How is tamil immortal

[mahadevan]

In human history many languages have come and gone, some were long living than the others. Tamil looks like one long living language. Most of its ancient contemporaries are dead languages now. How is Tamil vibrant for milineums ?

[abbydoss1969]

Well, I'm an not an expert on tamil, but the ancient tamil is really dead, isn't? What we speak is derivative of that tamil quite unrelated to it! :wink:

[aravindhan]

Well, I'm an not an expert on tamil, but the ancient tamil is really dead, isn't? What we speak is derivative of that tamil quite unrelated to it! :wink:
Most certainly not.

The distance between the Tamil of a thousand years ago and modern Tamil is approximately that between Shakespearean and modern English. 10th and 12th century poems such as the Kamba Ramayanam and the magnificent Kalingathu Parani actually present fewer problems of comprehension for persons educated in Tamil than Shakespeare does for persons educated in English.

The distance between classical Tamil of the Sangam period and modern Tamil is less than that between the English of Chaucer's time and modern English. The changes in the poetic metaphor and the conventions on prosody since the Sangam period present bigger obstacles than the change in the language.

[mahadevan]

That is why Tamil is declared as a classical language and not specifically sangam/ancient Tamil. The relative ease with which we can understand ancient works in tamil with the knowledge of todays tamil, has earned Tamil the sobriquet 'Kanni Tamil'

[Uthappam]

ha. mahadevan. Tamil is immortal because of you and me. Keep it going man!

[mahadevan]

Hi Uthappam :-) you are doing a great job man

[rajraj]

Last week I had dinner with linguist and he said something that surprised me. ' Tamil has the distinction of being the only language in the world to be in longest continuous use without any change.' Till then I thought Greek would have that distinction. Apparently Greek has changed over the centuries. May be, Aravindhan can shed some light. Or I will ask my linguist friend next time I meet him.

[sivajayan]

Last week I had dinner with linguist and he said something that surprised me. ' Tamil has the distinction of being the only language in the world to be in longest continuous use without any change.' Till then I thought Greek would have that distinction. Apparently Greek has changed over the centuries. May be, Aravindhan can shed some light. Or I will ask my linguist friend next time I meet him.
Well they teach here in Europe the old greek beside Latin which is old too. I only know that if you want to study theology you need to learn old greek too. Because a lot of stuff is written in that ancient greek.

[bis_mala]

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[aravindhan]

Last week I had dinner with linguist and he said something that surprised me. ' Tamil has the distinction of being the only language in the world to be in longest continuous use without any change.' Till then I thought Greek would have that distinction. Apparently Greek has changed over the centuries. May be, Aravindhan can shed some light. Or I will ask my linguist friend next time I meet him.
I'm not sure. Modern Greek is different from both Ancient Greek (the language used by Homer, Plato and others) and "Koine Greek" (the language of the Gospels), because it has been very significantly influenced by Turkish, Italian and Latin. However, in the 18th century, a new form of Greek called Katharevousa was created, which attempted to cleanse all foreign influences from Greek and bring the language closer to the ancient form (by, for example, using verb endings closer to those of ancient Greek than the spoken language). This form is no longer used, but it has influenced modern Greek quite a bit, and therefore brought it closer to the ancient language. I think most educated Greeks can read the New Testament in the original with only a little difficulty. Ancient Greek is more difficult, but I don't know whether it's easier or harder for a native speaker of Greek to read ancient Greek than for a Tamil to read sangam Tamil.

[Sudhaama]

[tscii:bbb41e1ae0]I am unable to understand how it is argued here, that the Ancient Tamil comparted to our contemporary Tamil is NOT FAR DIFFERENT.

(1) Are we able to easily understand the Tamil of Tholkaapiyar, Pattinaththaar and Purha-Naanoorhu..?

(2) In the main grammar speciality of Tamil ALONE.. several Unique advantages we have lost, by making them out of use.

For example in Tamil alone we had FOURTH-PERSON usage as...

¿¡ý (NAAN) ... NEE(¿£) .. AVAN («Åý) ... "¯Åý (UVAN)"

þÅý (IVAN) ... «Åý (AVAN) ... Â(¡)Åý [Y(A)AVAN]... in addition to the word ±Åý (YEVAN) which means different.

þÅû(YIVALH) «Åû (AVALH) ¯Åû (UVALH)

(3) Difference between þø¨Ä (YILLAI) and «øÄ (ALLA)

Several ancient Tamil words have become almost extinct even in our present Literature. That factor is different, because it is a common practice i cas of any languiage.

But what I raise here is different being an added privelege for Tamil alone as a matter of day to day conversation faclity... to differentiate...

«Åý (AVAN) = a Known person ... ¯Åý (UVAN) = An Unknown person (Somebody even a Stranger).

Similarly ¯Åû (UVALH) ... ¯Ð (UDHU) .... ¡Р(YAADHU) ¡Åý (YAAVAN) .. ¡Åû(YAAVALH).. ¡÷ (YAAR)

... [ differentiating from ±Å÷ (YEVAR) / ±Åý (YEVAN) / ±Åû (YEVALH).. which means another sense]

Thus we have thrown away a better facility or advantage for expression and conveyance of thoughts in a better as well as more specific manner in this Ancient Treasure Language Tamil.
[/tscii:bbb41e1ae0]

[aravindhan]

[tscii:c3635ce463]
Are we able to easily understand the Tamil of Tholkaapiyar, Pattinaththaar and Purha-Naanoorhu..?
Right at the beginning of our education, we learned the atticudi and tirukkural. It sounded strange at first, but with a bit of explanation it became perfectly comprehensible. So it isn't much harder to understand ancient Tamil than it is for an English speaker with an equivalent knowledge of English to understand Shakespeare or Marlowe. It is certainly easier than Chaucer.

The difficulties we have with older Tamil literature is made much worse by its very stylised presentation and its literary idiom than the changes in grammar and vocabulary. This is because the literary tradition changed very significantly in mediaeval times. For example, Kalingatthu Parani is harder to understand than the Kampa Ramayanam, even though they're from more or less the same time, because the poetics of the Kalingatthu Parani is quite different from what we're used to. Tamil prose is much easier - Ilampuranar's commentary on the Tolkappiyam presents far fewer problems than Pattinathar's songs, even though it's older. The oldest kalvettu inscriptions are easier to follow than cankam poetry, even though they probably predate the poems.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I think a modern Tamil would have been able to hold a reasonably clear conversation with someone from the time of Rajaraja Chola, and a less clear but still intelligible one with someone from the cankam period.


«Åý (AVAN) = a Known person ... ¯Åý (UVAN) = An Unknown person (Somebody even a Stranger).
"Uvan" is not completely dead. Most dialects in Jaffna retain it in day-to-day usage. Even some rural TN dialects preserve the "u-" prefix in a few words, such as "uvvazhi".


¡Åý (YAAVAN) .. ¡Åû(YAAVALH).. ¡÷ (YAAR) ... [ differentiating from ±Å÷ (YEVAR) / ±Åý (YEVAN) / ±Åû (YEVALH).. which means another sense]
I take your point, and there are other examples too, such as the negative conjugation of verbs ("maraven", "karavel", etc.) which is not used in speech. However, I do not think they have been "lost" from the language - all these have been used in poetry even in modern times. In written French a verb in the present tense has six distinct forms. In spoken French, it only has three. That does not mean the other three have been lost from the language. The same holds for Tamil.[/tscii:c3635ce463]

[rajraj]

However, I do not think they have been "lost" from the language - all these have been used in poetry even in modern times. In written French a verb in the present tense has six distinct forms. In spoken French, it only has three. That does not mean the other three have been lost from the language. The same holds for Tamil.


Aravindhan: You are right. Change does not mean change in vocabulary in common use. I looked at Encyc. Britannica which covers languages well. I also visited some websites on Greek. Greek has gone through considerable turmoil. Alexander the great seems to have changed things considerably. Ancient Greek and modern Greek differ in pronunciation and meaning of some letters and combination of letters. I won't reproduce here what I found . But, one striking example is the letter beta which is pronounced as 'b' in English in ancient Greek. In modern Greek it is 'vita' and pronounced as 'v' in English ! :o There are other changes in pronunciation. That means people in Greece can read ancient works with modern pronunciation. Therefore, my linguist friend was right in saying that Tamil has the distinction of being the only language in longest continuous use without changing. He is writing a book on languages. I am sure he says more about it in the book. I also found a book with the title, ' How to read New Testament in Ancient Greek' !

[abbydoss1969]

[tscii]
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I think a modern Tamil would have been able to hold a reasonably clear conversation with someone from the time of Rajaraja Chola, and a less clear but still intelligible one with someone from the cankam period.


tscii]

That is an interesting point.I have always wondered about the normal / colloquial language used by ordinary people in those days.
In our films, ofcourse, they use stilted , artificial language.
Can you throw some light on the colloquial language of the ancient times?

[mahadevan]

Today we have the kollywood to record the colloquial tamil, our future generations can enjoy chennai Tamil :-), but unfortunately in those days even Nataka Tamil was more likely to have had a refined form of the language :-(

[sundararaj]

Good topic and good discussion. Thanks for all.

[Janar]

Yes it will live as long as we want it to. it has taken many forms and will continue to do so...

[pizzalot]

Tamil, unlike English , always exists in 2 forms . Spoken form and the other written form. Spoken Tamil was similar to what was spoken 2000 years before. And written form is similar to what was written before also. (I am not talking about script. Just grammar). Changes were , if any, minimal and <u>continuous</u>. That is why it is easy to understand a 2000 year old Text. People like Mr. Ira. Mahadevan are even able to understand Indus script based on his current knowledge of Tamil (though the scripts are different).