102-470: Aegan is a 2008 Indian Tamil -language masala film directed by Raju Sundaram and produced by Ayngaran International . The film, which is loosely based on Main Hoon Na , stars Ajith Kumar and Nayanthara , alongside Jayaram , Suman , Nassar , Navdeep and Piaa Bajpai . The music was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja , while cinematography and editing were handled by Arjun Jena and V. T. Vijayan . In
204-468: A lexical root to which one or more affixes are attached. Most Tamil affixes are suffixes . Tamil suffixes can be derivational suffixes, which either change the part of speech of the word or its meaning, or inflectional suffixes, which mark categories such as person , number , mood , tense , etc. There is no absolute limit on the length and extent of agglutination , which can lead to long words with many suffixes, which would require several words or
306-466: A "technically chic, racy, engrossing entertainer with a Hollywood look", going on to call it "racy & rocking". The critic also heaped praise on the lead actor: "Ajith looks sensational and clearly he is at home, playing dual roles of Billa and Velu. He is suave, dashing, and debonair and has a terrific screen presence which makes the film work big time. You just cannot think of any other actor in Tamil donning
408-432: A , as with other Indic scripts . This inherent vowel is removed by adding a tittle called a puḷḷi , to the consonantal sign. For example, ன is ṉa (with the inherent a ) and ன் is ṉ (without a vowel). Many Indic scripts have a similar sign, generically called virama , but the Tamil script is somewhat different in that it nearly always uses a visible puḷḷi to indicate a 'dead consonant' (a consonant without
510-740: A 2001 survey, there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil, of which 353 were dailies. Tamil is the primary language of the majority of the people residing in Tamil Nadu , Puducherry , (in India) and in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka . The language is spoken among small minority groups in other states of India which include Karnataka , Telangana , Andhra Pradesh , Kerala , Maharashtra , Gujarat , Delhi , Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India and in certain regions of Sri Lanka such as Colombo and
612-575: A bid to convince other students that he is one of them. During his regular jogging sessions, Shiva spots Ram Prasad and chases him until he escapes with the help of an helmet-clad bike rider, who is later revealed to be Narain. Pooja discovers that Narain has been helping her father and feels cheated by him. Narain tries to apologize to Pooja many times, but she refuses to talk to him. Irked by this, Narain drinks and explains his actions when John's men come again to kidnap Pooja. They beat up Narain, but Shiva comes to their rescue. Narain and Pooja patch up after
714-548: A dilemma as to whether to focus on Ajith or give the film well-etched characters. There are too many diversions in the form of female cleavages in the rain forests of Malaysia and garish sets". Balaji, who produced and portrayed the DSP in the 1980 film, praised the 2007 film for being "very stylish and looking grand", but expressed his dismay over the absence of the characters previously played by Thengai Srinivasan , S. A. Ashokan and Manorama . In 2008, reports claimed that, following
816-511: A family of around 26 languages native to the Indian subcontinent . It is also classified as being part of a Tamil language family that, alongside Tamil proper, includes the languages of about 35 ethno-linguistic groups such as the Irula and Yerukula languages (see SIL Ethnologue ). The closest major relative of Tamil is Malayalam ; the two began diverging around the 9th century CE. Although many of
918-493: A film starring Ajith Kumar and directed by Venkat Prabhu , however the chance went to first-time director Raju Sundaram , in a project titled Akbar . Despite denying the title, Ajith confirmed the project and stating that he had put on weight and grew a beard for his participation in the project. Following the success of Billa , Ajith Kumar waited until the birth of his first child, in January 2008, before commencing his shoot for
1020-591: A number of apparent Tamil loanwords in Biblical Hebrew dating to before 500 BCE, the oldest attestation of the language. Old Tamil is the period of the Tamil language spanning the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The earliest records in Old Tamil are short inscriptions from 300 BCE to 700 CE. These inscriptions are written in a variant of the Brahmi script called Tamil-Brahmi . The earliest long text in Old Tamil
1122-650: A number of skeletons were found buried in earthenware urns dating from at least 696 BCE in Adichanallur . Some of these urns contained writing in Tamil Brahmi script, and some contained skeletons of Tamil origin. Between 2017 and 2018, 5,820 artifacts have been found in Keezhadi . These were sent to Beta Analytic in Miami , Florida , for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dating. One sample containing Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions
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#17330860132691224-512: A number of sound changes, in particular, a tendency to lower high vowels in initial and medial positions, and the disappearance of vowels between plosives and between a plosive and rhotic. Contact with European languages affected written and spoken Tamil. Changes in written Tamil include the use of European-style punctuation and the use of consonant clusters that were not permitted in Middle Tamil. The syntax of written Tamil has also changed, with
1326-477: A role in the film, which will be co-produced by actor Arun Pandian . Nassar and Suhasini were selected to play the roles of the parents of Ajith , whilst Raju Sundaram 's younger brother, Prabhu Deva was given a chance to make a cameo appearance in the film as a dancer but politely refused. Supporting actors Livingston , Sathyan and Sriman also play roles in Aegan , as does model Piaa Bajpai , who appears as
1428-502: A score and soundtrack by Yuvan Shankar Raja , cinematography by Nirav Shah and editing by A. Sreekar Prasad . The shooting of Billa commenced in April 2007 and was released and distributed worldwide by Ayngaran International on 14 December 2007. The film, upon release, emerged highly successful, and was selected to be screened at the 61st Cannes Film Festival . David Billa is a crime boss featured on Interpol 's criminal list, who
1530-544: A secret even from his fellow officers, and tracks down a look-alike called Saravana Velu, a hotel server and small-time petty thief. He asks Velu to infiltrate Billa's gang by pretending to be Billa. In return, he will make sure that the child Velu adopted, Karan gets a proper education. Jayaprakash trains Velu and sends him back to Billa's gang, disguised as an amnesiac Billa, who had been hiding at an apartment complex due to his injuries. Slowly, Velu starts to learn about Billa's gang and even speaks to Jagdish, Billa's boss on
1632-451: A sentence in English. To give an example, the word pōkamuṭiyātavarkaḷukkāka (போகமுடியாதவர்களுக்காக) means "for the sake of those who cannot go" and consists of the following morphemes : போக pōka go முடி muṭi accomplish Billa (2007 film) Billa is a 2007 Indian Tamil -language action thriller film directed by Vishnuvardhan . It is a remake of the 1980 film of
1734-620: A small number speak the language. In Reunion where the Tamil language was forbidden to be learnt and used in public space by France it is now being relearnt by students and adults. Tamil is also spoken by migrants from Sri Lanka and India in Canada , the United States , the United Arab Emirates , the United Kingdom , South Africa , and Australia . Tamil is the official language of
1836-595: A subject of study in schools in the French overseas department of Réunion . In addition, with the creation in October 2004 of a legal status for classical languages by the Government of India and following a political campaign supported by several Tamil associations, Tamil became the first legally recognised Classical language of India. The recognition was announced by the contemporaneous President of India , Abdul Kalam , who
1938-458: A variety of dialects that are all collectively known as Brahmin Tamil . These dialects tend to have softer consonants (with consonant deletion also common). These dialects also tend to have many Sanskrit loanwords. Tamil in Sri Lanka incorporates loan words from Portuguese , Dutch , and English. In addition to its dialects, Tamil exhibits different forms: a classical literary style modelled on
2040-438: A vowel). In other Indic scripts, it is generally preferred to use a ligature or a half form to write a syllable or a cluster containing a dead consonant, although writing it with a visible virama is also possible. The Tamil script does not differentiate voiced and unvoiced plosives . Instead, plosives are articulated with voice depending on their position in a word, in accordance with the rules of Tamil phonology . In addition to
2142-622: Is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia . It is one of the two longest-surviving classical languages in India , along with Sanskrit , attested since c. 300 BCE. The language belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian language family and shares close ties with Malayalam and Kannada . Despite external influences, Tamil has retained a sense of linguistic purism, especially in formal and literary contexts. Tamil
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#17330860132692244-424: Is a policeman. Shiva then drives Ram Prasad straight to John's hiding place, avoiding the traps that he had set. A fight ensues between Shiva and John's men in which John is finally killed. In the final scenes, Mallika is shown with Shiva's parents and brother, while Shiva has gone to Afghanistan as part of another mission. In September 2007, early indications suggested that Ayngaran International were set to make
2346-440: Is a scientist who had created tablets by operating on human guinea pigs. His ploys have always been controversial but inconclusive due to the lack of witnesses. However, an ex-gang member, General Ram Prasad, became a police approver and is on the verge of revealing John's ploys to the police. However, he is on the run to avoid charges. The case falls to Commissioner Karthikeyan, Shiva's father, who assigns his son to go and help solve
2448-457: Is based on the dialect of Jaffna . After Tamil Brahmi fell out of use, Tamil was written using a script called vaṭṭeḻuttu amongst others such as Grantha and Pallava . The current Tamil script consists of 12 vowels , 18 consonants and one special character, the āytam . The vowels and consonants combine to form 216 compound characters, giving a total of 247 characters (12 + 18 + 1 + (12 × 18)). All consonants have an inherent vowel
2550-401: Is deemed unlikely by Southworth due to the contemporary use of the compound 'centamiḻ', which means refined speech in the earliest literature. The Tamil Lexicon of University of Madras defines the word "Tamil" as "sweetness". S. V. Subramanian suggests the meaning "sweet sound", from tam – "sweet" and il – "sound". Tamil belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian languages ,
2652-563: Is extensively described in the oldest known grammar book for Tamil, the Tolkāppiyam . Modern Tamil writing is largely based on the 13th-century grammar Naṉṉūl which restated and clarified the rules of the Tolkāppiyam , with some modifications. Traditional Tamil grammar consists of five parts, namely eḻuttu , col , poruḷ , yāppu , aṇi . Of these, the last two are mostly applied in poetry. Tamil words consist of
2754-501: Is found in Tholkappiyam , which is dated as early as late 2nd century BCE. The Hathigumpha inscription , inscribed around a similar time period (150 BCE), by Kharavela , the Jain king of Kalinga , also refers to a Tamira Samghatta ( Tamil confederacy ) The Samavayanga Sutra dated to the 3rd century BCE contains a reference to a Tamil script named 'Damili'. Southworth suggests that
2856-405: Is generally taken to have been completed by the 8th century, was characterised by a number of phonological and grammatical changes. In phonological terms, the most important shifts were the virtual disappearance of the aytam (ஃ), an old phoneme, the coalescence of the alveolar and dental nasals, and the transformation of the alveolar plosive into a rhotic . In grammar, the most important change
2958-409: Is generally used in formal writing and speech. For instance, it is the language of textbooks, of much of Tamil literature and of public speaking and debate. In recent times, however, koṭuntamiḻ has been making inroads into areas that have traditionally been considered the province of centamiḻ . Most contemporary cinema, theatre and popular entertainment on television and radio, for example,
3060-446: Is hiding and operating out of Malaysia . DSP Jayaprakash has spent the last few years looking for Billa, leaving behind a life in India. During a chase with the police, Billa is severely wounded after an accident and dies in front of Jayaprakash, who secretly holds a burial of Billa. Interpol officer Gokulnath is assigned to work with Jayaprakash to capture elusive Billa as no-one knows of Billa's death. Jayaprakash keeps Billa's death as
3162-410: Is in koṭuntamiḻ , and many politicians use it to bring themselves closer to their audience. The increasing use of koṭuntamiḻ in modern times has led to the emergence of unofficial 'standard' spoken dialects. In India, the 'standard' koṭuntamiḻ , rather than on any one dialect, but has been significantly influenced by the dialects of Thanjavur and Madurai . In Sri Lanka, the standard
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3264-439: Is later revealed to be his brother. Pooja is Narain's best friend, and she is secretly jealous that other girls can get his attention but she cannot. Shiva saves Pooja from John's men, who kidnap her, while Narain and others think that it is a prank. He later becomes a sensation among the students and teachers. He befriends Narain and Pooja and falls in love with the chemistry teacher Mallika after being attracted by her beauty and in
3366-771: Is not always consistently applied. ISO 15919 is an international standard for the transliteration of Tamil and other Indic scripts into Latin characters. It uses diacritics to map the much larger set of Brahmic consonants and vowels to Latin script , and thus the alphabets of various languages, including English. Apart from the usual numerals, Tamil has numerals for 10, 100 and 1000. Symbols for day, month, year, debit, credit, as above, rupee, and numeral are present as well. Tamil also uses several historical fractional signs. /f/ , /z/ , /ʂ/ and /ɕ/ are only found in loanwords and may be considered marginal phonemes, though they are traditionally not seen as fully phonemic. Tamil has two diphthongs : /aɪ̯/ ஐ and /aʊ̯/ ஔ ,
3468-577: Is predominantly spoken in Tamil Nadu , India, and the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka . It has significant speaking populations in Malaysia , Singapore , and among diaspora communities . Tamil has been recognized as a classical language by the Indian government and holds official status in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Singapore. The earliest extant Tamil literary works and their commentaries celebrate
3570-409: Is the Tolkāppiyam , an early work on Tamil grammar and poetics, whose oldest layers could be as old as the late 2nd century BCE. Many literary works in Old Tamil have also survived. These include a corpus of 2,381 poems collectively known as Sangam literature . These poems are usually dated to between the 1st century BCE and 5th century CE. The evolution of Old Tamil into Middle Tamil , which
3672-772: Is used as one of the languages of education in Malaysia , along with English, Malay and Mandarin. A large community of Pakistani Tamils speakers exists in Karachi , Pakistan , which includes Tamil-speaking Hindus as well as Christians and Muslims – including some Tamil-speaking Muslim refugees from Sri Lanka. There are about 100 Tamil Hindu families in Madrasi Para colony in Karachi. They speak impeccable Tamil along with Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi. Many in Réunion , Guyana , Fiji , Suriname , and Trinidad and Tobago have Tamil origins, but only
3774-458: The Pandiyan Kings for the organization of long-termed Tamil Sangams , which researched, developed and made amendments in Tamil language. Even though the name of the language which was developed by these Tamil Sangams is mentioned as Tamil, the period when the name "Tamil" came to be applied to the language is unclear, as is the precise etymology of the name. The earliest attested use of the name
3876-633: The Petronas Towers and other parts, while a few scenes were shot at the Binny Mills in Chennai . For the film's music and soundtrack, Vishnuvardhan renewed his previous association ( Kurumbu , Arinthum Ariyamalum and Pattiyal ) with Yuvan Shankar Raja . The soundtrack has six songs, and the lyrics were penned by Pa. Vijay . Since the film was a remake, two songs from the original soundtrack, composed by M. S. Viswanathan , were remixed and included in
3978-584: The University of Madras , was one of the earliest dictionaries published in Indian languages. A strong strain of linguistic purism emerged in the early 20th century, culminating in the Pure Tamil Movement which called for removal of all Sanskritic elements from Tamil. It received some support from Dravidian parties . This led to the replacement of a significant number of Sanskrit loanwords by Tamil equivalents, though many others remain. According to
4080-486: The 11th century, retain many features of the Vaishnava paribasai , a special form of Tamil developed in the 9th and 10th centuries that reflect Vaishnavite religious and spiritual values. Several castes have their own sociolects which most members of that caste traditionally used regardless of where they come from. It is often possible to identify a person's caste by their speech. For example, Tamil Brahmins tend to speak
4182-411: The 1978 version, a remake was made in 1980 in Tamil , called Billa . 2007's Billa drew inspirations from these three versions. Suresh Balaji, who had acted in the earliest version of Billa , acquired the rights to produce the film. It became the second Tamil film to be remade from the 1978 version, after Naan Avanillai . After the official announcement of the production company, the director and
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4284-476: The Indian state of Haryana , purportedly as a rebuff to Punjab , though there was no attested Tamil-speaking population in the state, and was later replaced by Punjabi , in 2010. In Malaysia, 543 primary education government schools are available fully in Tamil as the medium of instruction . The establishment of Tamil-medium schools has been in process in Myanmar to provide education completely in Tamil language by
4386-469: The Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the 22 languages under schedule 8 of the constitution of India . It is one of the official languages of the union territories of Puducherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands . Tamil is also one of the official languages of Singapore . Tamil is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka, along with Sinhala . It was once given nominal official status in
4488-537: The Line . However other indications claimed that Saran was ousted from the project due to her involvement in Indiralohathil Na Azhagappan , in which she appeared in an item number , which Ajith Kumar was unhappy with due to previous feuds with the lead, Vadivelu of that film.Reports indicated that Parvati Melton had replaced Saran but later denied it signalling that she was not approached. Suhani Kalita
4590-585: The Tamil language, Kannada still preserves a lot from its roots. As part of the southern family of Indian languages and situated relatively close to the northern parts of India, Kannada also shares some Sanskrit words, similar to Malayalam. Many of the formerly used words in Tamil have been preserved with little change in Kannada. This shows a relative parallel to Tamil, even as Tamil has undergone some changes in modern ways of speaking. According to Hindu legend, Tamil or in personification form Tamil Thāi (Mother Tamil)
4692-673: The Tamils who settled there 200 years ago. Tamil language is available as a course in some local school boards and major universities in Canada and the month of January has been declared "Tamil Heritage Month" by the Parliament of Canada . Tamil enjoys a special status of protection under Article 6(b), Chapter 1 of the Constitution of South Africa and is taught as a subject in schools in KwaZulu-Natal province. Recently, it has been rolled out as
4794-442: The ancient language ( sankattamiḻ ), a modern literary and formal style ( centamiḻ ), and a modern colloquial form ( koṭuntamiḻ ). These styles shade into each other, forming a stylistic continuum. For example, it is possible to write centamiḻ with a vocabulary drawn from caṅkattamiḻ , or to use forms associated with one of the other variants while speaking koṭuntamiḻ . In modern times, centamiḻ
4896-677: The cameraman, Vishnuvardhan and Nirav Shah began to select other members of the cast and the crew to be a part of the Billa team. Ajith could not assist in helping choose the other members. On 13 April 2007, the eve of Tamil New Year's Day , the launch of Billa took place at the AVM studios in Vadapalani , Chennai . Among the attendees were the stars of the old cast, Rajinikanth , Sripriya, Suresh Balaji as well as noted directors Mani Ratnam , Dharani , K. S. Ravikumar , and Saran . The confirmed cast until
4998-465: The chance to direct [Ajith]. The third time when I got a chance to direct him, I made sure that I would not miss it. I was all ready to write a good script for him, but he said, he wanted me to remake Billa ", confirming it was Ajith's idea. The film was originally announced, provisionally after the release of the Bollywood film, Don – which was a remake of the 1978 film of the same name . Also from
5100-463: The cinematographer, William Ong as the stunt master, Thota Tharani as the art director, Pa. Vijay as the chief lyricist and A. Sreekar Prasad as the editor. Vishnuvardhan's orthodox music composer, Yuvan Shankar Raja , was chosen, creating great expectations for the project, while Vishnuvardhan's wife, Anu Vardhan , worked as a costume designer. Majority of the film was shot in Malaysia at locations including Langkawi , Kuala Lumpur overlooking
5202-670: The culture associated with the Neolithic complexes of South India, but it has also been related to the Harappan civilization . Scholars categorise the attested history of the language into three periods: Old Tamil (300 BCE–700 CE), Middle Tamil (700–1600) and Modern Tamil (1600–present). About of the approximately 100,000 inscriptions found by the Archaeological Survey of India in India are in Tamil Nadu. Of them, most are in Tamil, with only about 5 percent in other languages. In 2004,
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#17330860132695304-469: The date of the launch also were invited, among them Ajith along with his wife, Shalini , Nayanthara , Namitha, Thivya I. and Prabhu . Apart from the casting of Ajith in the dual lead role, previously played by Rajinikanth , the rest of the cast took nearly four months to finalise. The role played by Sripriya in the original was given to Nayantara in early 2007, controversially after Bollywood actress, Isha Sharvani , who had been in contention to act in
5406-936: The dialect of Madurai , and iṅkaṭe in some northern dialects. Even now, in the Coimbatore area, it is common to hear " akkaṭṭa " meaning "that place". Although Tamil dialects do not differ significantly in their vocabulary, there are a few exceptions. The dialects spoken in Sri Lanka retain many words and grammatical forms that are not in everyday use in India, and use many other words slightly differently. Tamil dialects include Central Tamil dialect , Kongu Tamil , Madras Bashai , Madurai Tamil , Nellai Tamil , Kumari Tamil in India ; Batticaloa Tamil dialect , Jaffna Tamil dialect , Negombo Tamil dialect in Sri Lanka; and Malaysian Tamil in Malaysia. Sankethi dialect in Karnataka has been heavily influenced by Kannada . The dialect of
5508-399: The differences between Tamil and Malayalam demonstrate a pre-historic divergence of the western dialect, the process of separation into a distinct language, Malayalam, was not completed until sometime in the 13th or 14th century. Additionally Kannada is also relatively close to the Tamil language and shares the format of the formal ancient Tamil language. While there are some variations from
5610-463: The director were away shooting the video for the song in Switzerland . The album features 6 tracks overall, including one of the songs ("Hey Salaa") repeated at the end. Sify .com claimed that "the trouble with the film is that it looks like an amateurish attempt by debutant director Raju Sundaram" dismissing the climax as "a colossal embarrassment", but adding that "no film is perfect". Ajith Kumar
5712-634: The district of Palakkad in Kerala has many Malayalam loanwords, has been influenced by Malayalam's syntax, and has a distinctive Malayalam accent. Similarly, Tamil spoken in Kanyakumari District has more unique words and phonetic style than Tamil spoken at other parts of Tamil Nadu. The words and phonetics are so different that a person from Kanyakumari district is easily identifiable by their spoken Tamil. Hebbar and Mandyam dialects, spoken by groups of Tamil Vaishnavites who migrated to Karnataka in
5814-424: The fight. Shiva takes Narain to his home, where he learns that Narain is his brother and meets his mother Kasthuri. The flashback sequences describe Shiva's orphaned childhood and explain why his mother and father live separately. The next day, when Pooja introduces Ram Prasad to Shiva, Shiva arrests him, much to the disappointment of Pooja and Narain. Then everyone in the college, including Mallika, learns that Shiva
5916-436: The film's commercial success, Soundarya Rajinikanth was planning to make a sequel, to be produced by Ocher Studios in association with Warner Bros. However, the sequel did not materialise, and the idea was dropped, with Ajith Kumar, Vishnuvardhan and Soundarya getting busy with other projects. In mid-2010, sources confirmed that Vishnuvardhan had finished penning the script for a prequel and that Ajith Kumar would reprise
6018-528: The film, Shiva, a CB-CID officer, embarks on a covert mission to protect the daughter of a fugitive by posing as a college student. Aegan was released on 27 October 2008, coinciding with Diwali , and received mixed reviews from critics. The film's story is based around Shiva, a CB-CID officer, and his efforts to foil terrorist John Chinnappa. Shiva is simultaneously attempting to mend relations with his father's estranged first wife and his half-brother Narain. However, complications ensue. Major John Chinnappa
6120-461: The film. The 40-member unit consisting of Ajith, director Raju Sundaram, cinematographer Arjun Jena , action choreographer Stunt Silva , and a few stuntmen from Chennai flew to Hong Kong on 14 January 2008 and began their first schedule for a 10-day stint. The portions in Hong Kong were shot showing Ajith's introduction stunt scene set against the skyscrapers, Hong Kong airport , and the sea with
6222-522: The help of Chinese action choreographers. The crew shot schedules in Theni and Yercaud and other locations in South India during the filming. The film finished its talkie portion in early September 2008, and the songs were canned in India as well as parts of Switzerland . The film, initially described as a "musical action comedy". The film previously referred to as Akbar , Ramakrishnan and Anthony Gonsalves
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#17330860132696324-699: The hill country . Tamil or dialects of it were used widely in the state of Kerala as the major language of administration, literature and common usage until the 12th century CE. Tamil was also used widely in inscriptions found in southern Andhra Pradesh districts of Chittoor and Nellore until the 12th century CE. Tamil was used for inscriptions from the 10th through 14th centuries in southern Karnataka districts such as Kolar , Mysore , Mandya and Bengaluru . There are currently sizeable Tamil-speaking populations descended from colonial-era migrants in Malaysia , Singapore , Philippines , Mauritius , South Africa , Indonesia, Thailand, Burma , and Vietnam . Tamil
6426-432: The introduction of new aspectual auxiliaries and more complex sentence structures, and with the emergence of a more rigid word order that resembles the syntactic argument structure of English. In 1578, Portuguese Christian missionaries published a Tamil prayer book in old Tamil script named Thambiran Vanakkam , thus making Tamil the first Indian language to be printed and published. The Tamil Lexicon , published by
6528-432: The ladylove to Navdeep. Sivakarthikeyan and Arunraja Kamaraj shot for the film for one day as comedians portraying spies, but following changes to the script, their roles were removed. Yuvan Shankar Raja was signed on as the music composer whilst Arjun Jena was the cinematographer for the project and Milan, who did the art direction for Billa , renews his association with Ajith in the film. The soundtrack of Aegan
6630-420: The last few movies of Ajith, was paid the advance. Vishnuvardhan reported that he was pleased with Nayanthara's role in E and subsequently opted for her. The other lead female role in the film was initially written for Shriya Saran , but due to her contract with Sivaji: The Boss , she refused to accept the film. Despite other actresses such as Trisha , Reema Sen , Asin and Bhanu being considered,
6732-456: The latter of which is restricted to a few lexical items. Tamil employs agglutinative grammar, where suffixes are used to mark noun class , number , and case , verb tense and other grammatical categories. Tamil's standard metalinguistic terminology and scholarly vocabulary is itself Tamil, as opposed to the Sanskrit that is standard for most Indo-Aryan languages . Much of Tamil grammar
6834-400: The members of the police troupe, as did Malayalam actor Rahman, who with Billa made his comeback into Tamil cinema. The item number danced by Helen in the original was originally given to Mumaith Khan , but was later changed to newcomer Rose Dawn , for unknown reasons. For his crew, Vishnuvardhan picked his preferred technicians, with Rajkannan as the dialogue writer, Nirav Shah as
6936-459: The mission. Karthik tells Shiva to attend college in Tamil Nadu (St. John's College, Ooty) to protect Ram Prasad's daughter Pooja from meeting with her father. Shiva pleads that he has never undertaken this type of a mission before and does not know much about the current generation. The general points out that, by a strange coincidence, Pooja attends school in the same town where Ram Prasad is hiding. Shiva can protect Pooja and look for Ram Prasad at
7038-423: The name comes from tam-miḻ > tam-iḻ "self-speak", or "our own speech". Kamil Zvelebil suggests an etymology of tam-iḻ , with tam meaning "self" or "one's self", and " -iḻ " having the connotation of "unfolding sound". Alternatively, he suggests a derivation of tamiḻ < tam-iḻ < * tav-iḻ < * tak-iḻ , meaning in origin "the proper process (of speaking)". However, this
7140-531: The old aspect and time markers. The Nannūl remains the standard normative grammar for modern literary Tamil, which therefore continues to be based on Middle Tamil of the 13th century rather than on Modern Tamil. Colloquial spoken Tamil, in contrast, shows a number of changes. The negative conjugation of verbs, for example, has fallen out of use in Modern Tamil – instead, negation is expressed either morphologically or syntactically. Modern spoken Tamil also shows
7242-484: The original pen drive to Officer Menon and joins Sasha and Karan. The entire production stage of the movie spanned about six months. Prior to Billa , Vishnuvardhan had directed three films, Kurumbu , Arinthum Ariyamalum and Pattiyal , two of which were successful. Billa was started after a debacle surrounding his other venture, Sarvam , which was eventually postponed to make way for Billa . In an interview, Vishnuvardhan said that he had "twice missed out on
7344-603: The original", however, it praises Navdeep citing he is "far more natural, but you pity the fact that his role is so small". Rediff also criticized Suman and Sriman labelling their portrayals as "pathetic". In reference to minor characters, Cochin Hanifa is praised while Suhasini Mani Ratnam 's role is said to be "terribly dealt with, robbing her part of any sympathy". Tamil language Sri Lanka Singapore Malaysia Canada and United States Tamil ( தமிழ் , Tamiḻ , pronounced [t̪amiɻ] )
7446-499: The pen drive in return for them. Velu meets Ranjith and gives him a second pen drive with the same data, but corrupted. When Ranjith tries to kill Velu, a scuffle ensues, making Ranjith fall from the top. In a final confrontation, Jagdish fights with Velu. Jagdish posing as Gokulnath, asks the police to arrest Velu as Billa but gets shot by the squad of police and dies as the police have wired the entire conversation between Jagdish and Velu, thus proving his innocence. Velu finally hands over
7548-498: The pen drive is nowhere to be found. Unable to prove his innocence, Velu escapes from a police van and phones Gokulnath, where he asks him to meet at the Aero bridge, where it is revealed that Gokulnath is none other than Jagdish and was the one who killed Jayaprakash. Officer Anil Menon apparently had the pen drive all along and strikes a deal with Velu to get hold of Jagdish. Meanwhile, Sasha and Karan have been kidnapped by Jagdish and wants
7650-499: The phone. Velu provides a pen drive with the secret information of the crime network to Jayaprakash, but he is about to be killed by Sasha because her brother Rajesh as well as his fiancée Rhea were killed by Billa earlier. At this juncture, Jayaprakash arrives and tells her that he is Velu and not Billa. Later before a party, Velu secretly provides information to Jayaprakash about a meeting of Billa's network and C.J., Billa's girlfriend, overhears his conversation. She confronts Velu, but in
7752-523: The role enacted by K. Balaji of an inspector in the original, the role was eventually secured by Prabhu . The role of the comedian was tipped to go Vadivelu , after he received rave reviews for his comic chemistry in Chandramukhi with Rajinikanth. However, despite the reviews, Vishnuvardhan's regular pattern meant that the spotlight for a comedian would be limited. Santhanam replaced him. Another character artiste, Adithya , also signed up to be one of
7854-405: The role made memorable by Rajinikanth". Behindwoods rated the film 3.5 out of 5 and wrote: "... where Vishnu Vardhan scores is in his crystal clear vision. He doesn’t want to challenge the original nor change its content. All he wants to do is to repackage it stylishly for today’s trend with some present avant-garde styles in film making. The deliberate attempts by the director not to follow
7956-414: The role was eventually given to Pooja Umashankar . However, she refused the role, citing that she was reluctant to appear in a bikini , as the role required. Subsequently, Namitha was signed up for the role. Nayanthara was later finalized as the female lead. The remaining members of the cast were selected after the launch, which was held on 13 April 2007. Despite early reports of Prakash Raj playing
8058-411: The same name starring Rajnikanth , which itself is a remake of 1978 Hindi film Don , starring Amitabh Bachchan . The film stars Ajith Kumar who plays a double role as an underworld don and his friendly look-alike alongside Nayanthara and Namitha , while Prabhu , Rahman , Adithya Menon , and Santhanam playing supporting roles. It is produced by L. Suresh and Abdurrahman M while featuring
8160-408: The same time. Shiva goes undercover as a student returning to college after many years away from taking care of the family business. He is much older than the other students, who at first make fun of him because of his lack of new-generation styles. He also has to deal with the many goofy teachers as well as Albert Aadiyapatham, the idiotic and forgetful college principal. Soon, Shiva finds Narain, who
8262-611: The second half. The reviewer praises Ajith claiming he looks as though he "really did enjoy himself on screen, after a really long time". The reviewer adds that "Nayantara's outfits get smaller and smaller, while the actress herself has nothing more to do than dance in transparent saris and high-heels. Sometimes she looks amused, at others, irritated and bored", comparing her unchallenging roles to previous roles in Sathyam and Kuselan . It criticizes Piaa Bajpai claiming she "hams it to glory", and "makes you want to watch Amrita Rao 's naivety in
8364-438: The soundtrack. The formal release of the soundtrack was held on 21 November 2007 at Hotel Residence Towers in Chennai . Yuvan Shankar Raja reused some of the background music of his previous ventures Kedi and Vallavan in Billa . The album achieved record audio sales. The satellite rights of the film were bought by Kalaignar TV . Its television premiere occurred on the occasion of Diwali in 27 October 2008. The film
8466-465: The standard characters, six characters taken from the Grantha script , which was used in the Tamil region to write Sanskrit, are sometimes used to represent sounds not native to Tamil, that is, words adopted from Sanskrit, Prakrit , and other languages. The traditional system prescribed by classical grammars for writing loan-words, which involves respelling them in accordance with Tamil phonology, remains, but
8568-456: The standard of any international action flick. After the promise he had revealed in 'Arinthum Ariyamalum' and 'Pattiyal', Vishnu Vardhan proves yet again, that he is a maker to watch out for. 'Billa' couldn't have been remade any better today than what Vishnu has done. It's worth a watch." In contrast, TSV Hari from Rediff wrote that the film "disappoints" and gave it 2.5 out of 5, further claiming: "Director Vishnuvardhan seems to have been in
8670-416: The star cast, cinematography, Yuvan's background score but felt dialogues were inaudible and the film struggles after the suspense around Jagadish is revealed and humorous portions were weak nevertheless Vishnuvardhan should be praised for making Billa on par with Hollywood films. Chennai Online wrote "It's clearly a film targeted at today's generation. Contemporary, stylish and sleek, it could compete with
8772-471: The struggle, he accidentally kills her. A shootout occurs at the party, and Jayaprakash is killed by Jagdish, leaving his gun behind. Velu finds the Jayaprakash dead and the gun, but is taken into the custody of the police team, now headed by Gokulnath. He argues during interrogation that he is Velu and not Billa to Gokulnath. Velu mentions a piece of evidence – the pen drive, which may prove his innocence, but
8874-440: The super star’s style are palpable in every frame, which has made Billa stand out tall and high". In regard of Ajith's presence, the reviewer said: "Ajith as the ruthless David Billa is a revelation. Stylish, menacing and electrifying, he seems to have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and has completely lived up to it. Rajinikanth can definitely be proud of his successor he has chosen for the tough job". Revathi of Kalki praised
8976-413: The titular character. The project became officially announced in late 2010, after Ajith Kumar signed up and first production poster were published to the media. Suresh Balaje, son of producer and actor K. Balaje, who produced the original Billa with Rajinikanth , and George Pius from Wide Angle Creations banner, were confirmed as the producer, who associated with Mumbai-based IN Entertainment Limited,
9078-443: The usual top Malayalam films of the year. Billa became the second highest grossing film of 2007. Billa opened to primarily positive critical response. Sify lauded the film, writing: Billa delivers the goods with its great star cast, a designer look, technical glitz, perfect chemistry making it an entertainment extravaganza". The reviewer claimed that it was the "first designer-look Kollywood film with classy action cuts" and
9180-420: The way of bringing smiles to the faces of the audience". The review also singles out the performance of rookie cinematographer, Arjun Jena , whose work is labelled as "eye-catching". Similarly Rediff .com labelled the film as "watchable in parts", giving it negative feedback in comparison with Main Hoon Na . It like Sify, claims that "Aegan loses its spontaneity and meanders between humour and seriousness" in
9282-517: The word for "here"— iṅku in Centamil (the classic variety)—has evolved into iṅkū in the Kongu dialect of Coimbatore , inga in the dialects of Thanjavur and Palakkad , and iṅkai in some dialects of Sri Lanka . Old Tamil's iṅkaṇ (where kaṇ means place) is the source of iṅkane in the dialect of Tirunelveli , Old Tamil iṅkiṭṭu is the source of iṅkuṭṭu in
9384-526: Was a Tamilian himself, in a joint sitting of both houses of the Indian Parliament on 6 June 2004. The socio-linguistic situation of Tamil is characterised by diglossia : there are two separate registers varying by socioeconomic status , a high register and a low one. Tamil dialects are primarily differentiated from each other by the fact that they have undergone different phonological changes and sound shifts in evolving from Old Tamil. For example,
9486-421: Was announced as the second heroine of the project but was later removed for unknown reasons. Several Bollywood heroines including Deepika Padukone , Bipasha Basu , Katrina Kaif , Ayesha Takia , Ileana D'Cruz , Tanushree Dutta and Sneha Ullal were linked to the role, as well as reports that Shriya Saran would reprise the role after making up with Ajith. The role eventually was given to Katrina Kaif , who
9588-486: Was christened as Aegan , a name of Shiva . Following the announcement of the project, tentatively titled as Akbar , Shriya Saran was rumoured to be the heroine, following her successful role in Sivaji: The Boss . However, due to differences, Saran was ousted from the project due to her limited call sheets, as she had to fly to and from America where she was then shooting for her Hollywood film, The Other End of
9690-586: Was claimed to be dated to around 580 BCE. John Guy states that Tamil was the lingua franca for early maritime traders from India. Tamil language inscriptions written in Brahmi script have been discovered in Sri Lanka and on trade goods in Thailand and Egypt. In November 2007, an excavation at Quseir-al-Qadim revealed Egyptian pottery dating back to first century BCE with ancient Tamil Brahmi inscriptions. There are
9792-470: Was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja as was the film score. It was noticeably, the third time Yuvan was scoring music for an Ajith Kumar film, after Dheena (2001) and Billa (2007), the songs of which had been very popular and went on to become chartbusters. The soundtrack released on 9 October 2008, at a private ceremony at the Hello FM Studios by composer Yuvan Shankar Raja as the lead cast and
9894-528: Was created by Lord Shiva . Murugan , revered as the Tamil God, along with sage Agastya , brought it to the people. Tamil, like other Dravidian languages, ultimately descends from the Proto-Dravidian language , which was most likely spoken around the third millennium BCE, possibly in the region around the lower Godavari river basin. The material evidence suggests that the speakers of Proto-Dravidian were of
9996-449: Was praised for being "at his best but look[ed] plump and stiff in some scenes where he need to be relaxed and natural", drawing comparisons with a similar feedback from his previous venture, Billa . Nayanthara was said to "look perfect as Mallika, a role that fits her like a glove" with her make-up and costumes "rocking". The reviewer added that " Piaa Bajpai is promising, Jayaram as Principal and Haneefa have been wasted and do little in
10098-411: Was released in over 200 screens in Tamil Nadu and 50 screens overseas. The film was made on a budget of ₹15 crore (worth ₹61 crore in 2021 prices) and sold to Ayngaran International for ₹25 crore. In Chennai alone it collected ₹5.2 crore. The film completed a 175-day run at theatres and was declared a blockbuster . It is reported to have sold 1 crore tickets in India. In Kerala, it collected more than
10200-467: Was set to make her debut in Tamil films with Aegan , however she later opted out due to callsheet clashes. It was announced that Nayantara would play the role of the heroine in the film, following her role opposite Ajith in Billa . In February 2008, it was confirmed that Navdeep would play a role in the film as well as Suman , who will appear in a villainous role. Malayalam actor Jayaram will also play
10302-504: Was the lingua franca for early maritime traders, with inscriptions found in places like Sri Lanka , Thailand , and Egypt . The language has a well-documented history with literary works like Sangam literature , consisting of over 2,000 poems. Tamil script evolved from Tamil Brahmi, and later, the vatteluttu script was used until the current script was standardized. The language has a distinct grammatical structure, with agglutinative morphology that allows for complex word formations. Tamil
10404-451: Was the emergence of the present tense. The present tense evolved out of the verb kil ( கில் ), meaning "to be possible" or "to befall". In Old Tamil, this verb was used as an aspect marker to indicate that an action was micro-durative, non-sustained or non-lasting, usually in combination with a time marker such as ṉ ( ன் ). In Middle Tamil, this usage evolved into a present tense marker – kiṉṟa ( கின்ற ) – which combined
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