/article/704603/Step-aside,-Gujaratis:-Tamilians-were-India's-earliest-recorded-maritime-traders 
  40. ↑ Christy, Agatha (2019). "A Study About Archaeological Survey in Adichanallur". International Journal of Research in Engineering, Science and Management 2: 158–169. https://www.ijresm.com/Vol.2_2019/Vol2_Iss11_November19/IJRESM_V2_I11_33.pdf. 
  41. ↑ "KEELADI". https://www.tnarch.gov.in/keeladi. 
  42. ↑ Gershon, Livia. "Archaeologists Unearth Ancient Dagger Linked to Enigmatic Indian Civilization". https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/excavation-india-may-hold-clues-ancient-civilization-180978414/. 
  43. ↑ Nagaswamy, N (1995), Roman Karur, Brahad Prakashan, OCLC 191007985, http://www.tamilartsacademy.com/books/roman%20karur/chapter04.html 
  44. ↑ Mahadevan 2003, pp. 199–205
  45. ↑ Panneerselvam, R (1969), "Further light on the bilingual coin of the Sātavāhanas", Indo-Iranian Journal 4 (11): 281–288, doi:10.1163/000000069790078428 
  46. ↑ Yandel, Keith (2000), Religion and Public Culture: Encounters and Identities in Modern South India, Routledge Curzon, p. 235, ISBN 978-0-7007-1101-7 
  47. ↑ Ramaswamy 1997, p. 87.
  48. ↑ Zvelebil 1992, p. x
  49. ↑ 49.0 49.1 49.2 Zvelebil, Kamil (1973). The Smile of Murugan: On Tamil Literature of South India. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-03591-1. https://books.google.com/books?id=degUAAAAIAAJ&q=info:3mNeiVqlnhoJ:scholar.google.com/&pg=PR9. 
  50. ↑ Allen, Charles (2017). Coromandel : a personal history of South India. London: Little, Brown. p. 9. ISBN 9781408705391. 
  51. ↑ Jain, Sagarmal (1998). "Jain Literature [From earliest time to c. 10th A.D.]". Aspects of Jainology: Volume VI. 
  52. ↑ 52.0 52.1 Southworth 1998, pp. 129–132
  53. ↑ Zvelebil 1992, p. ix–xvi
  54. ↑ Tamil lexicon, Madras: University of Madras, 1924–36, https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/tamil-lex_query.py?qs=%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%AE%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%B4%E0%AF%8D&searchhws=yes&matchtype=exact, retrieved 26 October 2022.  (Online edition at the University of Chicago)
  55. ↑ Subramanian, S.V (1980), Heritage of Tamils; Language and Grammar, International Institute of Tamil Studies, pp. 7–12 
  56. ↑ Mahadevan 2003, pp. 90–95
  57. ↑ Kuiper 1958, p. 194
  58. ↑ Meenakshisundaran 1965, pp. 132–133
  59. ↑ Kuiper 1958, pp. 213–215
  60. ↑ Rajam, V. S. (1985), "The Duration of an Action-Real or Aspectual? The Evolution of the Present Tense in Tamil", Journal of the American Oriental Society 105 (2): 277–291, doi:10.2307/601707  at pp. 284–285
  61. ↑ Shapiro & Schiffman 1983, p. 2
  62. ↑ Annamalai & Steever 1998, p. 100
  63. ↑ Steever 2005, pp. 107–8
  64. ↑ Meenakshisundaran 1965, p. 125
  65. ↑ Meenakshisundaran 1965, pp. 122–123
  66. ↑ Kandiah, T. (1978), "Standard Language and Socio-Historical Parameters: Standard Lankan Tamil", International Journal of the Sociology of Language 1978 (16), doi:10.1515/ijsl.1978.16.59  at pp. 65–69
  67. ↑ 67.0 67.1 Ramaswamy 1997
  68. ↑ Ramaswamy 1997: "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."
  69. ↑ 69.0 69.1 Krishnamurti 2003, p. 480
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  71. ↑ Murthy et al. 1990, pp. 85–106
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  100. ↑ Annamalai & Steever 1998, pp. 100–28
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  102. ↑ Thiru. Mu (1978). Kovintācāriyar, Vāḻaiyaṭi vāḻai Lifco, Madras, pp. 26–39.
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  106. ↑ Fowler, Murray (1954), "The Segmental Phonemes of Sanskritized Tamil", Language 30 (3): 360–367, doi:10.2307/410134  at p. 360.
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  109. ↑ Zvelebil, Kamil (1973), The Smile of Murugan, BRILL, p. 4, ISBN 978-90-04-03591-1, https://books.google.com/books?id=VF2VMUoY_okC&pg=PA4 
  110. ↑ Ramanujam, A. K.; Dharwadker, V. (eds.) (2000) The collected essays of A.K. Ramanujam, Oxford University Press, p. 111. ISBN:0-19-563937-5
  111. ↑ "Five fold grammar of Tamil", University of Pennsylvania, http://www.southasia.upenn.edu/tamil/lit.html, retrieved 1 June 2007 
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  114. ↑ Zvelebil, K. V. (April–June 1972), "Dravidian Case-Suffixes: Attempt at a Reconstruction", Journal of the American Oriental Society 92 (2): 272–276, doi:10.2307/600654, "The entire problem of the concept of "case" in Dravidian will be ignored in this paper. In fact, we might posit a great number of "cases" for perhaps any Dravidian language once we departed from the familiar types of paradigms forced upon us by traditional, indigenous and European grammars, especially of the literary languages. It is, for instance, sheer convention based on Tamil grammatical tradition (influenced no doubt by Sanskrit) that, as a rule, the number of cases in Tamil is given as eight." 
  115. ↑ 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, p. 105, ISBN 978-90-272-2958-8 
  116. ↑ Lehmann, Thomas (1989), A Grammar of Modern Tamil, Pondicherry: Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture, pp. 9–11 
  117. ↑ Swiderski, Richard M. (1996), The metamorphosis of English: versions of other languages, New York: Bergin & Garvey, p. 61, ISBN 978-0-89789-468-5 
  118. ↑ 118.0 118.1 Annamalai & Steever 1998, p. 109
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  123. ↑ Meenakshisundaran 1965, pp. 169–193
  124. ↑ "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, p. 309); 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 2001, p. 18.
  125. ↑ Vaidyanathan, S. (1967), "Indo-Aryan Loan Words in the Cīvakacintāmaṇi", Journal of the American Oriental Society 87 (4): 430–434, doi:10.2307/597587 
  126. ↑ Caldwell 1974, pp. 87–88
  127. ↑ Takahashi, Takanobu. (1995). Tamil love poetry and poetics. Brill's Indological Library, v. 9. Leiden: E. J. Brill, pp. 16, 18. ISBN:90-04-10042-3.
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  129. ↑ Trautmann, Thomas R. (1999), "Hullabaloo About Telugu", South Asia Research 19 (1): 53–70, doi:10.1177/026272809901900104  at p. 64
  130. ↑ Caldwell 1974, p. 50
  131. ↑ Ellis, F. W. (1820), "Note to the introduction" in Campbell, A.D., A grammar of the Teloogoo language. Madras: College Press, pp. 29–30.
  132. ↑ See Ramaswamy's analysis of one such text, the Tamiḻ viṭututu, in Ramaswamy, S. (1998), "Language of the People in the World of Gods: Ideologies of Tamil before the Nation", The Journal of Asian Studies 57 (1): 66–92, doi:10.2307/2659024 
  133. ↑ Varadarajan, M. A History of Tamil Literature, transl. 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."
  134. ↑ Ramaswamy 1997, "Laboring for language": "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."
  135. ↑ Meenakshisundaram, T. P. (1982) A History of Tamil Language, Sarvodaya Ilakkiya Pannai. (translated) pp. 241–2
  136. ↑ "By govt. order: 9,000 words to enter Tamil vocabulary". The Hindu (Chennai: Kasturi & Sons): pp. 2. 9 November 2019. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/tamil-to-get-9000-new-words/article29919044.ece. 
  137. ↑ "Origin and Meaning of Anaconda". Online Etymology Dictionary.
  138. ↑ 138.0 138.1 138.2 "Oxford English Dictionary Online", Oxford English Dictionary, http://dictionary.oed.com, retrieved 14 April 2007 
  139. ↑ "curry, n.2", The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. OED Online. Oxford University Press. 14 August 2009
  140. ↑ congee, http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/mwc/12703/congee 

References

Further reading

  • Fabricius, Johann Philip (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.
  • Freeman, Rich (February 1998), "Rubies and Coral: The Lapidary Crafting of Language in Kerala", The Journal of Asian Studies 57 (1): 38–65, doi:10.2307/2659023 
  • Keane, Elinor (2004), "Tamil", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (1): 111–116, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001549 

External links



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