Author: Benjamin Babington
Publisher: Asian Educational Services
Year: 1999
Language: multilingual
Pages: 253
ISBN/UPC (if available): 812060881X
Description
The Tamul language is spoken by a population of more than five millions; being current in the Southern portion of the Peninsula of India, throughout the Jaghire, the districts of South Arcot, Salem, Coimbatoor, Combaconum, Tanjour, Trichinopoly, Madura, Dindigul, and Tinnivelly, as well as in many pars of he extensive kingdom of Mysore.
It is not derived from any language at present in existence, and is either itself the parent of the Taloogoo, Malayalam and Canarese languages, or, what is more probable, has its origin in common with these in some ancient tongue which is now lost, or only partially preserved in its offspring.
In its more primitive words, such as the names of natural objects, the verbs expressive of physical action or passion, the numerals, & c it is quite unconnected with the Sanskrit, and what it hence so largely borrowed, when the Tamulas, by intercourse with the more enlightened people of the North, began to emerge from barbarity, has reference to the expression of moral sentiments and abstract metaphysical notions, and is chiefly to be found in the colloquial idiom.
In this remarkable circumstance, and also in the construction of its alphabet, the Tamul differs much from the other languages of the South, which are found to admit the Sanskrit more largely in literary and poetical compositions than in the ordinary dialect of conversation, and which adopt the arrangement of the Sanskrit alphabet with scarcely any variation.