Working copy: Catalan language taken as template
Tamil (தமிழ்) is one of the Dravidian languages and also a classical language spoken by approximately 63 million people.
Classification
Tamil is a member of the Tamil languages group of languages, along with Irula , Kaikadi , Betta Kurumba , Sholaga , Yerukula . The Tamil languages are a subgroup of the Tamil-Malayalam languages , which in turn is a subgroup of Tamil-Kodagu languages , a subgroup of Tamil-Kannada-Telugu languages . The Tamil-Kannada-Telugu languages are a subgroup of the Southern branch of the Dravidian language family.
Geographic distribution
Estimates of the number of Catalan speakers vary from four to twelve million. [1] (pdf), [2], [3], [4], [5].
Tamil is spoken in:
All these areas are informally called Catalan countries (Catalan Països catalans), a denomination based originally on cultural affinity and common heritage, that some have subsequently interpreted politically.
Official status
Tamil is one of the 22 official languages of India. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore.
Tamil is the first language to be declared classical by the Government of India.
Dialects
Dialects of Tamil identified by the Ethnologue are: Adi Dravida, Aiyar, Aiyangar, Arava, Burgandi, Kasuva, Kongar, Korava, Korchi, Madrasi, Parikala, Pattapu Bhasha, Sri Lanka Tamil, Malaya Tamil, Burma Tamil, South Africa Tamil, Tigalu, Harijan, Sanketi, Hebbar, Tirunelveli, Madurai. Other known dialects are Kongu and Kumari.
In 1861, Manuel Milà i Fontanals proposed a dialectal division of Catalan in two major blocks: Eastern Catalan and Western Catalan.
There is no precise linguistic border between one dialect and another because there is nearly always a dialect transition zone of some size between pairs of geographically identified dialects, (except for dialects specific to an island). In addition, each dialect isn't completely homogenous: any dialect can be subdivided into several subdialects. Catalan can be subdivided in two major dialectal blocks and those blocks into individual dialects:
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Western Catalan
- North-Western Catalan
- Ribagorçà (from Ribagorça, a region of Catalonia)
- Pallarès (from Pallars)
- Tortosí (from Tortosa)
- Lleidatà (from Lleida province)
- Valencian
- Northern valencian
- Apitxat, or Central Valencian
- Southern Valencian
- Majorcan from Tàrbena and la Vall de Gallinera Valencian municipalities
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Eastern Catalan
- Northern Catalan, or rossellonès, from Roussillon.
- Central Catalan
- Salat from the Costa Brava*
- Barcelonese
- Tarragonese
- Xipella
- Balearic
- Majorcan
- Minorcan
- Eivissenc (from Ibiza)
- Alguerès, from the Italian city of Alghero (Catalan: Alguer).
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See Catalan dialect examples for examples of each dialect.
The status of Valencian
The issue, as with Serbian and Croatian, of whether Catalan and Valencian constitute different languages or merely dialects has been the subject of political agitation several times after the Franco era. The latest political controversy regarding Valencian occurred on the occasion of the approval of the European Constitution in 2004. The Spanish government supplied the EU with translations of the text into Basque, Catalan, Galician, and Valencian, but the Catalan and Valencian versions were identical. While professing the unity of the Catalan language, the Spanish government claimed to be constitutionally bound to produce distinct Catalan and Valencian versions because the Statute of the Autonomous Community of Valencia calls the regional language "Valencian", while that of Catalunya calls its regional language "Catalan".
Most current (21st century) Valencian speakers and writers use spelling conventions (Normes de Castelló, 1932) that allow for several diverse idiosyncrasies of Valencian, Balearic, North-Western Catalan, and Eastern Catalan.
All universities teaching Romance languages, and virtually all linguists, consider these all to be linguistic variants of the same language (similarly to Canadian French vs. Metropolitan French). The criterion used by most linguists to decide whether two language varieties are a separate language is the criterion of mutual intelligibility; by this criterion Valencian and other varieties of Catalan are dialects of the same language. Consider also the web sites of the Valencian universities: Universitat Jaume I de Castelló or Universitat de València.
Nevertheless, differences do exist: the accent of a Valencian is recognisable, there are differences in subjunctive terminations, and there are a large number of words unique to Valencian; but those differences are not any wider than among North-Western Catalan and Eastern Catalan. In fact, Northern Valencian (spoken in the Castelló province and Matarranya valley, a strip of Aragon) is more similar to the Catalan of the lower Ebro basin (spoken in southern half of Tarragona province and another strip of Aragon) than to apitxat Valencian (spoken in the area of L'Horta, in the province of Valencia).
Sounds
Grammar
Writing system
History
Tamil's origins are independent of Sanskrit (which is from the Indo-European language family and the ancestor of many Indian languages). The oldest available book on Tamil Grammar is Tolkaappiyam, which is said to be the world's oldest surviving grammar for any language, published c. 6th century BC.
The earliest records date from inscriptions from 200 BC. Other early works exist, which were preserved on manuscripts made by palm-leaf and through oral transmission. Part of this rich and varied literary output includes a Tamil indigenous grammatical tradition independent of that of the ancient Sanskrit grammarians. The earliest text which describes the language of the classical period is the Tolkappiyam (dating from around 200 BC); another dates from the year 1000 AD.
Three stages appear in the written records: ancient (200 BC to 700), medieval (700 - 1500) and modern (1500 to the present). Sometime between 800 AD and the turn of the millennium, Malayalam, a very closely related Dravidian language, split off and became a distinct language.
During the medieval period, Tamil absorbed many loan words from Sanskrit in the verbal system, but in the 1900s attempts were made to purge Tamil of its Sanskrit loans with the result that modern scientific and bureaucratic terminology is Tamil-based and not Sanskrit-based as in other Indic languages.
Quite significantly for its age, Tamil seems to have undergone minimal changes and adaptations over the years. Classical Tamil is quite comprehensible to speakers of the modern language. The ancient Tamil book Tirukkural is an example. The verses from the book are often taught to young students of the language at the primary level, and they pick up the lines in the ancient dialect with little difficulty.
Many English words including katamaran and ginger are originally from tamil (Kattu maram - logs tied together, Inji).
Catalan developed by the 9th century from Vulgar Latin on both sides of the eastern part of Pyrenees mountains (counties of Rosselló (Roussillon), Empuries, Besalú, Cerdanya, Urgell, Pallars and Ribagorça). It shares features with Gallo-romance and Ibero-romance, and it could be said to be in its beginnings no more than an eccentric dialect of Occitan (or of Western Romance).
The language was spread to the south by the Reconquista
in several phases: Barcelona and Tarragona, Lleida and Tortosa, the ancient Kingdom of Valencia, and transplanted to the Balearic Islands and l'Alguer (Alghero).
Catalan was exported in the 13th century to Balearic Islands and the newly created Valencian Kingdom by the Catalan and Aragonese invaders (note that the area of Catalan language still extends to part of what is now the region of Aragon). During this period, almost all of the Muslim population of the Balearic Islands were expelled, but many Muslim peasants remained in many rural areas of the Valencian Kingdom, as had happened before in the lower Ebro basin (or Catalunya Nova).
During the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries the Catalan language was important in the Mediterranean region. Barcelona was the pre-eminent city and port of the so-called Aragonese Empire, a confederation nominally ruled by the King of Aragon (Aragon, Catalonia, Roussillon, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Sicily, and — later — Sardinia and Naples). All prose writers of this era used the name 'Catalan' for their common language (e.g. the Catalan Ramon Muntaner, the Majorcan Ramon Llull, etc.) The matter is more complicated among the poets, as they wrote in a sort of artificial Langue d'Oc in the tradition of the troubadors. Italian resentment of this Catalan dominance appears to have been one of the wellsprings of the so-called "Black Legend".
During the 15th and 16th centuries the city of Valencia gains pre-eminence in the confederation, due to several factors, including demographic changes and the fact that the royal court moved there. Presumably as a result of this shift in the balance of power within the confederation, in the 15th century the name 'Valencian' starts to be used by writers from Valencia to refer to their language.
In the 16th century the name 'Llemosí' (that is to say, "the Occitan dialect of Limoges") is first documented as being used to refer to this language. This attribution has no philological base, but it is explicable by the complex sociolinguistic frame of Catalan poetry of this era (Catalan versus troubadoresque Occitan). Ausias March himself was not sure what to call the language he was writing in (it is clearly closer to his contemporary Catalan or Valencian than to the archaic Occitan).
Then, during the 16th century, most of the Valencian elites switched languages to Castilian Spanish, as can be seen in the balance of languages of printed books in Valencia city: at the beginning of century Latin and Catalan (or Valencian) were the main languages of the press, but by the end of the century Spanish was the main language of the press. Still, rural areas and urban working classes continued to speak their vernacular language.
During the first half of the 19th century Catalan and Valencian esperienced a major revival among urban élites due to the Renaixença , a romantic cultural movement. The effects of this revival persist to this day.
During the Franco regime (1939-1975), the use of Catalan was banned, along with other regional languages in Spain such as Basque and Galician. Following the death of Franco in 1975 and the restoration of democracy, the ban was lifted and the Catalan language is now used in politics, education and the media, including the newspapers Avui ('Today') and El Periódico de Catalunya (sharing content with its Spanish release and with El Periòdic d'Andorra, printed in Andorra; El Periódico de Catalunya has Spanish-language and Catalan-language editions, with identical content) and the television channel Televisió de Catalunya (TVC).
Examples
Some common Catalan phrases:
- Catalan: Català
- hello: hola /ˈɔlə/; Déu vos guard /ˈdew βus ˈgwar/
- good-bye: வணக்கம் /əˈðɛw/ (sing.); adéu siau /əˈðɛw siˈaw/ (pl.)
- please: si us plau /sisˈplɑw/
- thank you: நன்றி /ˈgrɑsiəs/; mercès /mərˈsɛs/
- sorry: மன்னிக்கவும் /pərˈðo/
- that one: aquest /əˈkɛt/ (masc.); aquesta /əˈkɛstə/ (fem.)
- how much?: quant val? /ˈkwɑmˈbɑl/; quant és? /ˈkwɑnˈtes/
- yes: ஆம் /ˈsi/
- no: இல்லை /ˈno/
- I don't understand: No ho entenc /ˈno wənˈteŋ/
- where's the bathroom?: on és el bany? /ˈonˈezəlˈβaɲ/; on és el lavabo? {{IPA/ˈonˈezəlˈləˈβɑβu/}}
- generic toast: salut! /səˈlut/;
- Do you speak English?: Que parla l'anglès? /kə ˈparlə lənˈglɛs/
- Do you speak Catalan?: Que parla el català? /kə ˈparləl kətəˈlɑ/
There is a Catalan Wikipedia.
Learning Catalan
- Digui, digui... Curs de català per a estrangers. A catalan Handbook. — Alan Yates and Toni Ibarz. — Generalitat de Catalunya. Departament de Cultura, 1993. -- ISBN 84-393-2579-7.
- Teach Yourself Catalan. — McGraw-Hill, 1993. — ISBN 0844237558.
See also
External links
Previous Tamil language page
Tamil is one of the Dravidian languages. It is one of the Classical languages of the world.
The 'l' in the word 'Tamil' is pronounced like a retroflex 'r', and is often transliterated as "zh". The letter 'ழ' which is found in 'தமிழ்' (Tamil) is believed to have unique pronunciation and not found in any other languages. See Tamil alphabet.
History
Tamil's origins are independent of Sanskrit (which is from the Indo-European language family and the ancestor of many Indian languages). The oldest available book on Tamil Grammar is Tolkaappiyam, which is said to be the world's oldest surviving grammar for any language, published c. 6th century BC.
The earliest records date from inscriptions from 200 BC. Other early works exist, which were preserved on manuscripts made by palm-leaf and through oral transmission. Part of this rich and varied literary output includes a Tamil indigenous grammatical tradition independent of that of the ancient Sanskrit grammarians. The earliest text which describes the language of the classical period is the Tolkappiyam (dating from around 200 BC); another dates from the year 1000 AD.
Three stages appear in the written records: ancient (200 BC to 700), medieval (700 - 1500) and modern (1500 to the present). Sometime between 800 AD and the turn of the millennium, Malayalam, a very closely related Dravidian language, split off and became a distinct language.
During the medieval period, Tamil absorbed many loan words from Sanskrit in the verbal system, but in the 1900s attempts were made to purge Tamil of its Sanskrit loans with the result that modern scientific and bureaucratic terminology is Tamil-based and not Sanskrit-based as in other Indic languages.
Quite significantly for its age, Tamil seems to have undergone minimal changes and adaptations over the years. Classical Tamil is quite comprehensible to speakers of the modern language. The ancient Tamil book Tirukkural is an example. The verses from the book are often taught to young students of the language at the primary level, and they pick up the lines in the ancient dialect with little difficulty.
Many English words including katamaran and ginger are originally from tamil (Kattu maram - logs tied together, Inji).
Classification
Tamil is a member of the Tamil languages group of languages, along with Irula , Kaikadi , Betta Kurumba , Sholaga , Yerukula . The Tamil languages are a subgroup of the Tamil-Malayalam languages , which in turn is a subgroup of Tamil-Kodagu languages , a subgroup of Tamil-Kannada-Telugu languages . The Tamil-Kannada-Telugu languages are a subgroup of the Southern branch of the Dravidian language family.
Geographic distribution
Tamil is spoken mainly in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. Tamil is also spoken in Singapore, Malaysia and Mauritius.
Official status
Tamil is one of the 22 official languages of India. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore.
Tamil is the first language to be declared classical by the Government of India. Sanskrit is expected to be declared classical soon.
Spoken Tamil
Tamil is a diglossic language. The classic form (senthamiz) of the language varies significantly from colloquial (kotunthamiz) form. This difference in the language have existed since ancient times.
The classic form is the preferred written form, and is also used for public speaking. While written Tamil is mostly standard across various Tamil speaking regions, spoken form of the language differs widely from the written form.
Dialects
Dialects of Tamil identified by the Ethnologue are: Adi Dravida, Aiyar, Aiyangar, Arava, Burgandi, Kasuva, Kongar, Korava, Korchi, Madrasi, Parikala, Pattapu Bhasha, Sri Lanka Tamil, Malaya Tamil, Burma Tamil, South Africa Tamil, Tigalu, Harijan, Sanketi, Hebbar, Tirunelveli, Madurai. Other known dialects are Kongu and Kumari.
Languages with close similarity
Malayalam spoken by the people around the hilly ranges bordering Kerala and Tamil Nadu states is very similar to Tamil in vocabulary, syntax and script. Hence it is hypothesised to have been evolved from a dialect of Tamil called Koduntamil or Malaithamil (literally Tamil of the mountains).
Writing system
Main article: Tamil alphabet
The Tamil script evolved from the Grantha script of the Southern Indian group of scripts. Interestingly, the Tamil language is one of the oldest recorded languages in southern India. The earliest texts, written in a southern variant of Brahmi, date from just before the 1st century AD. Later, the Grantha script was employed to write the Tamil language until the 8th century when a distinctive script evolved. The system has changed little since; Thanthai Periyar suggested certain reforms to the alphabet in 1935 and a few of them were implemented around 1975 by MG Ramachandran and followed since then.
Trivia
According to Today Translations, a British translation service, the Tamil word "செல்லாதிருப்பவர்" (sellaathiruppavar, meaning certain type of truancy †) is ranked 8th in The Most Untranslatable Word In The World list. It is also the only Indian word listed. [6]
See also
External links
Learning Tamil
Recognition of Tamil as a classical language
Tamil has been declared a classical language by the Indian government. These links are about that news.
Fonts and Encodings
Discussions
- Agathiyar, an extensive discussion list for Tamil Culture
- Kalaivani, a Malaysian Tamil Information Exchange
- Thamizmanam, a hub for blogs in Tamil language
Other
