is not only frequently used for the genitive, but may be inserted
before any of the above affixes, to some of which the emphatic
particle ê may also be superadded. In the old poetry there is a
still greater variety of affixes, while there is an option of dispensing
with all. Adjectives, when attributive, precede the noun and are
unchangeable; when predicative they follow it and receive verbal
affixes. The pronouns of the 1st person are sing. nân (yân),
inflexional base en, plural nâm (yâm), infl. nam, including, nângaḷ,
infl. engaḷ, excluding the person addressed; of the 2nd person nî,
infl. un (nin, nun), plural nîr (nîyir, nîvir), nîngaḷ, infl. um, ungaḷ
(num). To each of those forms, inclusive also of the reflexive
pronouns tân, tâm, tângal, a place is assigned in the scale of honorific
pronouns. As in the demonstrative pronouns the forms beginning
with i indicate nearness, those with a distance, and (in the old
poetry) those with u what is between the two, so the same forms
beginning with e (or yâ, as in yâr, âr, who?) express the interrogative.
The verb consists of three elements—the root (generally
reducible to one syllable), the tense characteristic, and the personal
affix. There are three original moods, the indicative, imperative,
and infinitive (the 2nd singular imperative is generally identical
with the root), as well as three original tenses, the present, past, and
future. The personal affixes are—sing. (1) -ên; (2) -ây, honorific
-îr; (3) masc. -ân, fem. -âḷ, honor. -âr, neuter -adu; plural (1)
-ôm (-âm, -êm); (2) -îrkaḷ; (3) masc. fem. -ârkaḷ, neut. -ana. These
affixes serve for all verbs and for each of the three tenses, except
that, in the future, -adu and -ana are replaced by -um (kkum). It
is only in the formation of the tenses that verbs differ, intransitive
verbs generally indicating the present by -kiṛ- (-kinṛ-), the past by
-d-, -nd-, or -in-, and the future by -v- (-b-), and transitive verbs
by the corresponding infixes, -kkiṛ- (-kkinṛ-), -tt- (-nd-), and -pp-;
but there are numerous exceptions and seemingly anomalous
formations. Other tenses and moods are expressed with the aid of special
affixes or auxiliary verbs. Causal verbs are formed by various
infixes (-ppi-, -vi-, -ttu-), and the passive by the auxiliary paḍu,
to fall, or by uṇ, to eat, with a noun. The following four
peculiarities are characteristic of Tamil:—first, the tenseless negative
form of the verb, expressed by the infix a, which is elided before
dissimilar vowels; second, the predicative employment of two
negative particles illei and alla, the one denying the existence or
presence, the other denying the quality or essence; third, the
use of two sets of participles,—one, called adjective or relative
participle, which supplies the place of a relative clause, the language
possessing no relative pronouns, and an ordinary adverbial participle
or gerund; and, fourth, the practice of giving adjectives a verbal
form by means of personal affixes, which form may again be treated
as a noun by attaching to it the declensional terminations, thus:
periya, great; periyôm, we are great; periyômukku, to us who are
great. The old poetry abounds in verbal forms now obsolete.
Adjectives, adverbs and abstract nouns are derived from verbs by
certain affixes. All post-positions were originally either nouns or
verbal forms. Oratio indirecta is unknown in Tamil, as it is in all
the other Indian languages, the gerund enṛu being used, like iti
in Sanskrit, to indicate quotation. The structure of sentences is
an exact counterpart of the structure of words, inasmuch as that
which qualifies always precedes that which is qualified. Thus the
attributive precedes the substantive, the substantive precedes the
preposition, the adverb precedes the verb, the secondary clause the
primary one, and the verb closes the sentence. The sentence,
“Having called the woman who had killed the child, he asked why
she had committed such infanticide,” runs in Tamil as follows:—
| Kul̤andeiyei | kkoṉŗupottavalei | al̤eippittu | nî êṉ ippaḍi | ppaṭṭa | sisu-v-atti | seydây | ênru kettân. | |||||||
| The child | her who had killed | having caused to be called, | “Thou why thus | made | child-murder | didst?” | having said he asked. |
Much as the similarity of the structure of the Tamil and its sister languages to that of the Ugro-Tartar class may have proved suggestive of the assumption of a family, affinity between the two classes, such an affinity, if it exist, must be held to be at least very distant, inasmuch as the assumption receives but the faintest shade of support from an intercomparison of the radical and least variable portion of the respective languages.
Literature.—The early existence, in southern India, of peoples, localities, animals and products the names of which, as mentioned in the Old Testament and in Greek and Roman Writers, have been identified with corresponding Dravidian terms, goes far to prove the high antiquity, if not of the Tamil language, at least of some form of Dravidian speech (Caldwell, loc. cit., Introd., pp. 81-106; Madras District Manual, i., Introd., pp. 134 seq.). But practically the earliest extant records of the Tamil language do not ascend higher than the middle of the 8th century of the Christian era, the grant in possession of the Israelites at Cochin being assigned by the late Dr Burnell to about 750 A.D., a period when Malayâḷam did not exist yet as a separate language. There is every probability that about the same time a number of Tamil works sprung up, which are mentioned by a writer in the 11th century as representing the old literature (Burnell, loc. cit., p. 127, note). The earlier of these may have been Saiva books; the more prominent of the others were decidedly Jain. Though traces of a north Indian influence are palpable in all of them that have come down to us (see, e.g., F. W. Ellis's notes to the Kuṛaḷ), we can at the same time perceive, as we must certainly appreciate, the desire of the authors to oppose the influence of Brahmanical writings, and create a literature that should rival Sanskrit books and appeal to the sentiments of the people at large. But the refinement of the poetical language, as adapted to the genius of Tamil, has been carried to greater excess than in Sanskrit; and this artificial character of the so-called Sen-Tamil is evident from a comparison with the old inscriptions, which are a reflex of the language of the people, and clearly show that Tamil has not undergone any essential change (Burnell, loc. cit., p. 142).
The rules of Sen-Tamil appear to have been fixed at a very early date. The Tolkáppiyam, the oldest extant Tamil grammar, is assigned by Dr Burnell (On the Aindra School of Sanskrit Grammarians, pp. 8, 55) to the 8th century (best edition by C. Y. Tâmodaram Pillei, Madras, 1885). The Vîrasôḷiyam, another grammar, is of the 11th century. Both have been superseded by the Nannûl, of the 15th century, which has exercised the skill of numerous commentators, and continues to be the leading native authority (English editions in Pope's Third Tamil Grammar, and an abridgment by Lazarus, 1884). The period of the prevalence of the Jains in the Pâṇḍya kingdom, from the 9th or 10th to the 13th century, is justly termed the Augustan age of Tamil literature. To its earlier days is assigned the Nâlaḍiyâr, an ethical poem on the three objects of existence, which is supposed to have preceded the Kuṛaḷ of Tiruvaḷḷuvan, the finest poetical production in the whole range of Tamil composition. Tradition, in keeping with the spirit of antagonism to Brahmanical influence, says that its author was a pariah. It consists of 1330 stanzas on virtue, wealth and pleasure. It has often been edited, translated and commented upon; see the introduction to the excellent edition published by the Rev. Dr Pope, in which also a comprehensive account of the peculiarities of Sen-Tamil will be found. To the Avvei, or Matron, a reputed sister of Tiruvaḷḷuvan, but probably of a later date, two shorter moral poems, called Attisûḍi and Konṛeivêyndan, are ascribed, which are still read in all Tamil schools. Chintâmaṇi, an epic of upwards of 3000 stanzas, which celebrates the exploits of a king Jîvakan, also belongs to that early Jain period, and so does the Divâkaram, the oldest dictionary of classical Tamil. The former is one of the finest poems in the language; but no more than the first and part of the third of its thirteen books have been edited and translated. Kamban's Râmâyaṇam (about 1100 A.D.) is the only other Tamil epic which comes up to the Chintâmaṇi in poetical beauty. The most brilliant of the poetical productions which appeared in the period of the Saiva revival (13th and 14th centuries) are two collections of hymns addressed to Siva, the one called Tiruvâsakam, by Mâṇikka-Vâsakan, and a later and larger one called Tîvâram, by Sambandhan and two other devotees, Sundaran and Appan. Both these collections have been printed, the former in one, the latter in live volumes. They are rivalled both in religious fervour and in poetical merit by a contemporaneous collection of Vaishṇava hymns, the Nâlâyira-prabandham (also printed at Madras). The third section of it, called Tiruvâymol̤i, or “Words of the Sacred Mouth,” has been published in Telugu characters, with ample commentaries, in ten quartos (Madras, 1875-76). After a period of literary torpor, which lasted nearly two centuries, King Vallabha Deva, better known by his assumed name Ativîrarâma Pânḍyan (second half of the 16th century), endeavoured to revive the love of poetry by compositions of his own, the most celebrated of which are the Neiḍadam, a somewhat extravagant imitation of Sri Harsha's Sanskrit Naishadham, and the Veṛṛivêrkei, a collection of sententious maxims. Though he had numerous followers, who made this revival the most prolific in the whole history of Tamil literature, none of the compositions of any kind, mainly translations and bombastic imitations of Sanskrit models, have attained to any fame. An exceptional place, however, is occupied by certain Tamil sectarians called śittar (i.e. siddhas or sages), whose mystical poems, especially those contained in the Sivavâkyam, are said to be of singular beauty. Two poems of high merit, composed at the end of the 17th century, also deserve favourable notice—the Nîtineṛiviḷakkam, an ethical treatise by Kumâragurupara Desikan, and the Prabhulingalîlei, a translation from the Kanarese of a famous text-book of the Vîra-Saiva sect. See the analysis in W. Taylor's Catalogue, vol. ii. pp. 837-47.
The modern period, which may be said to date from the beginning of the last century, is ushered in by two great poets, one native and the other foreign. Tâyumânavan, a philosopher of the pantheistic school, composed 1453 stanzas (pâdal) which have a high reputation for sublimity both of sentiment and style; and the Italian Jesuit Joseph Beschi (d. 1742), under the name Vîramâmuni, elaborated, on the model of the Chintâmaṇi, a religious epic Têmbâvaṇi, which,
