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Tamil Nadu Tamil Language
Origin
Tamil is largely spoken by the inhabitants of Tamil Nadu and also by its nearby regions. This is considered as a Dravidian Language and it has gained official status in Tamil Nadu and also in small union territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and even in Pondicherry. This idiom is also regarded as the longest classical surviving language.
Classification
This Tamil language belongs to Dravidian language of Southern branch. The Indian sub continent holds 26 languages and 36 ethno Linguistics groups.
History
Tamil Language has been descended from Proto Dravidian Language. This language was spoken in 3rd millennium BC and also around the Godavari River. Also in middle and second Millennium Proto south Dravidian language was orated. This Tamil language holds the most ancient Indian Literature of non Sanskritised.
Etymology
Kamil Zvelebil recommended Tamil etymology with the word tam meaning self and il mean one. Also Lexicon University suggest the word Tamil mean Sweetness. This Tamil language is divided between three stages that are, The Old Tamil, The Middle Tamil and The New Tamil.
Tamil is considered as the first language for majority of people who inhabits in Tamil Nadu region. This Nannul standard dialect is based on Middle Tamil rather than on modern Tamil. Moreover Modern Tamil is spoken in various sound changes. Later on many changes occurred in Tamil grammar, punctuations, consonants and vowels. In 20th century Pure movement of Tamil came which removes all the Sanskrit and other foreign languages words from Tamil. Then this languages adopted the Dravidian format and its therefore supported this language.
Geographic Distribution
This Tamil is considered as the first language of Tamil Nadu and also of many others nearby residing regions like Eastern and Northern Province and Sri Lanka. This language is even orated in many minority areas of India like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra.
Legal Status
The official language of Indian state of Tamil Nadu is Tamil language. It is also considered as the 22nd scheduled languages and even 8th language in the constitution. This language has also embraces its mark and proved it as official language in union territories of Andaman and Nicobar and also in Pondicherry.
Dialects
Tamil language is characterised by two separate registers which are high and low register. Moreover its dialects are different from each other and have even gone under some different phonological changes. It includes the Thanjavur Dialect. The old dialect of Tamil is the source of Tirunelveli. Although the dialects of Tamil language do not differ in the vocabulary words.
Writing System
Initially Tamil Language was written using vatteluttu, Pallava and Grantha script. Moreover the daily Tamil script consists of 18 consonants, 12 vowels and also one special character. All the consonants in Tamil language has an inherent vowel a, as with other Indic languages. Furthermore Tamil script does not differentiate between unvoiced and voiced plosives. In addition many words in Tamil language are adopted from Sanskrit, Prakrit and many other languages.
Sounds
The Tamil phonology is characterised by various rhotics and also presence of retroflex consonants. Also this language does not distinguish between unvoiced and voiced consonants. This language phonology contains few clusters of consonants and vowels.
Vowels
The vowels in Tamil language are classified into short and long. It also contains two diphthongs and three shortened vowels.
Consonants
The Tamil consonants are divided into three categories. It also does not differ between unaspirated and aspirated consonants. Moreover it uses more than one sort of coronal consonants.
Grammar
The grammar in Tamil Language is agglutinative. The suffixes in Tamil language are used to mark noun number, class and verb tense. Tamils most vocabulary was initially based on Sanskrit idiom but later on it shifted to Dravidian language. The oldest grammar book Tolkappiyam includes extensively all grammar of Tamil Language. Moreover modern Tamil language is based on 13th century grammar. Furthermore many Tamil words contains lexical root and its affixes are suffixes. This language is also considered as head final language. The word order in it is flexible. This language also does not distinguish between adverbs and adjectives and it also does not contain articles even.
Vocabulary
Tamil Language has Dravidian vocabulary. Moreover in Modern Tamil, a strong and heavy sense of purism which is linguistic can be seen. Even many words and phrases used in Tamil language are the loanwords from various languages of adjoining groups like of Chinese, Malay and Munda languages. Now days Tamil has even adopted some words from Marathi and Urdu language. It is even influenced from few neighbouring idioms like of Kannada, Sinhala and Telugu. Additionally it has grabbed some phrases from European languages such as French, Portuguese and English. Tamil language has even strongest impact of Sanskrit language, its grammar, vocabulary and literary styles as well. It’s almost vocabulary and expressions are based on Sanskrit language than Dravidian idiom. Later on around in 20th century the immense impact of Sanskrit on Tamil language was removed and now Tamil as its own official language came into existence with its own terminology and expressions.
Influence
Many Tamil words origin from various languages of India. The notable Tamil word Orange is used worldwide with Dravidian language. Moreover numerous Tamil words can be seen in Malayalam, Sinhala, Malay and Thai languages. Furthermore Korean and Japanese languages borrow some Tamil words which contain the same meanings in Tamil idiom.