| Tamil is a very intriguing language. The intricacies of this language, as well as its script, are often a topic of debate among language experts. The following article is a beginner's guide to the complex Tamil Script. |
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Introduction Tamil is one of the most widely spoken languages of India. The language, though having its roots firmly implanted in southern India, has spread tendrils to other countries like Singapore and Sri Lanka. Tamil is one of the few languages, which has managed to create a very distinct identity of its own. In a country like India, where the number of languages and their dialects is comparable to number of provinces in the country, Tamil is among the few note-worthy languages. |
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History Tamil is a very prominent member of the Dravidian family of languages. It is an offshoot of the Grantha script, which is grouped under the Southern Indian group of scripts. This group is part of a larger body of scripts, called the Brahmee script. Initially, during the early 1st Century CE a southern variant of the Brahmee script was employed to write the Tamil literature. A little after this period, until the 8th century CE, Grantha script was used for writing the Tamil language. It was around the 8th Century that an exclusive script was developed for the Tamil language, which is being used even in the present day, only with slight variations. |
| The Grantha script is itself a modified version of the Brahmee script of the Ashokan era. A script called 'vettezhuthu' was developed somewhere between the 6th and 10th century to make the carvings of literary works on stones easier. Vettezhuthu is a term, which means 'letters which are cut'. The script is also referred to as 'Vattezhuthu', which translates to mean 'curved letters'. This name might have come into existence owing to the fact that a large part of the early Tamil literature was practiced on Palm leaves. The script took on a curved style, to facilitate the use of sharp instruments to inscribe on the leaves. The Palm leaves had a tendency to tear when characters, not curved in nature, were written on them. |
| Tamil is one of the very few Indian languages, which does not have its origin related to Sanskrit. It's very difficult to declare any manuscript as the first recorded literary work in Tamil. Most of the scriptures were maintained on Palm leaves and have been difficult to lay hands on. Tolkappiyam is probably the earliest available Tamil text, dated around the 200 BC. Tolkappiyam describes the languages of the classical period, about 200BC and also has a fair amount of detail about the grammar and poetry of that period. Silappadhigaram or Cilappadhikaram is considered as the most significant epic of the Tamil language. Authored by Illango Adigal, this epic was composed in the second century AD and can be viewed as a log of the lives of Tamil people of that period. This is one of the three surviving Great-Epics in Tamil literature. |
| The pure Tamil script is addressed as 'Centamil'. This does not have the influence of any other language or script in it. But the form of Tamil witnessed in the present day usage oversteps the boundaries set by this form of script. Koduntamil, the colloquial Tamil has words, which are borrowed from other languages and is not considered as the actual Tamil script by the purists. The script too has been altered to suit words imbibed from other languages. |
| Sanskrit may not have had any influence in the origin of Tamil; nonetheless it has affected the Koduntamil to a large extent. A list of words has been borrowed from Sanskrit to suit the colloquial Tamil. These are referred to as 'loan words'. The 'borrowing' process itself started during the development stages of the script and hence certain characters from the Brahmee script have been retained in Tamil to facilitate the writing of these words. But this has been, and remains, a debatable issue as many of the purists of the Tamil language disagree with the concept. |
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The Features of Tamil Script The Tamil script bases its foundation on 12 vowels and 18 consonants. It also supports a special character called Aayutha Ezutthu, details of which are given further on in the article. In addition to these, six letters have been borrowed from Sanskrit, which are called the Grantha letters, to facilitate the writing of the 'loan words'. The Grantha letters are used to write words of English origin as well. |
| The 12 vowels of the language have been termed as uyir ezhuthu. These are almost similar to the vowels of other south Indian languages. The vowels generally accompany a consonant but they do appear independently when used at the beginning of a syllable. What really makes Tamil script unique is that the whole language is written using only 18 consonants. The limited number of letters can be attributed to the fact that a single character is used to depict multiple sound values. For example, the letter /ka/ can be used for both the sounds /ka/ and /ga/. Similarly the letters /ca/, /pa/ and some of the other consonants take on different roles, based on the context in which they are used. It is interesting to observe that sometimes words, which are spelt the same, are the exact opposite in their meanings. Like, the word "tosam" means happiness and the word "dosam" means a blemish. Both these words are written the same way using the Tamil script. |
| The recognition of the phonetic value of the character becomes easier with practice. These alterations are based on the position of the letter. Consider the letter /pa/. It is pronounced so when it's generally at the beginning of a word, but takes on the sound of /ba/ when it between vowels. There are situations where the pronunciation is completely random too. Generally the confusion arises in case of the loan words from Sanskrit. Otherwise the letters follow a pretty much a consistent pattern. |
| All the consonants of the Tamil script have an inherent vowel in them. It is generally the vowel /a/. Extra strokes are used as diactrics around a letter to vary the sound of the vowel in the letter. There are instances when the consonant sound may occur without the need of a vowel. In such cases a dot, called virama, is placed above the letter. This practice is extended to situations where there might be a need for consonant clusters, that is, when two consonants may need to be combined to produce a required sound. In the Tamil script, each consonant of a cluster is depicted by its corresponding letter accompanied by the virama sign. The other South Indian languages follow a completely different methodology to depict the clusters. Consonants of the cluster are joined together to form a single character, which more often than not has no resemblance to the actual letters. |
| The special character Akh is called the 'Aayutha Ezutthu, which literally translates into "the weapon letter". It is depicted by three dots written in a pattern to resemble the vertices of a small triangle. The name might have been given owing to the resemblance of the letter to the three dots found on the shields of the warriors of the medieval times. Though rarely used on its own, the letter elicits a sound entirely different from akh, when used along with a consonant. The functionality of this letter can be considered to be purely grammatical when it is made use of as a vowel. Tolkappiyam, the book about grammar, kind of suggests that this character is used to produce the effect of a "Glottal Stop" (the sound produced when the vocal cords are pressed together). This might be the reason for the letter being called 'Saarbezhuthu' or a dependent letter in the book. Though this letter was widely used in the early literary works, one can hardly spot them in the modern day literature. |
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Conclusion The script may seem to be very complex and one might find it difficult to learn. But to experience and enjoy the true essence of the epics such as 'Ponniyin Selvan' and other praiseworthy works, it is a necessity to be comfortable with the language and its script. And once you are familiar with the script, you might actually appreciate the complexities of the language that render it unique. |