Malayalam

“ According to the census of 1901, the total number of Tamil-speaking people in all India was 16,525,500. To these should be added about 160,000 in the French possessions. But as of all the Dravidian languages the Tamil shows the greatest tendency to spread, its area becomes ever larger, encroaching on that of the contiguous languages. Tamil is a sister of Malayâḷam, Telugu, Kanarese, Tulu; and, as it is the oldest, richest, and most highly organized of the Dravidian languages, it may be looked upon as typical of the family to which it belongs. ”

“ In the quotations following, those under A apply, or may apply, to the proper people or language of Malabar (see MALAYALAM) ; those under B are instances of the misapplication to Tamil, a misapplication which was general (see e.g. in Orme, passim) down to the beginning of the last century, and which still holds among the more ignorant Europeans and Eurasians in S. India and Ceylon. ”

“ But practically the earliest extant records of the Tamil language do not ascend higher than the middle of the 8th century of the Christian era, the grant in possession of the Israelites at Cochin being assigned by the late Dr Burnell to about 750 A.D., a period when Malayâḷam did not exist yet as a separate language. There is every probability that about the same time a number of Tamil works sprung up, which are mentioned by a writer in the 11th century as representing the old literature (Burnell, loc. cit., p. 127, note) . ”

“ They are reported to have an elaborate system of caste government, under which eleven villages form a gadistalam (or stage) , and send representatives to its council to settle caste matters; and eleven gadistalams form a nādu (or country) , and send representatives to a chief council, which decides questions which are beyond the competence of the gadistalams.” The occurrence of Malayām as the name of a sub-division, and of the Malayālam word illam as that of the exogamous septs, would seem to indicate that the Panikkans are immigrants from the westward into the Tamil country. ”

“ Dr Pope, however, believed Tamil to be a corruption of tenmoli, southern speech, in contradistinction to vaḍugu, the northern, i.e., Telugu language. As in the case of the Kafir, Turkish, Tagala and other typical languages, the term Tamulic or Tamulian has occasionally been employed as the designation of the whole class of Dravidian peoples and languages, of which it is only the most prominent member. The present article deals with Tamil in its restricted sense only. The Tamils proper are smaller and of weaker build than Europeans, though graceful in shape. ”

“ A familiarity with the spoken Telugu as already alluded to, gives so little aid in reading the superior language used in poems, that some have hence imagined the latter to be obsolete: just as the Telugus, Canarese or Tamils, however fluent in colloquial English, are unable to read English poems; which we look upon as perfectly easy. And yet their poets are read with delight by persons of ordinary education: a fact which led me to the conclusion that the “high or Sanscrit dialect” was neither obsolete nor in general pedantic. ”

“ The second word is Tamil simply for a woman or female, in ordinary acceptation. The word for earth, is one designating place or locality; and, derived from Sanscrit (if not adopted by it) , runs through most of the Hindu languages, with dialectic variations. The word for fire, corresponds nearly with the Tamil (Tamil characters) tanal, great heat. The word for tree at first embarrassed me; but it is evidently only a dialectic variation of the Tamil (Tamil characters) maram, a tree. ”

“ I have mentioned before, that according to the Dravidian traditions, all the dominant tribes of S. India migrated from Northern provinces to Peninsular India. It is a distinct and a definite characteristic of essential nature, in the Tamil language, that an initial of a word can never be formed of double consonants, and compound letters formed of consonants different Varga can occur nowhere in a word. If we refer the changes under consideration to the essential peculiarities of the Tamil speech, our problem will be solved. ”

“ The Telugu-speaking peoples are partly subjects of the nizam of Hyderabad and partly under British rule, beginning north of Madras city and extending N.W. to Bellary, where Telugu meets Kanarese, and N.E. to near Orissa. They are taller and fairer than the Tamils, otherwise they are of typical Dravidian features. They are an enterprising people, good farmers and skilful seamen. They formed the greater part of the early Madras or “coast” army, whence sepoys even in Bengal were formerly called telingas. In 1901 the number of speakers of Telugu in all India was nearly twenty one millions. ”

“ But, as compared with its literary sister languages, it has preserved its Dravidian character singularly free from foreign influence. Of Tamil words which have found a permanent home in English may be mentioned curry, (kaṛi) , mulligatawny (milagu, pepper, and taṇṇîr, cool water) , cheroot (suruttu) , pariah (paṛeiyan) .
The laws of euphony (avoiding of hiatus, softening of initial consonants, contact of final with initial consonants) are far more complicated in Tamil than in Sanskrit. ”

“ Tamil, Tamul.
Dravidian: dialect of the Carnatic, South India, and closely allied to Canarese, Malayalim, and Telugu or Telinga; it is also spoken in parts of Ceylon. It is agglutinative, is spoken in dialects called High and Low Tamil, and uses an alphabet said to be derived from the Devanagri. There is also an archaic dialect, now extinct. Grammar by Pope, Madras, 1859; Dictionary by Winslow, Madras, 1862.
Tamoiae, Tamoyo.
American: Tupi Indians of Brazil, near Rio de Janeiro. Also called Tummimioi (Tummimivi in Jülg’s “Vater.”) ”

“ The word for eyes is Tamil, with a slight difference in the plural termination, as before noticed. The word for ear in Sanscrit is srava, in Telugu, sevata, in Tamil sevi, in the Todar dialect of the Neilgherries kevi, in the Khoond dialect, crìvu, in Tamil the word hearing is கெள்வி kelvi shewing that s is changeable into k, as is indeed the case with some other words. ”

“ Tamil is the language of southern India, and is used here by the Moormen as well as by the Tamils proper. There is a Portuguese patois still spoken by European descendants and half-breeds, while the Dutch language is quite unknown, though that people remained here nearly a century and a half after the Portuguese were driven out of the island. The English tongue is becoming more and more common in all populous centres like Colombo, Trincomalee, Kandy, and Point de Galle. The Singhalese are nearly always Buddhists, while the Tamils, as a people, are Hindus. ”

“ In fact, in the ancient Tamil classical works, the terms relating to Music, Grammar, Astronomy and even abstract Philosophy are of pure Tamil origin; and they indicate most clearly that those sciences were cultivated by the Tamils long before the arrival of the Brahmins or other Aryan immigrants. The Tamils obtained a knowledge of these sciences most probably from China, through Bengal or Burma, with both of which countries they had direct and constant intercourse. ”

“ In the 8th century the Vaṭṭel̤uttu existed side by side and together with the Grantha, an ancient alphabet still used throughout the Tamil country in writing Sanskrit. During the four or five centuries after the conquest of Madura by the Cholas in the 11th it was gradually superseded in the Tamil country by the modern Tamil, while in Malabar it continued in general use down to the end of the 17th century. But the earliest works of Tamil literature, such as the Tolkâppiyam and the Kuṛaḷ, were still written in it. ”

“ Where nomadic tribes approach to a political organization, their language, though Turanian, may approach to the system of political or traditional languages, such as Sanskrit or Hebrew. This is indeed the case with the most advanced members of the Turanian family, the Hungarian, the Finnish, the Tamil, Telugu, &c. Many of their grammatical terminations have suffered by phonetic corruption, but they have not been replaced by new and more expressive words. The termination of the plural is lu in Telugu, and this is probably a mere corruption of gaḷ., the termination of the plural in Tamil. ”

“ I was talking to her grandmother then, a very remarkable old lady. She could repeat page after page from their beloved classics, and rather than let me sing Christian stanzas to her and explain them, she preferred to sing Hindu stanzas to me and explain them. "Consider the age of our great Religion, consider its literature—millions of stanzas! What can you have to compare with it? These ignorant people about us do not appreciate things. They know nothing of the classics; as for the language, the depths of Tamil are beyond [220] them—is it not a shoreless sea?" ”

“ By language-masters this epic of Suomi, descending unwritten from the mythical age to the present day, kept alive from generation to generation by minstrels, or song-men, is regarded as one of the most precious contributions to the literature of the world, made since the time of Milton and the German classics. ”

“ Though traces of a north Indian influence are palpable in all of them that have come down to us (see, e.g., F. W. Ellis's notes to the Kuṛaḷ) , we can at the same time perceive, as we must certainly appreciate, the desire of the authors to oppose the influence of Brahmanical writings, and create a literature that should rival Sanskrit books and appeal to the sentiments of the people at large. But the refinement of the poetical language, as adapted to the genius of Tamil, has been carried to greater excess than in Sanskrit ”

“ I have also said how words of foreign origin may simulate the appearance of Aryan words, and how by comparing the roots and idioms of different languages we have to determine the real character of the words. Some additional examples are adduced here to make the matter convincing. কটু, কুটি, or কুটীর, কুটুম্ব, and খট্টা, are words without roots in the Sanskrit language, while they are found well-rooted in the Tamil speech and they are there in the company of many words derived from their living roots. ”

“ The men's langútis, on the other hand, are not the inadequate rags in use in the Tamil country, but broad and flowing affairs which often reach to their knees both before and behind, and the ends of which flap about so much that they are often tucked into the waist-string. The men are less particular about wearing a turban than in the south and the women follow the Tamil fashion of dispensing with the tight-fitting bodice. ”

“ The native running hand need not be studied till a considerable knowledge of the language has been acquired.
4. When learning to read and to speak Tamil, the greatest attention must be paid to pronunciation. There are several sounds which do not exist in English; and the meaning of a word not unfrequently depends upon the hard or soft pronunciation of a consonant. Mark carefully the teacher's pronunciation; repeat each letter and each word after him several times; and speak clearly, distinctly, in a loud voice, and with the head well up, and the shoulders thrown back. ”

“ Though unfortunately my knowledge of Tamil was so slight that I could not follow his conversation and had to take advantage139 of the services of a friend as interpreter, still it was easy to see what a remarkable vigor and command of language the fellow had, what power of concentration on the subject in hand, and what a wealth of reference—especially citation from ancient authorities—wherewith to illustrate his discourse.
Everything in the East is different from the West, and so are the methods of teaching. Teaching in the East is entirely authoritative and traditional. ”

“ From a careful study of ancient Tamil poems, I am led to think that some of the earliest works were undoubtedly composed more than two thousand years ago, and that the Tamil people acquired wealth and civilisation at this early period by their commercial intercourse with foreign nations such as the Arabs, Greeks, Romans and Japanese. With the advance of their material prosperity, there was a sudden stimulus to their literary activity. The Augustan period of Tamil literature was, I should say, in the first century of the Christian era ”

“ The name of a low caste of Hindus in Southern India, constituting one of the most numerous castes, if not the most numerous, in the Tamil country. The word in its present shape means properly 'a drummer.' Tamil parai is the large drum, beaten at certain festivals, and the hereditary beaters of it are called (sing.) paraiyan, (pl.) paraiyar. [Dr. Oppert's theory (Orig. Inhabitants, 32 seq.) that the word is a form of Pahaṛiyā, 'a mountaineer' is not probable.] ”

“ They are devoted to friends, respectful to women charitable to the poor, fervent in piety and tireless in industry. “Wherever money is to be made, wherever a more apathetic or a more aristocratic people is willing to be pushed aside, thither” says a European Missionary who long resided among them, [2] “swarm the Tamils, the Greeks or Scotch of the east: the least superstitious and the most enterprising and persevering race of Hindus.” They are still the most literate people among the native races of India. ”

“ As the Tamil immigrants came into Southern India at distant intervals of time and in separate tribes, and were fewer in number than the aboriginal Nagas and Dravidians, they had to adopt the ancient Dravidian language, and in course of time, they modified and refined it into the language now known as Tamil. ”

“ There are two principal dialects in Telugu, one an archaic and artificial literary dialect and the other, the living polite dialect. The facts of the two dialects differ considerably and since grammar is a statement of facts, each dialect has a grammar of its own which takes account of its facts. The literary dialect acquired grammatical fixity centuries back. In other words it did not keep pace with the changes undergone by living speech. It is, therefore, a dead language and its facts are found in books. The facts of polite speech are in the mouths of the best society. ”