118-463: Tenavaram temple ( Tamil : தென்னாவரம் கோயில் ) (historically known as the Tondeshwaram Kovil , Tevanthurai Kovil or Naga-Risa Nila Kovil ) is a historic Hindu temple complex situated in the port town Tenavaram, Tevanthurai (or Dondra Head ), Matara ) near Galle , Southern Province, Sri Lanka . Its primary deity was a Hindu god Tenavarai Nayanar ( Upulvan ) and at its zenith was one of
236-468: 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
354-480: 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
472-740: 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
590-579: A contemporary description of the island traversed by the road taken by the cookoo bird, from Tenavaram in the south to Nallur ("Beautiful City") in Jaffna in the north. It and other extant Sandesas mention the Vishnu shrine of Tenavaram and some of the gopurams' three storeys. The Tisara Sandesa , Kokila Sandesa and Paravi Sandesa mention the Ganesh shrine's location on the sea coast of Tenavaram. The lands owned by
708-637: A famous Tamil emporium over the following few centuries. A ferry transported traders, pilgrims and chroniclers from Tenavaram to the Chera and Chola kingdoms of Tamilakkam via Puttalam on the western shore of the island (then an extension of the Malabar coast and Hindu Jaffna kingdom ) and the Gulf of Mannar from this time through to the late medieval period. The royal grant by Dambadeniyan King Parakramabahu II, who ruled from 1236 to 1270, contains references to donations to
826-451: A jungle two miles north of Matara by Edward Müller, mentions that the king gave fields and gardens in the villages of Cunkankola, Pakarakaramullai, Vertuvai and Naymanai as endowments to Tenavaram. The grant was made for the specific purpose of providing alms for and feeding a group of twelve Brahmins at an alms-hall ( Sattiram ) named after "Devaraja", which was maintained regularly/daily without interruption ( nicatam natakkira ). The alms-hall
944-580: A large quadrangle cloister , was a collection of several historic Hindu Kovil shrines, with its principle shrine designed in the Kerala and Pallava style of Dravidian architecture . The central temple dedicated to Vishnu (Tenavarai Nayanar) known as Upulvan to the Sinhalese was the most prestigious and biggest, popular amongst its large Tamil population, pilgrims and benefactors of other faiths such as Buddhism, kings and artisans. The other shrines that made up
1062-484: A local interpretation. The Kegalla district ola manuscript found by archaeologist Harry Charles Purvis Bell records another popular tradition, involving the arrival of a red sandalwood Vishnu image at Tenavarai by the sea in 790 CE. King Dappula Sen was involved in restoring the Vishnu shrine of the complex during this time to house the image after envisioning its arrival in a dream. The manuscript indicates several Tamil pilgrims' arrived at Tenavaram at this time, and how
1180-591: 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
1298-512: 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
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#17330861716231416-523: 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
1534-523: A road. At one end exists a temple to Shiva and at the other end, a temple to Vishnu. Another famous example of this is Vadiveeswaram in Tamil Nadu. The complex's many shrines are historically attested in grants, inscriptions and local literature. Epigraphical evidence in several languages found in the vicinity relate information about its shrines to Murukan , his goddess consorts, Ganesh, the goddess deification of Kannagi , Vishnu and Shiva. Tenavaram became
1652-456: 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 Anglicized Anglicisation or Anglicization is a form of cultural assimilation whereby something non-English becomes assimilated into or influenced by
1770-620: 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
1888-460: A son of (one of) them. The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta visited the temple in the 14th century and described the deity Dinawar as sharing the same name as the flourishing trade town in which He resided, made of gold and the size of a man with two large rubies as eyes "that lit up like lanterns during the night." One thousand Hindus and Yogis were attached to this vast temple for services, with five hundred girls that danced and sang in front of
2006-595: 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
2124-458: 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
2242-438: 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
2360-410: 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 is predominantly spoken in Tamil Nadu , India, and
2478-452: Is also blue in colour. The formerly multi religious and multi ethnic port city ceased to function as such by the late medieval period. 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
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#17330861716232596-538: Is also relatively close to the Tamil language and shares the format of 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
2714-457: 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
2832-563: 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
2950-405: 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
3068-409: 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,
3186-410: 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
3304-771: 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 ,
3422-409: 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
3540-822: 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
3658-421: Is venerated solely by Sinhala Buddhists today. The deity here is sometimes called Upulvanna , which German orientalist Wilhem Geiger notes is an alternate local form/description of Lord Vishnu, the original main deity of Tenavarai. Upulvan is should read as uppili-appan tamil name for visnu.,lotus mounted vishnu. means blue-lotus coloured , an attribute of both Vishnu and Shiva). The Vishnu Devale building here
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3776-560: The British Isles , when Celts under the sovereignty of the king of England underwent a process of anglicisation. The Celtic language decline in England was mostly complete by 1000 AD, but continued in Cornwall and other regions until the 18th century. In Scotland , the decline of Scottish Gaelic began during the reign of Malcolm III of Scotland to the point where by the mid-14th century
3894-866: The Danish city København ( Copenhagen ), the Russian city of Moskva ( Moscow ), the Swedish city of Göteborg ( Gothenburg ), the Dutch city of Den Haag ( The Hague ), the Spanish city of Sevilla ( Seville ), the Egyptian city of Al-Qāhira ( Cairo ), and the Italian city of Firenze ( Florence ). The Indian city of Kolkata used to be anglicised as Calcutta , until the city chose to change its official name back to Kolkata in 2001. Anglicisation of words and names from indigenous languages occurred across
4012-601: The English-speaking world in former parts of the British Empire . Toponyms in particular have been affected by this process. In the past, the names of people from other language areas were anglicised to a higher extent than today. This was the general rule for names of Latin or (classical) Greek origin. Today, the anglicised name forms are often retained for the more well-known persons, like Aristotle for Aristoteles, and Adrian (or later Hadrian ) for Hadrianus. During
4130-486: 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 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
4248-675: The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands . Until the 19th century, most significant period for anglicisation in those regions was the High Middle Ages . Between 1000 and 1300, the British Isles became increasingly anglicised. Firstly, the ruling classes of England, who were of Norman origin after the Norman Conquest of 1066, became anglicised as their separate Norman identity, different from
4366-631: 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 the Pandiyan Kings for the organization of long-termed Tamil Sangams , which researched, developed and made amendments in Tamil language. Even though
4484-543: The Scots language was the dominant national language among the Scottish people . In Wales , however, the Welsh language has continued to be spoken by a large part of the country's population due to language revival measures aimed at countering historical anglicisation measures such as the Welsh not . In the early parts of the 19th century, mostly due to increased immigration from
4602-584: 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
4720-456: The Welsh educational system . English "was perceived as the language of progress, equality, prosperity, mass entertainment and pleasure". This and other administrative reforms resulted in the institutional and cultural dominance of English and marginalisation of Welsh, especially in the more urban south and north-east of Wales. In 2022, the Commission for Welsh-speaking Communities warned that
4838-727: The conquest of Wales by Edward I , which involved English and Flemish settlers being "planted" in various newly established settlements in Welsh territory. English settlers in Ireland mostly resided in the Pale , a small area concentrated around Dublin . However, much of the land the English settled was not intensively used or densely populated. The culture of settling English populations in Wales and Ireland remained heavy influenced by that of England. These communities were also socially and culturally segregated from
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4956-596: The culture of England . It can be sociocultural, in which a non-English or place adopts the English language or culture; institutional, in which institutions are influenced by those of England or the United Kingdom ; or linguistic , in which a non-English term or name is altered due to the cultural influence of the English language. It can also refer to the influence of English soft power , which includes media, cuisine, popular culture, technology, business practices, laws and political systems. Anglicisation first occurred in
5074-557: The devalayam (a Tamil temple in formal speech) section of worship and Tenavaram's agraharam ( brahmadeya or chaturvedimangalam) - the Iyer or Tamil Brahmin quarter of the heterogenous Tenavaram village as warranting protection. A close connection existed over a long period between the Iyers of the agraharam of Tenavaram and the kings who had exercised authority over the southern and southwestern lowlands. Pocaracan Pantitan of Tenavarai, who carried
5192-486: 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
5310-463: The 5th and 10th centuries in Tamil Nadu. The admiral invoked the blessings of Hindu deities here for a peaceful world built on trade. Portuguese cartographers such as Tomé Pires who visited the island in the early 1500s describe Tenavarqe as an important trading and navigation port of the south, full of precious stones. Tenavaram's gold-copper gilded roofs earned it fame amongst pilgrims and sailors, due to navigational purposes and its contribution to
5428-649: The God of Tamils Tenavarai Nayanar, an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, on behalf of the Yongle Emperor . Several stone pillars here were erected through donation from Chinese kings, inscribed with letters of their nation as a token of their devotion to Tenavaram's idols. The chief deity mentioned and the donation of the trilingual inscription have also been connected to Shiva and his adjacent shrine - Nayanar were historic Saivite Tamil saints who worshipped Shiva and lived between
5546-476: 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
5664-469: 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
5782-649: The Islands. The upper class in the Channel Islands supported anglicising the Islands, due to the social and economic benefits it would bring. Anglophiles such as John Le Couteur strove to introduce English culture to Jersey . Anglicisation was an essential element in the development of British society and of the development of a unified British polity. Within the British Isles , anglicisation can be defined as influence of English culture in Scotland , Wales , Ireland ,
5900-480: 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 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
6018-592: The King granted its lands to the Hindus who accompanied an image of Vishnu. The Chief Brahmin Priest/merchant prince who brought the image was called Rama Chandra, (a name which alludes to Lord Rama , an incarnation of Vishnu). The sandalwood image was moved soon after to other shrines inland. Some scholars regard the story of a sandalwood image washing ashore to be mythical. A 17th-century literature source details that right after
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#17330861716236136-527: The Kovil Vatta were dedicated to Ganesh , Murukan , Kannagi and Shiva , widely exalted examples of stonework construction of the Dravidian style. The Shiva shrine is venerated as the southernmost of the ancient Pancha Ishwarams of Lord Shiva (called Tondeswaram), built at coastal points around the circumference of the island in the classical period. The Tenavaram temple owned the entire property and land of
6254-652: The Mahavishnu idol. All people living within the vicinity of the temple and who visited it were fed with monetary endowments that were made to the idol. The complex received revenues from seventy villages. Substantial donations of gold, silver silks and sandalwood were made from the Chinese admiral Zheng He to Tenavaram temple in 1411 CE, as detailed in the Galle Trilingual Inscription . The text concerns offerings made by him and others to various religions including
6372-542: The Portuguese colonial Thome de Souza d'Arronches, a naval captain. The temple was attacked to distract the Sitawakan king Rajasimha I who was laying siege to the city Colombo on the island's west coast at the time. De Sousa entered the complex to find it empty, giving up the temple to the plunder of 120 accompanying soldiers before looting its riches of ivory, gems and sandalwood, overthrowing thousands of statues and idols of
6490-557: The Shiva shrine were detailed by King Vijayabahu VI in a 1510 dated record. Early 16th-century copperplate inscriptions of the King Vijayabahu VII detail the land grants made by the king in the town on the condition that the recipient paid ten fanams a year to the Vishnu shrine. The grants were to be enjoyed permanently by the children, the grandchildren, and the descendants of astrologers and veda – vyasaru, including Tenuvarai Perumala,
6608-507: The Tamil word for South while Tennavan ("Southerner") is a historic epithet denoting the Hindu God Shiva in the language, used by Tamil poets and simultaneously used as an honorable description of several Pandyan kings. Tevan is God , Thurai means port , Thottam means "estate" while varam or waram denotes the Lord's abode Iswaram. The shrines' primary deity Vishnu shared the name of
6726-673: 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
6844-566: The Tenavaram Kovil , renovating the shrine and reaffirming its land ownership and regulations to prevent evasion of customs duties at the port by traders at the estate. According to this epigraph, Tendiratota and its lands that were religious endowments of old were duly maintained by the king. The port was administered by an officer titled Mahapandita. Those coming from foreign countries were not allowed to set up places of business without permission and royal officials were required not to accept gifts from foreign merchants. His epigraph also mentions
6962-417: The Tenavaram shrines and an intricately designed stone doorway retain Pallava architectural influence, similar to rediscovered pillars of the ancient Koneswaram temple that was destroyed almost forty years later. James Emerson Tennent describes Tenavaram as the most sumptuous Hindu temple complex of the island before its destruction. 18th-century chroniclers such as orientalist Captain Colin Mackenzie and
7080-419: The Welsh people did not move abroad in search of employment during the early modern era, and thus did not have to learn to speak English. Furthermore, migration patterns created a cultural division of labour, with national migrants tending to work in coalfields or remain in rural villages, while non-national migrants were attracted to coastal towns and cities. This preserved monocultural Welsh communities, ensuring
7198-481: The ancient Nāka Dynasty . Merchant guilds from Tamilakkam often built from scratch or maintained previously built shrines to Lord Shiva and Vishnu across South and South East Asia during the rule of Pallava, Chola and Pandyan kings. During the conquest of Ceylon by Pallava King Narasimhavarman I (630 - 668 CE) and the rule of the island by his grandfather and devout Vishnu devotee, King Simhavishnu (537 - 590 CE), many Pallava-built rock temples were erected in
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#17330861716237316-442: 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
7434-409: The anglicisation of the Welsh culture and language. Motives for anglicising Wales included securing Protestant England against incursions from Catholic powers in Continental Europe and promoting the power of the Welsh Tudor dynasty in the rest of England. Scholars have argued that industrialisation prevented Wales from being anglicised to the extent of Ireland and Scotland, as the majority of
7552-424: The appearance of a golden city to sailors who visited the port to trade and relied on its light reflecting gopura roofs for navigational purposes. Dondra Head is known historically in Tamil as Then-thurai , Tevan-thurai , Tennavan-thurai , Tendhira Thottam , Tenavaram and Tanaveram which are variations of the same meaning "Lord of the Southern Port" in the language. Then or Ten is an anglicized form of
7670-644: 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
7788-443: The author Robert Percival described the Hindu ruins of several temples that they saw in the town as contemporary to the finest examples of surviving ancient Tamil architecture and sculpture of the Coromandel Coast of Tamil Nadu. The granite slabs, stone works and pillars of the ruins include several elephant heads and carvings of naked men and women and indicated lingam worship to the visitors. James Cordiner, writing in 1807, described
7906-399: The colonnade of 200 granite pillars having curved bases and capitals and others rough edged, forming an avenue to the sea, leading to an intricately carved doorway with several Hindu sculptures attached. He describes intersections of rows of pillars with this avenue proceeding to the right and left. Cordiner recounts the discovery of the ancient stone image of Ganesh worshipped in a mud hut at
8024-413: 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 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
8142-445: The continued prominence of the Welsh language and customs within them. However, other scholars argue that industrialisation and urbanisation led to economic decline in rural Wales, and given that the country's large towns and cities were anglicised, this led to an overall anglicisation of the nation. The Elementary Education Act 1870 and the Welsh Intermediate Education Act 1889 introduced compulsory English-language education into
8260-434: The decline of French brought about the adoption of more values and social structures from Victorian era England. Eventually, this led to the Channel Islands's culture becoming mostly anglicised, which supplanted the traditional Norman-based culture of the Islands. From 1912, the educational system of the Channel Islands was delivered solely in English, following the norms of the English educational system . Anglicisation
8378-780: 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
8496-634: 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
8614-552: The division of the whole island in the first few centuries of the common era between two kingdoms. The accounts of 6th-century Greek merchant Cosmas Indicopleustes who visited the island around the time of King Simhavishnu of Pallava 's rule in Tamilakam reveal the presence of two kings, one of whom was based in Jaffna, home to a great emporium, who ruled the coastal districts around the island. This Tamil kingdom evolved from Nāka Nadu of
8732-489: The emigration of Anglophones to Welsh-speaking villages and towns was putting the Welsh language at risk. During the 19th and 20th centuries, there was a nationwide effort in the United States to anglicise all immigrants to the US . This was carried out through methods including (but not limited to) mandating the teaching of American English and having all immigrants change their first names to English-sounding names. This movement
8850-507: The entire town have led to numerous findings. Reflecting the high points of Pallava artistic influence and contributions to the south of the island are the temple's 5th- to 7th-century statues of Ganesh, the Lingam , sculpture of Nandi and the Vishnu shrine's 10th-century Makara Thoranam (stone gateway), the frame and lintel of which include small guardians, a lustrated Lakshmi , dancers, musicians, ganas , and yali-riders . Tenavaram temple
8968-445: The existence of a Hindu temple at the same location along the southern coast. Ptolemy in 98 CE marks the town as "Dagana" or "Dana" (Sacra Luna), a place "sacred to the moon," which geographers note corresponds to Tenavaram. In this temple the principal deity was known as "Chandra Maul Eshwaran". On the forehead of the deity was a large precious stone shaped like a moon crescent. The 18th century Tamil text Yalpana Vaipava Malai call
9086-481: The famous phrase Nagareshu Kanchi coined by the 5th-century poet Kalidasa in describing Kanchipuram as the "best city." Nila means blue while Kovil or Koil means a Tamil Hindu temple in Tamil. The whole complex was the southernmost shrine of the five ancient Iswaram s of Lord Shiva on the island of classical antiquity along with Koneswaram ( Trincomalee ), Naguleswaram ( Keerimalai ), Thiruketheeshwaram ( Mannar ) and Munneswaram ( Puttalam ). In Pali
9204-699: 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
9322-567: The honorary designation Tenuvaraipperumal before his name, wrote the Caracotimalai , a treatise on astrology in metrical Tamil verse. The author recited it in the presence of the king at the court of Kurunegal in 1310. A panegyric account of the royal patron at this court, Parakramabahu IV (1303 – 1326) of Dambadeniya, is in the introductory stanzas of this work. The author's honorific title, Tenuvarai-Perumal , literally means "The Prince of Tenavarai." Several other Tamil Hindus are mentioned with
9440-403: The identity of the native Anglo-Saxons , became replaced with a single English national identity . Secondly, English communities in Wales and Ireland emphasised their English identities, which became established through the settlement of various parts of Wales and Ireland between the 11th and 17th centuries under the guidance of successive English kings. In Wales, this primarily occurred during
9558-432: 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
9676-526: The late 20th century indicate that a Buddhist Vihara has come to be erected where the Lord Shiva or Ganesh shrine of the complex has been located by archaeologists. A small stone building currently called the Galge or Galgane at Tenavaram that once is held to have supported a brick dome or upper storeys ( Vimana tower ) atop its roof displays a Dravidian provincial style of construction and architecture assigned to
9794-625: The late Pallava period with strong affiliations to the Kailasanathar Temple in Kanchipuram. Likely to have been the Vimanam - Garbhagriha or Sreekovil of one of the shrines, this building was reconstructed/repaired in 1947. It is a simple cuboid stone room structure with a flat roof currently atop its sanctum. A Shiva lingam sculpture was found in the foreground of the Othpilima Vihara at
9912-456: 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
10030-419: The most celebrated Hindu temple complexes of the island, containing eight major kovil shrines to a thousand deity statues of stone and bronze and two major shrines to Vishnu and Shiva. Administration and maintenance was conducted by residing Hindu Tamil merchants during Tenavaram's time as a popular pilgrimage destination and famed emporium employing over five hundred devadasis . The complex, bordered by
10148-531: The most visited pilgrimage site of the south with a circuit of a full league, while his fellow Portuguese historian De Quieroz compares the temple port town's splendor to that of the Koneswaram temple of Trincomalee and states that Lord Vishnu was the primary deity of the destroyed shrine of Tenavarai. The Portuguese called the great shrine the "Pagode of Tanauarê." It was destroyed in February 1588 by soldiers led by
10266-479: 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 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 ,
10384-678: The native Irish and Welsh, a distinction which was reinforced by government legislation such as the Statutes of Kilkenny . During the Middle Ages , Wales was gradually conquered by the English. The institutional anglicisation of Wales was finalised with the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542 , which fully incorporated Wales into the Kingdom of England . This not only institutionally anglicised Wales, but brought about
10502-531: 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
10620-450: The pedestal of the Shiva linga is a thin slab; the upright or vertical portion is tall and slender. The Nandi ishapam (statue of Nandi) found with the lingam dates from the Pallava era. Other discoveries include statues of the Hindu god Ganesh and a goddess said to be Pattini / Kannagi . The garland decorated gateway to the original shrine , dating from the 10th century, is well preserved at
10738-469: The region to various deities and this style of architecture remained popular and highly influential in the next few centuries. The temple complex was developed with a Pallava style of architecture between the 6th and 8th century CE. One tradition states that a temple shrine in Tenavaram was constructed by King Aggabodhi IV in the middle of the 7th century CE, fusing Dravidian stone-made temple construction with
10856-476: The rest of the British Isles, the town of St Helier in the Channel Islands became a predominantly English-speaking place, though bilingualism was still common. This created a divided linguistic geography, as the people of the countryside continued to use forms of Norman French , and many did not even know English. English became seen in the Channel Islands as "the language of commercial success and moral and intellectual achievement". The growth of English and
10974-534: The sea coast, where the waves struck its walls at the Kovil Vatta. The Naga Risa Nila Kovil of Shiva was in the vicinity of this area of Tenavaram. Rama Chandra's name was recited daily at the conclusion of worship during the early hours of the morning. Hymns in praise of God were recited by Tamil priests attached to the temple. These priests settled in the established agraharam . In traditional Hindu practice of architecture and town-planning, an agraharam consists of two rows of houses running north-south on either side of
11092-484: The site in 1998 by a gardener along with a stone image of Nandi. It is 4 ft high and 2½ feet wide. A stone image of Ganesh and Nandi had been excavated decades earlier at the site Kovil Vatta - gardens of a newly constructed Buddhist Vihara in the Vallemadama area of Tevan Thurai. The lingam's large size has led archaeologists to conclude it could be the principal idol of the ancient temple. The Avudaiyar or
11210-488: The site. One of two styles of Thoranam to typical Kerala style temples, (lion-sea dragon or peacock crowned), the Makara Thoranam's (gateway's) frame and lintel include small guardians, dancers, musicians, ganas , and yali-riders . There is a lustration of the goddess Lakshmi in the center of the lintel. In the late British period, the "Vishnu Devale" was built in the town according to Sinhala Buddhist traditions. It
11328-570: The site. The shrine's well had been covered by a stone slab. Another shrine dedicated to Murugan of Kathirkamam was also present and revered during his visit. Many of the stones of the ruins of the Tenavaram complex were used to build the Matara Fort by the colonists. Sinhalese Buddhist temples of smaller size and a much later period had come to be erected over the Tamil Hindu ruins in some locations according to their observations. The discoveries of
11446-557: The special designation Tenuvarai Perumal in documents issued by the kings of the Kotte Kingdom in the 15th and 16th centuries, such as Bhuvanekabahu VII of Kotte . Among the names of many Hindus listed in the Kudumirissa Inscription are included those of two individuals who had the designation Tenuvarai-p-perumal. They are Tiskhanda Tenuvarapperumal and Sarasvati Tenuvarapperumal. These " Perumals " were officiating priests of
11564-465: 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
11682-525: The temple and exercised authority over the administration of the town and the temple. The Dondra slab inscriptions record the granting of lands to the Vishnu shrine in the fourteenth century. Endowments to the Shiva shrine and extensive donations of lands to it were made during the reign of King Alagakkonara , a Raigama chief who ruled the south between 1397 and 1409. The Naymanai inscription slab of Parakramabahu VI of Kotte (1412-1467), written in Tamil and Sanskrit in Tamil and Grantha characters found in
11800-505: The temple before leveling the complex and defiling the inner court by slaughtering cows there. The area was then burnt. Also destroyed was the deity's magnificent wooden temple car . De Quieroz, writing a century after the destruction, states that a large Catholic Church, the St Lucia's Cathedral was then built on the temple's foundation by Franciscans , sufficed to maintain three Portuguese churches. Ruins of several granite pillars from one of
11918-478: The town Theivanthurai (God's Port) and the deity's name Santhira Segaram ( Chandra Sekharam ) or "Lord Shiva, wearer of moon on his head". This shrine became known as the Naga-Risa Nila Kovil of Tenavaram by the medieval period, and as "Tondeswaram", one of the five ancient Ishwarams of Shiva in the region. There is scattered literary and archeological evidence from local and foreign sources describing
12036-433: The town and the surrounding villages, ownership of which was affirmed through several royal grants in the early medieval period. Its keepers lived along streets of its ancient agraharam within the complex. Due to patronage by various royal dynasties and pilgrims across Asia, it became one of the most important surviving buildings of the classical Dravidian architectural period by the late 16th century. The temple compound
12154-414: The town is called Devapura and Devanagara . In Sinhalese it has been referred to as Devinuwara, meaning City of Gods and Devundara . In English today the town is known as Dondra or Dondera . It was a prolific sea port and capital city in medieval Sri Lanka and housed merchants from around Asia , amongst whom were many traders from Tamil Nadu . A map drawn by early Greek cartographers reveals
12272-401: The town's appearance as a "golden city." Encompassed by a quadrangular cloister which opened under verandahs and terraces to the various deities' shrines, the complex contained gardens of shrubs and trees which priests used to pluck offerings to the deities. The Portuguese historian Diogo do Couto stated that along with Adam's Peak , Tenavarai was the most celebrated temple on the island, and
12390-497: The town, Tenavarai Nayanar , at the southernmost point of the island. The northernmost Vishnu shrine of the island, Vallipuram Vishnu Kovil , houses the ancient deity Vallipuram Alwar following a similar naming tradition. The Ganesh shrine of the temple was known as the Ganeshwaran Kovil and the Shiva shrine of the complex was known as Naga-Risa Nila Kovil . This name is possibly etymologically related to Nagareshu , from
12508-627: 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 was the lingua franca for early maritime traders, with inscriptions found in places like Sri Lanka , Thailand , and Egypt . The language has
12626-578: The washing ashore of the wood image, Tamil Brahmins versed in Vaishnava lore from Rameswaram in Pallava-era Tamilakkam were invited to the town to fashion and import an image of Lord Vishnu to Tenavaram. Other sources indicate the Tamils brought the statue to Tenavaram for safe-keeping as Rameswaram was under attack. Rama Chandra founded the Ganesh Kovil of Tenavaram in 790, located at Vallemadama on
12744-483: 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 , 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
12862-517: 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
12980-526: 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,
13098-456: Was built on vaulted arches on the promontory overlooking the Indian Ocean. The central gopuram tower of the vimana and the other gopura towers that dominated the town were covered with plates of gilded brass, gold and copper on their roofs. Its outer body featured intricately carved domes, with elaborate arches and gates opening to various verandas and shrines of the complex, giving Tenavaram
13216-586: 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
13334-452: Was destroyed by Portuguese colonial Thome de Sousa d'Arronches, who devastated the entire southern coast. The property was then handed over to Catholics . Tenavaram's splendor and prominence ranked it in stature alongside the other famous Pallava-developed medieval Hindu temple complex in the region, Koneswaram of Trincomalee . Excavations at the complex mandapam 's partially buried ruins of granite pillars, stairs and slab stonework over
13452-506: Was in the vicinity ( iracarkal tiru – c - cannatiyil nisadam madakkira sattirattukku tiru-v-ullamparrina ur ) or the premises of the holy shrine of the "god king" of Tenavaram. The conquest of Jaffna kingdom by Sapumal Kumaraya , a military leader sent by the Kotte king in 1450, was celebrated in the Kokila Sandesaya ("Message carried by Kokila bird") written in the 15th century and contains
13570-706: Was known as Americanization and is considered a subset of Anglicization due to English being the dominant language in the United States. Linguistic anglicisation is the practice of modifying foreign words, names, and phrases to make them easier to spell, pronounce or understand in English . The term commonly refers to the respelling of foreign words, often to a more drastic degree than that implied in, for example, romanisation . Non-English words may be anglicised by changing their form and/or pronunciation to something more familiar to English speakers. Some foreign place names are commonly anglicised in English. Examples include
13688-604: 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
13806-484: Was supported by the British government , and it was suggested that anglicisation would not only encourage loyalty and congeniality between the Channel Islands and Britain, but also provide economic prosperity and improved "general happiness". During the 19th century, there was concern over the practise of sending young Channel Islanders to France for education, as they might have brought back French culture and viewpoints back to
13924-451: 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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