Girl Name Sunitha and Meaning; Tagged with: Tamil, Indian, Telugu, Hindu, Kannada, Malayalam, Sanskrit, Marathi. List Of Malayalam Actress Biography Aishwarya (Telugu: ఐశ్వర్య; Tamil: ஐஷ்வர்ய); is a South Indian actress who has acted in Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu movies. She is the daughter of popular actress Lakshmi. Amala was born on September 12, 1968, in.
Sunitha Malayalam Actress, BiographySource:- Google.com.pk
he entered into film industry through the movie Kodai Mazhai is a 1986 Tamil movie Directed by Muktha S. Sundar, Music by Ilayaraja Starring Rajanikanth, Prasad, Lakshmi and 1990 Varavu Nalla Uravu the family movie Director Visu Tamil Nadu State Award for best Story Writer and Nenja Thottu Sollu the Tamil movie a female oriented story based on a character called (Pongona) Directed by T.N. Kanna.
The Malayalam movies Nirabhedangal Director Sajan Starring Prathap Pothen, Ambika, Geetha and Kanikanum Neram Director Rajasenan Starring Ratheesh, Saritha in 1987. Her popular movies include, Mrugaya is a Malayalam action drama film written by AK Lohithadas and directed by IV Sasi and Appu directed by Dennis Joseph and written by Sreekumaran Thampi starring Mohanlal, K.R. Vijaya and Gajakesariyogam Directed by P.G. Viswambharan Starring Mukesh, Innocent and Neelagiri directed by I. V. Sasi and written by Ranjith and Georgootty C/O Georgootty the film was produced under the banner of Chandragiri Productions. It was Haridas' directorial debut. Haridas got the State Award for Best New face Director for this film Starring Jayaram, Thilakan and Mimics Parade and Kasargod Khader Bhai comedy film directed by Thulasidas and starring Siddique, Jagadeesh and Pookkalam Varavayi directed by Kamal Written by Ranjith & Nathan starring Jayaram, Shamili and Savidham Directed by George Kithu starring Nedumudi Venu, Santhi Krishna and Snehasagaram directed by Sathyan Anthikkad starring Murali, Manoj K Jayan and Mukha Chithram directed by Suresh Unnithan and Samooham directed by Sathyan Anthikad with Suhasini Manirathnam and Suresh Gopi and Vatsalyam directed by Cochin Haneefa and written by Lohithadas Starring Mammootty, Geetha and Nandini Oppol Directed by Mohan Kuplari starring Geetha, Nedumudi Venu and Sowbhagyam Directed by Sandhya Mohan and Pradakshinam directed by Pradeep Chockli starring Manoj K Jayan, Balachandran Chullikkadu and Kaliveedu movie family drama film that explores the marital relationship directed by Sibi Malayil starring Jayaram, Manju Warrier.
She entered into Kannada film industry through the movie in 1990 Anukulakobba Ganda Movie Directed by M.S.Rajashekar Starring Raghavendra Rajkumar and Aralida hoovugalu Directed by Chi Dattharaj Starring Shivarajkumar, Srinath and Puksatte Ganda Hotte Tumba Unda a typical drama movie Directed by Raj Kishore Starring Ambareesh and Roll Call Ramakrishna Directed by B Rama Murthy, produced by S R Raajeshwari, music by Upendra Kumar and starring Ananth Nag, Devraj.
She has paired with leading Indian actors such as Mammooty, Mohanlal, Jayaram, Suresh Gopi, Ambareesh, Anant Nag, Shivaraj Kumar, Raghavendra Rajkumar and so many others.
As a dancer[edit]
Sunitha, alternatively known as Kodai Mazhai Vidya and Vidyasree, is a well known Indian classical dancer. She is trained in Bharatanatyam style of dancing. She began dancing at the age of 3 and did her arangetram at the age of 11. She has had the privilege of experiencing the old tradition of 'Gurukul'. She received her training in the Vazhuvoor style of Bharatanatyam from Padmashree Vazhuvoor Ramaiyya Pillai and his son Kalaimamani Vazhuvoor R.Samaraj. To date she has given more than 200 dance recitals all over the world. She has performed dances in many stage shows, all over the world with Amitabh Bachchan, Mamooty, Mohanlal, Vineeth etc.
Sunitha owns and serves as artistic director at the Nrithyanjali School of Dance, based in United States.[1] She has enriched the cultural life of the North Carolina by dedicating herself to teaching and performing classical dance over the past ten years.
Personal life[edit]
She is born to Venugopal Shivaramakrishnan and Bhuvana at Andhra Pradesh. She is married to Raj and has a son, Shashank. She currently resides at North Carolina, United States with family.[2]
Tamil /ˈtæmɪl/ (தமிழ், tamiḻ, [t̪ɐmɨɻ] ?) also spelt Tamizh is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. It has official status in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Tamil is also an official and national language of Sri Lanka[10] and one of the official languages of Singapore.[11] It is legalised as one of the languages of medium of education in Malaysia along with English, Malay and Mandarin.[12][13] It is also chiefly spoken in the states of Kerala, Puducherry and Andaman and Nicobar Islands as a secondary language and by minorities in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and was the first Indian language to be declared a classical language by the Government of India in 2004. Tamil is also spoken by significant minorities in Malaysia, England, Mauritius, Canada,[14] South Africa,[15] Fiji,[16] Germany,[17] Philippines, United States, Netherlands, Indonesia,[18] Réunion and France as well as emigrant communities around the world.
Tamil is one of the longest surviving classical languages in the world.[19][20] 2,200-year-old Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions have been found on Samanamalai It has been described as 'the only language of contemporary India which is recognizably continuous with a classical past.'[21] The variety and quality of classical Tamil literature has led to it being described as 'one of the great classical traditions and literatures of the world'.[22] Tamil literature has existed for over 2000 years.[23] The earliest period of Tamil literature, Sangam literature, is dated from ca. 300 BC – AD 300.[24][25] It has the oldest extant literature amongst other Dravidian languages.[19] The earliest epigraphic records found on rock edicts and hero stones date from around the 3rd century BC.[26][27] More than 55% of the epigraphical inscriptions (about 55,000) found by the Archaeological Survey of India are in the Tamil language.[28] Tamil language inscriptions written in Brahmi script have been discovered in Sri Lanka, and on trade goods in Thailand and Egypt.[29][30] The two earliest manuscripts from India,[31][32] acknowledged and registered by UNESCO Memory of the World register in 1997 and 2005, were in Tamil.[33]
In 1578, Portuguese Christian Missionaries published a Tamil prayer book in old Tamil script named 'Thambiraan Vanakkam', thus making Tamil the first Indian language to be printed and published.[34] Tamil Lexicon, published by the University of Madras, is the first among the dictionaries published in any Indian language.[35] Tamil is used as a sacred language of Ayyavazhi and in Tamil Hindu traditions of Shaivism and Vaishnavism. According to a 2001 survey, there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil, of which 353 were dailies.[36]
Contents [hide]
1 Classification
2 Origin of Tamil in Hinduism
3 History
3.1 Gold obsession
3.2 Etymology
3.3 Old Tamil
3.4 Middle Tamil
3.5 Modern Tamil
4 Geographic distribution
5 Legal status
6 Dialects
6.1 Region-specific variations
6.1.1 Loanword variations
7 Spoken and literary variants
8 Writing system
9 Phonology
9.1 Vowels
9.2 Consonants
9.3 Āytam
9.4 Numerals and symbols
10 Grammar
10.1 Morphology
10.2 Syntax
11 Vocabulary
12 Influence
13 See also
14 Footnotes
15 References
16 Further reading
17 External links
Classification[edit]
Main article: Dravidian languages
Tamil belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian languages, a family of around 26 languages native to the Indian subcontinent.[37] It is also classified as being part of a Tamil language family, which alongside Tamil proper, also includes the languages of about 35 ethno-linguistic groups[38] such as the Irula and Yerukula languages (see SIL Ethnologue).
The closest major relative of Tamil is Malayalam; the two began diverging around the 9th century CE.[39] Although many of the differences between Tamil and Malayalam demonstrate a pre-historic split of the western dialect,[40] the process of separation into a distinct language, Malayalam, was not completed until sometime in the 13th or 14th century.[41]
Origin of Tamil in Hinduism[edit]
According to Hindu legend, Tamil, or in personification form Tamil Tāy (Mother Tamil), was created by Shiva. The Tamil god Murugan and the sage Agastya brought it to people.[42]
History[edit]
Silver coin of king Vashishtiputra Sātakarni (c. AD 160).
Obv: Bust of king. Prakrit legend in the Brahmi script: 'Siri Satakanisa Rano .. Vasithiputasa': 'King Vasishtiputra Sri Satakarni'
Rev: Ujjain/Sātavāhana symbol left. Crescented six-arch chaitya hill right. River below. Early Tamil legend in the Tamil Brahmi script: 'Arah(s)anaku Vah(s)itti makanaku Tiru H(S)atakani ko' – which means 'The ruler, Vasitti's son, Highness Satakani' – -ko being the royal name suffix.[43][44][45][46]
Actress Sunitha Malayalam Movies
According to linguists like Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, Tamil, as a Dravidian language, descends from Proto-Dravidian, a Proto-language. Linguistic reconstruction suggests that Proto-Dravidian was spoken around the third millennium BC, possibly in the region around the lower Godavari river basin in peninsular India. The material evidence suggests that the speakers of Proto-Dravidian were of the culture associated with the Neolithic complexes of South India.[47] The next phase in the reconstructed proto-history of Tamil is Proto-South Dravidian. The linguistic evidence suggests that Proto-South Dravidian was spoken around the middle of the second millennium BC, and that proto-Tamil emerged around the 3rd century BC. The earliest epigraphic attestations of Tamil are generally taken to have been written shortly thereafter.[48] Among Indian languages, Tamil has the most ancient non-Sanskritised Indian literature.[49] Scholars categorise the attested history of the language into three periods, Old Tamil (300 BC – AD 700), Middle Tamil (700–1600) and Modern Tamil (1600–present).[50] During a recent excavation at Quseir-al-Qadim, Egyptian pottery dating back to first century BC were discovered with ancient Tamil Brahmi inscriptions.[29]Indians today might like to stereotype Gujaratis as the nation's most mercantile community, but at one point around 2,000 years ago, Tamil was the lingua franca of traders across the South East Asian seas.
'You get a sense of the role of early and medieval merchant guilds in the Deccan and Tamil Nadu and Kerala,' Guy said in a conversation with Scroll.in. 'You know how common they are in India, but then you find their inscriptions in places like Sumatra and Thailand. It is astonishing how they got around. They were busy boys, travelling far and wide.' research started with a highly acclaimed exhibition curated last year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. 'Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia, 5th to 8th Century' had 160 sculptures, gathered for the first time in such numbers, from museums and collections across India, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.[51]
Gold obsession[edit]
Around the first millennium, Tamil traders dominated the seas, inscriptions suggest, though they would later give way to Bengalis and Gujaratis from India and Arabic would eventually become the language of the region's merchants.Gold was more or less what Tamil merchants wanted at that time. Inscriptions suggest that the traders of South India were hoarders of precious metals, even as they paid their debts with textiles such as painted cotton kalamkaris and iron.'India retains the biggest private stores of gold in the world, and mostly in female hands,'. 'It is true now and it always has been true.'India was notorious for demanding to settle its foreign debts in precious metals and owed everyone for their trade. Even the Romans were upset at having to buy muslins with precious metals.Making sure they always had the better deal, in South East Asia, Indian traders imported spices such as cloves and nutmeg in return for kalamkaris, painted cottons.[51]
Etymology[edit]
SageAgastya,Chairman of first Tamil Sangam,Thenmadurai,Pandiya Kingdom
The earliest extant Tamil literary works and their commentaries celebrates the Pandiyan Kings for the organization of long-termed Tamil Sangams, which researched, developed and made amendments in Tamil language. Even though the name of the language which was developed by these Tamil Sangams is mentioned as Tamil, the exact 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 1st century BC.[52] Southworth suggests that the name comes from tam-miḻ > tam-iḻ 'self-speak', or 'one's own speech'.[53](see Southworth's derivation of Sanskrit term for 'others' or Mleccha) Kamil Zvelebil suggests an etymology of tam-iḻ, with tam meaning 'self' or 'one's self', and '-iḻ' having the connotation of 'unfolding sound'. Alternatively, he suggests a derivation of tamiḻ < tam-iḻ < *tav-iḻ < *tak-iḻ, meaning in origin 'the proper process (of speaking)'.[54]
The Tamil Lexicon of University of Madras defines the word 'Tamil' as 'sweetness'.[55] S.V Subramanian suggests the meaning 'sweet sound' from 'tam'- sweet and 'il'- 'sound'.[56]
Old Tamil[edit]
Mangulam Tamil Brahmi inscription at Dakshin Chithra, Chennai
The earliest records in Old Tamil are short inscriptions from around the 2nd century BC in caves and on pottery. These inscriptions are written in a variant of the Brahmi script called Tamil Brahmi.[57] The earliest long text in Old Tamil is the Tolkāppiyam, an early work on Tamil grammar and poetics, whose oldest layers could be as old as the 1st century BC.[50] A large number of 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 and 5th centuries AD,[50][58] which makes them the oldest extant body of secular literature in India.[59] Other literary works in Old Tamil include Thirukural, Silappatikaram and Maṇimēkalai, and a number of ethical and didactic texts, written between the 5th and 8th centuries.[50]
Old Tamil preserved many features of Proto-Dravidian, including the inventory of consonants,[60] the syllable structure,[61] and various grammatical features.[62] Amongst these was the absence of a distinct present tense – like Proto-Dravidian, Old Tamil only had two tenses, the past and the 'non-past'. Old Tamil verbs also had a distinct negative conjugation (e.g. kāṇēṉ (காணேன்) 'I do not see', kāṇōm (காணோம் 'we do not see')[63] Nouns could take pronominal suffixes like verbs to express ideas: e.g. peṇṭirēm (பெண்டிரேம்) 'we are women' formed from peṇṭir (பெண்டிர்) 'women' and the first person plural marker -ēm (ஏம்).[64]
Despite the significant amount of grammatical and syntactical change between Old, Middle and Modern Tamil, Tamil demonstrates grammatical continuity across these stages: many characteristics of the later stages of the language have their roots in features of Old Tamil.[50]
Middle Tamil[edit]
Tanjavur Tamil Inscription
The evolution of Old Tamil into Middle Tamil, which is generally taken to have been completed by the 8th century,[50] 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,[65] the coalescence of the alveolar and dental nasals,[66] and the transformation of the alveolar plosive into a rhotic.[67] In grammar, the most important change 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 the old aspect and time markers.[68]
From the period of the Pallava dynasty onwards, a number of Sanskrit loan-words entered Tamil, particularly in relation to political, religious and philosophical concepts.[69] Sanskrit also influenced Tamil grammar, in the increased use of cases and in declined nouns becoming adjuncts of verbs,[70] and phonology. The forms of writing in Tamil have developed through years.[71] The Tamil script also changed in the period of Middle Tamil. Tamil Brahmi and Vaṭṭeḻuttu, into which it evolved, were the main scripts used in Old Tamil inscriptions. From the 8th century onwards, however, the Pallavas began using a new script, derived from the Pallava Grantha script which was used to write Sanskrit, which eventually replaced Vaṭṭeḻuttu.[72]
Middle Tamil is attested in a large number of inscriptions, and in a significant body of secular and religious literature.[73] These include the religious poems and songs of the Bhakthi poets, such as the Tēvāram verses on Shaivism and Nālāyira Tivya Pirapantam on Vaishnavism,[74] and adaptations of religious legends such as the 12th century Tamil Ramayana composed by Kamban and the story of 63 shaivite devotees known as Periyapurāṇam.[75] Iraiyaṉār Akapporuḷ, an early treatise on love poetics, and Naṉṉūl, a 12th-century grammar that became the standard grammar of literary Tamil, are also from the Middle Tamil period.[76]
Modern Tamil[edit]
Mahatma Gandhi's written wishes in Tamil for the memorial of Subramanya Bharathy in Ettayapuram
English, Chinese, Tamil and Malay languages, in Malaysia
The Nannul 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.[77] 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[78] – negation is, instead, expressed either morphologically or syntactically.[79] Modern spoken Tamil also shows a number of sound changes, in particular, a tendency to lower high vowels in initial and medial positions,[80] and the disappearance of vowels between plosives and between a plosive and rhotic.[81]
Contact with European languages also affected both 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 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.[82] Simultaneously, 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 and other foreign elements from Tamil.[83] It received some support from Dravidian parties.[84] This led to the replacement of a significant number of Sanskrit loanwords by Tamil equivalents, though many others remain.[85]
Geographic distribution[edit]
Distribution of Tamil speakers in South India and Sri Lanka (1961).
Tamil is the first language of the majority of the people residing in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, in India and Northern Province, Eastern Province, in Sri Lanka. The language is also spoken among small minority groups in other states of India which include Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra and in certain regions of Sri Lanka such as Colombo and 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 AD. Tamil was also used widely in inscriptions found in southern Andhra Pradesh districts of Chittoor and Nellore until the 12th century AD.[86] Tamil was also used for inscriptions from the 10th through 14th centuries in southern Karnataka districts such as Kolar, Mysore, Mandya and Bangalore.[87]
There are currently sizeable Tamil-speaking populations descended from colonial-era migrants in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Mauritius, South Africa, Indonesia,[88] Thailand,[89] Burma, and Vietnam. A large community of Tamil speakers exists in Karachi, Pakistan, which includes Tamil-speaking Hindus[90][91] as well as Christians and Muslims – including some Tamil-speaking Muslim refugees from Sri Lanka.[92] Many in Réunion, Guyana, Fiji, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago have Tamil origins,[93] but only 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.[94] It is also used by groups of migrants from Sri Lanka and India, Canada (especially Toronto), United States (especially New Jersey and New York City), Australia, many Middle Eastern countries, and some Western European countries.
Legal status[edit]
See also: States of India by Tamil speakers
Emergency and outpatient services – In English, Chinese, and Tamil, located in Canada
Tamil is the official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the 22 languages under schedule 8 of the constitution of India. It is also one of the official languages of the union territory of Puducherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.[95][96] Tamil is also one of the official languages of Singapore. Tamil is one of the official and national language of Sri Lanka, along with Sinhala.[97] It was once given nominal official status in the 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.[98] In Malaysia, 543 primary education government schools are available fully in Tamil medium.[99] The establishments of Tamil medium schools have been currently in process in Myanmar to provide education completely in Tamil language by the Tamils who settled there 200 years ago.[1] Tamil language is taught in Canada and South Africa for the local Tamil minority populations. In Ontario, Canada, the month of January has been declared 'Tamil Heritage Month' per legislation.
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,[100][101] Tamil became the first legally recognised Classical language of India. The recognition was announced by the then President of India, Abdul Kalam, in a joint sitting of both houses of the Indian Parliament on 6 June 2004.[102][103][104]
Dialects[edit]
Region-specific variations[edit]
A danger sign at construction sites in Singapore. Languages used are English, Chinese, Tamil and Malay
The socio-linguistic situation of Tamil is characterised by diglossia: there are two separate registers varying by social status, a high register and a low one.[105][106] 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, the word for 'here'—iṅku in Centamil (the classic variety)—has evolved into iṅkū in the Kongu dialect of Coimbatore, inga in the dialect of Thanjavur, 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 iṅkaṭṭu is the source of iṅkuṭṭu in the dialect of Madurai, and iṅkaṭe in various 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,[50][107] and use many other words slightly differently.[108] The various Tamil dialects include Central Tamil dialect, Kongu Tamil, Madras Bashai, Madurai Tamil, Nellai Tamil, kumari Tamil in India and Batticaloa Tamil dialect, Jaffna Tamil dialect, Negombo Tamil dialect in Sri Lanka. Sankethi dialect in Karnataka has been heavily influenced by Kannada.
Loanword variations[edit]
See also: Indo-Aryan loanwords in Tamil and Loan words in Sri Lankan Tamil
The dialect of the district of Palakkad in Kerala has a large number of Malayalam loanwords, has been influenced by Malayalam's syntax and also 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 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.[109] 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.[110] Tamil in Sri Lanka incorporates loan words from Portuguese, Dutch, and English.
Spoken and literary variants[edit]
In addition to its various dialects, Tamil exhibits different forms: a classical literary style modelled on 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.[111]
In modern times, centamiḻ 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, 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,[112] but has been significantly influenced by the dialects of Thanjavur and Madurai. In Sri Lanka, the standard is based on the dialect of Jaffna.
Writing system[edit]
Main articles: Tamil script and Tamil braille
See also: Vatteluttu, Grantha script and Pallava script
Jambai Tamil Brahmi inscription dated to the early Sangam age
After Tamil Brahmi fell out of use, Tamil was written using a script called the vaṭṭeḻuttu amongst others such as Grantha and Pallava script. 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 x 18)). All consonants have an inherent vowel 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 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 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 is not always consistently applied.[113]
Phonology[edit]
Main article: Tamil phonology
Tamil phonology is characterised by the presence of retroflex consonants and multiple rhotics. Tamil does not distinguish phonologically between voiced and unvoiced consonants; phonetically, voice is assigned depending on a consonant's position in a word.[114] Tamil phonology permits few consonant clusters, which can never be word initial. Native grammarians classify Tamil phonemes into vowels, consonants, and a 'secondary character', the āytam.
Vowels[edit]
Tamil has five pure vowel sounds /ɐ/, /e/, /i/, /o/ and /u/. Each vowel has a long and short version. There are two diphthongs, /aːɪ/ and /aːʊ/, and three 'shortened' vowels.
Long vowels are about twice as long as short vowels. The diphthongs are usually pronounced about 1.5 times as long as short vowels. Most grammatical texts place them with long vowels.
ShortLong
FrontCentralBackFrontCentralBack
Closeiuiːuː
இஉஈஊ
Mideoeːoː
எஒஏஓ
Openɐ(aːɪ)äː(aːʊ)
அஐஆஒள
Consonants[edit]
Tamil consonants are presented as hard, soft and medial in some grammars which roughly corresponds to plosives, approximants and nasals. Unlike most Indian languages, Tamil does not distinguish aspirated and unaspirated consonants. In addition, the voicing of plosives is governed by strict rules in centamiḻ. Plosives are unvoiced if they occur word-initially or doubled. Elsewhere they are voiced, with a few becoming fricatives intervocalically. Nasals and approximants are always voiced.[115]
Tamil is characterised by its use of more than one type of coronal consonants: like many of the other languages of India, it contains a series of retroflex consonants. Notably, the Tamil retroflex series includes the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ (ழ) (example Tamil; often transcribed 'zh'), which is absent in the Indo-Aryan languages. Among the other Dravidian languages, the retroflex approximant also occurs in Malayalam (for example in 'Kozhikode'), disappeared from spoken Kannada around 1000 AD (although the character is still written, and exists in Unicode), and was never present in Telugu. In many dialects of colloquial Tamil, this consonant is seen as disappearing and shifting to the alveolar lateral approximant /l/.[116] Dental and alveolar consonants also historically contrasted with each other, a typically Dravidian trait not found in the neighbouring Indo-Aryan languages. While this distinction can still be seen in the written language, it has been largely lost in colloquial spoken Tamil, and even in literary usage the letters ந (dental) and ன (alveolar) may be seen as allophonic.[117] Likewise, the historical alveolar stop has transformed into a trill consonant in many modern dialects.
A chart of the Tamil consonant phonemes in the International Phonetic Alphabet follows:[107]
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
The earliest extant Tamil literary works and their commentaries celebrates the Pandiyan Kings for the organization of long-termed Tamil Sangams, which researched, developed and made amendments in Tamil language. Even though the name of the language which was developed by these Tamil Sangams is mentioned as Tamil, the exact 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 1st century BC.[52] Southworth suggests that the name comes from tam-miḻ > tam-iḻ 'self-speak', or 'one's own speech'.[53](see Southworth's derivation of Sanskrit term for 'others' or Mleccha) Kamil Zvelebil suggests an etymology of tam-iḻ, with tam meaning 'self' or 'one's self', and '-iḻ' having the connotation of 'unfolding sound'. Alternatively, he suggests a derivation of tamiḻ < tam-iḻ < *tav-iḻ < *tak-iḻ, meaning in origin 'the proper process (of speaking)'.[54]
The Tamil Lexicon of University of Madras defines the word 'Tamil' as 'sweetness'.[55] S.V Subramanian suggests the meaning 'sweet sound' from 'tam'- sweet and 'il'- 'sound'.[56]
Old Tamil[edit]
Mangulam Tamil Brahmi inscription at Dakshin Chithra, Chennai
The earliest records in Old Tamil are short inscriptions from around the 2nd century BC in caves and on pottery. These inscriptions are written in a variant of the Brahmi script called Tamil Brahmi.[57] The earliest long text in Old Tamil is the Tolkāppiyam, an early work on Tamil grammar and poetics, whose oldest layers could be as old as the 1st century BC.[50] A large number of 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 and 5th centuries AD,[50][58] which makes them the oldest extant body of secular literature in India.[59] Other literary works in Old Tamil include Thirukural, Silappatikaram and Maṇimēkalai, and a number of ethical and didactic texts, written between the 5th and 8th centuries.[50]
Old Tamil preserved many features of Proto-Dravidian, including the inventory of consonants,[60] the syllable structure,[61] and various grammatical features.[62] Amongst these was the absence of a distinct present tense – like Proto-Dravidian, Old Tamil only had two tenses, the past and the 'non-past'. Old Tamil verbs also had a distinct negative conjugation (e.g. kāṇēṉ (காணேன்) 'I do not see', kāṇōm (காணோம் 'we do not see')[63] Nouns could take pronominal suffixes like verbs to express ideas: e.g. peṇṭirēm (பெண்டிரேம்) 'we are women' formed from peṇṭir (பெண்டிர்) 'women' and the first person plural marker -ēm (ஏம்).[64]
Despite the significant amount of grammatical and syntactical change between Old, Middle and Modern Tamil, Tamil demonstrates grammatical continuity across these stages: many characteristics of the later stages of the language have their roots in features of Old Tamil.[50]
Middle Tamil[edit]
Tanjavur Tamil Inscription
The evolution of Old Tamil into Middle Tamil, which is generally taken to have been completed by the 8th century,[50] 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,[65] the coalescence of the alveolar and dental nasals,[66] and the transformation of the alveolar plosive into a rhotic.[67] In grammar, the most important change 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 the old aspect and time markers.[68]
From the period of the Pallava dynasty onwards, a number of Sanskrit loan-words entered Tamil, particularly in relation to political, religious and philosophical concepts.[69] Sanskrit also influenced Tamil grammar, in the increased use of cases and in declined nouns becoming adjuncts of verbs,[70] and phonology. The forms of writing in Tamil have developed through years.[71] The Tamil script also changed in the period of Middle Tamil. Tamil Brahmi and Vaṭṭeḻuttu, into which it evolved, were the main scripts used in Old Tamil inscriptions. From the 8th century onwards, however, the Pallavas began using a new script, derived from the Pallava Grantha script which was used to write Sanskrit, which eventually replaced Vaṭṭeḻuttu.[72]
Middle Tamil is attested in a large number of inscriptions, and in a significant body of secular and religious literature.[73] These include the religious poems and songs of the Bhakthi poets, such as the Tēvāram verses on Shaivism and Nālāyira Tivya Pirapantam on Vaishnavism,[74] and adaptations of religious legends such as the 12th century Tamil Ramayana composed by Kamban and the story of 63 shaivite devotees known as Periyapurāṇam.[75] Iraiyaṉār Akapporuḷ, an early treatise on love poetics, and Naṉṉūl, a 12th-century grammar that became the standard grammar of literary Tamil, are also from the Middle Tamil period.[76]
Modern Tamil[edit]
Mahatma Gandhi's written wishes in Tamil for the memorial of Subramanya Bharathy in Ettayapuram
English, Chinese, Tamil and Malay languages, in Malaysia
The Nannul 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.[77] 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[78] – negation is, instead, expressed either morphologically or syntactically.[79] Modern spoken Tamil also shows a number of sound changes, in particular, a tendency to lower high vowels in initial and medial positions,[80] and the disappearance of vowels between plosives and between a plosive and rhotic.[81]
Contact with European languages also affected both 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 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.[82] Simultaneously, 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 and other foreign elements from Tamil.[83] It received some support from Dravidian parties.[84] This led to the replacement of a significant number of Sanskrit loanwords by Tamil equivalents, though many others remain.[85]
Geographic distribution[edit]
Distribution of Tamil speakers in South India and Sri Lanka (1961).
Tamil is the first language of the majority of the people residing in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, in India and Northern Province, Eastern Province, in Sri Lanka. The language is also spoken among small minority groups in other states of India which include Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra and in certain regions of Sri Lanka such as Colombo and 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 AD. Tamil was also used widely in inscriptions found in southern Andhra Pradesh districts of Chittoor and Nellore until the 12th century AD.[86] Tamil was also used for inscriptions from the 10th through 14th centuries in southern Karnataka districts such as Kolar, Mysore, Mandya and Bangalore.[87]
There are currently sizeable Tamil-speaking populations descended from colonial-era migrants in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Mauritius, South Africa, Indonesia,[88] Thailand,[89] Burma, and Vietnam. A large community of Tamil speakers exists in Karachi, Pakistan, which includes Tamil-speaking Hindus[90][91] as well as Christians and Muslims – including some Tamil-speaking Muslim refugees from Sri Lanka.[92] Many in Réunion, Guyana, Fiji, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago have Tamil origins,[93] but only 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.[94] It is also used by groups of migrants from Sri Lanka and India, Canada (especially Toronto), United States (especially New Jersey and New York City), Australia, many Middle Eastern countries, and some Western European countries.
Legal status[edit]
See also: States of India by Tamil speakers
Emergency and outpatient services – In English, Chinese, and Tamil, located in Canada
Tamil is the official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the 22 languages under schedule 8 of the constitution of India. It is also one of the official languages of the union territory of Puducherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.[95][96] Tamil is also one of the official languages of Singapore. Tamil is one of the official and national language of Sri Lanka, along with Sinhala.[97] It was once given nominal official status in the 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.[98] In Malaysia, 543 primary education government schools are available fully in Tamil medium.[99] The establishments of Tamil medium schools have been currently in process in Myanmar to provide education completely in Tamil language by the Tamils who settled there 200 years ago.[1] Tamil language is taught in Canada and South Africa for the local Tamil minority populations. In Ontario, Canada, the month of January has been declared 'Tamil Heritage Month' per legislation.
Actress Sunitha Malayalam Serial
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,[100][101] Tamil became the first legally recognised Classical language of India. The recognition was announced by the then President of India, Abdul Kalam, in a joint sitting of both houses of the Indian Parliament on 6 June 2004.[102][103][104]
Dialects[edit]
Actress Sunitha Malayalam Movie
Region-specific variations[edit]
A danger sign at construction sites in Singapore. Languages used are English, Chinese, Tamil and Malay
The socio-linguistic situation of Tamil is characterised by diglossia: there are two separate registers varying by social status, a high register and a low one.[105][106] 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, the word for 'here'—iṅku in Centamil (the classic variety)—has evolved into iṅkū in the Kongu dialect of Coimbatore, inga in the dialect of Thanjavur, 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 iṅkaṭṭu is the source of iṅkuṭṭu in the dialect of Madurai, and iṅkaṭe in various 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,[50][107] and use many other words slightly differently.[108] The various Tamil dialects include Central Tamil dialect, Kongu Tamil, Madras Bashai, Madurai Tamil, Nellai Tamil, kumari Tamil in India and Batticaloa Tamil dialect, Jaffna Tamil dialect, Negombo Tamil dialect in Sri Lanka. Sankethi dialect in Karnataka has been heavily influenced by Kannada.
Loanword variations[edit]
See also: Indo-Aryan loanwords in Tamil and Loan words in Sri Lankan Tamil
The dialect of the district of Palakkad in Kerala has a large number of Malayalam loanwords, has been influenced by Malayalam's syntax and also 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 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.[109] 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.[110] Tamil in Sri Lanka incorporates loan words from Portuguese, Dutch, and English.
Spoken and literary variants[edit]
In addition to its various dialects, Tamil exhibits different forms: a classical literary style modelled on 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.[111]
In modern times, centamiḻ 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, 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,[112] but has been significantly influenced by the dialects of Thanjavur and Madurai. In Sri Lanka, the standard is based on the dialect of Jaffna.
Writing system[edit]
Main articles: Tamil script and Tamil braille
See also: Vatteluttu, Grantha script and Pallava script
Jambai Tamil Brahmi inscription dated to the early Sangam age
After Tamil Brahmi fell out of use, Tamil was written using a script called the vaṭṭeḻuttu amongst others such as Grantha and Pallava script. 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 x 18)). All consonants have an inherent vowel 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 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 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 is not always consistently applied.[113]
Phonology[edit]
Main article: Tamil phonology
Tamil phonology is characterised by the presence of retroflex consonants and multiple rhotics. Tamil does not distinguish phonologically between voiced and unvoiced consonants; phonetically, voice is assigned depending on a consonant's position in a word.[114] Tamil phonology permits few consonant clusters, which can never be word initial. Native grammarians classify Tamil phonemes into vowels, consonants, and a 'secondary character', the āytam.
Vowels[edit]
Tamil has five pure vowel sounds /ɐ/, /e/, /i/, /o/ and /u/. Each vowel has a long and short version. There are two diphthongs, /aːɪ/ and /aːʊ/, and three 'shortened' vowels.
Long vowels are about twice as long as short vowels. The diphthongs are usually pronounced about 1.5 times as long as short vowels. Most grammatical texts place them with long vowels.
ShortLong
FrontCentralBackFrontCentralBack
Closeiuiːuː
இஉஈஊ
Mideoeːoː
எஒஏஓ
Openɐ(aːɪ)äː(aːʊ)
அஐஆஒள
Consonants[edit]
Tamil consonants are presented as hard, soft and medial in some grammars which roughly corresponds to plosives, approximants and nasals. Unlike most Indian languages, Tamil does not distinguish aspirated and unaspirated consonants. In addition, the voicing of plosives is governed by strict rules in centamiḻ. Plosives are unvoiced if they occur word-initially or doubled. Elsewhere they are voiced, with a few becoming fricatives intervocalically. Nasals and approximants are always voiced.[115]
Tamil is characterised by its use of more than one type of coronal consonants: like many of the other languages of India, it contains a series of retroflex consonants. Notably, the Tamil retroflex series includes the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ (ழ) (example Tamil; often transcribed 'zh'), which is absent in the Indo-Aryan languages. Among the other Dravidian languages, the retroflex approximant also occurs in Malayalam (for example in 'Kozhikode'), disappeared from spoken Kannada around 1000 AD (although the character is still written, and exists in Unicode), and was never present in Telugu. In many dialects of colloquial Tamil, this consonant is seen as disappearing and shifting to the alveolar lateral approximant /l/.[116] Dental and alveolar consonants also historically contrasted with each other, a typically Dravidian trait not found in the neighbouring Indo-Aryan languages. While this distinction can still be seen in the written language, it has been largely lost in colloquial spoken Tamil, and even in literary usage the letters ந (dental) and ன (alveolar) may be seen as allophonic.[117] Likewise, the historical alveolar stop has transformed into a trill consonant in many modern dialects.
A chart of the Tamil consonant phonemes in the International Phonetic Alphabet follows:[107]
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Here we list some of the top actresses who ruled Malayalam Industry at their peak time and disappeared from Silver screen due to various reasons.
1. Suchitra
Suchitra is a trained classical dancer who entered movie as child artist in the year 1990. She acted in many Malayalam movies and a small amount of Tamil movies. She is married to Murali in 1999 and later on quitted from movies. She now settled in US with her husband and daughter.
2. Sunitha
Sunitha came to film industry through Tamil movie Kodai Mazhai in the year 1986. She is a trained classical dancer and performed many stage shows. She last appeared in a Hindi movie Dum in the year 2003. She is no more active in film industry. The actress is married to Raj and be located in North Carolina.
Check out:15 Mohanlal unseen rare pictures
3. Manya
Manya who hails from Andhra Pradesh started her acting career in Telugu film industry. She was renowned for her lead role in ‘Joker', Malayalam movie. She packed up her acting in the year 2007, after her marriage with Satya Patel.
4. Kanaka
Kanaka entered to movie industry through a super hit movie ‘Karakattakaran' released in the year 1989. She then acted in numerous hit films in Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu. She stopped acting in movies in the year 2002. In 2013, it was rumoured that she was died and later she revealed her father is the culprit of this false news.
Also Read:Unseen pictures of Rekha, Sridevi, Katrina
5. Saleema
Saleema is the daughter of well-known Telugu actress Girija. Saleema is also a dancer and her role in her debut ‘Nakhakshathangal' and ‘Aranyakam' was appreciated. She lastly did ‘Mahayanam' in the year 1989. Her co actor Vineeth once confirmed that she had paid a visit to him during the shooting of Kadal Desam and no news after it.
6. Girija Shettar
Check out: Lesser Known facts about Megastar Mammootty
Girija was not only an actress but also a journalist, philosopher and dancer. She acted in very few movies, but her role in ‘Vandanam', Malayalam movie starring Mohanlal, was renowned. Her debut ‘Geethanjali', a Maniratnam movie, was also a super hit.Currently she is working as a journalist, IHS Maritime in United Kingdom
7. Maathu
Maathu came into film industry as a child artist in a Kannada movie. She then grew up and acted in several movies and was prominent in 80's and 90's. She later was married to Dr.Jacob and was not active in movies. The couple separated after 13 years of marriage life.
8. Madhavi
Madhavi started her acting career through a Telugu movie which became a super hit. She then acted in almost 300 movies. She was then married to Ralph Sharma and quit acting in the year 1996 and settled in New Jersey.
9. Unni Mary
Check out: Lesser Known facts about Superstar Mohanlal
Unni Mary first appeared in movie as a child artist in the film Navavadhu, in the year 1969. She later acted in several Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu movies. She was married to Rejoy in the year 1982 and left film industry. They have a son who is also married. She is now an evangelist and never planning to come back to movies
10. Karthika
Karthika came into film industry as a junior artist. She was noted by the director and was introduced as heroine in his next project. She worked in over 20 films but had to leave film industry at her peak time after her marriage, in the year 1989.
11. Lalitha Sree
Lalitha Sree was known for her plump look. The expert actress did many notable characters from 1974. She is married to Vijayasaradhi and adopted a child. They are settled in Chennai currently. Her last movie ‘Balram vs Tharadas' was released in the year 2006.
12. Priya Raman
Priya Raman, the actress with beautiful eyes, first acted in a Tamil movie produced by Rajnikanth in the year 1993. Her debut in Malayalam was Arthana, an I V Sasi movie. She quit movie in the year 1999. The actress also acted in many serials and produced a film.She was married to actor Ranjith and have two sons. The couple separated and Priya is living with her sons.
4 Geographic distribution
5 Legal status
6 Dialects
6.1 Region-specific variations
6.1.1 Loanword variations
7 Spoken and literary variants
8 Writing system
9 Phonology
9.1 Vowels
9.2 Consonants
9.3 Āytam
9.4 Numerals and symbols
10 Grammar
10.1 Morphology
10.2 Syntax
11 Vocabulary
12 Influence
13 See also
14 Footnotes
15 References
16 Further reading
17 External links
Classification[edit]
Main article: Dravidian languages
Tamil belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian languages, a family of around 26 languages native to the Indian subcontinent.[37] It is also classified as being part of a Tamil language family, which alongside Tamil proper, also includes the languages of about 35 ethno-linguistic groups[38] such as the Irula and Yerukula languages (see SIL Ethnologue).
The closest major relative of Tamil is Malayalam; the two began diverging around the 9th century CE.[39] Although many of the differences between Tamil and Malayalam demonstrate a pre-historic split of the western dialect,[40] the process of separation into a distinct language, Malayalam, was not completed until sometime in the 13th or 14th century.[41]
Origin of Tamil in Hinduism[edit]
According to Hindu legend, Tamil, or in personification form Tamil Tāy (Mother Tamil), was created by Shiva. The Tamil god Murugan and the sage Agastya brought it to people.[42]
History[edit]
Silver coin of king Vashishtiputra Sātakarni (c. AD 160).
Obv: Bust of king. Prakrit legend in the Brahmi script: 'Siri Satakanisa Rano .. Vasithiputasa': 'King Vasishtiputra Sri Satakarni'
Rev: Ujjain/Sātavāhana symbol left. Crescented six-arch chaitya hill right. River below. Early Tamil legend in the Tamil Brahmi script: 'Arah(s)anaku Vah(s)itti makanaku Tiru H(S)atakani ko' – which means 'The ruler, Vasitti's son, Highness Satakani' – -ko being the royal name suffix.[43][44][45][46]
Actress Sunitha Malayalam Movies
According to linguists like Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, Tamil, as a Dravidian language, descends from Proto-Dravidian, a Proto-language. Linguistic reconstruction suggests that Proto-Dravidian was spoken around the third millennium BC, possibly in the region around the lower Godavari river basin in peninsular India. The material evidence suggests that the speakers of Proto-Dravidian were of the culture associated with the Neolithic complexes of South India.[47] The next phase in the reconstructed proto-history of Tamil is Proto-South Dravidian. The linguistic evidence suggests that Proto-South Dravidian was spoken around the middle of the second millennium BC, and that proto-Tamil emerged around the 3rd century BC. The earliest epigraphic attestations of Tamil are generally taken to have been written shortly thereafter.[48] Among Indian languages, Tamil has the most ancient non-Sanskritised Indian literature.[49] Scholars categorise the attested history of the language into three periods, Old Tamil (300 BC – AD 700), Middle Tamil (700–1600) and Modern Tamil (1600–present).[50] During a recent excavation at Quseir-al-Qadim, Egyptian pottery dating back to first century BC were discovered with ancient Tamil Brahmi inscriptions.[29]Indians today might like to stereotype Gujaratis as the nation's most mercantile community, but at one point around 2,000 years ago, Tamil was the lingua franca of traders across the South East Asian seas.
'You get a sense of the role of early and medieval merchant guilds in the Deccan and Tamil Nadu and Kerala,' Guy said in a conversation with Scroll.in. 'You know how common they are in India, but then you find their inscriptions in places like Sumatra and Thailand. It is astonishing how they got around. They were busy boys, travelling far and wide.' research started with a highly acclaimed exhibition curated last year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. 'Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia, 5th to 8th Century' had 160 sculptures, gathered for the first time in such numbers, from museums and collections across India, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.[51]
Gold obsession[edit]
Around the first millennium, Tamil traders dominated the seas, inscriptions suggest, though they would later give way to Bengalis and Gujaratis from India and Arabic would eventually become the language of the region's merchants.Gold was more or less what Tamil merchants wanted at that time. Inscriptions suggest that the traders of South India were hoarders of precious metals, even as they paid their debts with textiles such as painted cotton kalamkaris and iron.'India retains the biggest private stores of gold in the world, and mostly in female hands,'. 'It is true now and it always has been true.'India was notorious for demanding to settle its foreign debts in precious metals and owed everyone for their trade. Even the Romans were upset at having to buy muslins with precious metals.Making sure they always had the better deal, in South East Asia, Indian traders imported spices such as cloves and nutmeg in return for kalamkaris, painted cottons.[51]
Etymology[edit]
SageAgastya,Chairman of first Tamil Sangam,Thenmadurai,Pandiya Kingdom
The earliest extant Tamil literary works and their commentaries celebrates the Pandiyan Kings for the organization of long-termed Tamil Sangams, which researched, developed and made amendments in Tamil language. Even though the name of the language which was developed by these Tamil Sangams is mentioned as Tamil, the exact 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 1st century BC.[52] Southworth suggests that the name comes from tam-miḻ > tam-iḻ 'self-speak', or 'one's own speech'.[53](see Southworth's derivation of Sanskrit term for 'others' or Mleccha) Kamil Zvelebil suggests an etymology of tam-iḻ, with tam meaning 'self' or 'one's self', and '-iḻ' having the connotation of 'unfolding sound'. Alternatively, he suggests a derivation of tamiḻ < tam-iḻ < *tav-iḻ < *tak-iḻ, meaning in origin 'the proper process (of speaking)'.[54]
The Tamil Lexicon of University of Madras defines the word 'Tamil' as 'sweetness'.[55] S.V Subramanian suggests the meaning 'sweet sound' from 'tam'- sweet and 'il'- 'sound'.[56]
Old Tamil[edit]
Mangulam Tamil Brahmi inscription at Dakshin Chithra, Chennai
The earliest records in Old Tamil are short inscriptions from around the 2nd century BC in caves and on pottery. These inscriptions are written in a variant of the Brahmi script called Tamil Brahmi.[57] The earliest long text in Old Tamil is the Tolkāppiyam, an early work on Tamil grammar and poetics, whose oldest layers could be as old as the 1st century BC.[50] A large number of 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 and 5th centuries AD,[50][58] which makes them the oldest extant body of secular literature in India.[59] Other literary works in Old Tamil include Thirukural, Silappatikaram and Maṇimēkalai, and a number of ethical and didactic texts, written between the 5th and 8th centuries.[50]
Old Tamil preserved many features of Proto-Dravidian, including the inventory of consonants,[60] the syllable structure,[61] and various grammatical features.[62] Amongst these was the absence of a distinct present tense – like Proto-Dravidian, Old Tamil only had two tenses, the past and the 'non-past'. Old Tamil verbs also had a distinct negative conjugation (e.g. kāṇēṉ (காணேன்) 'I do not see', kāṇōm (காணோம் 'we do not see')[63] Nouns could take pronominal suffixes like verbs to express ideas: e.g. peṇṭirēm (பெண்டிரேம்) 'we are women' formed from peṇṭir (பெண்டிர்) 'women' and the first person plural marker -ēm (ஏம்).[64]
Despite the significant amount of grammatical and syntactical change between Old, Middle and Modern Tamil, Tamil demonstrates grammatical continuity across these stages: many characteristics of the later stages of the language have their roots in features of Old Tamil.[50]
Middle Tamil[edit]
Tanjavur Tamil Inscription
The evolution of Old Tamil into Middle Tamil, which is generally taken to have been completed by the 8th century,[50] 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,[65] the coalescence of the alveolar and dental nasals,[66] and the transformation of the alveolar plosive into a rhotic.[67] In grammar, the most important change 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 the old aspect and time markers.[68]
From the period of the Pallava dynasty onwards, a number of Sanskrit loan-words entered Tamil, particularly in relation to political, religious and philosophical concepts.[69] Sanskrit also influenced Tamil grammar, in the increased use of cases and in declined nouns becoming adjuncts of verbs,[70] and phonology. The forms of writing in Tamil have developed through years.[71] The Tamil script also changed in the period of Middle Tamil. Tamil Brahmi and Vaṭṭeḻuttu, into which it evolved, were the main scripts used in Old Tamil inscriptions. From the 8th century onwards, however, the Pallavas began using a new script, derived from the Pallava Grantha script which was used to write Sanskrit, which eventually replaced Vaṭṭeḻuttu.[72]
Middle Tamil is attested in a large number of inscriptions, and in a significant body of secular and religious literature.[73] These include the religious poems and songs of the Bhakthi poets, such as the Tēvāram verses on Shaivism and Nālāyira Tivya Pirapantam on Vaishnavism,[74] and adaptations of religious legends such as the 12th century Tamil Ramayana composed by Kamban and the story of 63 shaivite devotees known as Periyapurāṇam.[75] Iraiyaṉār Akapporuḷ, an early treatise on love poetics, and Naṉṉūl, a 12th-century grammar that became the standard grammar of literary Tamil, are also from the Middle Tamil period.[76]
Modern Tamil[edit]
Mahatma Gandhi's written wishes in Tamil for the memorial of Subramanya Bharathy in Ettayapuram
English, Chinese, Tamil and Malay languages, in Malaysia
The Nannul 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.[77] 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[78] – negation is, instead, expressed either morphologically or syntactically.[79] Modern spoken Tamil also shows a number of sound changes, in particular, a tendency to lower high vowels in initial and medial positions,[80] and the disappearance of vowels between plosives and between a plosive and rhotic.[81]
Contact with European languages also affected both 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 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.[82] Simultaneously, 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 and other foreign elements from Tamil.[83] It received some support from Dravidian parties.[84] This led to the replacement of a significant number of Sanskrit loanwords by Tamil equivalents, though many others remain.[85]
Geographic distribution[edit]
Distribution of Tamil speakers in South India and Sri Lanka (1961).
Tamil is the first language of the majority of the people residing in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, in India and Northern Province, Eastern Province, in Sri Lanka. The language is also spoken among small minority groups in other states of India which include Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra and in certain regions of Sri Lanka such as Colombo and 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 AD. Tamil was also used widely in inscriptions found in southern Andhra Pradesh districts of Chittoor and Nellore until the 12th century AD.[86] Tamil was also used for inscriptions from the 10th through 14th centuries in southern Karnataka districts such as Kolar, Mysore, Mandya and Bangalore.[87]
There are currently sizeable Tamil-speaking populations descended from colonial-era migrants in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Mauritius, South Africa, Indonesia,[88] Thailand,[89] Burma, and Vietnam. A large community of Tamil speakers exists in Karachi, Pakistan, which includes Tamil-speaking Hindus[90][91] as well as Christians and Muslims – including some Tamil-speaking Muslim refugees from Sri Lanka.[92] Many in Réunion, Guyana, Fiji, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago have Tamil origins,[93] but only 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.[94] It is also used by groups of migrants from Sri Lanka and India, Canada (especially Toronto), United States (especially New Jersey and New York City), Australia, many Middle Eastern countries, and some Western European countries.
Legal status[edit]
See also: States of India by Tamil speakers
Emergency and outpatient services – In English, Chinese, and Tamil, located in Canada
Tamil is the official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the 22 languages under schedule 8 of the constitution of India. It is also one of the official languages of the union territory of Puducherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.[95][96] Tamil is also one of the official languages of Singapore. Tamil is one of the official and national language of Sri Lanka, along with Sinhala.[97] It was once given nominal official status in the 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.[98] In Malaysia, 543 primary education government schools are available fully in Tamil medium.[99] The establishments of Tamil medium schools have been currently in process in Myanmar to provide education completely in Tamil language by the Tamils who settled there 200 years ago.[1] Tamil language is taught in Canada and South Africa for the local Tamil minority populations. In Ontario, Canada, the month of January has been declared 'Tamil Heritage Month' per legislation.
Actress Sunitha Malayalam Serial
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,[100][101] Tamil became the first legally recognised Classical language of India. The recognition was announced by the then President of India, Abdul Kalam, in a joint sitting of both houses of the Indian Parliament on 6 June 2004.[102][103][104]
Dialects[edit]
Actress Sunitha Malayalam Movie
Region-specific variations[edit]
A danger sign at construction sites in Singapore. Languages used are English, Chinese, Tamil and Malay
The socio-linguistic situation of Tamil is characterised by diglossia: there are two separate registers varying by social status, a high register and a low one.[105][106] 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, the word for 'here'—iṅku in Centamil (the classic variety)—has evolved into iṅkū in the Kongu dialect of Coimbatore, inga in the dialect of Thanjavur, 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 iṅkaṭṭu is the source of iṅkuṭṭu in the dialect of Madurai, and iṅkaṭe in various 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,[50][107] and use many other words slightly differently.[108] The various Tamil dialects include Central Tamil dialect, Kongu Tamil, Madras Bashai, Madurai Tamil, Nellai Tamil, kumari Tamil in India and Batticaloa Tamil dialect, Jaffna Tamil dialect, Negombo Tamil dialect in Sri Lanka. Sankethi dialect in Karnataka has been heavily influenced by Kannada.
Loanword variations[edit]
See also: Indo-Aryan loanwords in Tamil and Loan words in Sri Lankan Tamil
The dialect of the district of Palakkad in Kerala has a large number of Malayalam loanwords, has been influenced by Malayalam's syntax and also 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 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.[109] 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.[110] Tamil in Sri Lanka incorporates loan words from Portuguese, Dutch, and English.
Spoken and literary variants[edit]
In addition to its various dialects, Tamil exhibits different forms: a classical literary style modelled on 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.[111]
In modern times, centamiḻ 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, 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,[112] but has been significantly influenced by the dialects of Thanjavur and Madurai. In Sri Lanka, the standard is based on the dialect of Jaffna.
Writing system[edit]
Main articles: Tamil script and Tamil braille
See also: Vatteluttu, Grantha script and Pallava script
Jambai Tamil Brahmi inscription dated to the early Sangam age
After Tamil Brahmi fell out of use, Tamil was written using a script called the vaṭṭeḻuttu amongst others such as Grantha and Pallava script. 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 x 18)). All consonants have an inherent vowel 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 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 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 is not always consistently applied.[113]
Phonology[edit]
Main article: Tamil phonology
Tamil phonology is characterised by the presence of retroflex consonants and multiple rhotics. Tamil does not distinguish phonologically between voiced and unvoiced consonants; phonetically, voice is assigned depending on a consonant's position in a word.[114] Tamil phonology permits few consonant clusters, which can never be word initial. Native grammarians classify Tamil phonemes into vowels, consonants, and a 'secondary character', the āytam.
Vowels[edit]
Tamil has five pure vowel sounds /ɐ/, /e/, /i/, /o/ and /u/. Each vowel has a long and short version. There are two diphthongs, /aːɪ/ and /aːʊ/, and three 'shortened' vowels.
Long vowels are about twice as long as short vowels. The diphthongs are usually pronounced about 1.5 times as long as short vowels. Most grammatical texts place them with long vowels.
ShortLong
FrontCentralBackFrontCentralBack
Closeiuiːuː
இஉஈஊ
Mideoeːoː
எஒஏஓ
Openɐ(aːɪ)äː(aːʊ)
அஐஆஒள
Consonants[edit]
Tamil consonants are presented as hard, soft and medial in some grammars which roughly corresponds to plosives, approximants and nasals. Unlike most Indian languages, Tamil does not distinguish aspirated and unaspirated consonants. In addition, the voicing of plosives is governed by strict rules in centamiḻ. Plosives are unvoiced if they occur word-initially or doubled. Elsewhere they are voiced, with a few becoming fricatives intervocalically. Nasals and approximants are always voiced.[115]
Tamil is characterised by its use of more than one type of coronal consonants: like many of the other languages of India, it contains a series of retroflex consonants. Notably, the Tamil retroflex series includes the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ (ழ) (example Tamil; often transcribed 'zh'), which is absent in the Indo-Aryan languages. Among the other Dravidian languages, the retroflex approximant also occurs in Malayalam (for example in 'Kozhikode'), disappeared from spoken Kannada around 1000 AD (although the character is still written, and exists in Unicode), and was never present in Telugu. In many dialects of colloquial Tamil, this consonant is seen as disappearing and shifting to the alveolar lateral approximant /l/.[116] Dental and alveolar consonants also historically contrasted with each other, a typically Dravidian trait not found in the neighbouring Indo-Aryan languages. While this distinction can still be seen in the written language, it has been largely lost in colloquial spoken Tamil, and even in literary usage the letters ந (dental) and ன (alveolar) may be seen as allophonic.[117] Likewise, the historical alveolar stop has transformed into a trill consonant in many modern dialects.
A chart of the Tamil consonant phonemes in the International Phonetic Alphabet follows:[107]
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Sunitha Malayalam Actress Malayalam Actress Hot Navel Photos Without Makup Hot Sexy Hot Photos Hot Saree Rare Navel Arundhati
Here we list some of the top actresses who ruled Malayalam Industry at their peak time and disappeared from Silver screen due to various reasons.
1. Suchitra
Suchitra is a trained classical dancer who entered movie as child artist in the year 1990. She acted in many Malayalam movies and a small amount of Tamil movies. She is married to Murali in 1999 and later on quitted from movies. She now settled in US with her husband and daughter.
2. Sunitha
Sunitha came to film industry through Tamil movie Kodai Mazhai in the year 1986. She is a trained classical dancer and performed many stage shows. She last appeared in a Hindi movie Dum in the year 2003. She is no more active in film industry. The actress is married to Raj and be located in North Carolina.
Check out:15 Mohanlal unseen rare pictures
3. Manya
Manya who hails from Andhra Pradesh started her acting career in Telugu film industry. She was renowned for her lead role in ‘Joker', Malayalam movie. She packed up her acting in the year 2007, after her marriage with Satya Patel.
4. Kanaka
Kanaka entered to movie industry through a super hit movie ‘Karakattakaran' released in the year 1989. She then acted in numerous hit films in Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu. She stopped acting in movies in the year 2002. In 2013, it was rumoured that she was died and later she revealed her father is the culprit of this false news.
Also Read:Unseen pictures of Rekha, Sridevi, Katrina
5. Saleema
Saleema is the daughter of well-known Telugu actress Girija. Saleema is also a dancer and her role in her debut ‘Nakhakshathangal' and ‘Aranyakam' was appreciated. She lastly did ‘Mahayanam' in the year 1989. Her co actor Vineeth once confirmed that she had paid a visit to him during the shooting of Kadal Desam and no news after it.
6. Girija Shettar
Check out: Lesser Known facts about Megastar Mammootty
Girija was not only an actress but also a journalist, philosopher and dancer. She acted in very few movies, but her role in ‘Vandanam', Malayalam movie starring Mohanlal, was renowned. Her debut ‘Geethanjali', a Maniratnam movie, was also a super hit.Currently she is working as a journalist, IHS Maritime in United Kingdom
7. Maathu
Maathu came into film industry as a child artist in a Kannada movie. She then grew up and acted in several movies and was prominent in 80's and 90's. She later was married to Dr.Jacob and was not active in movies. The couple separated after 13 years of marriage life.
8. Madhavi
Madhavi started her acting career through a Telugu movie which became a super hit. She then acted in almost 300 movies. She was then married to Ralph Sharma and quit acting in the year 1996 and settled in New Jersey.
9. Unni Mary
Check out: Lesser Known facts about Superstar Mohanlal
Unni Mary first appeared in movie as a child artist in the film Navavadhu, in the year 1969. She later acted in several Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu movies. She was married to Rejoy in the year 1982 and left film industry. They have a son who is also married. She is now an evangelist and never planning to come back to movies
10. Karthika
Karthika came into film industry as a junior artist. She was noted by the director and was introduced as heroine in his next project. She worked in over 20 films but had to leave film industry at her peak time after her marriage, in the year 1989.
11. Lalitha Sree
Lalitha Sree was known for her plump look. The expert actress did many notable characters from 1974. She is married to Vijayasaradhi and adopted a child. They are settled in Chennai currently. Her last movie ‘Balram vs Tharadas' was released in the year 2006.
12. Priya Raman
Priya Raman, the actress with beautiful eyes, first acted in a Tamil movie produced by Rajnikanth in the year 1993. Her debut in Malayalam was Arthana, an I V Sasi movie. She quit movie in the year 1999. The actress also acted in many serials and produced a film.She was married to actor Ranjith and have two sons. The couple separated and Priya is living with her sons.
13. Swapna
Check out: 15 pictures of Malayalam Stars when they were young
Swapna had an active career during the 80's and 90's. She acted in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi movies. She later married Raman Khanna in 90's and then was not active in film industry. 112 q mike slim daron zip. She now is involved in her husband's event management company. She is now the owner of The Brook at Khanna's farm at Karjat, India. She currently lives in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
