INTRODUCTION AND VOWELS

INTRODUCTION

Tamil is a language with a long and ancient literary tradition that has been spoken in southern India for several millennia. The Tamil language is a member of the Dravidian language family, including about thirty languages.

Tamil language is spoken in a wide range of countries, including India, Northern Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Fiji, South Africa, and parts of East Africa, Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Trinidad, Guyana, and Mauritius. It is an official language in India, Sri Lanka, and Singapore.

Tamil is a di-glossic language, which means there is a large difference between the written form of the language and the spoken form. These differences include grammatical, vocabulary, and pronunciation differences. The literary form is considered prestigious, while the spoken from is used in informal settings by all social classes.

You can download from here the entire book for learning Tamil scripts. An applet showing the stroke order for the scripts can be downloaded from here.

Note: You need Java to view the applet. Unzip the zip file and open the "Tamil.html" file to view the applet. Click on the script to view the writing pattern. The audio icons seen in the image below will not work here but the same will work in the ebook provided for download.