TAMIL

Tamil language Tamil தமிழ் tamiḻ Pronunciation [t̪ɐmɨɻ] Native to India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Réunion, Mauritius Ethnicity Tamilar Native speakers 70 million  (2007)[1] 8 million as a second language[2] Language family Dravidian Southern Tamil–Kannada Tamil–Kodagu Tamil–Malayalam Tamil languages Tamil Writing system Tamil alphabet (Brahmic) Tamil Braille (Bharati) Signed form(s) Signed Tamil Official status Official language in  Indian states: Tamil Nadu[3] and Puducherry,[4]  Sri Lanka,[5] and  Singapore.[6] Officially Legalised  Malaysia (Medium of education).[7]  Mauritius.[8] Language codes ISO 639-1 ta ISO 639-2 tam ISO 639-3 Either: tam – Modern Tamil oty – Old Tamil Linguist list oty Old Tamil Distribution of Tamil speakers in South India and Sri Lanka (1961) This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. Tamil /ˈtæmɪl/[9] (தமிழ், tamiḻ, [t̪ɐmɨɻ] ?) is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of South India and North-east Sri Lanka. It has official status in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It was once given nominal official status in the 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.[10] Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka[11] and an official language of Singapore[12] It is legalized as one of the languages of medium of education in Malaysia along with English, Malay and Mandarin.[7][13] It is also chiefly spoken in the states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Andaman and Nicobar Islands as one of the secondary languages. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and was the first Indian language to be declared a classical language by the Government of India in 2004. Tamil is also spoken by significant minorities in Malaysia, England, Mauritius, Canada,[14] South Africa,[15] Fiji,[16] Germany,[17] Philippines, United States, Netherlands,[16] Mauritius, Indonesia,[18] and Réunion as well as emigrant communities around the world. Tamil is one of the longest surviving classical languages in the world.[19][20] It has been described as "the only language of contemporary India which is recognizably continuous with a classical past."[21] and having "one of the richest literatures in the world".[22] Tamil literature has existed for over 2000 years.[23] The earliest epigraphic records found on rock edicts and hero stones date from around the 5th century BC.[24] The earliest period of Tamil literature, Sangam literature, is dated from ca. 300 BC – AD 300.[25][26] Tamil language inscriptions written c. 1st century BC and 2nd century AD have been discovered in Egypt, Sri Lanka and Thailand.[27] The two earliest manuscripts from India,[28][29] to be acknowledged and registered by UNESCO Memory of the World register in 1997 and 2005 were in Tamil.[30] More than 55% of the epigraphical inscriptions (about 55,000) found by the Archaeological Survey of India are in the Tamil language.[31] According to a 2001 survey, there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil, of which 353 were dailies.[32] It has the oldest extant literature amongst other Dravidian languages.[19] The variety and quality of classical Tamil literature has led to its being described as "one of the great classical traditions and literatures of the world".[33] The oldest dated Tamil Brahmi inscription in the world has been found in Palani in Southern India scientifically dated to 540 BCE - the oldest known Brahmi inscriptions on the Indian sub-continent.[34] Classification HistoryEdit Silver coin of king Vashishtiputra Sātakarni (c. AD 160). Obv: Bust of king. Prakrit legend in the Brahmi script: "Siri Satakanisa Rano ... Vasithiputasa": "King Vasishtiputra Sri Satakarni" Rev: Ujjain/Sātavāhana symbol left. Crescented six-arch chaitya hill right. River below. Early Tamil legend in the Tamil Brahmi script: "Arah(s)anaku Vah(s)itti makanaku Tiru H(S)atakani ko" – which means "The ruler, Vasitti's son, Highness Satakani" – -ko being the royal name suffix.[40][41][42][43] As a Dravidian language, Tamil descends from Proto-Dravidian. Linguistic reconstruction suggests that Proto-Dravidian was spoken around the third millennium BC, possibly in the region around the lower Godavari river basin in peninsular India. The material evidence suggests that the speakers of Proto-Dravidian were the culture associated with the Neolithic complexes of South India.[44] The next phase in the reconstructed proto-history of Tamil is Proto-South Dravidian. The linguistic evidence suggests that Proto-South Dravidian was spoken around the middle of the second millennium BC, and that proto-Tamil emerged around the 3rd century BC. The earliest epigraphic attestations of Tamil are generally taken to have been written shortly thereafter.[45] Among Indian languages, Tamil has the most ancient non-Sanskritised Indian literature.[46] 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).[47] Etymology The exact 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 1st century BC.[48] Southworth suggests that the name comes from tam-miḻ > tam-iḻ 'self-speak', or 'one's own speech'.[49](see Southworth's derivation of Sanskrit term for "others" or Mleccha) 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)".[50] The Tamil Lexicon of University of Madras defines the word 'Tamil' as 'sweetness'.[51] S.V Subramanian suggests the meaning 'sweet sound' from 'tam'- sweet and 'il'- 'sound'.[52] Old Tamil The earliest records in Old Tamil are short inscriptions from around the 2nd century BC in caves and on pottery. These inscriptions are written in a variant of the Brahmi script called Tamil Brahmi.[53] 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 1st century BC.[47] A large number of 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 and 5th centuries AD,[54] which makes them the oldest extant body of secular literature in India.[55] Other literary works in Old Tamil include Thirukural, Silappatikaram and Maṇimēkalai, and a number of ethical and didactic texts, written between the 5th and 8th centuries.[56] Old Tamil preserved many features of Proto-Dravidian, including the inventory of consonants,[57] the syllable structure,[58] and various grammatical features.[59] Amongst these was the absence of a distinct present tense – like Proto-Dravidian, Old Tamil only had two tenses, the past and the "non-past". Old Tamil verbs also had a distinct negative conjugation (e.g. kāṇēṉ (காணேன்) "I do not see", kāṇōm (காணோம்) "we do not see")[60] Nouns could take pronominal suffixes like verbs to express ideas: e.g. peṇṭirēm (பெண்டிரேம்) "we are women" formed from peṇṭir (பெண்டிர்) "women" and the first person plural marker -ēm (ஏம்).[61] Despite the significant amount of grammatical and syntactical change between Old, Middle and Modern Tamil, Tamil demonstrates grammatical continuity across these stages: many characteristics of the later stages of the language have their roots in features of Old Tamil.[47] Mahadevan has brought to light in this work the influence of Old Kannada on Tamil-Br-ahm-i inscriptions from a period (Second Century B.C. to Fourth Century A.D.) anterior to the earliest Kannada inscriptions and literature. This is a very interesting observation he has made on the basis of lexical and grammatical usages showing the influence of Old Kannada.[62] Middle Tamil The evolution of Old Tamil into Middle Tamil, which is generally taken to have been completed by the 8th century,[47] 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,[63] the coalescence of the alveolar and dental nasals,[64] and the transformation of the alveolar plosive into a rhotic.[65] 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.[66] Middle Tamil also saw a significant increase in the Sanskritisation of Tamil. From the period of the Pallava dynasty onwards, a number of Sanskrit loan-words entered Tamil, particularly in relation to political, religious and philosophical concepts.[67] Sanskrit also influenced Tamil grammar, in the increased use of cases and in declined nouns becoming adjuncts of verbs,[68] and phonology.The forms of writing in Tamil have developed through years.[69] The Tamil script also changed in the period of Middle Tamil. Tamil Brahmi and Vaṭṭeḻuttu, into which it evolved, were the main scripts used in Old Tamil inscriptions. From the 8th century onwards, however, the Pallavas began using a new script, derived from the Pallava Grantha script which was used to write Sanskrit, which eventually replaced Vaṭṭeḻuttu.[70] Middle Tamil is attested in a large number of inscriptions, and in a significant body of secular and religious literature.[71] These include the religious poems and songs of the Bhakthi poets, such as the Tēvāram verses on Shaivism and Nālāyira Tivya Pirapantam on Vaishnavism,[72] and adaptations of religious legends such as the 12th century Tamil Ramayana composed by Kamban and the story of 63 shaivite devotees known as Periyapurāṇam.[73] Iraiyaṉār Akapporuḷ, an early treatise on love poetics, and Naṉṉūl, a 12th-century grammar that became the standard grammar of literary Tamil, are also from the Middle Tamil period.[74] Modern Tamil The Nannul 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.[75] 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[76] – negation is, instead, expressed either morphologically or syntactically.[77] Modern spoken Tamil also shows a number of sound changes, in particular, a tendency to lower high vowels in initial and medial positions,[78] and the disappearance of vowels between plosives and between a plosive and rhotic.[79] Contact with European languages also affected both 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.[80] 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 and other foreign elements from Tamil.[81] It received some support from Dravidian parties.[82] This led to the replacement of a significant number of Sanskrit loanwords by Tamil equivalents, though many others remain.[83] Geographic distributionEdit Distribution of Tamil speakers in South India and Sri Lanka (1961). Tamil is the first language of the majority of the people residing in Tamil Nadu in India and Northern Province, Eastern Province, Sri Lanka. The language is also spoken among small minority groups in other states of India which include Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra and in certain regions of Sri Lanka such as Colombo and the hill country. Previously Tamil had a wider distribution in India than its current state. 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.[84] Tamil was also used for inscriptions from the 10th through 14th centuries in southern Karnataka districts such as Kolar, Mysore, Mandya and Bangalore.[85] There are currently sizeable Tamil-speaking populations descended from colonial-era migrants in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Mauritius, South Africa, Indonesia,[86] Thailand,[87] Burma, and Vietnam. A large community of Tamil speakers exists in Karachi, Pakistan, which includes Tamil-speaking Hindus[88][89] as well as Christians and Muslims – including some Tamil-speaking Muslim refugees from Sri Lanka.[90] Many in Réunion, Guyana, Fiji, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago have Tamil origins,[91] but only a small number speak the language. In Reunion where Tamil language was forbidden to be learnt and used in public space by France is now being relearnt by students and adults.[92] It is also used by groups of migrants from Sri Lanka and India, Canada (especially Toronto), United States (especially New Jersey and New York City), Australia, many Middle Eastern countries, and some Western European countries. Legal status Dialects Spoken and literary variants Writing systemEdit Main articles: Tamil script and Tamil braille See also: Vatteluttu and Grantha script Jambai Tamil Brahmi inscription dated to the early Sangam age After Tamil Brahmi fell out of use, Tamil was written using a script called the vaṭṭeḻuttu amongst others such as Grantha and Pallava script. 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 x 18)). All consonants have an inherent vowel a, as with other Indic scripts. This inherency is removed by adding a title 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.[109] Phonology Grammar Vocabulary Influence See also Footnotes References External linksRead in another language Last modified 1 hour ago MobileDesktop Content is available under CC BY-SA 3.0 unless otherwise noted. Terms of usePrivacy