Primary Rhymes Tamil

CONTENTS
OF THISSECTION

Gloud games hack apk. Dictionaries

Learn Tamil Through English
- Sendhil Kumar Cheran

SingaporeExperience

TeachingTamil
through theInternet

Visitthe
Learning Tamil Section and
Dictionaries &Reference
Tamilnation Library

Learning & TeachingTamil

' Alanguage is more than just a means ofcommunication. It is a repository of acommunity�s collective historyand heritage. It also provides an identityand a focus that binds together a community forsocial togetherness, that makes individualaccomplishments that much easier. Well aware ofthis, Tamils of North America, made acommitment to themselves to perpetuate thelearning of Tamil in the Americas. Towards thatprimary goal, the UCB Tamil Chair was conceivedin 1991, and a formal committee was formed in1992 to provide focus to the fund raisingefforts and to manage the logistics withUCB..' KumarKumarappan on the Endowment of the Tamil Chairat University of California, Berkeley,2001

'..Interestingly, the Tamil word forvowels, Uyir means life, and the word forconsonants, Mey means both body and reality.Neither life nor body can exist without theother. .' Tamil: Its Assets & CurrentNeeds - Dr. R. Jegannath

'..Languageis more than a symbol. In it isstored the accumulated experience of apeople.. to part with it would be to loose thekey to our past, to cut away the roots from thetree..' On Language &Nation - Eamon de Valera

The University of PennsylvaniaWeb Site for Learning and Teaching Tamil is aproject of the Penn Language Center and is fundedpartially by a grant from the Consortium forLanguage Teaching and Learning, with the jointparticipation of Tamil-teaching faculty at theUniversities of Chicago, Cornell, andPennsylvania. The Project members are Prof. Harold F. Schiffman andDr. Vasu Renganathan

The comprehensive teachingmodules include a Tamil Writing Project, anInvocation on Tamil Goddess, an Introduction tothe Tamil Alphabet that can be used to practicemaking the various characters that make up theTamil alphabet, exercises based on Readerlessons, some simple Conversational Exchanges,and Modern Short Stories for readingcomprehension.

LearnTamil Through English by Sendhil KumarCheran, a second generation Tamil born and raisedin the United States, contains PDF-formattedlessons for teaching Tamil to English-speakingsecond generation Tamils. The lessons are basedon the method used to teach Tamil as a foreignlanguage at universities in the UnitedStates.

The site is a valuablelearning resource for second-generation Tamils.It does not simply concentrate on teaching thealphabet and vocabulary words but containslessons that are designed specifically forteaching sentence formation. In hisIntroduction, SendhilKumar Cheran writes:

'The human brain is hard-wired to learnlanguage from birth. Young children have aninnate ability to absorb and internalize thelanguage(s) being spoken around them. Aschildren get older and become teenagers, theirability to quickly learn new languagesdiminishes greatly. Whereas a languageimmersion environment is all that is needed to�teach�language to a young child, the older child andteenager needs to learn new languages through amore structured approach. The lessons found at thiswebsite will provide the structure for learningThamil through English. By learning thegrammar contained in the lessons, learners willbe able to use their knowledge of English toproduce sentences in Thamil.

These lessons are based on the highlyeffective method used to teach Thamil atuniversities and colleges in the United States ofAmerica. The method was developed by linguistsfluent in English and Thamil, and it makes use ofthe student's fluency in English to teach writtenThamil. This knowledge of written Thamil can thenbe very easily applied to learn the spoken language. I was bornand raised in the United States and never spokeThamil until I was nearly 18 years old. I wasfirst introduced to this method during the summerof 1997, and I had achieved fluency in thewritten and spoken language by the summer of1999. To get an idea of my level of languageproficiency, read my articles inThamil.'

How to write in Tamil usingAnjal Font website is maintained by RamRavindran

The multi media KalviTamil Learning Software by Softech Creationsteaches Tamil through English. It includesprograms for teaching (with sound pronunciation)the Tamil vowels (a.. au), consonants (ka, nga,cha..na), how compound letters are formed,numbers, a word game and three letter words in avariety of game/video formats.

Tamil has been taught as part ofIndological Studies at Uppasala University,Sweden since 1967. Other Universities where Tamilis taught include Heidelberg , Cologne and London

The Tamil Eelam Economic DevelopmentOrganisation has made a beginning in makingavailable Tamil Learning Software free onthe web. Siddharthan Ramachandramurthi's Learning Tamil pagecontains useful information about Tamil Classes, Tamil Educational Softwareand Tamil Textbooks

Tamil: Its Assets & CurrentNeeds

'..Interestingly, the Tamil word forvowels, Uyir means life, and the word forconsonants, Mey means both body and reality.Neither life nor body can exist without theother. .'

1. Tamil is a more logicallanguage than most other languages. Forinstance,

a) there is no arbitrary assignment of genderto inanimate things as in Latin, French or theSanskrit-based languages. Just imagine having tomemorize whether a stone or a book is masculineor feminine!

b) declination of verbs: the verb-ending inTamil depends on the number, gender and person,invariably. The middle depends on the tense. Inmost other languages there are too manycategories of verb-endings, which one simply hasto memorize. (English, of course, has hardly amethod to its madness in this matter and rightlydubbed as one of the most illogical of languagesby Bernard Shaw)

c) all case- endings follow similar sets ofrules; eg: when the word is only two-letters-longand starts with a short letter, it inserts avowel or doubles the consonant in all case-endings, so that the identity of the word is notlost. Eg: Avan becomes avanai or avanaal, butKan, instead of becoming kanai or kanaal, becomeskannai or kannaal

d) common alteration of vowels and consonantsleads to an ease of production by the vocalapparatus and to a euphonic sound. Consonantclusters such as seen in the Scandinavianlanguages are clumsy and call for a bit ofgymnastics by the vocal apparatus. The Japaneselanguage is very particular about this, alwaysalternating the vowels and the consonants. Evenwhen it borrows words from other languages, itnaturalizes them suitably: eg. Pikkunikku (the cncalls for an awkward jump), domokurashy .

Tamil too generally does this, avoiding thegymnastics of Prakriti, naturalizing it intoPirakiruti.

Interestingly, the Tamil word for vowels,Uyir means life, and the word for consonants, Meymeans both body and reality. Neither life norbody can exist without the other.

Uyir by itself, such as aeoui, will be allethereal, with no solidity, while consonantclusters such as brkjtp will be all hard andlifeless as stones without the enlivening vowels.So the logical need for their alternation.

e) not ending a word with a plosive consonant(like k,ch,t,p etc) which would entail the effortof a sudden break .and stiffness. (Even languageswhich allow it often add a vowel at the end whilesinging, which promotes relaxation: Dost dost naraha becomes Dostu dostu na raha)

f) avoiding insertion of plosive sounds in themiddle of a word _ for instance, the normaltendency of the language will be to pronounce� as Sedhu rather than asSethu.

Nasal consonants are followed by thecorresponding consonant that originates at thesame location in the vocal apparatus: nga (backof the throat � guttural), nja(palatal), nda (tongue bent on palate), mba(bilabial-both lips) and so on, again generallyavoiding the need for vocal gymnastics. (Thesefour tendencies of the language given in d, e, fand g give the euphonic sound to it.)

g) Tamil has perhaps the most extensive,scientific and intricate system of prosody. Whilethe Sanskrit prosody is much more extensive andintricate than that of English, it pales incomparison to that of Tamil.
2. In spite of being spoken by a whole race ofpeople including the illiterate among them, Tamilhas maintained such a continuity and uniformitythat literature written 2000 years ago can beunderstood by the educated readers of thepresent. This is unusual.

Languages spoken by the common man generallyundergo a great deal of change from region toregion and with the passage of time. Forinstance, English changed so much in a thousandyears that the works such as those of Chaucer'sneed to be almost rewritten in order to beunderstood by the readers of today.

This is not applicable to Latin and Sanskrit,since they have always been languages of thecourt and scholars only and not of daily usage bythe people. In this respect, Tamil has managed tokeep the cake and eat it too, by keeping thewritten form unchanged while the spoken has beenchanging with time, and in addition hasvariations based on region and community. Theresult is a spoken language markedly distinctfrom the written. This is a source of greattrouble for non-Tamils who wish to learn to speakand read Tamil, but can be overcome by learningthe written form and then the general lines andprinciples on which it is distorted when spoken.However, the aforesaid great advantage remains,namely, the written form does not change too muchwith time.
3. The great difficulty faced by those who domost of their learning through the medium ofTamil is the difficulty in consistentlyrepresenting certain alien sounds in Tamil. It isnot unusual to hear some of them say Bagisdhanfor Pakisthan or gaali when they actually want tosay kaali (empty), a word naturalized intoTamil.

The unfortunate thing is that to use B or G atthe beginning of a word is entirely alien to theTamil language, yet many Tamils whose learning ofthese words is through the medium of Tamil, makesuch errors because of confusion. The wordPakisthan illustrates their plight: written inTamil, the first consonant could be B or P, thesecond G or K, and the third Th or Dh, leading toeight possibilities in pronouncing the wordwritten in Tamil.

When our Tamil medium students need tocommunicate with those of other languages inlater life, they frequently encounter suchpitfalls as Bagisdhan for Pakisthan. Thus, theyare exposed to ridicule by others and lose allself- confidence and start getting a feeling thattheir language is in some way inferior.

In this age when we are constantly in contactwith matters pertaining to the whole world, if wedo not address this great difficulty, those wholearn in Tamil medium will face a greatdisadvantage. In due course of time, when theTamil parents realize this, they will not want tosend their children to Tamil medium schools; thelanguage will languish. That would be a pity,since Tamil is such a wonderful language and canbe practically effective in the present world tooif it overcomes this limitation.

A simple scheme and some guidelines areproposed in this connection and I hope that itwill lead to a wider discussion and action inthis matter. (sorry, not yet written down)
4. The representation of Tamil through theEnglish alphabet:

It can be shown that the representationnaturally followed by a Tamil is logicallysuperior to that followed by the Sanskrit basedlanguages, which were obliged to adopt thatscheme because of the aspirant sounds in theiralphabet (kha, chha, pha etc}.

Writing Geetha is certainly more logical thanGita or Geeta, from the point of view of Englishand Tamil, and to a large extent, even from thepoint of view of Sanskrit. The current scheme wasproposed for Sanskrit, probably by themissionaries, with a view to accommodating theaspirant letters even there they woukd have donebetter to keep t for � and thfor � .

The current scheme is not in accordance withthe natural sound pattern of Tamil, or Englishand is not the best even from the Sanskrit pointof view. The Sanskrit-based languages use thesame letter, t for two different vargas orcategories, namely, for � andfor �. In any case, therepresentation th as in think gives a sound moreakin to � than does the lettert.

The Tamilians' writing of words such asDhivya, Dheepak, Ajith, Sumathi, Thaj is thoughtby many North-Indians to be owing to ignorance,but it is they who need to be enlightened.Unfortunately we have accepted the representationhanded to us by those who formulated it forSanskrit and continue to write Tamil instead ofThamil; is it too late to do anything aboutit?

5. We Tamils need to have a clearunderstanding of the way our language works. Mostof us go about it instinctively, but at times, itleads to avoidable inconsistencies:

a) At the beginning of a word the hardconsonants are always hard, unless it is a wordfrom another language that starts with a softsound and is not yet fully naturalized intoTamil: thittam (plan) should not be pronounced asdhittam, nor kudhirai as gudhirai since they areoriginal Tamil words. While gunam or bayam may bepronounced as such, since it is from the Sanskritword of that sound and has not yet fullynaturalized into kunam or payam.

b) When we represent Tamil words in English,the Tamil rules of sound must be respected. Forinstance, the letters க,த, ட, unless preceded by aவல்லினம்மெய், is alwayspronouned as ga, dha or da and not as ka, tha orta. So புதிய,செந்தில்,மகன் should alwaysbe pudhiya, sendhil, and magan and not puthiya,senthil or makan. One will not hear them normallyspoken thus, and the sound of the word must berepresented, not that of each letter.

c) The choice between நand ன shuld be clear. ந is used at the beginning of aword and ன at otherplaces. There are 2 exceptions:

i) with the combination of ந்த,ந்து etc.

(ii) when a word starting with ந takes a prefix to supplementor reverse or modify its meaning. In these cases,either ந orன may be used, ie.either following the original rule or indicatingthe root of the word. Therefore, we may writeஅநீதிor அனீதி,விநாயகர்or வினாயகர்,அந்நியன்or அன்னியன்(This is from Sanskrit, niyam meaning self, orone's own, anniyan being the antonym.). There isa recent trend to write இயக்குநர்,ஓட்டுநர்etc., instead of இயக்குனர்,ஓட்டுனர்.The tendency should be discouraged.

6. A living language must change and grow inorder to survive and thrive, or else it will loseusage and become extinct. Why is it that such alogical, euphonic, ancient yet living languagewith a rich literature is today facing theignominy of the elite of its own peoplepreferring to educate their children through analien medium? This is not so in Japan, Russia,Germany or China.

The primary reasons are two.

i) The difficulty of articulating alien soundsas outlined above. Though Tamil in itself may beable to express most concepts without the aid ofother languages, in the present world, it isincreasingly necessary to communicate with peopleof other languages, and consistentrepresentations of sounds unusual to Tamil is aninevitable necessity.

This is easily attainable; we need adiscussion on this to arrive at the mostpractical solutions. Tamil can weather theseminor modifications and take them in its stride.The changes introduced into the Tamil script bythe European missionaries have not jeopardizedthe language in any way; nor have the changesintroduced by Periyaar to achieve unifornity inthe representation of lai, nai, naa, raa etc.

ii) Coining of new words as necessary. Here afew points are worth keeping in mind.

a) If there is an existing Tamil word thatwould be naturally suitable for a new concept, weshould jump at it and use it.

b) If there are naturalized substitutes fromother languages already established in commonuse, they should be readily accepted as a part ofthe language, without any qualms such as thosefelt by Thanithamil Iyakkamists. Tamil has thecapacity to absorb, digest and assimilate themall without being lost in them. (Such willingnessand flexibility is the only reason why acomparatively primitive language that English wasa thousand years ago, has now become a very richlanguage.)

c) while coining new words, we need not alwaysfollow the line on which the original word wascoined; if an innovative, short, apt Tamilic formcan be coined, that would be more acceptable evenif it is not a literal translation of the wordbut represents the object better.

d) no need to make lengthy explanatorydescriptions instead of new words because of thefear that people may not understand what thystand for. No need to underestimate people, theyare capable of arrving at the right target in duecourse of time, quicker than we think, if thecoinage is apt. மென்பொருள்,வலையம்,கணினி aresome beautiful examples.