Tamil is one of the Dravidian languages. It is widely distributed in southern India, is one of the official in this country. The unique antiquity of this language, its direct connection with the rich culture of India, its wide distribution area encourage more and more people to study Tamil.
Tamil speakers
Most of all Hindus who speak Tamil live in the state of Tamil Nadu - about 92% of the total living population of this part of the country considers Tamil to be their native language. Researchers' figures claim that, in addition to India, it can be heard in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, it is spoken in Mauritania and North Africa. Many people from the southern Indian states have emigrated and now live in compact groups in the UK, Canada and the US. The number of all Tamil speakers is over sixty million.
Hoary antiquity
The word "Tamil" in Russian came to us from its English transcription. In local languages, the last sound of this word is rendered with 'l' or 'zh'. The original name is written like this:
The Dravidian family of languages has many related dialects. The most common ones are -Telugu, Kennar, Oraon, M alto and others. Tamil is also included in this group. It has its own, rather ancient literature. The oldest records were found on petrified palm leaves, dating back to 200 BC. e. Other Tamil inscriptions were discovered in 2005. They are one of the most ancient written monuments of mankind and date back to the 10th century BC. These recordings proved that Tamil is not derived from Sanskrit, but is a completely separate dialect that incorporates many words from Sanskrit, Sinhala and other local languages.
Repeated attempts have been made to remove the introduced borrowings and restore the original purity of the Tamil language. The linguistic battle started by the purists Maraimalai Adigal and Parithimaar Kalaignar became known as ‘thanith thamizh iyakkam’. Translated into Russian, this means a movement for a pure Tamil language. Therefore, at present, in public and official speech, words borrowed from Sanskrit are almost never found in texts.
Thirukkural
One of the most famous literary masterpieces written in the languages of India is called Thirukkural. The author of creation, Thiruvalluwal, most likely was a contemporary of Christ. The most famous is the first part of the poem - "On Virtue". This work forms the backbone of Tamil ancient literature.
It was often quoted by thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries, and Leo Tolstoyconsidered "Thirukkural" one of the greatest books of mankind. This ancient work was highly appreciated by the Nobel Prize winner A. Schweitzer, who knew the Tamil language, the translator and missionary J. Pope, who popularized Thirukkural, and the great father of India, Mahatma Gandhi.
Dialects
British researchers, who published their report in the well-known edition of The Ethnologue, name more than twenty dialects of the Tamil language that exist today. Geographically, they were divided into six zones of the greatest distribution: northern, eastern, southern, western, central and dialect of Sri Lanka. On the island, the Tamil language has survived in its conservative form, while the mainland dialects have been severely tested, withstanding the onslaught of foreign words and lexical forms from other languages.
Tamil is interesting
Interesting to know how the Tamil language works. Its alphabet is two-thirds standard - in modern literary Tamil there are 18 consonants and 12 capital letters. But the third part - the largest, consists of special letter combinations uyirmeyelutty. There are 216 of them! These "syllables" form the basis of the Tamil language.
In mathematics, Tamil can also surprise. By the way, Tamil is the name of the Tamil language. The numbers in this ancient language have one feature: they are not tied to tens and hundreds, and each number has an owl "name". And not only whole natural numbers, but even the most complex fractions. For example, the word immi is called the fraction 1/320, and 1/7 is called anu. Owneven those fractions that are practically not used in real life have names.
Classic Tamil
Berkeley, one of the most famous American universities (California), annually hosts a conference dedicated to ancient and modern Tamil. Within the walls of Berkeley, Tamil is considered a classical language, it is ancient, has its own independent tradition, and many literary works have been written in Tamil. This language is as old as Koine (classical Greek) and much older than Arabic. For many centuries, Tamil tried to avoid verbal borrowing and the spread of foreign words in their native speech. The language especially resisted the influence of Sanskrit. That is why it has retained its lexical composition for several thousand years. Tamil was recognized as the first traditional language of India in 2004.
Struggle for mother tongue
Tamils are very sensitive to their language. In their home state, they believe that if the national language of India - Hindi - begins to spread to their lands, Tamil speakers will quickly forget their native language. As an example, language advocates cite the cities of Hyderabad, Mumbai, Kolkata, where local languages have practically fallen into disuse, and the population mainly speaks Hindi or English.
Ch. Annadurai, the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, argued that the decision to make Hindi the national language was wrong. "Why is the tiger considered the national animal in India, and not the rat? After all, rats are the majority?" - askedis he. With this statement, Annadurai emphasized that there are issues that cannot be decided by a simple majority of votes. The former minister is listened to both in the Parliament of India and outside this great country. The struggle for the purity of the ancient dialect continues. I really want to save the classic Tamil for the descendants of native speakers of this amazing language.
