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Tamil language

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   Tamil
   தமிழ் tamiḻ
   Pronunciation: IPA: /t̪ɐmɨɻ/
   Spoken in: India and Sri Lanka, with significant minorities in
   Singapore, Malaysia, Dubai, Mauritius, and South Africa, and emigrant
   communities around the world
   Total speakers: 80 million (2005)
   Ranking: 13-17 (native); in a near tie with Korean, Vietnamese, Telugu,
   Marathi
   Language family: Dravidian
     Southern
      Tamil-Kannada
       Tamil-Kodagu
        Tamil-Malayalam
        Tamil
   Official status
   Official language of: India, Sri Lanka and Singapore
   Regulated by: Various academies and the Government of Tamil Nadu
   Language codes
   ISO 639-1: ta
   ISO 639-2: tam
   ISO/FDIS 639-3: tam
Indic script
            This page contains Indic text. Without rendering support you may see
            irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. More...

   Tamil (தமிழ் tamiḻ) is a classical language and one of the major
   languages of the Dravidian language family. Spoken predominantly by
   Tamils in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Singapore, it has smaller
   communities of speakers in many other countries. As of 1996, it was the
   eighteenth most spoken language, with over 74 million speakers
   worldwide. It is one of the official languages of India, Singapore,
   Malaysia and Sri Lanka.

   Tamil is one of the few living classical languages and has an unbroken
   literary tradition of over two millennia. The high level of diglossia
   exhibited by Tamil, and the prestige accorded to classical Tamil, have
   resulted in much of the vocabulary and forms of classical Tamil being
   preserved in modern literary Tamil, such that the higher registers of
   literary Tamil tend towards the classical language. The classical
   language also forms an important part of Tamil-medium education: verses
   from the Tirukkural, a classical work, are, for example, taught in
   primary school. The ordinary form of the modern language used in speech
   and writing, in contrast, has undergone significant changes, to the
   extent that a person who has not learnt the higher literary form will
   have difficulty understanding it.

   The name 'Tamil' is an anglicised form of the native name தமிழ் ( IPA
   /t̪ɐmɨɻ/). The final letter of the name, usually transcribed as the
   lowercase l or zh, is a retroflex r. In phonetic transcriptions, it is
   usually represented by the retroflex approximant.

History

   A set of palm leaf manuscripts from the 15th century or the 16th
   century, containing Christian prayers in Tamil
   Enlarge
   A set of palm leaf manuscripts from the 15th century or the 16th
   century, containing Christian prayers in Tamil

   The origins of Tamil, like the other Dravidian languages are unknown,
   but unlike most of the other established literary languages of India,
   are independent of Sanskrit. Tamil has the oldest literature amongst
   the Dravidian languages (Hart, 1975), but dating the language and the
   literature precisely is difficult. Literary works in India or Sri Lanka
   were preserved either in palm leaf manuscripts (implying repeated
   copying and recopying) or through oral transmission, making direct
   dating impossible. External chronological records and internal
   linguistic evidence, however, indicate that the oldest extant works
   were probably composed sometime in the 2nd century CE.

   The earliest extant text in Tamil is the Tolkāppiyam, a work on poetics
   and grammar which describes the language of the classical period, the
   oldest portions of this book may date back to around 200 BCE (Hart,
   1975). Apart from these, the earliest examples of Tamil writing we have
   today are rock inscriptions from the 3rd century BCE, which are written
   in Tamil-Brahmi, an adapted form of the Brahmi script (Mahadevan,
   2003). Linguists categorise Tamil literature and language into three
   periods: ancient (500 BCE to 700 CE), medieval (700 CE to 1500 CE) and
   modern (1500 CE to the present). During the medieval period, a number
   of Sanskrit loan words were absorbed by Tamil, which many 20th century
   purists, notably Parithimaar Kalaignar and Maraimalai Adigal, later
   sought to remove. This movement was called thanith thamizh iyakkam
   (meaning pure Tamil movement). As a result of this, Tamil in formal
   documents, public speeches and scientific discourses is largely free of
   Sanskrit loan words.

Classification

   Tamil is a member of the Tamil language family, which includes the
   Irula, Kaikadi, Betta Kurumba, Sholaga, and Yerukula languages. This
   group is a subgroup of the Tamil-Malayalam languages, which falls under
   a subgroup of the Tamil-Kodagu languages, which in turn is a subgroup
   of the Tamil-Kannada languages. The Tamil-Kannada languages belong to
   the southern branch of the Dravidian language family. Tamil is most
   closely related to Malayalam, spoken in the Indian state of Kerala
   which borders Tamil Nadu, which linguists estimate separated from Tamil
   between the 8th and 10th centuries.

Geographic distribution

   Tamil is the first language of the majority in the southern Indian
   state of Tamil Nadu, and in northern, eastern and northeastern Sri
   Lanka. The language is also spoken by small groups of minorities in
   other parts of these two countries, most notably in the Indian states
   of Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra, and in Colombo and the hill
   country in Sri Lanka.

   There are currently sizeable Tamil-speaking populations descended from
   them in Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa, and Mauritius. Many people
   in Guyana, Fiji, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago have Tamil origins,
   but the language is spoken only by a small number there. (see Tamil
   diaspora)

   Groups of more recent emigrants as well as economic migrants such as
   engineering, IT, medical professionals and academics from the Sri Lanka
   and India - exist in Canada (especially Toronto), Australia, the USA
   and most western European countries.(see Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora)

Legal status

   Tamil is the Official Language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and
   union territories of Pondicherry/Pudhucherry and Andaman & Nicobar
   Islands, and is one of 23 nationally recognised Official Languages in
   the Indian Constitution. Tamil carries an international status as
   official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore, and has constitutional
   recognition in South Africa, Mauritius and Malaysia.

   In addition, with the creation in 2004 of a legal status for classical
   languages by the government of India, Tamil became the first legally
   recognised classical language following a campaign by several Tamil
   associations supported by academics from India and abroad, most notably
   Professor George L. Hart, who occupies the Chair in Tamil Studies at
   the University of California, Berkeley. The recognition was announced
   by the President of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam, in a joint sitting of both
   houses of the Indian Parliament on June 6, 2004.

Spoken and literary variants

   The opening of the book of Genesis in an 18th century Tamil bible. The
   language is centamil.
   Enlarge
   The opening of the book of Genesis in an 18th century Tamil bible. The
   language is centamil.

   In addition to its various dialects, Tamil also exhibits a rather sharp
   diglossia between its formal or classic variety, called centamil, and
   its colloquial form, called koduntamil, a broad term which
   traditionally referred to all spoken Tamil dialects rather than any one
   standard form. Diglossia has existed in the language since ancient
   times - the language used in early temple inscriptions differs quite
   significantly from the language of classical poetry. In consequence,
   standard centamil is not based on the speech of any one region, a fact
   which has helped keep the written language mostly the same across
   various Tamil speaking regions.

   In modern times, centamil is generally used in formal writing and
   speech. It is, for example, the language of textbooks, of much of Tamil
   literature and of public speaking and debate. In recent times, however,
   koduntamil has been making inroads into areas that have traditionally
   been considered the province of centamil. Most contemporary cinema,
   theatre and popular entertainment on television and radio, for example,
   is in koduntamil, and many politicians use it to bring themselves
   closer to their audience.

   Spoken dialects did not have much prestige: Tamils believed that the
   grammatical rules of literary centamil had been formulated by the gods
   and they were therefore seen as being the only correct speech (see, for
   example, Kankeyar, 1840). In contrast to most European languages,
   therefore, Tamil did not have a standard spoken form for much of its
   history. In modern times, however, the increasing use of koduntamil has
   led to the emergence of unofficial 'standard' spoken dialects. In
   India, the 'standard' koduntamil is based on 'educated non-brahmin
   speech', rather than on any one dialect (Schiffman, 1998), but has been
   significantly influenced by the dialects of Thanjavur and Madurai. In
   Sri Lanka the standard is based on the dialect of Jaffna.

Dialects

   Tamil dialects are mainly differentiated from each other by the fact
   that they have undergone different phonological changes and sound
   shifts in evolving from Old Tamil. Thus the word for "here" - ingu in
   Centamil (the classic variety) - has evolved into inge in the Kongu
   dialect of Coimbatore, inga in the dialect of Thanjavur, ingane in the
   dialect of Tirunelveli, inguttu in the dialect of Ramanathapuram,
   ingale and ingade in various northern dialects and ingai in some
   dialects of Sri Lanka.

   Although most Tamil dialects do not differ very significantly in their
   vocabulary, there are a few exceptions. The dialects spoken in Sri
   Lanka retain many words that are not in everyday use in India, and use
   many other words slightly differently. The dialect of the Iyers of
   Palakkad has a large number of Malayalam loanwords,has also been
   influenced by Malayalam syntax and also has a distinct Malayalam
   accent. Finally, the Sanketi, Hebbar and Mandyam dialects, the former
   spoken by groups of Tamil Iyers and the latter two by Vaishnavites who
   migrated to Karnataka in the 11th century, retains many features of the
   Vaishnava paribasai, a special form of Tamil designed in the 9th and
   10th centuries to reflect Vaishnavite religious and spiritual
   values.Bangalore also has its own version of Tamil,and is mainly spoken
   by the people whose mother tongue is not Tamil and infuses words from
   Kannada and even Hindi.

   Tamil dialects vary according to both region and community. Several
   castes have their own dialects which most members of that caste
   traditionally used regardless of where they come from. Some of these
   differences have begun to fade away in recent years as a result of the
   anti-casteist movement, but many traces remain and it is often possible
   to identify a person's caste by their speech.

   The Ethnologue lists twenty-two current dialects of Tamil, including
   Adi Dravida, Aiyar, Aiyangar, Arava, Burgandi, Kasuva, Kongar, Korava,
   Korchi, Madrasi, Parikala, Pattapu Bhasha, Sri Lanka Tamil, Malaya
   Tamil, Burma Tamil, South Africa Tamil, Tigalu, Harijan, Sankethi,
   Hebbar, Tirunelveli, Tamil Muslim and Madurai. Other known dialects are
   Kongu and Kumari,which are heavily influenced by Malayalam.

   Although not a dialect, the Tamil spoken in Chennai (Capital of Tamil
   Nadu) infuses English words and is called Madras Bashai.

Writing system

   History of Tamil script
   Enlarge
   History of Tamil script

   Tamil is a phonetic language and is subject to well-defined rules of
   elision and euphony. The present script used to write Tamil text is
   believed to have evolved from the Brahmi script of the Ashoka era.
   Later, a southern variant of the Brahmi script ( Tamil-Brahmi)evolved
   into the Grantha script, which was used to write both Sanskrit and
   Tamil texts. Between the 6th and 10th centuries, a new script called
   Vatteluttu (meaning curved letters) or vettezhuthu (meaning letters
   that are cut) evolved in order to make it easy for creating
   inscriptions on stone. The over dot, called puLLi was specially defined
   in Tamil Grammar Tolkappiyam to distinguish consonants from ligatures.
   During the print revolution, Veeramaamunivar made some changes to Tamil
   writing, such as placing vowel markers in both left and right of
   consonants. Around 1935, E.V.Ramaswamy Naicker suggested some changes
   to make it amenable to printing. Some of these suggestions were
   incorporated by the M.G. Ramachandran government in 1978.

   While the script was still evolving, many Sanskrit words were borrowed
   into Tamil. To facilitate writing these words, some characters from the
   Grantha script are still retained. However, there are many purists who
   would argue against the use of such characters as there are
   well-defined rules in the Tolkāppiyam for Tamilising loan words.

Sounds

   The Tamil alphabet has 12 vowels and 18 consonants. These combine to
   form 216 compound characters. There is one special character (aaytha
   ezutthu), giving a total of 247 characters.
     * A Tamil tongue twister —
          + The sentence literally means: "An old pauper stepped on a
            banana peel, and slipped, slithered, and fell"
          +

Vowels

   The vowels are called uyir ezhuthu (uyir - life, ezhuthu - letter). The
   vowels are classified into short and long (five of each type) and two
   diphthongs.

   The long (nedil) vowels are about twice as long as the short (kuRil)
   vowels. The diphthongs are usually pronounced about 1.5 times as long
   as the short vowels, though most grammatical texts place them with the
   long vowels.
               Short              Long
         Front Central Back Front Central Back
   Close   i            u    iː            uː
    Mid    e     (ə)    o    eː            oː
   Open           a         (æː)    aː    (ɔː)

   The diphthongs of Tamil are

          ai
          au

   The vowels /ə/, /æː/, and /ɔː/ are peripheral to the phonology of
   Tamil, occurring only in loanwords.

Consonants

   The consonants are classified into three categories with six in each
   category: vallinam - hard, mellinam - soft or Nasal, and idayinam -
   medium. Tamil has very restricted consonant clusters (eg: never word
   initial etc.) and has neither aspirated nor voiced stops. Some scholars
   have suggested that in Chenthamil (which refers to Tamil as it existed
   before Sanskrit words were borrowed), stops were voiceless when at the
   start of a word and voiced allophonically otherwise. However, no such
   distinction is observed by most modern Tamil speakers.

   A chart of the Tamil consonant phonemes in the International Phonetic
   Alphabet follows:
                       Labial  Dental  Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar
          Stop         p  (b) t̪  (d̪)    t      ʈ  (ɖ)   c  (ɟ)  k  (g)
          Nasal          m       n̪                 ɳ        ɲ
        Fricative       (f)                        (ʂ)      (ɕ)
       Approximant       ʋ       ɾ̪                 ɻ        j     (x)
   Lateral approximant           l̪                 ɭ

   The sounds /b/, /d̪/, /ɖ/, /ɟ/, /g/, /f/, /ʂ/, /ɕ/, /x/ are peripheral
   to the phonology of Tamil, being found only in loanwords and frequently
   replaced by native sounds.

Special character

   Akh
   Enlarge
   Akh

   The special character 'ஃ' (pronounced 'akh') is called āytham in the
   Tolkāppiyam (see Tolkāppiyam 1:1:2). The āytham is rarely used by
   itself: it normally serves a purely grammatical function as an
   independent vowel form, the equivalent of the overdot diacritic of
   plain consonants. The rules of pronunciation given in the Tolkāppiyam
   suggest that the āytham could have glottalised the sounds it was
   combined with. Although the character was common in classical Tamil, it
   fell out of use in the early modern period and is now very rare in
   written Tamil. It is occasionally used with a 'p' (as ஃப) to represent
   the phoneme [f]. It can also be used with 'j' to represent 'z' (see
   external link #2 - "Omniglot").

   The āytham is also called ahenam (literally, 'the "ah" sound'). Its
   resemblance to the three dots that were found on shields in mediaeval
   times, and the similarity of the name āytham to the word āyutham
   meaning 'weapon' or 'tool' has resulted in it often being called āyutha
   ezhuthu (literally, 'the war-weapon letter').

   Many researchers now feel that the āytham is actually used to represent
   the voiced implosive (or closing part or the first half) of geminated
   voiced plosives inside a word. For example, a word written as
   'mu-āytham-dee-dhu' (from MuLL+dheedhu) should be read as 'muddeedhu'
   (MuLL+dheedhu). (This derivation is in accordance with the puṇarci
   rules for agglutination in Tamil.) Thus the letter doesn't have a
   unique pronunciation ('akh') as commonly believed, but takes its
   pronunciation from the succeeding plosive in the word. Thus it doesn't
   have a separate place of origin in the oral cavity on its own, it
   shares the place of origin of the succeeding plosive. This is the
   reason why Tolkāppiyam calls it a 'Saarbezhuthu' (a dependent
   letter/sound).

   It is used to defend the mixing of other language words in Tamil.

Phonology

   Unlike most other Indian languages, Tamil does not have aspirated
   consonants. The Tamil script does not have distinct letters for voiced
   and unvoiced plosives, although both are present in the spoken language
   as allophones--i.e., they are in complementary distribution and the
   places they can occur do not intersect. For example, the unvoiced
   plosive 'p' occurs at the beginning of the words and the voiced plosive
   'b' cannot. In the middle of words, unvoiced plosives commonly occur as
   a geminated pair like -pp- , while voiced plosives do not usually come
   in pairs. Only the voiced plosives occur after a vowel, or after a
   corresponding nasal. Thus both the voiced and unvoiced plosives can be
   represented by the same script in Tamil without ambiguity, the script
   denoting only the place and broad manner of articulation (plosive,
   nasal, etc.). The Tolkāppiyam cites detailed rules as to when a letter
   is to be pronounced with voice and when it is to be pronounced
   unvoiced. The rule is identical for all plosives.

   With the exception of one rule - the pronunciation of the letter c at
   the beginning of a word - these rules are largely followed even today
   in pronouncing centamil. The position is, however, much more complex in
   relation to spoken koduntamil. The pronunciation of southern dialects
   and the dialects of Sri Lanka continues to reflect these rules to a
   large extent, though not completely. In northern dialects, however,
   sound shifts have changed many words so substantially that these rules
   no longer describe how words are pronounced. In addition many, but not
   all, Sanskrit loan words are pronounced in Tamil as they were in
   Sanskrit, even if this means that consonants which should be unvoiced
   according to the Tolkāppiyam are voiced.

   Phonologists are divided in their opinion over why written Tamil did
   not distinguish between voiced and unvoiced characters. One point of
   view is that Tamil never had conjunct consonants or voiced stops -
   voice was rather the result of elision or sandhi. Consequently, unlike
   Indo-European languages and other Dravidian languages, Tamil did not
   need separate characters for voiced consonants. A slightly different
   theory holds that voiced consonants were at one stage allophones of
   unvoiced consonants, and the lack of distinction between the two in the
   modern script merely reflects that.

Elision

   Elision is the reduction in the duration of sound of a phoneme when
   preceded by or followed by certain other sounds. There are well-defined
   rules for elision in Tamil. They are categorised into different classes
   based on the phoneme which undergoes elision.
    1. Kutriyalukaram - the vowel u
    2. Kutriyalikaram - the vowel i
    3. Aiykaarakkurukkam - the diphthong ai
    4. Oukaarakkurukkam - the diphthong au
    5. Aaythakkurukkam - the special character akh (aaytham)
    6. Makarakkurukkam - the phoneme m

Grammar

   An excerpt from Tolkaappiyam
   Enlarge
   An excerpt from Tolkaappiyam

   Much of Tamil grammar is extensively described in the oldest available
   grammar book for Tamil, the Tolkāppiyam. Modern Tamil writing is
   largely based on the 13th century grammar Naṉṉūl which restated and
   clarified the rules of the Tolkāppiyam, with some modifications.
   Traditional Tamil grammar consists of five parts, namely eḻuttu, col,
   porul, yāppu, aṇi. Of these, the last two are mostly applicable in
   poetry.

   Tamil, like other Dravidian languages, is an agglutinative language.
   Tamil words consist of a lexical root to which one or more affixes are
   attached.

   Most Tamil affixes are suffixes. Tamil suffixes can be derivational
   suffixes, which either change the part of speech of the word or its
   meaning, or inflectional suffixes, which mark categories such as
   person, number, mood, tense, etc. There is no absolute limit on the
   length and extent of agglutination, which can lead to long words with a
   large number of suffixes, which would require several words or a
   sentence in English.

Parts of speech

   Tamil nouns (and pronouns) are classified into two super-classes
   (tiṇai) - the " rational" (uyartiṇai), and the " irrational" (aḵṟiṇai)
   - which include a total of five classes (paal, which literally means
   'gender'). Humans and deities are classified as "rational", and all
   other nouns (animals, objects, abstract nouns) are classified as
   irrational. The " rational" nouns and pronouns belong to one of three
   classes (paal) - masculine singular, feminine singular, and rational
   plural. The " irrational" nouns and pronouns belong to one of two
   classes (paal) - irrational singular and irrational plural. The paal is
   often indicated through suffixes. The plural form for rational nouns
   may be used as an honorific, gender-neutral, singular form.

   Suffixes are also used to perform the functions of cases or
   postpositions. Traditional grammars tried to group the various suffixes
   into 8 cases corresponding to the cases used in Sanskrit. These were
   the nominative, accusative, dative, sociative, genitive, instrumental,
   locative, and ablative. Modern grammarians, however, argue that this
   classification is artificial, and that Tamil usage is best understood
   if each suffix or combination of suffixes is seen as marking a separate
   case. (Schiffman, 1999). Tamil nouns can also take one of four
   prefixes, i, a, u and e which are functionally equivalent to
   demonstratives in English.

   Like Tamil nouns, Tamil verbs are also inflected through the use of
   suffixes. A typical Tamil verb form will have a number of suffixes,
   which show person, number, mood, tense and voice.
     * Person and number are indicated by suffixing the oblique case of
       the relevant pronoun (ēn in the above example). The suffixes to
       indicate tenses and voice are formed from grammatical particles,
       which are added to the stem.
     * Tamil has two voices. The first indicates that the subject of the
       sentence undergoes or is the object of the action named by the verb
       stem, and the second indicates that the subject of the sentence
       directs the action referred to by the verb stem.
     * Tamil has three simple tenses - past, present, and future -
       indicated by simple suffixes, and a series of perfects, indicated
       by compound suffixes. Mood is implicit in Tamil, and is normally
       reflected by the same morphemes which mark tense categories.

   Tamil does not distinguish between adjectives and adverbs - both fall
   under the category urichchol.

   Tamil has no articles. Definiteness and indefiniteness are either
   indicated by special grammatical devices, such as using the number
   "one" as an indefinite article, or by the context.

   In the first person plural, Tamil makes a distinction between inclusive
   pronouns நாம் (nām) (we), namathu (our) that include the addressee and
   exclusive pronouns நாங்கள் (nāṅkaḷ)(we), emathu (our) that do not. The
   bifurcation of the First Person Plural pronoun (we in English) into
   inclusive and exclusive versions can also be found in a few more
   languages.

Syntax

   Tamil is a consistent head-final language. The verb comes at the end of
   the clause, with typical word order Subject Object Verb (SOV). Tamil
   has postpositions rather than prepositions. Demonstratives and
   modifiers precede the noun within the noun phrase. Subordinate clauses
   precede the verb of the matrix clause.

   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"). Tamil does not have a copula (a linking verb equivalent
   to the word is) and the word is included in the translations only to
   convey the meaning.

Vocabulary

   Modern Tamil vocabulary still retains most of the words from classical
   Tamil. Due to this and because of the emphasis on learning classical
   works like Tirukkural, classical Tamil is comprehensible in various
   degrees to most native speakers of today. However, a number of Prakrit
   and Sanskrit loan words have been adapted and used commonly in modern
   Tamil. But, unlike some other Dravidian languages, these words are
   restricted mainly to spiritual terminology and abstract nouns.

   Besides Sanskrit, there are a few loan words from Persian and Arabic
   implying trade ties in ancient times. Since around the 20th century,
   English words have also begun to be used freely in colloquial Tamil.
   Some modern technical terminology is borrowed from English, though
   attempts are being made to have a pure Tamil technical terminology.
   Many individuals, and some institutions like the Government of Sri
   Lanka, Tamil Virtual University, and Annamalai University have
   generated technical dictionaries for Tamil. During the colonial period
   many loan words from Portuguese and Dutch were introduced into
   colloquial as well as written Tamil.

   There are also many instances of words of Tamil loan words in other
   languages. Popular examples in English are cheroot (churuttu meaning
   "rolled up"), mango, mulligatawny (from milagu thanni meaning pepper
   water) and catamaran (from kattu maram, கட்டு மரம், meaning "bundled
   logs"). Tamil has also contributed many loan words to Sinhala, Malay
   and Bahasa Indonesia amongst other South and Southeast Asian languages.

Examples

   A sample passage in Tamil script with a Romanised transcription:
ஆசிரியர் வகுப்பறையுள் நுழைந்தார்.
அவர் உள்ளே நுழைந்தவுடன் மாணவர்கள் எழுந்தனர்.
வளவன் மட்டும் தன் அருகில் நின்றுகொண்டிருந்த மாணவி கனிமொழியுடன் பேசிக் கொண்டிரு
ந்தான்.
நான் அவனை எச்சரித்தேன்.

aasiriyar vakuppaRaiyuL nuzhainthaar.
avar uLLE nuzhainthavudan maaNavarkaL ezhunthanar.
vaLavan mattum than arukil ninRu kondiruntha maaNavi kanimozhiyudan pEsik kondir
unthaan.
naan avanai echarithEn.

   English translation of the passage given above:
The teacher entered the classroom.
As soon as he entered, the students got up.
Only Valavan was talking to Kanimozhi who was standing next to him.
I warned him.

   Notes:
    1. Tamil does not have articles. The definite article used above is
       merely an artefact of translation.
    2. To understand why Valavan would want to be warned, it is necessary
       to comprehend Asian social etiquette. It is considered impolite to
       be distracted when a person of eminence (the teacher in this case)
       makes an entry and the teacher may feel insulted or slighted.

   Word ( romanised) Translation Morphemes Part of speech Person, Gender,
   Tense Case Number Remarks
   aasiriyar Teacher aasiriyar noun n/a, gender-neutral, n/a Nominative
   honorific plural indicated by suffix ar The feminine gender aasiriyai
   can be used here too; the masculine gender aasiriyan is rarely used,
   considering the honored position of the teacher
   vakuppaRaiyuL inside the class room vakuppu+aRai

   +uL
   adverb n/a Locative n/a Sandhi (called puṇarci in Tamil) rules in Tamil
   require euphonic changes during agglutination (such as the introduction
   of y in this case)
   nuzhainthaar entered nuzhainthaar verb third, gender-neutral, past
   honorific plural In an honorific context, the masculine and feminine
   equivalents nuzhainthaan and nuzhainthaaL are replaced by the
   collective nuzhainthaar
   avar He avar pronoun third, gender-neutral, n/a Nominative honorific
   plural indicated by suffix ar In honorific contexts, the masculine and
   feminine forms avan and avaL are not used
   uLLE inside uLLE adverb n/a n/a
   nuzhainthavudan upon entering nuzhaintha +
   udan adverb n/a n/a Sandhi rules require a v to be inserted between an
   end-vowel and a beginning-u during agglutination.
   maaNavarkaL students maaNavarkaL collective noun n/a, masculine, often
   used with gender-neutral connotation, n/a Nominative plural indicated
   by suffix kaL
   ezhunthanar got up ezhunthanar verb third, gender-neutral, past plural
   VaLavan VaLavan (name) VaLavan Proper noun n/a, masculine, usually
   indicated by suffix an, n/a Nominative singular
   mattum only mattum adjective n/a n/a
   than his (self) own than pronoun n/a, gender-neutral, n/a singular
   arukil near (lit. "in nearness") aruku + il adverb n/a Locative n/a The
   postposition il indicates the locative case
   ninRu kondiruntha standing ninRu + kondu + iruntha adverb n/a n/a the
   verb has been morphed into an adverb by the incompleteness due to the
   terminal a
   maaNavi student maaNavi pronoun n/a, feminine, n/a singular
   kanimozhiyudan with Kanimozhi (name of a person) kanimozhi + udan
   adverb n/a Comitative n/a the name Kanimozhi literally means sweet
   language
   pEsik kondirunthaan was talking pEsi + kondu +irunthaan verb third,
   masculine, past continuous singular continuousness indicated by the
   incompleteness brought by kondu
   naan I naan pronoun first person, gender-neutral, n/a Nominative
   singular
   avanai him avanai pronoun third, masculine, n/a Accusative singular the
   postposition ai indicates accusative case
   echarithEn cautioned echarithEn verb first, indicated by suffix En,
   gender-neutral, past singular, plural would be indicated by
   substituting En with Om

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