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It is one of the classical languages of the world, with rich literature spanning over 2000 years, making it arguably the oldest living language.
Prof George Hart's (Unive of Berkeley, CA, USA) recent speech on Tamil will hit the nail on the head !
"The status of Tamil as one of the great classical languages of the world is something that is patently obvious to anyone who knows the subject. To deny that Tamil is a classical language is to deny a vital and central part of the greatness and richness of Indian culture." See link below: http://tamil.berkeley.edu/Tamil%20Chair/TamilClassicalLanguage/TamilClassicalLgeLtr.html
Recently, someone edited Tamil to contain the claim that written Tamil extends back 5000 years, oh and that Tamil _is_ proto-Dravidian. This is quite impressive because it would mean it predates the Indus Valley Civilization, and also written Sanskrit, and probably Brahmic scripts. Meanwhile, in reality, I can find the following cites easily, just from google
Kannada, Tamil, and Malayalam." [2]
There are some invisible sentences in the page Tamil language which turn up when you edit the whole page but that are not visible in the main page. They are preceded and succeeded by some strange signs like arrows. So when I edit a particular section in the area where the invisible sentences are, they edit those sentences rather than the ones I want. These sentences are on language in general, so is this a bug /error or a content error? KRS 10:22, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Yes, it is desirable behaviour. -- Sundar 04:13, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)
It seems to have removed the "old" issue from the page after Brion's and Morwen's rant. The page should at least have the note that "Few historians and linguists believe that Tamil is one of the surviving older language"---incase if you prefer more NPOV.
It is widely accepted the fact that Tamil is one of the older languages and a parent language of many dravidian languages. No need to hide the truth because of those rants.-- Rrjanbiah 07:41, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
"...one of the older languages.." --that depends on how you define old...if u compare it to sanskrit, or chinese or egyptian...tamil is relatively new....if you compare it to maybe...say hindi or urdu...tamil is old...but then for that matter..so is kannada, telugu, tuLu and a zillion other languages...
"...parent language of many dravidian languages..." --- says who?? just because the Tamil Nadu govt., prints textbooks where it teaches this to its children(u probably are one of them...) doesnt make it FACT.
u recommend that u read Dr.B.G.L.Swamy's "tamiLu talegaLa naDuve"
There are a couple of very strange paragraphs, from a linguistic point of view:
Tamil Literature spans 2500 years. This language was the first to develop a distinct prose form of writing among the classical languages of the world.
This really should be in Tamil literature, not here.
Tamil seems to have undergone minimal changes and adaptations over the years. Classical Tamil is quite comprehensible to speakers of the modern language. The ancient Tamil book Tirukkural is an example. The verses from the book are often taught to young students of the language at the primary level, and they pick up the lines in the ancient dialect with little difficulty.
I have serious doubts about this sentence. No language in the world has escaped drastic phonological drift and semantic drift, no matter how classical it is, no matter how rigidly its literary tradition is passed on, or how strictly and universally education is carried out. Those drifts generally occur outside the context of literature or education, and often slowly and without anyone realizing it or paying much attention.
I'll explain with an example: There's a similar case with Chinese -- the quotes of Confucius, from 2000+ years ago, have been for centuries drilled into the minds of young children, and they understand it quite easily. But that doesn't mean that Chinese has not changed -- it has changed as much as any other language. It's just that all the phonological changes since Confucius have been cloaked by the writing system, leaving just the grammar and vocabulary changes, which aren't that significant any more in comparison. In other words, young children of today read Confucius' words with their own pronunciations, not that of Confucius -- this is why they can read it with relative ease. If Confucius came back alive, his speech would be as foreign to a modern Chinese as Russian or Swahili.
Or how about Arabic? Modern Standard Arabic, the variety spoken in formal contexts, is very similar to the Arabic of the Koran 1500 years ago; but the actual spoken dialects of Arabic are completely different things altogether. 1500 years of evolution separate the two -- the fact that Koranic Arabic has been taught to Arab children for 1500 years, or that the literary formal langauge has changed little in 1500 years, does not change the fact that spoken Arabic, the language alive and spoken among the people, has shifted nearly as much as any other language (though it may be less than other Dravidian languages). And again, we have the script as a "cloak" upon the actual changes in phonology that have taken place.
I've been googling a bit on the internet ( [3] [4] [5]) and it seems that Tamil is just like Arabic or Chinese -- the language has changed much, but a conservative literary tradition has preserved a script that cloaks many of these changes and therefore makes the ancient language "feel" much closer to everyday people than most other languages in the world.
Malayalam developed from a dialect of Tamil called Koduntamil or Malaithamil (literally Tamil of the mountains), spoken by the people around the hilly ranges bordering Kerala and Tamil Nadu states.
Like biological species, languages don't derive horizontally -- they derive vertically. Thus we have humans and monkeys deriving from ancient apes, and ancient apes deriving from opossum-like mammals; we don't have humans deriving from monkeys or monkeys deriving from opossums. Similarly, Malayalam probably derived from Old Tamil (or a dialect of Old Tamil), but it would be strange and inaccurate to suggest that Malayalam derives from Tamil. Malayalam and Tamil hold the same relationship to Old Tamil as French and Italian hold to Latin -- as descendents of a common, more ancient language. And as such I think this should be explicitly stated, and the title "derived languages" should be changed. -- ran 05:41, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)
May anbody watching this page be so kind to have a look at Talk:Grantha? -- Pjacobi 07:59, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The article is 90% history and trivia (e.g. the awfully long list of dialects). Details on actual grammar and phonology would be necesary. -- Circeus 00:28, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
Not history and trivia....this article like all tamilians' hashish induced theories is 90% mythology and 10% lies.
Man!! they're reducing it to a joke...every time u read a column about tamil and its 'antiquity', its gone back a couple of hundred years!! amusing yes, but it gets irritating after a point.
and the less said the better about all their claims of having given birth to kannada, telugu, malayalam, swahili, aramaic, chinese(did i leave anything out??)....
Read Dr. B.G.L.Swamy's book "TamiLu talegaLa naDuve" for more details. In that book he, takes up each of the tamilians' claims (yes, hashish induced), dissects them and finally diproves them.
YES!! THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO PROOF FOR ANY OF THESE CLAIMS....THESE CLAIMS ARE JUST A SET OF LIES AGREED UPON!!!
could go on...but then...huh..
Please see the section below. -- Sundar 10:41, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
I've copyedited, added new stuff on major sections, adapted the material to suit Wikipedia:WikiProject Language Template and added an image of zhakaram at User:Sundar/Tamil language. I'm now making the change to the current article. See this edit. Please feel free to refine it further so that this can be made into a featured article. -- Sundar 10:15, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
Please feel free to add any tasks that have to be done to improve the quality of this article. Once again, Kudos to Sundar for the great work. Needs comment from non-native speakers.
Both this article and Tolkaappiyam use the word alphabets in the plural sever times over in contexts which make it quite clear that the correct word should be either letters or characters. Is this a mere oversight or is there some reason for it? — Hippietrail 11:48, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Hi.
Provide an example of animacy?
- Ish ishwar 22:24, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)
Let me have the following short passage as an example.
aasiriyar vakuppaRaiyuL nuzhainthaar. avar uLLE nuzhainthavudan maaNavarkaL ezhunthanar. vaLavan mattum avan arukil ninRu kondiruntha maaNavi kanimozhiyidam pEsik kondirunthaan. naan avanai echarithEn.
The first sentence means that the teacher entered the classroom.
The second sentence can be translated to: As soon as he entered, the students got up.
Note: The article the is a mere artifact of translation as Tamil doesn't have articles.
The third sentence means, Valavan alone was talking to Kanimozhi who was standing next to him.
The fourth sentence means, "I cautioned him".
Think, if formatted and reworded properly, this could go into Tamil language#Examples.
-- Sundar 07:23, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
Before that, we should bring it to a standard format, which is more readable and comprehensive. How about a table? -- Sundar 06:52, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
This section has been moved to Tamil language#Examples in the article itself. Please make any changes there and not here because the version in the article is the latest one. -- Sundar 06:37, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
Note: Please read the gloss that I've given in the section above and try to incorporate that in the table format given below. Feel free to add to/correct my version.
A sample passage in romanised Tamil:
aasiriyar vakuppaRaiyuL nuzhainthaar. avar uLLE nuzhainthavudan maaNavarkaL ezhunthanar. vaLavan mattum than arukil ninRu kondiruntha maaNavi kanimozhiyudan pEsik kondirunthaan. naan avanai echarithEn.
English translation of the passage given above:
The teacher entered the classroom. As soon as he entered, the students got up. Valavan alone was talking to Kanimozhi who was standing next to him. I cautioned him.
Note: Tamil does not have articles. The article the used above is merely an artefact | of translation.
Literal translation:
Teacher classroom-into enter-(past-honorific suffix) He inside enter-with students rose-(past-plural suffix). Valavan alone self nearness-in stood-beginning-was female-student Kanimozhi-with spoke-beginning-was. I him caution-(past-singular suffix).
Word ( romanised) | Translation | Morphemes | Part of speech | Person | Gender | Number | Tense | Remarks |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
aasiriyar | Teacher | aasiriyar | noun | n/a | gender-neutral | honorific plural indicated by suffix ar | n/a | |
vakuppaRaiyuL | inside the class room | vakuppu+aRai+uL | adverb | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | |
nuzhainthaar | entered | nuzhainthaar | verb | third | gender-neutral | honorific plural | past | |
avar | He | avar | pronoun | third | gender-neutral | honorific plural indicated by suffix ar | n/a | |
uLLE | inside | uLLE | adverb | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | |
nuzhainthavudan | upon entering | nuzhaintha + udan | adverb | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | |
maaNavarkaL | students | maaNavarkaL | collective noun | masculine, often used with gender-neutral connotation | plural indicated by suffix aL | n/a | ||
ezhunthanar | got up | ezhunthanar | verb | third | gender-neutral | plural | past | |
VaLavan | VaLavan (name) | VaLavan | Proper noun | n/a | masculine, usually indicated by suffix n | singular | n/a | |
mattum | alone | mattum | adjective | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | |
than | his (self) own | than | pronoun | gender-neutral | singular | n/a | ||
arukil | near | arukil | adverb | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | |
ninRu kondiruntha | standing | ninRu + kondu + iruntha | adverb | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | the adverb has been morphed from a verb because of the incompleteness brought by the terminal a |
maaNavi | student | maaNavi | pronoun | feminine | singular | n/a | ||
kanimozhiyudan | along with Kanimozhi (name of a person) | kanimozhi + udan | adverb | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | the name Kanimozhi literally means sweet language, there are rules that define what (here y) should come in the junction during agglutination |
pEsik kondirunthaan | had been chatting | pEsi + kondu +irunthaan | verb | third | masculine | singular | past perfect tense | continuousness indicated by the incompleteness brought by kondu |
naan | I | naan | pronoun | first person | gender-neutral | singular | n/a | |
avanai | him | avanai | pronoun | third | masculine | singular | n/a | the postposition ai indicates accusative case |
echarithEn | cautioned | echarithEn | verb | first, indicated by suffix En | gender-neutral | singular, plural would be indicated by substituting En with Om | past |
Basically, I've just cleaned up the terminology a little. Inclusion in the eighth schedule to the Indian constitution doesn't make a language an "official" language (See article 343 for the meaning of the term "official language" [7]). I've called it a "nationally recognised language" instead. Also, it is more correct to call Tamil the official language of Tamil Nadu (see Article 345 [8]), so I've changed that. Isn't law fun? - Arvind 15:51, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
ழ pronunciation is unique to Tamil--though Malayalam got the script. Needs discussion or fix. -- Rrjanbiah 05:27, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
[dropping indents] I see where you come from. The article does not claim anything special about zha. Being unique is just notable and doesn't make it special. People in their "overdefensive" mood might feel that this is being claimed as special. I know that "haLegannada" had a similar consonant. I wish people recognise haLegannada's greatness. It's unfortunate (in my opinion) that people didn't have a movement to preserve and protect it.
By the way, that image was added only because featured article eligibility conditions required an image. I'll remove that image if that is your problem. -- Sundar \ talk \ contribs 06:17, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
"Tamil has the longest unbroken literary tradition amongst the Dravidian languages. Tamil tradition dates the oldest works to several millennia ago, but the earliest examples of Tamil writing we have today are in inscriptions from the third century BC, which are written in an adapted form of the Brahmi script."
Is it really fair to include these works as "Tamil literature"? One might as well call it Malayalam literature, as both modern Tamil and Malayalam descended from the language these inscriptions were written in, and would both have an equal claim to being its heir. -- Xiaopo ℑ 12:38, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Shouldn't the reference to the language be then "Thamizh"? I don't know if this tamil vs. thamizh usage has been discussed elsewhere.
Malayalam, spoken by the people of Kerala state - which borders Tamil Nadu - closely resembles Tamil in vocabulary, syntax and script. Hence it is hypothesised to have been evolved arund 800 AD from a dialect of Tamil called Malaithamil (meaning Tamil of the mountains).
Unfortuantely, I don't agree with this sentence and I'll be happy to look at the references if any. IMHO, it is better to leave all dravidian languages as sister languages than to call Malayalam as "Derived languages". For me, it is too vague to see Malaithamil->Malayalam. Also, I don't see such close resemblance of script either; say for example try writing the word Sangamam in Tamil and Malayalam. Usually people in borders picking up other languages easier--someone in South may find some resemblance of Tamil in Malayalam and in north may found some resemblance of Tamil in Telugu/Kannada. This doesn't proves this theory. If you look at Ethnologue report it explains different theory. Also, look at this link -- Rrjanbiah 19:06, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Am sorry about that bit. I was, in part, responsible for that. In a overzealous attempt to 'fill' all sections in the template, and also not to irk other users by dropping a section that was in the article before, I retained that. We should definitely drop that. -- Sundar 04:54, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
IMHO, a more credible etymology for Malayalam would be Malai(hill)+aal(person)+am ie the language of the hill-people. That would also tie in with Tamil names for other languages, which end end with an "am"-vikuthi, as a rule. I agree that Malayalam should not be treated as a Tamil derivative, but as a close sibling, atleast partly because I am bi-lingual in them. Most Tamil derived languages, like that of the Pullar, use kizhakku (lower) and merku (higher) as the names for "east" and "west". Malayalam does not.--
Kingsleyj
02:20, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
Tamil also has two different sub-types of the plural form of the third first person, one of which does not include the listener and the other does.
In modern linguistics, these are called inclusive if they include the listener, and exclusive if they do not. Australian languages, and Pidgins often have this distinction. I think also Papuan languages and some Polynesian languages. — Hippietrail 03:10, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I was always under the impression that malayalam derived from "maNipravALam" - A mix of tamil and sanskrit introduced for poetry by literateurs... It then evolved into what we call malayalam... - ninja
An anonymous user has stated that Tamil is an official language in Malaysia. Article 152(1) of the constitution of Malaysia [9] provides that "the national language shall be the Malay language." I see no mention of Tamil in the constitution. Unless there is some other law that gives Tamil official status, the reference should be removed. Arvind 15:51, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The article currently mixes the Tamil sound system with its alphabet, as if they were the same thing. I believe they should be treated in different sections, since the study of sounds doesn't regard the writing system used to convey those sounds. Since I'm not a professional linguist, I am posting this here instead of making the change myself. What do others think? JoaoRicardo 23:12, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It has been mentioned in the "Dialects" section that the word inge had evolved to unga in some dialects of Jaffna. It is not correct. In fact inge has become inga or ingai. unga is also used in Jaffna, as a varient of word unge, which is a word used in old Tamil together with inge and ange.
Regarding the Tamil technical terminology I feel it would be appropriate to mention the work of the Government of Sri Lanka. As the medium of education in Sri Lankan schools had been mother tongue for a long time, one of the earliest and systematic work on creating and publishing technical terminology was undertaken by the Department of Education in Sri Lanka as early as mid 1950s. We can see part of this work related to science in Tamil Virtual University web site.
The reason given for the name Aayutha Ezhuththu not convincing. - Mayooranathan 19:19, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Sorry for giving comments in installments. Regarding vattezhuththu, it has been mentioned that it evolved around 15th century. I do not have much knowledge on this matter. However I came across a web page a few hours ago which states, vattezhuththu was in use between 6th to 10th centuries in Pandya and Chera countries. It seems that it went out of use during Raja Raja Chola's time following standardization if Tamil script. See this site which gives an image of vattezhuththu table. http://www.geocities.com/jaybee2741/anaimalai_vattelzuththu_inscription1.html
Further related to the changes made to Tamil Script, some major changes have been made in early 18th century by Veeramaamunivar (Constantine Beschi). He introduced "iraddaik kombu", "dots" above pure consonets and the horizontal under stroke for short vowel 'e' to represent long 'E' vowel, which were not available in Tamil script those days. Mayooranathan 09:52, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Could someone who knows Tamil please tell me if the Tamil etymology given for falafel on that page is possible? "Fa ("worked of, made of"), La (many, lots), Fel (bread crumbs)." I am suspicious of it because the person who first added it thought it was ancient Egyptian, and I have found another etymology that traces it through Arabic to Sanskrit. Thanks. Lesgles 15:48, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)
If any of you watching this page is interested please have a look at Talk:Tamil people#Important proposal. -- Sundar ( talk · contribs) 05:37, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. -- Paddu 10:40, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Puthiya aandil en pon vaazhthukkal to every Tamil lover! So many interesting things are being discussed here. I have added this to my Watchlist. Swami Vimokshananda 10:08, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Tamil is a null subject language. Not all Tamil sentences have subjects, verbs and objects. It is possible to construct valid sentences that have only a verb - such as muṭintuviṭṭatu ("It is completed") - or only a subject and object, such as atu eṉ vīṭu ("That is my house"). The elements that are present, however, must follow the SOV order.
Quote:
I am confused regarding the description of the Tamil translation of "that is my house" including no Verb, as the English phrase DOES have a verb - the word "is". Would I be right in assuming that the Tamil phrase "atu eṉ vīṭu" does not include an equivalent of the English word "is"? If so, the section in brackets would be more accurately put as a more literal translation - ("That my house") - with a brief explanation following this. I will not edit the section myself as I do not know Tamil, so cannot be sure my assumptions are correct, but leave it to someone more knowledgable.
I wonder why the images of the book material in the article reflect christianity? Why not put images of the famous tamil literary works? -- RC 18:16, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)
It's mentioned in the article that 'Izh' is unique to Tamil and Malayalam. I suppose there was an equivalent consonant in Kannada too. Atleast it was used till 12th or 13th century Kannada works. It's written like 'w' with starting and ending parts curved inside. I suppose there were three types of 'L' in Kannada centuries back. RaLa, KshaLa and KuLa. I linguist might give a better insight.
-- Manjunatha (22 Aug 2005 14:18 IST)
--anon
Well, I'm not sure how a person(even a native speaker) could pronounce a letter which is extinct from the vocabulary for the last 800 years. I'm a Malayalee but born and brought up in Karnataka and I can't pronounce 'zh' 'rh' letters of Malayalam. My impression was since Kannada also part of a Dravidian languages, the letters that have become extinct but closely resemble some of the letters of other Dravidian languages could have similar manner of articulation. I guess, now nobody can pronouce it, so I drop the topic as irrelevent. -- Manjunatha (25 Aug 2005 )
I see that User:Sundar has removed the IndicText template and placed it on the talk page. What is the consensus for placing the template? The reason it was added was that many anoymous IPs change the text so that it looks correct on computers without complex text support. They are well intentioned but I doubt many of them would read the talk page.
So my proposal is to put it in a prominant position on the main language pages and on pages where there is lots of Indic text. It does NOT need to be on every page using Indic text. What are other people's views on this?
Ideally we should have it on the edit screen, but with the current wiki software that is not possible.
Either way I think it'd be a good idea to have consistant method - i.e. either all on the main pages or all on the talk pages. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 15:07, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
An anon was trying to add the following material under the classification section repeatedly from different IPs. I've reverted it pending discussion for the reasons stated below. Since, I've already reverted twice, I leave it to the judgment of other editors and admins to revert him/her.
Anon's addition:
Michel Danino the French Lady, who has adopted Thamizh culture, in her elaborate study of Thamizh and Thamizh culture exposes the hollowness of "Convenient History Story Writers" who take elaborate pains to divorce Thamizh from Samskrit and Vedic Culture. In the webpage http://micheldanino.voiceofdharma.com/tamilculture.html such hypocrisy is analyzed and thoroughly exposed. To quote a part of her wondrous thesis "...It is unfortunate that the most ancient Sangam compositions are probably lost for ever; we only know of them through brief quotations in later works. An early text, the Tamil grammar Tolkappiyam, dated by most scholars to the first or second century AD, [*] is “said to have been modeled on the Sanskrit grammar of the Aindra School.”[32] Its content, says N. Raghunathan, shows that “the great literature of Sanskrit and the work of its grammarians and rhetoricians were well known and provided stimulus to creative writers in Tamil.... The Tolkappiyam adopts the entire Rasa theory as worked out in the Natya Sastra of Bharata.”[33] It also refers to rituals and customs coming from the “Aryans,” a word which in Sangam literature simply means North Indians of Vedic culture; for instance, the Tolkappiyam “states definitely that marriage as a sacrament attended with ritual was established in the Tamil country by the Aryas,”[34] and it uses the same eight forms of marriage found in the Dharmashastras. Moreover, it mentions the caste system or “fourfold jathis” in the form of “Brahmins, Kings, Vaishyas and Vellalas,”[35] and calls Vedic mantras “the exalted expression of great sages.”[36]"
Reasons for reverting:
Please discuss here before adding anything from here to the article. -- Sundar \ talk \ contribs 10:05, September 3, 2005 (UTC)
Purananoorru is on AfD. Please comment on it and if possible, copyedit the article. Tintin Talk 19:56, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
It is one of the classical languages of the world, with rich literature spanning over 2000 years, making it arguably the oldest living language.
Prof George Hart's (Unive of Berkeley, CA, USA) recent speech on Tamil will hit the nail on the head !
"The status of Tamil as one of the great classical languages of the world is something that is patently obvious to anyone who knows the subject. To deny that Tamil is a classical language is to deny a vital and central part of the greatness and richness of Indian culture." See link below: http://tamil.berkeley.edu/Tamil%20Chair/TamilClassicalLanguage/TamilClassicalLgeLtr.html
Recently, someone edited Tamil to contain the claim that written Tamil extends back 5000 years, oh and that Tamil _is_ proto-Dravidian. This is quite impressive because it would mean it predates the Indus Valley Civilization, and also written Sanskrit, and probably Brahmic scripts. Meanwhile, in reality, I can find the following cites easily, just from google
Kannada, Tamil, and Malayalam." [2]
There are some invisible sentences in the page Tamil language which turn up when you edit the whole page but that are not visible in the main page. They are preceded and succeeded by some strange signs like arrows. So when I edit a particular section in the area where the invisible sentences are, they edit those sentences rather than the ones I want. These sentences are on language in general, so is this a bug /error or a content error? KRS 10:22, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Yes, it is desirable behaviour. -- Sundar 04:13, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)
It seems to have removed the "old" issue from the page after Brion's and Morwen's rant. The page should at least have the note that "Few historians and linguists believe that Tamil is one of the surviving older language"---incase if you prefer more NPOV.
It is widely accepted the fact that Tamil is one of the older languages and a parent language of many dravidian languages. No need to hide the truth because of those rants.-- Rrjanbiah 07:41, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
"...one of the older languages.." --that depends on how you define old...if u compare it to sanskrit, or chinese or egyptian...tamil is relatively new....if you compare it to maybe...say hindi or urdu...tamil is old...but then for that matter..so is kannada, telugu, tuLu and a zillion other languages...
"...parent language of many dravidian languages..." --- says who?? just because the Tamil Nadu govt., prints textbooks where it teaches this to its children(u probably are one of them...) doesnt make it FACT.
u recommend that u read Dr.B.G.L.Swamy's "tamiLu talegaLa naDuve"
There are a couple of very strange paragraphs, from a linguistic point of view:
Tamil Literature spans 2500 years. This language was the first to develop a distinct prose form of writing among the classical languages of the world.
This really should be in Tamil literature, not here.
Tamil seems to have undergone minimal changes and adaptations over the years. Classical Tamil is quite comprehensible to speakers of the modern language. The ancient Tamil book Tirukkural is an example. The verses from the book are often taught to young students of the language at the primary level, and they pick up the lines in the ancient dialect with little difficulty.
I have serious doubts about this sentence. No language in the world has escaped drastic phonological drift and semantic drift, no matter how classical it is, no matter how rigidly its literary tradition is passed on, or how strictly and universally education is carried out. Those drifts generally occur outside the context of literature or education, and often slowly and without anyone realizing it or paying much attention.
I'll explain with an example: There's a similar case with Chinese -- the quotes of Confucius, from 2000+ years ago, have been for centuries drilled into the minds of young children, and they understand it quite easily. But that doesn't mean that Chinese has not changed -- it has changed as much as any other language. It's just that all the phonological changes since Confucius have been cloaked by the writing system, leaving just the grammar and vocabulary changes, which aren't that significant any more in comparison. In other words, young children of today read Confucius' words with their own pronunciations, not that of Confucius -- this is why they can read it with relative ease. If Confucius came back alive, his speech would be as foreign to a modern Chinese as Russian or Swahili.
Or how about Arabic? Modern Standard Arabic, the variety spoken in formal contexts, is very similar to the Arabic of the Koran 1500 years ago; but the actual spoken dialects of Arabic are completely different things altogether. 1500 years of evolution separate the two -- the fact that Koranic Arabic has been taught to Arab children for 1500 years, or that the literary formal langauge has changed little in 1500 years, does not change the fact that spoken Arabic, the language alive and spoken among the people, has shifted nearly as much as any other language (though it may be less than other Dravidian languages). And again, we have the script as a "cloak" upon the actual changes in phonology that have taken place.
I've been googling a bit on the internet ( [3] [4] [5]) and it seems that Tamil is just like Arabic or Chinese -- the language has changed much, but a conservative literary tradition has preserved a script that cloaks many of these changes and therefore makes the ancient language "feel" much closer to everyday people than most other languages in the world.
Malayalam developed from a dialect of Tamil called Koduntamil or Malaithamil (literally Tamil of the mountains), spoken by the people around the hilly ranges bordering Kerala and Tamil Nadu states.
Like biological species, languages don't derive horizontally -- they derive vertically. Thus we have humans and monkeys deriving from ancient apes, and ancient apes deriving from opossum-like mammals; we don't have humans deriving from monkeys or monkeys deriving from opossums. Similarly, Malayalam probably derived from Old Tamil (or a dialect of Old Tamil), but it would be strange and inaccurate to suggest that Malayalam derives from Tamil. Malayalam and Tamil hold the same relationship to Old Tamil as French and Italian hold to Latin -- as descendents of a common, more ancient language. And as such I think this should be explicitly stated, and the title "derived languages" should be changed. -- ran 05:41, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)
May anbody watching this page be so kind to have a look at Talk:Grantha? -- Pjacobi 07:59, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The article is 90% history and trivia (e.g. the awfully long list of dialects). Details on actual grammar and phonology would be necesary. -- Circeus 00:28, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
Not history and trivia....this article like all tamilians' hashish induced theories is 90% mythology and 10% lies.
Man!! they're reducing it to a joke...every time u read a column about tamil and its 'antiquity', its gone back a couple of hundred years!! amusing yes, but it gets irritating after a point.
and the less said the better about all their claims of having given birth to kannada, telugu, malayalam, swahili, aramaic, chinese(did i leave anything out??)....
Read Dr. B.G.L.Swamy's book "TamiLu talegaLa naDuve" for more details. In that book he, takes up each of the tamilians' claims (yes, hashish induced), dissects them and finally diproves them.
YES!! THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO PROOF FOR ANY OF THESE CLAIMS....THESE CLAIMS ARE JUST A SET OF LIES AGREED UPON!!!
could go on...but then...huh..
Please see the section below. -- Sundar 10:41, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
I've copyedited, added new stuff on major sections, adapted the material to suit Wikipedia:WikiProject Language Template and added an image of zhakaram at User:Sundar/Tamil language. I'm now making the change to the current article. See this edit. Please feel free to refine it further so that this can be made into a featured article. -- Sundar 10:15, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
Please feel free to add any tasks that have to be done to improve the quality of this article. Once again, Kudos to Sundar for the great work. Needs comment from non-native speakers.
Both this article and Tolkaappiyam use the word alphabets in the plural sever times over in contexts which make it quite clear that the correct word should be either letters or characters. Is this a mere oversight or is there some reason for it? — Hippietrail 11:48, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Hi.
Provide an example of animacy?
- Ish ishwar 22:24, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)
Let me have the following short passage as an example.
aasiriyar vakuppaRaiyuL nuzhainthaar. avar uLLE nuzhainthavudan maaNavarkaL ezhunthanar. vaLavan mattum avan arukil ninRu kondiruntha maaNavi kanimozhiyidam pEsik kondirunthaan. naan avanai echarithEn.
The first sentence means that the teacher entered the classroom.
The second sentence can be translated to: As soon as he entered, the students got up.
Note: The article the is a mere artifact of translation as Tamil doesn't have articles.
The third sentence means, Valavan alone was talking to Kanimozhi who was standing next to him.
The fourth sentence means, "I cautioned him".
Think, if formatted and reworded properly, this could go into Tamil language#Examples.
-- Sundar 07:23, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
Before that, we should bring it to a standard format, which is more readable and comprehensive. How about a table? -- Sundar 06:52, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
This section has been moved to Tamil language#Examples in the article itself. Please make any changes there and not here because the version in the article is the latest one. -- Sundar 06:37, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
Note: Please read the gloss that I've given in the section above and try to incorporate that in the table format given below. Feel free to add to/correct my version.
A sample passage in romanised Tamil:
aasiriyar vakuppaRaiyuL nuzhainthaar. avar uLLE nuzhainthavudan maaNavarkaL ezhunthanar. vaLavan mattum than arukil ninRu kondiruntha maaNavi kanimozhiyudan pEsik kondirunthaan. naan avanai echarithEn.
English translation of the passage given above:
The teacher entered the classroom. As soon as he entered, the students got up. Valavan alone was talking to Kanimozhi who was standing next to him. I cautioned him.
Note: Tamil does not have articles. The article the used above is merely an artefact | of translation.
Literal translation:
Teacher classroom-into enter-(past-honorific suffix) He inside enter-with students rose-(past-plural suffix). Valavan alone self nearness-in stood-beginning-was female-student Kanimozhi-with spoke-beginning-was. I him caution-(past-singular suffix).
Word ( romanised) | Translation | Morphemes | Part of speech | Person | Gender | Number | Tense | Remarks |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
aasiriyar | Teacher | aasiriyar | noun | n/a | gender-neutral | honorific plural indicated by suffix ar | n/a | |
vakuppaRaiyuL | inside the class room | vakuppu+aRai+uL | adverb | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | |
nuzhainthaar | entered | nuzhainthaar | verb | third | gender-neutral | honorific plural | past | |
avar | He | avar | pronoun | third | gender-neutral | honorific plural indicated by suffix ar | n/a | |
uLLE | inside | uLLE | adverb | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | |
nuzhainthavudan | upon entering | nuzhaintha + udan | adverb | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | |
maaNavarkaL | students | maaNavarkaL | collective noun | masculine, often used with gender-neutral connotation | plural indicated by suffix aL | n/a | ||
ezhunthanar | got up | ezhunthanar | verb | third | gender-neutral | plural | past | |
VaLavan | VaLavan (name) | VaLavan | Proper noun | n/a | masculine, usually indicated by suffix n | singular | n/a | |
mattum | alone | mattum | adjective | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | |
than | his (self) own | than | pronoun | gender-neutral | singular | n/a | ||
arukil | near | arukil | adverb | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | |
ninRu kondiruntha | standing | ninRu + kondu + iruntha | adverb | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | the adverb has been morphed from a verb because of the incompleteness brought by the terminal a |
maaNavi | student | maaNavi | pronoun | feminine | singular | n/a | ||
kanimozhiyudan | along with Kanimozhi (name of a person) | kanimozhi + udan | adverb | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | the name Kanimozhi literally means sweet language, there are rules that define what (here y) should come in the junction during agglutination |
pEsik kondirunthaan | had been chatting | pEsi + kondu +irunthaan | verb | third | masculine | singular | past perfect tense | continuousness indicated by the incompleteness brought by kondu |
naan | I | naan | pronoun | first person | gender-neutral | singular | n/a | |
avanai | him | avanai | pronoun | third | masculine | singular | n/a | the postposition ai indicates accusative case |
echarithEn | cautioned | echarithEn | verb | first, indicated by suffix En | gender-neutral | singular, plural would be indicated by substituting En with Om | past |
Basically, I've just cleaned up the terminology a little. Inclusion in the eighth schedule to the Indian constitution doesn't make a language an "official" language (See article 343 for the meaning of the term "official language" [7]). I've called it a "nationally recognised language" instead. Also, it is more correct to call Tamil the official language of Tamil Nadu (see Article 345 [8]), so I've changed that. Isn't law fun? - Arvind 15:51, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
ழ pronunciation is unique to Tamil--though Malayalam got the script. Needs discussion or fix. -- Rrjanbiah 05:27, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
[dropping indents] I see where you come from. The article does not claim anything special about zha. Being unique is just notable and doesn't make it special. People in their "overdefensive" mood might feel that this is being claimed as special. I know that "haLegannada" had a similar consonant. I wish people recognise haLegannada's greatness. It's unfortunate (in my opinion) that people didn't have a movement to preserve and protect it.
By the way, that image was added only because featured article eligibility conditions required an image. I'll remove that image if that is your problem. -- Sundar \ talk \ contribs 06:17, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
"Tamil has the longest unbroken literary tradition amongst the Dravidian languages. Tamil tradition dates the oldest works to several millennia ago, but the earliest examples of Tamil writing we have today are in inscriptions from the third century BC, which are written in an adapted form of the Brahmi script."
Is it really fair to include these works as "Tamil literature"? One might as well call it Malayalam literature, as both modern Tamil and Malayalam descended from the language these inscriptions were written in, and would both have an equal claim to being its heir. -- Xiaopo ℑ 12:38, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Shouldn't the reference to the language be then "Thamizh"? I don't know if this tamil vs. thamizh usage has been discussed elsewhere.
Malayalam, spoken by the people of Kerala state - which borders Tamil Nadu - closely resembles Tamil in vocabulary, syntax and script. Hence it is hypothesised to have been evolved arund 800 AD from a dialect of Tamil called Malaithamil (meaning Tamil of the mountains).
Unfortuantely, I don't agree with this sentence and I'll be happy to look at the references if any. IMHO, it is better to leave all dravidian languages as sister languages than to call Malayalam as "Derived languages". For me, it is too vague to see Malaithamil->Malayalam. Also, I don't see such close resemblance of script either; say for example try writing the word Sangamam in Tamil and Malayalam. Usually people in borders picking up other languages easier--someone in South may find some resemblance of Tamil in Malayalam and in north may found some resemblance of Tamil in Telugu/Kannada. This doesn't proves this theory. If you look at Ethnologue report it explains different theory. Also, look at this link -- Rrjanbiah 19:06, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Am sorry about that bit. I was, in part, responsible for that. In a overzealous attempt to 'fill' all sections in the template, and also not to irk other users by dropping a section that was in the article before, I retained that. We should definitely drop that. -- Sundar 04:54, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
IMHO, a more credible etymology for Malayalam would be Malai(hill)+aal(person)+am ie the language of the hill-people. That would also tie in with Tamil names for other languages, which end end with an "am"-vikuthi, as a rule. I agree that Malayalam should not be treated as a Tamil derivative, but as a close sibling, atleast partly because I am bi-lingual in them. Most Tamil derived languages, like that of the Pullar, use kizhakku (lower) and merku (higher) as the names for "east" and "west". Malayalam does not.--
Kingsleyj
02:20, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
Tamil also has two different sub-types of the plural form of the third first person, one of which does not include the listener and the other does.
In modern linguistics, these are called inclusive if they include the listener, and exclusive if they do not. Australian languages, and Pidgins often have this distinction. I think also Papuan languages and some Polynesian languages. — Hippietrail 03:10, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I was always under the impression that malayalam derived from "maNipravALam" - A mix of tamil and sanskrit introduced for poetry by literateurs... It then evolved into what we call malayalam... - ninja
An anonymous user has stated that Tamil is an official language in Malaysia. Article 152(1) of the constitution of Malaysia [9] provides that "the national language shall be the Malay language." I see no mention of Tamil in the constitution. Unless there is some other law that gives Tamil official status, the reference should be removed. Arvind 15:51, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The article currently mixes the Tamil sound system with its alphabet, as if they were the same thing. I believe they should be treated in different sections, since the study of sounds doesn't regard the writing system used to convey those sounds. Since I'm not a professional linguist, I am posting this here instead of making the change myself. What do others think? JoaoRicardo 23:12, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It has been mentioned in the "Dialects" section that the word inge had evolved to unga in some dialects of Jaffna. It is not correct. In fact inge has become inga or ingai. unga is also used in Jaffna, as a varient of word unge, which is a word used in old Tamil together with inge and ange.
Regarding the Tamil technical terminology I feel it would be appropriate to mention the work of the Government of Sri Lanka. As the medium of education in Sri Lankan schools had been mother tongue for a long time, one of the earliest and systematic work on creating and publishing technical terminology was undertaken by the Department of Education in Sri Lanka as early as mid 1950s. We can see part of this work related to science in Tamil Virtual University web site.
The reason given for the name Aayutha Ezhuththu not convincing. - Mayooranathan 19:19, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Sorry for giving comments in installments. Regarding vattezhuththu, it has been mentioned that it evolved around 15th century. I do not have much knowledge on this matter. However I came across a web page a few hours ago which states, vattezhuththu was in use between 6th to 10th centuries in Pandya and Chera countries. It seems that it went out of use during Raja Raja Chola's time following standardization if Tamil script. See this site which gives an image of vattezhuththu table. http://www.geocities.com/jaybee2741/anaimalai_vattelzuththu_inscription1.html
Further related to the changes made to Tamil Script, some major changes have been made in early 18th century by Veeramaamunivar (Constantine Beschi). He introduced "iraddaik kombu", "dots" above pure consonets and the horizontal under stroke for short vowel 'e' to represent long 'E' vowel, which were not available in Tamil script those days. Mayooranathan 09:52, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Could someone who knows Tamil please tell me if the Tamil etymology given for falafel on that page is possible? "Fa ("worked of, made of"), La (many, lots), Fel (bread crumbs)." I am suspicious of it because the person who first added it thought it was ancient Egyptian, and I have found another etymology that traces it through Arabic to Sanskrit. Thanks. Lesgles 15:48, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)
If any of you watching this page is interested please have a look at Talk:Tamil people#Important proposal. -- Sundar ( talk · contribs) 05:37, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. -- Paddu 10:40, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Puthiya aandil en pon vaazhthukkal to every Tamil lover! So many interesting things are being discussed here. I have added this to my Watchlist. Swami Vimokshananda 10:08, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Tamil is a null subject language. Not all Tamil sentences have subjects, verbs and objects. It is possible to construct valid sentences that have only a verb - such as muṭintuviṭṭatu ("It is completed") - or only a subject and object, such as atu eṉ vīṭu ("That is my house"). The elements that are present, however, must follow the SOV order.
Quote:
I am confused regarding the description of the Tamil translation of "that is my house" including no Verb, as the English phrase DOES have a verb - the word "is". Would I be right in assuming that the Tamil phrase "atu eṉ vīṭu" does not include an equivalent of the English word "is"? If so, the section in brackets would be more accurately put as a more literal translation - ("That my house") - with a brief explanation following this. I will not edit the section myself as I do not know Tamil, so cannot be sure my assumptions are correct, but leave it to someone more knowledgable.
I wonder why the images of the book material in the article reflect christianity? Why not put images of the famous tamil literary works? -- RC 18:16, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)
It's mentioned in the article that 'Izh' is unique to Tamil and Malayalam. I suppose there was an equivalent consonant in Kannada too. Atleast it was used till 12th or 13th century Kannada works. It's written like 'w' with starting and ending parts curved inside. I suppose there were three types of 'L' in Kannada centuries back. RaLa, KshaLa and KuLa. I linguist might give a better insight.
-- Manjunatha (22 Aug 2005 14:18 IST)
--anon
Well, I'm not sure how a person(even a native speaker) could pronounce a letter which is extinct from the vocabulary for the last 800 years. I'm a Malayalee but born and brought up in Karnataka and I can't pronounce 'zh' 'rh' letters of Malayalam. My impression was since Kannada also part of a Dravidian languages, the letters that have become extinct but closely resemble some of the letters of other Dravidian languages could have similar manner of articulation. I guess, now nobody can pronouce it, so I drop the topic as irrelevent. -- Manjunatha (25 Aug 2005 )
I see that User:Sundar has removed the IndicText template and placed it on the talk page. What is the consensus for placing the template? The reason it was added was that many anoymous IPs change the text so that it looks correct on computers without complex text support. They are well intentioned but I doubt many of them would read the talk page.
So my proposal is to put it in a prominant position on the main language pages and on pages where there is lots of Indic text. It does NOT need to be on every page using Indic text. What are other people's views on this?
Ideally we should have it on the edit screen, but with the current wiki software that is not possible.
Either way I think it'd be a good idea to have consistant method - i.e. either all on the main pages or all on the talk pages. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 15:07, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
An anon was trying to add the following material under the classification section repeatedly from different IPs. I've reverted it pending discussion for the reasons stated below. Since, I've already reverted twice, I leave it to the judgment of other editors and admins to revert him/her.
Anon's addition:
Michel Danino the French Lady, who has adopted Thamizh culture, in her elaborate study of Thamizh and Thamizh culture exposes the hollowness of "Convenient History Story Writers" who take elaborate pains to divorce Thamizh from Samskrit and Vedic Culture. In the webpage http://micheldanino.voiceofdharma.com/tamilculture.html such hypocrisy is analyzed and thoroughly exposed. To quote a part of her wondrous thesis "...It is unfortunate that the most ancient Sangam compositions are probably lost for ever; we only know of them through brief quotations in later works. An early text, the Tamil grammar Tolkappiyam, dated by most scholars to the first or second century AD, [*] is “said to have been modeled on the Sanskrit grammar of the Aindra School.”[32] Its content, says N. Raghunathan, shows that “the great literature of Sanskrit and the work of its grammarians and rhetoricians were well known and provided stimulus to creative writers in Tamil.... The Tolkappiyam adopts the entire Rasa theory as worked out in the Natya Sastra of Bharata.”[33] It also refers to rituals and customs coming from the “Aryans,” a word which in Sangam literature simply means North Indians of Vedic culture; for instance, the Tolkappiyam “states definitely that marriage as a sacrament attended with ritual was established in the Tamil country by the Aryas,”[34] and it uses the same eight forms of marriage found in the Dharmashastras. Moreover, it mentions the caste system or “fourfold jathis” in the form of “Brahmins, Kings, Vaishyas and Vellalas,”[35] and calls Vedic mantras “the exalted expression of great sages.”[36]"
Reasons for reverting:
Please discuss here before adding anything from here to the article. -- Sundar \ talk \ contribs 10:05, September 3, 2005 (UTC)
Purananoorru is on AfD. Please comment on it and if possible, copyedit the article. Tintin Talk 19:56, 8 January 2006 (UTC)