i 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Colloquial 8 9 10 Tamil 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 ii 1 The Colloquial Series 2 Series Adviser: Gary King 3 4 The following languages are available in the Colloquial series: 5 Afrikaans 6 Korean Albanian 7 Latvian Amharic 8 Lithuanian Arabic (Levantine) 9 Malay Arabic of Egypt 10 Mongolian Arabic of the Gulf and 11 Norwegian Saudi Arabia 12 Panjabi Basque 13 Persian Bulgarian 14 Polish * Cambodian 15 Portuguese * Cantonese 16 Portuguese of Brazil * Chinese 17 Romanian Croatian and Serbian 18 * Russian Czech 19 Scottish Gaelic Danish 20 Slovak Dutch 21 Slovene Estonian 22 Somali Finnish 23 * Spanish French 24 Spanish of Latin America German 25 Swedish Greek 26 Tamil Gujarati 27 * Thai Hindi 28 Turkish Hungarian 29 Ukrainian Icelandic 30 Urdu Indonesian 31 * Vietnamese Italian 32 Welsh Japanese 33 34 Accompanying cassette(s) (*and CDs) are available for the above 35 titles. They can be ordered through your bookseller, or send 36 payment with order to Taylor & Francis/Routledge Ltd, ITPS, 37 Cheriton House, North Way, Andover, Hants SP10 5BE, UK, or to 38 Routledge Inc, 29 West 35th Street, New York NY 10001, USA. 39 40 COLLOQUIAL CD-ROMs 41 Multimedia Language Courses 42 Available in: Chinese, French, Portuguese and Spanish iii 1 2 3 4 5 6 Colloquial 7 8 9 10 Tamil 11 12 13 14 15 The Complete Course 16 17 for Beginners 18 19 20 21 22 R.E. Asher and E. Annamalai 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 TL E D U G 37 O E 38 R • • T 39 a p y u lo ro 40 r G & Francis 41 42 London and New York iv 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 First published 2002 11 by Routledge 12 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE 13 Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada 14 by Routledge 15 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 16 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group 17 18 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2002 R. E. Asher and E. Annamalai 23 24 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or 25 reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, 26 mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information 27 storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from 28 the publishers. 29 30 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data 31 A catalogue record for this book is available from 32 the British Library 33 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data 34 TO FOLLOW 35 36 ISBN 0-203-99424-8 Master e-book ISBN 37 38 39 40 ISBN 0–415–18788–5 (book) 41 ISBN 0–415–18789–3 (tape) 42 ISBN 0–415–27677–2 (CD) ISBN 0–415–18790–7 (pack) v 1 2 Contents 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Introduction 11 12 13 1 en peeru Murugan 9 14 My name is Murugan 15 TT 16 2 naan vii ukku pooreen 25 17 I’m going home 18 3 enna vee=um? 39 19 What would you like? 20 21 4 haloo, naan Smith peesureen 52 22 Hello, this is Smith 23 24 5 mannikka=um, taamadamaa 25 varradukku 66 26 I am sorry that I am late. 27 (Lit: Excuse me for coming late) 28 29 6 Mahaabalipuram poovamaa? 85 30 Shall we go to Mahabalipuram? 31 100 32 7 niinga enge pooriinga? 33 Where are you going? 34 8 niinga eppa Indiyaavukku vandiinga? 117 35 When did you come to India? 36 37 9 niinga pooTTurukkira ∂ras 133 38 The clothes you are wearing 39 40 10 neettu oru kalyaa=attukku pooyirundeen 145 41 Yesterday I went to a wedding 42 vi 1 11 nii enne paakka varakkuu∂aadaa 156 2 Shouldn’t you come to see me? 3 4 12 end2 e2 uuru YaaΩppaa=am 166 5 I’m from Jaffna 6 ∂ ∂ 7 13 inda e attukku ep i pooradu? 177 8 How do I get to this place? 9 14 enna sirikkiree? 190 10 What are you laughing at? 11 12 15 naan TamiΩnaaTTule re=∂u naaÒdaan 200 13 irukka mu∂iyum 14 I can be in Tamil Nadu for just a couple of days 15 16 16 TamiΩle oru siranda nuulu 216 17 A famous book in Tamil 18 19 The Tamil alphabet 225 20 Grammatical summary 227 21 22 Key to exercises 236 23 Tamil–English glossary 275 24 English–Tamil glossary 295 25 Index of grammatical terms 312 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 vii 1 2 3 4 5 ANDHRA 6 KARNATAKA PRADESH 7 8 Bangalore Chennai (Madras) 9 Vandalur 10 Mahabalipuram 11 Mysore Triuvannamalai 12 Pondicherry 13 14 Mudumalai 15 Ooty Chidambaram 16 TAMIL Kumbakonam 17 NADU Trichy 18 KERALA Thanjavur 19 20 21 Madurai 22 Jaffna 23 24 25 26 Trincomalee 27 Trivandrum 28 29 Kanya Kumari Batticaloa 30 (Cape Comorim) 31 32 33 Colombo 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 1111 2 Introduction 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Where Tamil is spoken 11 12 The number of speakers of Tamil worldwide is in excess of 65 13 million. The two principal homelands of the language are India, 14 where it is the mother tongue of 87 per cent of the population of 15 the state of Tamil Nadu in the south-east of the country, and Sri 16 Lanka, where a quarter of the inhabitants are Tamil speakers. In 17 the northern and eastern provinces of Sri Lanka, Tamil speakers 18 are in the majority. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, 19 considerable numbers of Tamilians migrated from both India and 20 Sri Lanka to other countries. These countries include Malaysia, 21 Singapore, Mauritius, Fiji, South Africa, the United Kingdom, 22 Germany, the United States, and Canada. 23 24 25 The history of the language 26 27 Tamil has a very long recorded history. Inscriptions in the language 28 date back to the middle of the third century BC, and the earliest 29 Tamil poetry – some of the finest poetry ever written – is thought 30 to have been produced not less than two millennia ago. Good 31 modern translations of the lyrical and bardic poetry of this so-called 32 Sangam age are available in English. 33 The hundreds of languages spoken in India belong to four 34 distinct language families, of which the two with the largest 35 numbers of speakers are Indo-Aryan and Dravidian. The former 36 are related to the languages of western Europe as members of the 37 larger Indo-European family. The thirty or more Dravidian 38 languages of which Tamil is one are not so related. There has, 39 however, been mutual influence, particularly through the borrowing 40 of words. Modern Tamil, especially the spoken variety, also makes 41 use of a number of English words, as you will see as you progress 4211 through this book. 2 Enjoying Tamil culture Tamil has a very rich culture, and a visit to Tamil Nadu is partic- ularly rewarding from this point of view alone. One of the dialogues in this volume relates to the renowned rock sculptures and mono- lithic temples near the shore of the Bay of Bengal at Mahabali- puram – carved in the seventh century. Somewhat later comes the magnificent Dravidian style architecture of the great temples, with their towering gopurams, that are to be found in ancient cities throughout the state. The history of Tamil sculpture is a study in itself. Stone is the more commonly used medium, but bronze too has been used over a long period, notably for sculptures of Siva as Nataraja, Lord of the Dance. One famous temple, at Chidambaram, has carvings of poses in the unique Tamil classical dance form – bharatha natyam. Dance recitals in this style are given throughout the year, but the most opportune time to see them is in December in Chennai (Madras), where each year there is a great festival of dance and of classical music, both vocal and instrumental. There is a thriving film industry too, and the production of films in Tamil is second in India only to that of Hindi films. Quite a different aspect of life in Tamil Nadu relates to the fact the state is in the forefront of information technology. Coinciding with the dawn of a new millennium is the creation of a new science city at Taramani in Chennai. Colloquial and written Tamil The language of writing differs considerably from the language of everyday conversation – so much so that there is no universally accepted way of writing the colloquial variety in Tamil script. This book concentrates on the colloquial language, but devotes a modest amount of space to introducing the written language, on the assumption that learners will want at the very least to decipher signs they might see in travelling in Tamil-speaking parts of the world.