Introduction

Tamil is one of the oldest and official languages in India. In Tamilnadu it is the prominent and primary language. It is one of the official languages of the union territories of Pondicherry and Andaman & Nicobar Islands. It is one of 23 nationally recognized languages in the Constitution of India. It has official status in Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore. The art and architecture of the Tamil people encompasses some of the notable contributions of India and South-East Asia to the world of art. With more than 77 million speakers, Tamil is one of the widely spoken languages of the world.

In the historical past Proto-Dravidian was spoken throughout India. A section of Proto-Dravidians maintained their ethnic and cultural identity in some isolated areas; spoke corrupt forms of Proto-Dravidian languages and these have survived, to this day, as living examples of ancient Dravidian languages. Languages such as Kolami, Parji, Naiki, Gondi, Ku, Kuvi, Konda, Malta, Oroan, Gadba, Khurukh, and Brahui are examples of Dravidian languages prevalent in the North. Today Proto-Dravidian speakers are increasingly mingling with other linguistic groups and learning their languages.

Language History:

The earlier Tamil inscriptions were written in Bramhi, Grantha and Vattezhutthu scripts. Inscriptions after the seventh century A.D. contain Tamil characters similar to the one now in vogue. Tamil language had a distinct script of its own even at that early period. In fact Vattezhutthu is none other than the old Tamil script. Much before Bramhi scripts could become popular the Tamils possessed a script of their own which they put to use in their commercial transactions and in their writings.
In total there are 247 letters in Tamil alphabet. The Tamil characters which are in use today also can be deemed to have originated from Vattezhutthu. There are twelve vowels in Tamil and eighteen consonants made up of six surds in each. There are no sibilants like Sa, Sha, Sa in Tamil. There are distinct letters in Tamil to indicate numerals and fractions. There are evidences to show that the present roman numerals 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 originated from Tamil. Unlike Sanskrit there is no dual number in Tamil. There are three ‘persons’ in Tamil, namely, first person, second person and third person. Case inflexions are many in Tamil and their indicators form as suffixes in words.

Style

The Tamil scholars took the cue from the old commentators for writing prose. The commentators including Parimelazhakar and others, who were known for their scholarship in Sanskrit, wrote in pure Tamil with least borrowing from Sanskrit. Their style of writing was similar to the one now in vogue, for the present-day Tamil scholars adopted only their style. The journalists’ style has been based on the spoken language of the Tamils. In spoken language, foreign loan words are mixed freely and syntax corresponds to emotional situations. Poet Bharathiyar composed poems largely in pure Tamil. He followed the same method while writing essays too.

There is little difference in syntax between ancient and modern Tamil. Although over a period of time word forms have changed, the formation of syntax remains intact in all the Dravidian languages.

Tamil achieved perfection even during the pre-historic period. Literary growth in Tamil took place at the same time when there was similar growth in Sanskrit. Literary works came to be written only at a later period in all other Indian languages. Therefore there was considerable antiquity for Tamil language and literature. Besides, the ancient classical Tamil literature originated and blossomed from the folk song and poetry.

Special features

Among the ancient grammatical works available, the Tolkappiyam was the earliest and it was written around the third century B.C. There are over two hundred and fifty references in Tolkāppiyam which, provide substantial evidence of the existence of many classical and grammatical works in Tamil prior to Tolkāppiyam itself. Besides, Tolkāppiyam also classifies the Tamil language into Senthamizh and Kotunthamizh. The former refers to the classical Tamil used exclusively by literati in their works and the latter refers to the colloquial Tamil, spoken by the people. This shows that even in those distant days differences had grown to such an extent as to enable the Tamil grammarians to classify the language into written and spoken.

There is one more special letter used in classical Tamil and found less in modern Tamil. In the 247 letters of the language, ‘Zha’ is the most significant, because of its usage and pronunciation. Many people cannot pronounce the letter ‘Zha’ properly. There are two letters with same sound as ‘Zha’ (la, ḷa), so it is necessary to recognize the letter ‘Zha’ properly.

Link/relation with other languages

A section of people living in Baluchistan speak Brahui, which has many linguistic features similar to the Dravidian languages spoken in South India. Scholars are surprised today to note many linguistic similarities between Tamil and Brahui, especially in numerals, personal pronouns, syntax and in other linguistic features. The Indian Census report of 1911 classified Brahui as a language belonging to the Dravidian family. It was then spoken by about 170, 000 people, although this number over the years dwindled to a couple of thousands.

Many common linguistic features are still discernible among these Dravidian languages. Some five thousand words are common to these languages. Many grammatical forms are common. The overwhelming influence of Sanskrit scholars and the indiscriminate borrowing of Sanskrit words resulted in the emergence of Kannada and Telugu as distinct languages from Tamil some fifteen hundred years ago. The influence of Sanskrit on Malayalam language came to be felt only about eight centuries ago, and therefore, the areas of difference between Tamil and Malayalam are not many.

Many scholars and pundits from Kerala contributed much to the Tamil language and literature and the historical evidence shows that the region now known as the State of Kerala was once an integral part of Tamil Nadu at some period of time. Because of these reasons there is greater affinity between Tamil and Malayalam than between Tamil and Kannada or Telugu.

Tamil in History

Tamil was the language of bureaucracy, of literati and of culture for several centuries in Kerala. In fact, fifteen centuries ago the rulers of Kerala were all Tamils. Up to the tenth century the Pandya kings ruled Kerala with royal titles such as ‘Perumāngal and ‘Perumānganar’. It was a Tamil poet from Trivandrum who in fact presided over the academy of Tamil scholars, when they met to evaluate the famous Tamil grammatical work Tolkāppiyam . From the third century 13.C. to the first century A.D., many poets from Kerala composed poems in Tamil and their compositions are included in Tamil anthologies such as Aganānuru and Puranānuru. All the one hundred poems in the anthology Pathiruppāttu extol the greatness of the kings of the Kerala region. The author of the famous Tamil epic Silappathikāram was a poet from Kerala. The shrine in honor of Kannagi, the heroine of Silappathikāram, was built at Tiruvancikkulam in Kerala. Among the Śhaiva and Vaiṣhṇava composers, Cheramān Perumāl Nāyanār and Kulaśhekhara Āzhvār respectively, belong to the Kerala region. Aiyyan Eritthanār, the author of the tenth century grammatical work Purapporul Veṇpāmālai, hailed from Kerala.

Bibliography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_language

http://tamilelibrary.org/teli/tamil7.html

http://www.thetamillanguage.com/lit.html

http://india.wikia.com/wiki/Tamil_language

http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/language/about/tamil.html