100-407: 16 Vayathinile ( transl. At Age 16 ; read as Pathinaaru Vayathinile ) is a 1977 Indian Tamil -language romantic drama film co-written and directed by Bharathirajaa in his directorial debut. The film stars Kamal Haasan , Sridevi , and Rajinikanth , with Gandhimathi , Sathyajith and Goundamani in supporting roles. It focuses on the strengths and vulnerabilities of Mayil (Sridevi),
200-448: A tour de force by critics since he was typecast as a romantic hero at that time. The dialogue "Idhu Eppadi Irukku?" (How's this?), spoken by Parattaiyan, became very popular; IANS and Rediff included it on their lists of lines popularised by Rajinikanth. Manisha Lakhe, writing for Forbes India , noted that 16 Vayathinile "paved the way for unkempt villains who had a singularly disgusting laugh." A digitally remastered version of
300-455: 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 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
400-468: 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
500-480: 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
600-721: A 16-year-old schoolgirl, and the challenges she faces and overcomes. The film was originally titled Mayil , and set to be funded by the National Film Development Corporation of India . When they backed out, it was picked up by S. A. Rajkannu who produced it under his banner Shri Amman Creations, and eventually retitled. 16 Vayathinile became the first Tamil film to be shot predominantly outdoors; Tamil films were primarily filmed in Madras studios. Its soundtrack album and background score were composed by Ilaiyaraaja , with cinematography by P. S. Nivas . P. Kalaimani wrote
700-527: A 175-day theatrical run. It won numerous awards, including the National Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer for S. Janaki ; the Filmfare Award for Best Actor (Tamil) for Haasan and Special Commendation Award for Performance for Sridevi; and four State Awards , including Best Director for Bharathiraja and Best Actor for Haasan. 16 Vayathinile attained cult status in Tamil cinema and
800-740: 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
900-498: A black-and-white film titled Mayil that would be funded by the National Film Development Corporation of India (NDFC), but according to him, the NFDC withdrew "at the last minute" without specifying a reason. The project was eventually picked up by S. A. Rajkannu who produced it under his banner Sri Amman Creations. Mayil was eventually re-titled 16 Vayathinile , and marked Bharathirajaa's screenwriting and directorial debut . Its dialogue
1000-570: 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 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
1100-409: A derivation of tamiḻ < tam-iḻ < * tav-iḻ < * tak-iḻ , meaning in origin "the proper process (of speaking)". However, this 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
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#17331044925031200-420: A film titled November 8, Iravu 8 Mani starring Vidharth , which narrates events following the decision to demonetise certain banknotes in India . When the old era was dominated by films shot inside studios, Bharathiraja directed village themed films that inspired Tamil cinema to capture live locations. Array of village films in Tamil cinema started after his trendsetting film 16 Vayathinile . He changed
1300-621: A film titled Siragugal Murivadhillai , starring Napolean , Heera Rajagopal and Prakash Raj . Both films were later shelved. He planned to revive Vaakkapatta Bhoomi with Cheran during late 2004, but the collaboration did not materialise. His 2001 film Kadal Pookal won him that year's National Film Award for Best Screenplay . The well-known Tamil film director Bhagyaraj was one of his assistant directors. In 2008, Bharathiraja made his television debut with series Thekkathi Ponnu which aired on Kalaignar TV. He went on to direct two other series Appanum Aathaalum and Muthal Mariyathai for
1400-414: A limping orphan who is dismissively called "Chappani" (Lame) by the villagers and does whatever he can to earn a living. Mayil's ambition is to become a teacher, and she hopes to marry a sophisticated, educated man; although Chappani is in love with her, she does not reciprocate his love. Sathyajith, an urban veterinarian, arrives in the village to work and falls in love with Mayil. Believing that Sathyajith
1500-487: A man sporting a soiled dhoti and shirt came to my office to narrate a script. Had I turned the offer down on the basis of his dirty clothes, I wouldn't have been here talking to you. After listening to the script, I realised that he was such a genius and the movie was the cult classic [ 16 Vayathinile ], and he was none other than ace Bharathiraja sir". Rajinikanth was cast as the village ruffian Parattaiyan. Bharathiraja stated in 2013 that although had finalised ₹ 3,000 as
1600-491: A manner every common man could understand. He is also known for introducing a number of new faces to the film industry. He has introduced many actors as new faces notable among them are Karthik , Radha , Revathi , Radhika , and Vijayashanti . Apart from lead actors, he has introduced a bunch of supporting actors. Notable among them include Janagaraj , Vadivukkarasi , Chandrasekhar , Pandiyan , and Napoleon . As an experimental initiative he used to give new actors
1700-489: A new genre of village cinema. The film is now regarded as a milestone in the history of Tamil Cinema. About the film, Bharathiraja said: "This movie was meant to be a black & white art film produced with the help of National Film Development Corporation", but turned out to be a commercially successful colour film and a starting point for several important careers. His next film Kizhake Pogum Rail produced similar results and eventually brought in criticisms that Bharathiraja
1800-591: 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
1900-512: 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
2000-523: 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) 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
2100-466: A school called Bharathi Raja International Institute of Cinema (BRIIC) on film making. Bharathiraja directed socially themed films with special emphasis on women and their complicated interpersonal relationships. He addressed other social evils like caste discrimination in his films. Bharathiraja was born as Chinnasamy to parents Periyamayathevar and Karuthammal in Theni Allinagaram , a town in
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#17331044925032200-572: 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 Bharathiraja Bharathiraja ( / b ɑːr ʌ ð ɪr ɑː dʒ ɑː / born 17 July 1941) is an Indian film director and actor who works mainly in the Tamil film industry . Making his debut in 1977 with 16 Vayathinile , he
2300-620: 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
2400-445: A small role in his films later they becoming popular among people and turning to busy actors. Many present day directors who were unknown to people turned into actors after playing a debut petty role in his films: K. Bhagyaraj , Manivannan , Manobala , Thiagarajan , and Ponvannan are among them. He was also instrumental in portraying Sathyaraj for the first time in lead role. Bharathiraja inspired many young film makers and runs
2500-595: 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
2600-458: 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
2700-438: 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
2800-412: Is Malayalam ; the two began diverging around the 9th century CE. Although many of 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
2900-457: 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
3000-560: Is considered to be the bellwether of films depicting realistic portrayals of rural life. Making stars of its director and lead actors, it was remade in Telugu as Padaharella Vayasu (1978), in Hindi as Solva Sawan (1979), and in Malay as Melati Putih [ ms ] (1984). Mayil is a 16-year old schoolgirl who lives in a village with Guruvammal, her mother. Guruvammal also takes care of
3100-563: 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
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3200-405: 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
3300-409: 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,
3400-410: 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
3500-504: Is known for realistic and sensitive portrayals of rural life in his films and popularly referred to as Iyakkunar Imayam . As of 2017, he has won six National Film Awards , four Filmfare Awards South , six Tamil Nadu State Film Awards and a Nandi Award . He has also directed films in Telugu and Hindi . The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri award, India's fourth-highest civilian honour, in 2004 for his contribution to
3600-501: 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 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
3700-653: Is more pronounced and transparent here." Film scholar Swarnavel Eswaran Pillai noted that the film was marked by "ambiguous and dark protagonists, new subjectivity, [and] avoidance of clichéd and cathartic closures". Kumuthan Maderya, writing for Jump Cut , described 16 Vayathinile as a "neo-nativity" film — a story set in rural Tamil Nadu, valorising the rustic and foregrounding the lives of villagers. Ashis Nandy, in his 1998 book The Secret Politics of Our Desires , noted that doctors in Tamil films like 16 Vayathinile are always viewed with "a bit of suspicion" and remain complete outsiders "capable of seducing women and polluting
3800-771: 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 ,
3900-409: 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
4000-767: Is the right person for her, Mayil falls in love with him, to the point of refusing an opportunity to attend a teacher-training course in Madras to remain with him. Despite loving Sathyajith, she does not allow him to exploit her sexually, which disappoints him. Never intending a serious relationship with Mayil, he proceeds to his native place to marry another woman. When Mayil begs Sathyajith not to leave her, he says he befriended her for pleasure—not marriage. A dejected Mayil confesses about her relationship with Sathyajith to Guruvammal, who quickly plans to betroth her to someone else. The village ruffian Parattaiyan—who lusts for Mayil—spreads rumours about her relationship with Sathyajith. Because of this, Mayil's engagement plans are halted and
4100-542: Is told by Bharathiraja with poetic touches. Vedham Pudhithu dealt with the caste issue in a stronger manner. The film's narrative was seamless and starred Sathyaraj as Balu Thevar. It contains some of Bharathiraja's trademark touches as well as several ground-breaking scenes. Vedham Pudhithu made a revolutionary thoughts about caste discriminations in Brahmin and other upper castes in Tamil Nadu. Bharathiraja has successfully managed to modernise his film-making techniques for
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4200-822: 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
4300-584: 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
4400-486: 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
4500-404: The 1980s: Alaigal Oivathillai (1981), Mann Vasanai (1983) and Muthal Mariyathai (1985) were strong love stories in a village backdrop. Muthal Mariyathai starred Sivaji Ganesan in the lead, playing a middle-aged village head. Radha is a poor young woman who moves into his village for a living. The love that bonds these two humans separated not just by age but also by caste and class,
4600-508: The 1990s. The commercial success of Kizhakku Cheemaiyile and the awards that Karuththamma garnered stand as testimony to his ability to thrill the younger generation as well. Bharathiraja was on the same stage in 1996 to receive another National Award for Anthimanthaarai . In late 1996, Bharathiraja was signed on to direct two films, with the Sarathkumar -starrer Vaakkapatta Bhoomi announced in October. The following month, he began work on
4700-476: 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
4800-469: 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
4900-673: 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
5000-705: The Thimmaraya character in Katha Sangama runs errands for Kondaji, here Chappani/Gopalakrishnan performs services for [Parattaiyan], but the similarity ends there because Thimmaraya is evil and Chappani is good." He also described 16 Vayathinile as the first film when a villainous character played by Rajinikanth does not have a change of heart or get away without being punished: "Here he pays for his deeds with his life." Saraswathy Srinivas of Rediff.com called Parattaiyan an "extension" of Rajinikanth's negative character from Moondru Mudichu (1976), but said that "the villainy
5100-442: 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
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#17331044925035200-912: 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, 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
5300-447: The attire of male lead role as simple and without much cosmetics and female leads in his films as dusky looking which were before dominated by fair skinned ladies. He started the style of directors speaking to the audience with his famous dialogue "En Iniya Thamizh Makkale (My sweet Tamil people)". Bharathiraja is revered as one of the best directors of Indian cinema. His ideas were original and his subjects were complex ideas expressed in
5400-409: The character Mayil with. For the role of Mayil's mother Kuruvammal, Bharathiraja wanted someone who could speak the village dialect fluently and chose Gandhimathi for her acting style. Receiving a salary of ₹ 150, Bhagyaraj was initially considered for the veterinarian's role but declined as he wanted to concentrate on directing; despite that, he still made a cameo appearance in the film. The role of
5500-525: The community". The soundtrack album and background score for 16 Vayathinile were composed by Ilaiyaraaja with lyrics by Kannadasan , Gangai Amaran and Alangudi Somu . The soundtrack consisted of four songs, that blends folk and Western classical music, and released under the EMI Records label. 16 Vayathinile was released on 15 September 1977. Rajkannu released the film himself after no distributors were willing to buy it. Although written off by
5600-983: 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
5700-634: 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
5800-614: The erstwhile Theni district of Tamil Nadu in a Kallar family. He married ChandraLeela in 1974 and has two children Manoj Bharathiraja (born 1976) and Janani (born 1979). Manoj is an actor who was introduced in Tajmahal and he married actress Nandana . Janani is married to Malaysian Rajkumar Thambiraja. Bharathiraja's brother-in-law Manoj Kumar has directed films such as Mannukkul Vairam , Vandicholai Chinraasu , Vaanavil and Guru Paarvai . His brother Jayaraj made his acting debut with Kaththukkutti . His relative Stalin
5900-403: The film in its list of "Films you must watch to grasp the breadth of Kamal Haasan's repertoire". In Bharathiraja's second directorial venture Kizhakke Pogum Rail (1978), a character named "Mayil" and her husband "Chappani" are mentioned, which journalists interpreted as the 16 Vayathinile characters, making this the first attempt in Tamil cinema to launch a shared universe . 16 Vayathinile
6000-489: The film industry. In 2017 at SICA function, Haasan recalled that he and Bharathiraja desired to take the film's cinematography like Ryan's Daughter (1970), but they did not have the required budget. Bharathiraja wanted a speckled hen for a scene, but as Bhagyaraj could not find one, he coloured a white hen with ink. The scene where Mayil spits on Parattai required several takes before Rajinikanth insisted that Sridevi actually spit on him for real. While Bharathiraja wanted
6100-470: The film industry. In 2005, he was conferred with the Doctor of Letters ( honorary degree ) from Sathyabama University . Bharathiraja started his film career as an assistant to Kannada filmmaker Puttanna Kanagal . Later, he assisted P. Pullaiah , M. Krishnan Nair , Avinasi Mani and A. Jagannathan . His first film 16 Vayathinile , for which he wrote the script, broke the then existing convention to create
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#17331044925036200-449: The film on its list of "100 greatest Indian films of all time", saying that it was a "decisive move away from the studio-bound productions and paved the way for successful integration of subaltern themes and folk arts into mainstream commercial cinema." In August 2015, News18 included the film in its list of "10 performances that make [Sridevi] the 'Last Empress' of Indian cinema". In November the same year, Daily News and Analysis included
6300-400: The film to follow a linear narration, it was Bhagyaraj's idea to begin the film with a flashback sequence. After the film completed its shoot, it was screened at least 20 times for the distributors and the narrative switched every time between the linear and non-linear versions. Eventually, Rajkannu himself released the film, with the flashback narrative. A sequence featuring faulty lip sync
6400-454: The film was "memorable for its script, high standard and realism." South Scope included Haasan's performance on its list of "Kamal's best performances" in July 2010. S. Shiva Kumar of The Hindu included the film on his December 2010 list of "Electrifying Rajinikanth-Kamal Haasan films" with Moondru Mudichu (1976), Avargal (1977) and Aval Appadithan (1978). In April 2013 News18 included
6500-444: The film was being planned for a late 2013 release; although its trailer was released in October that year, the version failed to see a theatrical release. In July 2007, S. R. Ashok Kumar of The Hindu asked eight Tamil directors to list their all-time favourite Tamil films; seven– C. V. Sridhar , K. Balachander, Mahendran , K. Bhagyaraj, Mani Ratnam , K. S. Ravikumar and Ameer –named 16 Vayathinile . According to Ratnam,
6600-410: The film's dialogue. 16 Vayathinile was released on 15 September 1977, and was distributed by Rajkannu himself since no distributor was willing to buy it. Although written off by the media as an experimental film that would fail, the film received critical praise for Bharathiraja's script, Ilaiyaraaja's music and the performances of Haasan, Sridevi and Rajinikanth. It was commercially successful, with
6700-528: The film, Rajinikanth's mentor, the director K. Balachander wrote in a letter of appreciation to Bharathiraja, "You have hit the bull's eye". The writer of a Film Focus article in Tribune stated in 1983, "[Kamal Haasan] by his youthfulness alone has many years ahead of him to adorn the Tamil and Hindu screens, and going by his brilliance in Pathinaru Vayathinile , could even, displace [Sivaji Ganesan] with
6800-466: The formal ancient Tamil language. While there are some variations from 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
6900-699: 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
7000-432: 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
7100-456: 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
7200-619: The meaning "sweet sound", from tam – "sweet" and il – "sound". Tamil belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian languages , 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
7300-431: The media as an experimental film that would fail, it became a commercial success, running for over 175 days in theatres, and becoming a silver jubilee film . The film earned $ 1 million at the box office according to a 2010 estimate by the magazine South Scope , and Rajkannu went into hiding to avoid income-tax raids. The film received critical acclaim, with praise for Bharathiraja's script, Ilaiyaraaja's music and
7400-416: The nearby town for buying wedding supplies. Learning of Gopalakrishnan's absence, Parattai goes to Mayil's house and tries to rape her. Gopalakrishnan returns to Mayil's house and pleads with Parattaiyan to leave her. When Parattaiyan refuses, Gopalakrishnan kills him with a rock and is arrested. He promises Mayil that he will return, and she waits every day for him. Bharathirajaa planned to write and direct
7500-531: 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
7600-548: The passage of time" The reviewer concluded by describing "Sendhoora Poove" as a "silver lined melody that paced the film and added to its brilliance. Do not miss it at any cost." In addition to the National Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer for S. Janaki, 16 Vayathinile won Haasan the Filmfare Award in the Best Tamil Actor category, and Sridevi won the Special Commendation Award for Performance at
7700-408: The performances of Haasan, Sridevi and Rajinikanth. The Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan , in its review dated 9 October 1977, gave the film 62.5 marks out of 100, their highest rating for a Tamil film. The reviewer praised the film for representing village life with realism, and for avoiding the cliché of (studio) court and police station in its climax, but criticised the error in focusing. After seeing
7800-417: The remake rights of 16 Vayathinile for Kannada . "I am [Bharathiraja's] very first fan ... These are not empty words. Before 16 Vayathinile 's release, when he showed me the film, I wrote him a letter of appreciation. That's why I say that I'm his first fan and proud to be so." 16 Vayathinile is considered a cult film and a landmark in Tamil cinema, diverging from traditional Tamil films of
7900-415: The role of Chappani, expecting to pay Haasan ₹ 15,000 since the actor had received ₹ 17,000 for Aayirathil Oruthi (1975). When Haasan asked for ₹ 30,000, Lakshmanan suggested that Bharathiraja offer the role to Sivakumar since the production unit could not afford Haasan's request; however, Bharathiraja saw Haasan as the ideal choice and agreed to pay him ₹ 27,000. In 2017, Haasan recalled, "Years ago,
8000-419: The salary for Rajinikanth after the latter initially charged ₹ 5,000, he ultimately paid ₹ 2,500 to him. Some years later, he stated that Rajinikanth's salary was lower than Haasan's due to the former not being an established star then, but added that he was uncertain about the exact salary details. 16 Vayathinile marked Rajinikanth's first appearance in a colour film. Since the actor was not fluent in Tamil at
8100-546: The same ceremony. The film won four Tamil Nadu State Film Awards , and Rajinikanth won the Arima Sangam Award for Best Actor. 16 Vayathinile was remade in Telugu by K. Raghavendra Rao as Padaharella Vayasu (1978) and in Hindi by Bharathiraja as Solva Sawan (1979), with Sridevi reprising her role in both. It was also remade by M. Raj in Malay as Melati Putih [ ms ] (1984). In October 2009, actor Ganesh revealed that he and his wife bought
8200-406: The same channel. During early 2016, Bharathiraja was embroiled in a legal tussle with director Bala on making a film titled Kutra Parambarai , though neither filmmaker eventually made their respective films. He later moved on to plan a film starring director Vasanth 's son, Ritwik Varun, and Vikram 's nephew, but the film was dropped after two schedules. In 2018, Bharathirajaa was working on
8300-539: 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 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,
8400-465: 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
8500-405: The time, Bhagyaraj read him his lines and Rajinikanth repeated them until he mastered them. For the role of Mayil, Bharathiraja initially wanted a 16-year-old girl, but after meeting 14-year old Sridevi , offered her the role, which he said would be down-to-earth and de-glamourised; to his surprise, Sridevi readily accepted. Bharathiraja said Sridevi's eyes had the "dreamy sparkle" that he envisioned
8600-401: The time. With Annakili (1976), the film was a trendsetter for realistic portrayals of rural life, and made superstars of Sridevi, Haasan, and Rajinikanth, as well as boosting Goundamani's popularity. Outdoor shooting of films slowly started to increase after the release of 16 Vayathinile. According to Naman Ramachandran and S. Shiva Kumar of The Hindu , Haasan's performance was considered
8700-437: 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 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
8800-556: The veterinarian went to newcomer Shabbir Ahmed, who was given the screen name Sathyajith during post-production. His scenes were shot in ten days. Sathyajith was not well-versed in Tamil at the time of auditioning but dubbed in his own voice, even though Bharathiraja offered to have someone else dub for him. Haasan, Sridevi, Rajinikanth and Gandhimathi were credited by their character names in the opening credits, rather than their actual names. Shot mainly in Mysore and Kollegal , 16 Vayathinile
8900-775: The village becomes hostile to her. Unable to bear the shame, Guruvammal dies and leaves Chappani to take care of Mayil. Chappani takes good care of Mayil, cheering her up when she needs it. She warms to Chappani, making him more confident and assertive and grooming him and his manners, to the surprise of many in the village. Mayil tells him to slap anyone calling him "Chappani" and to respond only to those addressing him by his name, Gopalakrishnan. When Sathyajith and Parattaiyan dismissively call him "Chappani", Gopalakrishnan slaps them. Mayil and Gopalakrishnan celebrate his newfound courage. An insulted Parattaiyan later beats Gopalakrishnan badly. Mayil saves him and spits on Parattaiyan in revenge. Mayil decides to marry Gopalakrishnan, and sends him to
9000-517: 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
9100-526: 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,
9200-497: Was also used as the title of Bharathiraja's son Manoj 's debut studio album. Tamil language Sri Lanka Singapore Malaysia Canada and United States Tamil ( தமிழ் , Tamiḻ , pronounced [t̪amiɻ] ) 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
9300-471: Was capable of catering only to village audiences. This led him to make Sigappu Rojakkal , about a psychopathic woman-hater that was totally westernized in terms of both conception and production. Bharathiraja confirmed his versatility and refusal to be tied down to one particular genre with an experimental film Nizhalgal (1980), and the action thriller Tik Tik Tik (1981). But undoubtedly, rural themes proved to be his strong suit as his biggest hits in
9400-586: 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
9500-604: 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 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
9600-443: Was retained in the final cut after going unnoticed. The film was made on a shoestring budget of ₹4.25 lakh (worth ₹4.7 crore in 2021 prices). 16 Vayathinile focuses on rural Tamil Nadu, and the vulnerabilities of Mayil. Film critic Naman Ramachandran compared Parattaiyan to Rajinikanth's character Kondaji from Katha Sangama (1975), stating, "Like in that film, Rajinikanth is a card-playing wastrel with henchmen in tow. Just like
9700-560: Was spoofed in Murattu Kaalai (2012) by Vivek , whose character Saroja is called "Mayil" by Cell Murugan 's character (a veterinarian similar to Sathyajith's character in the film). In Sivaji: The Boss (2007), Vivek's character delivers one of Rajinikanth's catchphrases and concludes with "Idhu eppadi irukku?" . The film's title and characters have inspired other film titles such as Parattai Engira Azhagu Sundaram (2007), Mayilu (2012) and 36 Vayadhinile (2015). 16 Vayathinile
9800-451: 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
9900-525: Was the first Tamil film made predominantly outdoors and no sets were used. Due to budgetary constraints the crew could not afford a camera which could film slow motion and Sridevi had to run in slow motion for the song "Chendoora Poove". For his character, Haasan grew his curly hair long and wore lungis and khadi high-buttoned shirts. Bharathiraja also recalled that he showed a "handsome Kamal Haasan in an ugly way" as he wanted to prove that characters need not always be attractive, and to break this stereotype in
10000-423: Was written by P. Kalaimani . P. S. Nivas was signed as cinematographer and R. Bhaskaran as editor. Chitra Lakshmanan and K. Bhagyaraj worked as assistant directors. The latter provided suggestions for scenes and dialogues. When the film was in development in black-and-white, Bharathiraja envisioned Nagesh in the role of Chappani. After it was changed to colour, he wanted Lakshmanan to sign Kamal Haasan for
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