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INTRODUCTION Tamil is my mother tongue. Tamil is a unique language and belongs to the Dravidian family. It is the language spoken by Tamilians, the inhabitants of Tamil Nadu. Tamil is one of the four oldest languages in the world - Latin, Greek, Tamil and Sanskrit. Legend has it that Sage Agasthiya came down to Earth to spread this beautiful language, on being told to do so by Lord Shiva. The sage can thus be called the founder of the language. He was supposed to have written the first grammar book for Tamil, named Agathiyam. In fact, it was the first grammar book written for any language in the world. Unfortunately, no copy of this book is known to exist now. However, the version written by Agasthiya's disciple, Tholkaapiyar, nearly 5000 years ago, still exists, and is accepted as the oldest grammar book in any language. This book is called Tholkaapiyam, after its author. Thirukkural, a Tamil book on philosophy and life in general, was written by Thiruvalluvar, a sage and philosopher, about 2000 years ago. It is one of the greatest and most succinct books ever written, by popular and critical opinion. After the Bible, the Thirukkural is the book, which has been translated into the most number of languages. Tamil, like other Dravidian languages, is an agglutinating language in which morphemes are transparently separable and analyzable affixes which are attached to roots or stems; such affixes in Tamil are nearly always suffixal. Words are made up of lexical roots, or stems (roots that have been expanded by a derivational suffix), followed by inflectional suffix(es) which mark such categories as, for example, person, number, mood, tense, etc. ALPHABETS OF TAMIL LANGUAGE: The English language has only 26 letters. Tamil alphabet has a total of 247 letters with 31 basic Tamil letters. There are 12 vowels - ‘ujir’ (pronounced as ‘ooyir’ meaning ‘life’), 18 consonants – -‘mej’ (pronounced a ‘mai’, as in main, meaning body) and 1 ‘Velar Fricative’ – ‘Ajtam’ (pronounced as ‘ayutham’, meaning ‘tool’). Thirty of the 31 basic Tamil letters in combination of 12 vowels and 18 consonants form the 216 ‘ujirmej’ (pronounced as ‘ooyirmai’, meaning ‘dependencies’). i.e. 12 x18 = 216. Therefore: Vowels (5 short + 7 long) = 12 Consonants = 18 Velar Fricative = 1 Dependencies or combinations = 216 Total = 247 LIST OF TAMIL ALPHABETS: 18 English letters have similar sound connection with 18 Tamil letters. It is only the 13 remaining Tamil letters that need a ‘sound connection’ with English. a as in above; â as in father. i as in pin; î as in police. u as in push; û as in rule. At the end of a word, short -u is pronounced with lips unrounded, flat.
Approximate Word count = 1810
Approximate Pages = 7.2
(250 words per page double spaced)
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