Tamil language

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ According to the census of 1881, the number of Tamil-speaking people throughout the province was 12,413,517, inclusive of 21,992 Yerkalas, 3843 Kurumbas, and 287 Irulas, three tribes speaking rude dialects of the language. 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. ”

“ All the religious and philosophical poetry of Sanskrit has become fused into Tamil, which language contains a larger number of popular treatises in Occultism, Alchemy, etc., than even Sanskrit; and it is now the only spoken language of India that abounds in occult treatises on various subjects.” Going on to speak of the Tamil Adepts, the author of this article says: “The popular belief is that there were eighteen brotherhoods of Adepts scattered here and there, in the mountains and forests of the Tamil country, and presided over by eighteen Sadhoos ”

“ It is a vast Grammar and Law book of the Tamil language and Social Life. Having three sections, the first two deal with language (linguistics) and the third about the subject matters referred to in Tamil literature, the behavior of the Tamils. ”

“ It has become a fashion for some time past and especially among writers in South India to attribute everything to a Tamilian origin. The investigations into the Tamil language by early Missionaries like Pope, Winslow, Rottler and others, and the one-sided conclusions of Caldwell with regard to the antiquity of the Dravidian languages and culture have emboldened others to pursue the theme to the entire exclusion of other and more important factors that ought to enter into any impartial account of the development of any culture. ”

“ The Prince of Wales and his suite landed in Tuticorin on [Pg 147] the coast of India, again, on December 9th, and proceeded inland by train without any particular or formal reception. The Tamils were found to be a handsome, mild-natured, respectful people and the land cultivated and apparently prosperous. At Mainachy, a deputation of six thousand native Christians and one thousand boys and girls, headed by the Rev. Dr. Caldwell and the Rev. Dr. Sargent, presented an address and a handsomely-bound Bible and Prayer-book in the Tamil language, to His Royal Highness. ”

“ In the interior below the ghats, Venkadam or the modern Tirupaty was the northern limit of the Tamil land. It is most remarkable that after the lapse of eighteen centuries, during which many, a kingdom rose and fell, and the Tamils, Telugus, Mahrattas, Musalmans, French and English successively rose to political power, the language boundary has remained unaltered on the eastern coast. The same cannot be said of the boundary of the Tamil land on the western coast, for, it has advanced there from Badagara to Kasaragod, a distance of about sixty miles. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is education, too, and a great respect for learning, and reverence for their classic literature and language, a language so ancient that we find certain Tamil words in the Hebrew Scriptures, and so rich, that while "nearly all the vernaculars of India have been greatly enriched from the Sanscrit, Sanscrit has borrowed from Tamil." Almost every Caste village has its own little school, and every town has many, where the boys are taught reading, writing, poetry, and mental arithmetic.
There is not much education among the Masses. ”

“ Thus in Tamil the root tûngu, to sleep, has not retained its full integrity in the derivative tûkkam, sleep.
I mention these instances, which might be greatly multiplied, in order to show that there is nothing mysterious in the tenacity with which each language clings in general to that stage of grammar which it had attained at the time of its first settlement. If a family, or a tribe, or a nation, has once accustomed itself to express its ideas according to one system of grammar, that first mould remains and becomes stronger with each generation. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ The Todas have a large number of expressions which they use in the presence of Badagas, Tamils and others when they wish to be understood only by themselves. Many of the Badagas and Tamils with whom the Todas associate no doubt pick up some knowledge of their language, and even if this were not the case, the Toda language is sufficiently like Tamil to enable a stranger to understand part of what is said. ”

“ This chapter defines the lexical corpus of various kinds in Tamil.
Four kinds of words The four kinds of words in Tamil-poetry are: [iyar’ccol] (=standard words) , [thirisol] (=synonyms and homonyms) , [thisaic-col] (=dialectal words) and [vada-sol] (=borrowed words from northern language) 1 Among these four the (primary kind of) standard words are the usage in Tamil land occurring with the semantic core unaffected. 2 The next kind of words is two kinds: synonyms and homonyms. 3 The third kind of words is dialects spoken in twelve regions surrounding Tamil land. ”

“ In the country on the South and East, Tamil is spoken; on the West, the language is Malayalam, and the people of Mysore to the North speak chiefly Canarese. The Todas live at this meeting-place of three languages, but owing to their isolated position their language is not a blend of these, but has very definite and distinctive characters of its own, as might, indeed, be expected from the character of the people. The Badagas with whom the Todas have much intercourse speak a corrupt form of Canarese, and the Todas have undoubtedly borrowed many words from their language. ”

“ The term for river would seem to be only a dialectic variation of the Tamil நதி nathi, (vulgó nuddee, and nullah) a word which, coming from the Sanscrit, is found in all Hindu languages. The words for tank, stone, man, seem to come from the Hindustani, or possibly from the Udiya language of the province of Orissa. The word for mother is a slight variation from a Tamil word of like meaning, though now not much used. Abba, for father is found in Hebrew, Syriac, Telugu, Tamil, and in some of the dialects of the islands in the eastern archipelago ”

“ In the Punjab, the compound letter is split up, and one letter is pronounced after the other; in the Tamil pronunciation however, ই must be pronounced not only before the compound letters of the class spoken of above, but even before other initial compound letters; if even the second letter of a word is a compound letter, and the initial letter is a simple one, the ই sound is uttered by the Tamil people; the Tamil Apabhranśa of রাক্ষস is ই + রাক্‌কধন; this is also a rule in ihe Tamil speech, that an introducing vowel is added to a word beginning with র. ”

“ The destruction of English medium, and so of a potential pool of English teachers, means that, except in privileged urban areas, children hardly learn a second language. Thus those whose mother tongue is Sinhala cannot communicate with those whose mother tongue is Tamil. One important reason then for our failure to build up a national identity is that our system of education makes us think of each other as alien. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The current government is committed, as indeed its predecessors for the last twenty years or more have been, to policies of pluralism. Tamil was made an official language in 1987 by constitutional amendment, to remedy a situation that should never have arisen, but at least through that, through the assertion of the need for at least bilingualism amongst officials, we have done our best to uphold better values. ”

“ 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 language of the province is Tamil, and the Tamil spoken by the educated classes in Tinnevelly is singularly pure and classical. Even amongst the lower classes, notwithstanding their rude pro nunciation, the language of the ancient poets still lingers. ”

“ If you would speak in a Tamil channel, you must also think in a Tamil channel. The young missionary must at once plunge in, not resolving never to speak till he can speak well—like the simpleton who would not enter the water until he could swim—or he never will speak at all. He must be willing to make mistakes, to be corrected, and, if needs be, laughed at, and told, as the writer has been more than once, “You had better learn our language before you come to preach to us." He must get new words every day, and use them as fast as he gets them ”

“ 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 ”