Some Tamil Lessons for Beginners (in English)

[Arasu]

Originally Posted by Arul Murugan

வான் உயர் கட்டிட மாநகர் மன்றம்! But tamil experts can only correct it.

This word may better represent 'Skyscrapercity Forum'. However, I would rather prefer a simpler word formation with some amount of originality than try to define with multiple words. The aboce would work well as the definition rather than a synonymous word in Tamil. We have to be imaginative as well.

In this thread we can have some english words that is derived from Tamil.

English word-------Tamil word------------In tamil

Rice--------------A ri ce----------------அரிசி
Congee-----------ka(co) chi(n)(gee)----கஞ்சி
Catamaran--------ka(ca)tu(ta)maram---கட்டுமரம்
Mango------------man(man) gai (go)---மாங்கனி/ மாங்காய்

We can add further.

The word rice is not a direct import into English from Tamil 'arisi'. It went through Greek and Italian. In Italian, the work is something like 'ariso'. Similarly, mango went about in a roundabout route from Tamil (mangai) to Italian (mango) and then English.

A couple of other English words that have Tamil connection; cash from 'kasu' meaning money, ginger from 'inji - means ginger' and 'ver - meaning root'.

coir - kayiru (Tamil/Malayalam) - thread
copra - kopparai (Tamil/Malayalam?) - coconut

Originally Posted by Marathaman

Thanks Arasu. I'm reading all of this.

Hope you find it useful, Marathaman. Thanks for the suggestion. I think forumers find it informative looking at the interest shown.

[Arasu]

kaatrin mozhi, oliyaa? isaiyaa?

kaatru - wind, in - of, kaatru+in=kaatrin
mozhi - language
oli - sound, oli+aa = oliyaa,
isai - music, isai+aa = isaiya

(Addind 'aa' to a word, turns the sentence into a question.)

the language of the wind, is that the sound or the music?

note: there is no verb in the above sentence. In the translation 'is' added.
Also, note the pronunciation of 'zhi' in mozhi. It is the letter in Tamizh.



poovin mozhi, niramaa? manamaa?

poo - flower, niram - colour, maNam - fragrance, to be differenctiated with

manam - heart (figurative)

maNam - alveolar N, manam - dental n

the language of the flower, is that the color or the fragrance?


kadalin mozhi, alaiyaa? nuraiyaa?
the language of the sea, is that the waves or the foam?

kaadhal mozhi, vizhiyaa? idhazhaa?
the language of love, is that the eyes or the lips?



iyarkayin mozhigal purindhuvidil,

iyarkai - nature, iyarkai + in = iyarkayin => of the nature
root verb puri - to understand
purindu+vidu = be understood
purindu+vidu+il = if be understood


if the languages of the nature is understood,


manitharin mozhigal thaevai illai.

manidhar - man
thavai - need
illai - no

there is no need for man's languages.

idhayathin mozhigal purinthuvidil,
idahayam - hruthayam - tamilised form of the Sanskrit word because there is no 'h' or 'hru'.

if the language of the heart is understood,

manitharkku mozhiyae thaevai illai.

manidhar+ ku = manidharkku => to man
men do not need languages.

[Arasu]

If any one wants the meaning of the entire song, it is in youtube frm where I had copied some parts.

[Arasu]

eNgal
Number Tamil
Written Colloquial adjective form

1 onru, (onnu ) oru
2 irandu, (rendu,randu) iru
3 moonru, (moonu ) mu, moo
4 nanku, ( nalu) naa, naan
5 aindhu, (anju) ai
6 aaru, (aaru ) aru, aaru
7 ezhu (long e), (ezhu) ezhu (short e)
8 ettu, (ettu ) en
9 onbadhu, (ombadhu ) thon (orginally onbadhu was infact thonbadhu)
10 paththu, (paththu) padhi (short pa)
20 irubadhu
30 muppadhu
40 naappadhu
50 aimbadhu
60 arubadhu
70 ezhupadhu
80 enbadhu
90 thonnooru
100 nooru

Note: Observe the use of adjective form of numbers (ones) in the formation of tens.
In the brackets, you have the colloquial form of numbers followed by adjective form of the numbers.
It should be noted that the colloquial form of the numbers are almost the same as numbers in Malayalam and very similar to numbers in Telugu and Kannadam.

[Arasu]

In the rhyme, it says: 'Ondru endru solvom' and similary for all numbers upto ten.

'sol' means say. It also means (not here) word.
the verb ending 'vom' indicates plural.
This ending 'vom' includes oneself and others present, similar to 'hum bolenge'.
endru - normally is a question meaning 'what time' or 'what day' when it appears at the beginning of an interogative sentence but here (in the middle of a sentence) it is a relative pronoun 'that'.

The meaning - Let us say (that) one.

[Arasu]

amma sutta dosai
mother made dosa.

sudu (verb) - means 'to cook with fire' or 'to fire with gun'

sutta - is an adverbial participle. It means something that was cooked or fired.

Such adverbial participles abound in Tamil. In Tamil, it is called 'vinai echcham'
Meaning: Dosa cooked by amma.

poosai - pooja

In this instance, it doesn't mean pooja (worshipping) but corporal punishment.
corporal punishment is euphemistically referred to poosai in Tamil.

Note: Some consider poosai as a Tamil word originally that went to Sanskrit.
Because worshipping was done using flowers. Poo - flower, sai - do

arisi - rice
ulundhu - black gram (urad dhal)
maavu - flour

arisimaavu - rice flour
ulundhumaavu - urad dhal flour

asai - desire = aasha
chinna = small
thin, thinnu - to eat
thinna - adverbial participle of thinnu

[Arasu]

Varan = colloquial form of varugiran
vaa, varu = come
giru = used for present tense
n = used to indicate masculine gender

varugiran = he is coming
varaan = colloquial of varugiran

Poochandi = poochi + aandi
poochi = insect
aandi = nameless, characterless person, beggar
poochandi is a character used by adults to scare children

railu vandi = rail wagon
varanasi kottai = varanasi fort - long 'ko'.
thaandi - adverbial participle of 'thaandu' - jump, in this case crossing, past varanasi.

[Arasu]

As in other languages, Tamil has vowels and consonants. It has also another group of letters.

1. Vowels in Tamil are called 'uyir ezhuthu'
uyir = life, ezhuthu = letters.

2. Consonants are called 'mey ezhuthu'.
mey = body; if you remember from earlier 'mey - graze', the latter is long 'me'.

consonants are called 'mey' meaning body. They are lifeless. vowels give them life.

3. The third group are called 'uyirmey ezhuthu'
life and body letters.

This third group of letters are born by mixing consonants and vowels.

e.g. k is a consonant (mey)
a is a vowel (uyir)
ka is a uyirmey ezhuthu.

There are 12 vowels in Tamil, 18 consonants. 12 * 18 consonantal vowel (uyirmey) letters making a total of 246 letters. Added to these letter is the 13th vowel 'aydham' making a grand total of 247 Tamil letters.

Here are some lessons from Tamil virtual university:

[Arasu]

Please get comfortable with these letters slowly. We may start writing in Tamil letters gradually later.

[Arasu]

In post number #22,

There is a line in the song from the movie 'Mozhi' - which means Language.
kaadhal mozhi, vizhiyaa? idhazhaa?

In this above line,
Kaadhal means love, mozhi - language, vizhi - eye, idhazh - lips

The lyricist has missed the postpositional affix 'in' meaning 'of' unlike in the other lines of the song.

Therefore, 'kaadhal mozhi' can mean love language where the word kaadhal turns into an adjective rather than a noun.

However, in keeping in line with the other lines, I have translated it as language of love (kaadhalin mozhi) instead of love language. The poet has taken poetic licence and skipped 'in' from 'kaadhalin' and used 'kaadhal' instead.

Therefore, it was translated to:
the language of love, is that the eyes or the lips?

Please also note vizhi meaning eyes and idhazh meaning lips are literary (poetical) words that are not normally used in both written and defintely not in spoken language.
The common counterpart for these words would be,

vizhi - kaN - eye
udhadu - idhazh - lips
Similarly,
sevi - kaadhu - ear
karam - kai - hands
naa - naakku - tongue
mookku - nose,

[Arasu]

enge enadhu kavidhai?

where (is) my kavitha (poem)?

kanavile ezhudhi madiththa kavidhai.

kana, kanavu = dream
kanavu = il = kanavil => in the dream
kanavile is a poetical form of kanavil


vizhiyil karaindhuvitadho?
vizhi + il = vizhiyil means 'in the eyes'
karai -to melt
karaindhuvittadhu - past particple of 'karai'. Hence means ' has melted'.

Karaindhuvittadho? 'o' ending is a question not requiring an answer.

Did it melt in the eyes?

ammamma vidiyal azhithuvittadho?

amma + amma = ammamma, to give emphasis to the word
amma means mother. when uttered twice it indicates pain here. In Srilankan Tamil, ammamma means grand mother.

vidiyal - dawn

azhi - to erase
azhithuvittadhu - past tense of erase with singular
and neuter gender.

azhithuvittadho? 'o' ending is a rhetorical question.
Hence, no answer is expected.

Did dawn erase? is the meaning.

kavithai thedi tharungal.



Kavithai - poem

thedu - look for, search
thedi - adverbial participle

thaa - give

tharungal - indicates plural ending.

illai en kanavai meettu thaarungal.

illai - if not
en - my
kanavu - dream
kanavai - object of the sentence is formed by adding 'i'

[satishanu]

^Arasu, nice effort. It may be a good idea to save the work in a blog such as blogger where you can embed youtube videos and may have more visibility if you have appropriate identification tags.

[Arasu]

Originally Posted by satishanu

^Arasu, nice effort. It may be a good idea to save the work in a blog such as blogger where you can embed youtube videos and may have more visibility if you have appropriate identification tags.

Thanks, Satish.

I will consider your suggestion.

This is my maiden effort at teaching. Do you think what I am to teach Tamil makes sense? I thought animation and songs are better way than writing a long article on grammar and syntax. The advantage in the former would be listening to the language and learning the pronunciation.

[IchimaruGin1]

cheers for a thread.

[satishanu]

Originally Posted by Arasu

Thanks, Satish.

I will consider your suggestion.

This is my maiden effort at teaching. Do you think what I am to teach Tamil makes sense? I thought animation and songs are better way than writing a long article on grammar and syntax. The advantage in the former would be listening to the language and learning the pronunciation.

Audio Visual is definitely better and quick way to learn/speak a language. Keep going.

[Arasu]

Originally Posted by Arasu

In the rhyme, it says: 'Ondru endru solvom' and similary for all numbers upto ten.

'sol' means say. It also means (not here) word.
the verb ending 'vom' indicates plural.
This ending 'vom' includes oneself and others present, similar to 'hum bolenge'.
endru - normally is a question meaning 'what time' or 'what day' when it appears at the beginning of an interogative sentence but here (in the middle of a sentence) it is a relative pronoun 'that'.

The meaning - Let us say (that) one.

I notice a few mistakes have crept in some of my observations. Please forgive me as I am not a linguist or a teacher.

In the quoted text, 'endru' means 'when' or 'what day' but not 'what time'.


As I said when 'endru' appears in sentence (interogative) with a question mark, it means 'when'.

e.g. (Nee) endru selgirai? when are (you - singular) going?
Neengal endru selgirirgal? when are you going? you - plural

Nee is the singular you (thum).
Neengal is plural you. (aap)

The plural you (Neengal) requires the verb in plural as well.
Therefore, 'gal' is added at the end to make the plural verb.

Then, there is a further question, that begs to be asked.

Where is 'gira' or 'giri' coming from?

'kiru' and 'kinru' are present tense markers and are affixed at the end of the root verb. 'k' becomes 'g' in the middle of a word.

I had also stated that when 'endru' is used in the middle of a sentence, it is a relative pronoun.

Firstly, the term is not relative pronoun but conjunction. That is also used as a relative pronoun but in this context it is a conjunction but not a relative pronoun.

Sometime later, we will look at the use of 'kiru' and 'kindru' in the verb inflexions.

[Arasu]

Originally Posted by IchimaruGin1

cheers for a thread.

Thanks, IchimaruGin.

[Arasu]

This is a love song about Kannan - (Lord Krishna) from a devotee of him

Gangaik karaith thottaam
kannip pengal koottam
kannan naduvinile
kaalai ilam kaatru paadi varum pattu
edhilum avan kurale

kannan mugath thotram kanden
kandavudan naattam konden
kan mayangi engi ninren
kannich chilaiyagi ninren
enna ninaindheno
thannai marandheno
kanneer perugiyadhe...ooo
kanneer perugiyadhe

gangaik karaith thottaam
kannip pengal koottam
kannan naduvinile
kaalai ilam kaatru paadi varum pattu
edhilum avan kurale

kannan ennai kandu kondaan
kaiyil ennai allik kondaan
ponnazhagu meni enraan
poochcharangal choodith thandhaan
kan thirandhu paarthen
kannan angu illai
kanneer perugiyadhe...ooo
kanneer perugiyadhe

anru vandha kannan avan indru vara villai
endro avan varuvaan...

kannan mugam kanda kangal
mannar mugam kaanbadhillai
kannanukku thandha ullam
innoruvar kolvadhillai
kannan varum naalil kanni
iruppeno
kaatril maraivaeno...

naadi varum kannan kola mani maarbil
naane thavazhndhiruppen



Listen to the song and try to understand the meaning from the lyrics above.
I will explain the meaning in the next post.

[Arasu]

[Arasu]

This is a love song about Kannan - (Lord Krishna) from a devotee of him

How did Krishna come to be called Kannan?

Here is my conjecture:
There is no Kru (कृ) in Tamil and there is no 'sh' (ष) either.
So, they have been dropped and only k (ka) was retained.
Since there is 'n' that was retained.
And another 'n' added to indicate the masculine gender of the person.

Hence, Krishna came to be called Kannan.
Any way that was my hypothesis. Some Tamil pundits would be able to confirm it.


Gangaik karaith thottaam
Ganga banks garden

All the words are nouns but the subject here is the garden (Brindavan). Hence the other words Ganga karai act as adjectives. The meaning becomes 'Garden on the bank of Ganga'.
The k after Gangai, th after karai are sandhis to connect the words in the agglutination process.

Here is an interesting question. We had stated that 'k' becomes 'g' in the middle of a word. Then, how come 'k' stays as 'k' here and not 'g' in Gangaikkarai? The reason is that whenever there is a doubling of k, it stays k.

kannip pengal koottam
maiden girls crowd/group
There is a group of maidens.

kannan naduvinile
Krishna in the middle.

nadu + in + il+ e

e - is poetical ending.

Nadu - (short na)- middle; contrast with nadu with long 'na' - country.

kaalai ilam kaatru paadi varum pattu
morning young wind sing come song

The subject is kalai ilam katru (compound noun) - gentle breeze of the morning

paadu (verb) - sing
paadi (adverb)

varum (verb) - va - come. varum indicates singular number with present tense and neuter gender.

edhilum avan kurale
in everything his voice

edhil - is a question 'in what' but (edhil +um =) edhilum - means 'in everything'.

Remember, I said 'um' means and. To be precise, it means 'too'.

'Ramanum Laxmanum' actually means Ram and Laxman too.

kannan mugath thotram kanden
Krishan face appearance saw

I saw the appearance of Kannan's face.

How did you get 'I' in the meaning?
The verb 'kanden' is a singular verb indicating self.

Kandaen - I saw - Singular first person
Kandaan - He saw - Singular third person
Kandaar - They saw - Plural third person
Kandom - We saw - Plural first person


kandavudan naattam konden

kanda + udan = kandavudan means 'on seeing'.
nattam = liking, desire
konden = had ( the feeling not possession) from the root verb = kol to possess.

kan mayangi engi ninren
eye intoxicated longing stood.

kan mayangi = with eyes intoxicated with desire
engi ninren = stood with longing.

kannich chilaiyagi ninren

Maiden statue becoming stood

Me the maiden stood like a statue.

enna ninaindheno
what I thought?
thannai marandheno
I forgot myself.

kanneer perugiyadhe...ooo
Tears rolled.
kanneer perugiyadhe