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[/i]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.[/i]



The Tamil letters

Basic Consonants
Consonants are also called the 'body' (mei) letters.

Consonant Sound Category X-SAMPA
க ka vallinam /k/ or /g/
ங nga (N-yuh: one sound) mellinam /N/
ச ca vallinam /c/ or /s/
ஞ nja mellinam /J/
ட tta vallinam /t/ or /d/
ண nna mellinam /n`/
த tha vallinam /T/ or /D/
ந na mellinam /n/
ப pa vallinam /p/ or /b/
ம ma mellinam /m/
ய ya idaiyinam /j/
ர ra idaiyinam /4/
ல la idaiyinam /l/
வ va idaiyinam /v\/
ழ zha idaiyinam /r\`/
ள lla idaiyinam /l'/
ற rra vallinam /r/
ன nnna mellinam /n/


Borrowed consonants
Also called "Grantha" letters, these letters are used almost exclusively for writing words that are borrowed from Sanskrit (or sometimes other languages such as English). Seeing one of these letters in a word is a good indication that the word is probably borrowed from Sanskrit though of course not all such words include these letters.

Consonant Sound
ஜ ja
ஷ sha
ஸ sa
ஹ ha
க்ஷ ksha


Vowels
Vowels are also called the 'life' (uyir) or 'soul' letters. Together with the consonants (which are called 'body' letters), they form compond, syllabic (abugida) letters that are called 'living' letters (uyirmei ie. letters that have both 'body' and 'soul').


Isolated Form
Vowel Sound X-SAMPA
அ Short a /@/
ஆ Long A /a:/
இ Short i /I/
ஈ Long I /i:/
உ Short u /U/
ஊ Long U /u:/
எ Short e /E/
ஏ Long E /e:/
ஐ Diphthong AI /Ai:/
ஒ Short o /O/
ஓ Long O /o:/
ஔ Diphthong AU /@u:/


Compound Form
Using the consonant 'k' as an example.

Compound Transliteration X-SAMPA
க் k
க ka /k@/
கா kA /ka:/
கி ki /kI/
கீ kI /ki:/
கு ku /kU/
கூ kU /ku:/
கெ ke /kE/
கே kE /ke:/
கை kAI /k@i:/
கொ ko /kO/
கோ kO /ko:/
கௌ kAU /k@u:/

Special letter ஃ (pronounced 'akh') is rarely used by itself - normally serves purely grammatical function as independent vowel form of the dot on consonants that suppresses the inherent 'a' sound in plain consonants.

The long ('nedil') vowels are about twice as long as the short ('kuRil') vowels. The diphthongs are usually pronounced about 1.5 times as long as the short vowels, though some grammatical texts place them with the long ('nedil') vowels.

As can be seen in the compound form, the vowel sign can be added to the right, left or both sides of the consonants. It can also form a ligature. These rules are evolving and older use has more ligatures than modern use. What you actually see on this page depends on your font selection. 'Code 2000' will show more ligatures than 'Latha'.

There are proponents of script reform who want to eliminate all ligatures and let all vowel signs appear on the right side.

Unicode encodes the character in logical order (always the consonant first), wheras legacy 8-bit encodings (like TSCII) prefer the written order. This is a problem in transcoding these.