History Of Tamil

The origins of Tamil, like the other Dravidian languages but unlike most of the other established literary languages of India, are independent of Sanskrit. This article will talk about the origin of tamil language and its greatness.

Tamil has the oldest literature amongst the Dravidian languages.

The history of the Tamil language may conveniently be divided into three periods,

Early Tamil, comprising the period between the sixth century before and the sixth century after Christ; Mediaeval Tamil, between the sixth century and the twelfth century; and Modern Tamil, from the twelfth century down to the present day. EIGHTEENTH MOST WIDELY SPOKEN LANGUAGE

Tamil is spoken predominantly by Tamils in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Singapore.

It also has smaller communities of speakers in many other countries like Indonesia, United Kingdom, Canada, Mauritius, Australia, USA, South Africa

It is the eighteenth most spoken language, with over 80 million speakers worldwide.

It is one of the official languages of India, Singapore and Sri Lanka.

TAMIL TEXT ????? ??????????

Origin

The earliest known Tamil inscri ptions date back to at least 500 BC.

The oldest literary text in Tamil, Tolkappiyam, was composed around 200 BC.

The Tamil alphabet is is thought to have evolved from the Brahmi scri pt, though some scholars believe that its origins go back to the Indus scri pt.

The alphabet is well suited to writing literary Tamil, centamil. However it is ill-suited to writing colloquial Tamil, koduntamil. During the 19th century, attempts were made to create a written version of the colloquial spoken language. Nowadays the colloquial written language appears mainly in school books and in passages of dialogue in fiction.

Notable features

Type of writing system: syllabic alphabet Direction of writing: left to right in horizontal lines When they appear the the beginning of a syllable, vowels are written as independent letters. Some of the non-standard consonant-vowel combinations are not used in official documents. The alphabet was originally written on palm leaves. As a result, the letters are made up mainly of curved strokes which didn`t rip the leaves. Used to write:

Tamil, a Dravidian language spoken by around 80 million people in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Canada, the USA, UK and Australia.

It is the first language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and is spoken by a significant minority of people (2 million) in north-eastern Sri Lanka.

Famous persons in TAMIL LITERATURE ????? ?????????

1. Bharati Dasan (1891-1964) was a prolific poet, playwright, lyricist and screenplay writer.

2. C.S. Chellappa (b. 1912) is one of the most prominent modern short story writers in Tamil. Vadivasal (1959) is one of Chellappa`s famous novelettes.

3. Durai Manickam is one of the important modern Tamil poets, who is credited with prolific works like Aiyai, Nurasiriyam, Koyyakkani, Ensuvai Enbatu and Paviyakkottu.

4. iIlanko Adigal was the 9th century Tamil poet who composed the five great epics of ancient Tamil literature: Chilappatikaram.

5. Indira Parthasarathy (b. 1930) is one of the brilliant writers of modern fiction in Tamil. He has written over fifteen novels.

6. Jayamohan: Regarded as Tamil`s first post-modernist writer, Jayamohan shot to fame with his novel Vishnupuranam. His other notable works include Rubber and Pinthudarum Nizhalin Kural.

7. Kamban was the greatest of the court poets of Kulottunga Chola III (1178-1218 AD). He adapted Valmiki`s Ramayana in Tamil in his Ramakatai or Kamba Ramayanam.

8. Mayuram Vedanayakam Pillai (1826-1889) was a gifted composer of Tamillyrics and was the pioneer of Tamil novel.

9. M.Varadarajan (1912-1974) experimented with several new techniques in Tamil novels. His famous works include Perra Manam (1953), Karittundu (1953), Ahalvilakku, Sentamarai and Mankudisai.

10. Rajam Krishnan (b. 1925) is an eminent female Tamil novelist, whose important works include Verukku Nir (1972) that won her the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1973.

11. R. Krishnamurthi `Kalki` (1899-1954) is regarded as one of the pioneers of Tamil novel, who popularised novel by dealing with social and contemporary issues like emancipation of Harijans

12. R. Shanmugasundaram (1918-77) belonged to the Manikkodi group of writers who ushered in the modern era in Tamil fiction. Shanmugasundaram distinguished himself as a novelist.