Tamil alphabet The Tamil alphabet has 12 vowels and 18 consonants. These combine to form 216 compound characters. There is one special character (Aaytha ezutthu), giving a total of 247 characters. The vowels are divided into short and long (five of each type) and two diphthongs. The consonants are classified into three categories with 6 in each category: vallinam - hard, mellinam - soft or nasal, and idayinam - medium. Unlike Devanagari, Tamil has neither conjunct consonants nor aspirated and voiced stops. Some scholars have suggested that in Sentamil (which refers to Tamil as it existed before Sanskrit words were borrowed), stops were voiceless when at the start of a word and unvoiced otherwise. However, no such distinction is observed by modern Tamil speakers. The script is sometimes called Vattezhuthu, literally round alphabet. This characterstic has partly to do with the fact that in ancient times, writing involved carving with a sharp point on palm leaves (olaichuvadi) and it was apparently easier to produce curves than straight lines by this method. Some scholars state that the script was originally called vettezhuthu meaning script that was cut (on stone), standing for ease of carving in stones. The script is syllabic, in the sense that each letter is a syllable. However, the signs for the syllables are derived from that of the inherent consonant; thus it is of the abugida type. Some syllables are written by modifying the shape of the consonant in a way that is inherent to the vowel, others are written by adding vowel-inherent suffix to the consonant, yet others a prefix, and finally some vowels require adding both a prefix and a suffix to the consonant. In every case the vowel symbol is different from the vowel standing alone. An overdot (see image) - equivalent to Devanagari sign virama - suppresses the inherent trailing a sound of the consonant sign - that is, it is a pure consonant. There are some lexical rules for formation of words. Tolkaappiyam describes such rules. Some examples: a word cannot end in certain consonants, and cannot begin with some consonants including 'r' 'l' and 'll'; there are two consonants for the dental 'n' - which one should be used depends on whether the 'n' occurs at the start of the word and on the letters around it. A Tamil language sign The Tamil letters Basic Consonants Consonants are also called the 'body' (mei) letters. Consonant Sound Category க ka vallinam ங nga (N-yuh: one sound) mellinam ச ca vallinam ஞ nja mellinam ட tta vallinam ண nna mellinam த tha vallinam ந na mellinam ப pa vallinam ம ma mellinam ய ya idaiyinam ர ra idaiyinam ல la idaiyinam வ va idaiyinam ழ zha idaiyinam ள lla idaiyinam ற rra vallinam ன nnna mellinam Borrowed consonants Also called "Grantha" letters, these letters are used almost exclusively for writing words that are borrowed from Sanskrit (or sometimes other languages such as English). Seeing one of these letters in a word is a good indication that the word is probably borrowed from Sanskrit though of course not all such words include these letters. Consonant Sound ஜ ja ஷ sha ஸ sa ஹ ha க்ஷ ksha Vowels Vowels are also called the 'life' (uyir) or 'soul' letters. Together with the consonants (which are called 'body' letters), they form compond, syllabic (abugida) letters that are called 'living' letters (uyirmei ie. letters that have both 'body' and 'soul'). Isolated Form Vowel Sound அ Short a ஆ Long A இ Short i ஈ Long I உ Short u ஊ Long U எ Short e ஏ Long E ஐ Diphthong AI ஒ Short o ஓ Long O ஔ Diphthong AU Compound Form Using the consonant 'k' as an example. Compound Transliteration க் k க ka கா kA கி ki கீ kI கு ku கூ kU கெ ke கே kE கை kAI கொ ko கோ kO கௌ kAU Special letter ஃ (pronounced 'akh') is rarely used by itself - normally serves purely grammatical function as independent vowel form of the dot on consonants that suppresses the inherent 'a' sound in plain consonants. The long ('nedil') vowels are about twice as long as the short ('kuRil') vowels. The diphthongs are usually pronounced about 1.5 times as long as the short vowels, though some grammatical texts place them with the long ('nedil') vowels. As can be seen in the compound form, the vowel sign can be added to the right, left or both sides of the consonants. It can also form a ligature. These rules are evolving and older use has more ligatures than modern use. What you actually see on this page depends on your font selection. 'Code 2000' will show more ligatures than 'Latha'. There are proponents of script reform who want to eliminate all ligatures and let all vowel signs appear on the right side. Unicode encodes the character in logical order (always the consonant first), wheras legacy 8-bit encodings (like TSCII) prefer the written order. This is a problem in transcoding these. Carnatic Music Tamil letters are also used to indicate the notes of Carnatic music. The notes are: Note Sound Full Name Pronunciation Value and Comments ஸ sa ஷட்ஜம் Shadjam First note, only one possible value. Sometimes referred to as the 'mother' note - all Ragas have this note. ரி ri ரிஷபம் Rishabam Second note, three possible values. க ga காந்தாரம் Gāndhāram Third note, three possible values (one of which coindices with the third ri). ம ma மத்யமம் Madhyamam Fourth note, two possible values. ப pa பஞ்சபம் Panchamam Fifth note, only one possible value. Sometimes referred to as the 'father', though not all ragas have this note. த dha தைவதம் Dhaivatham Sixth note, three possible values. நி ni நிஷாதம் Nishādam Seventh note, three possible values (one of which coincides with the third dha). The 'values' of the note here can be taken to mean semitones. There is some overlap between the possible values - this eventually leads to the octave containing 12 semitones, as in Western music. See Carnatic music for a more complete discussion of this. One can see from the names of the notes that they are borrowed from Sanskrit. Tamil in Unicode The Unicode range for Tamil is U+0B80 ... U+0BFF. See also Brahmic family References Phonetics of spoken Tamil The Unicode book - South and Southeast Asian scripts (pdf file) Free Unicode Tamil font Todo: list the vowels and consonants and describe them Most Popular Articles: Music    Musical Instruments    Guitar    Classical Music    History    Music Definition    Country Music    Rock Music    Pop Music    Hip Hop    Rap    DJ    Video Games    Casino Games    Poker    Blackjack    Casinos    Real Estate    Loan    Auction    eBay    Marketing    Search Engine Optimization    File Sharing    MP3    Music Industry    Kazaa    Internet    Supermodel    Fashion    Fashion Designers    Erotica    Modeling    Clothing    Boots    Shoes    Diamond Engagement Rings    Diamond    Rugs    Gospel Music    Affiliate    E-Commerce    Radio This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html You may copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license. 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