Topic started by Tamilan (@ 202.142.94.228) on Sat Jun 23 03:48:37 .
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.
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Tamil is the oldest language in the world.(more than 5000 years)Tamil is the only language in the world which is both classical & western in style.
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- From: Mavalangkilli (@ wc05.ym.rnc.net.cable.rogers.com)
on: Wed Jun 5 21:11:07
If you want to know how a religion affect a culture and why people follow religion the best example is Bible it's translated in most languages in the whole world and Thirukural is the next. Imagine that. Bible is religious! Thirukural is World Book. Bible tell story. Thirukural describe thing in 2 row! Not every thing in the Bible is true [eg. The christ going to come in year 200] [sry if there's any christian friend but jus't telling how people compare things. Every single thing in Thirukural is Exactly true as it happen to our life. Bible is a book which get translated by religious influence but Thirukural is a Genius Book which get translated and translated due to the knowledge and wisdom and things in there. Well for one thing i don't mean to insult any one but it's the fact that happening on the world. If Thiruvalluvar was European, lol i don't want to imagine they would have a big statue of him where maybe in San. Fransico over to the Bridge and Every Priest in Europe would be carrying that and would have made Thiruvalluvar as a God. Maybe he is the God of Wisdom [male one] that's what people be speaking lol anyway i'm getting side tracked by my self and by my emotion and hatred in Europe. Nantri Vannakam. Thamizh Valzha! Thangal ellorum Valzha nalamudan.
- From: Mavalngkilli (@ wc05.ym.rnc.net.cable.rogers.com)
on: Wed Jun 5 21:15:05
ow sry if i'm messing up ur forum but i just want to say that Thamizh don't have Age. It's not estimatable. You can say lot of thousands or even million. You would have heard a old saying in Thamizh say,"Kal Thontri man thontra kalathil
mun thontriya mootha enam Thamizh ennam."
Would a crazy man say that? How did they know that planet formal form is rock? How did they say this who said it? How long is this Saying? Why would the person or the ppl said this? Is it true? I can assure it is. But many of the questions are being unanswered.
- From: Mavalangkilli (@ toronto-ppp225504.sympatico.ca)
on: Mon Jul 22 21:11:58
If you ask expert in geography of the world they would say that first humans borned on the 'thaka peeda poomi' which is the current Thamizh Nadu and Eezhlam and Kumari [which is under the Sea now].
- From: Senthil (@ chicago.aleri.com)
on: Tue Jul 30 16:32:22
Hi,
Does this argument is gonna alleviate ones pain or help poor ? Tamil..for that matter any language is a tool for communication.too much obsession with a tool is unwarranted.
Thisai sorkal are more prevalent makes it diff to recoganise the language.Can anyone of us here read and readily understand TAMIL in old lits like purananru...
In this world,everything keeps changing.
Changes bound to happen.language needs to evolve with the time.
Infact there are not many technical books in the tamil. Searched engg books for my brother but of NO aVAIL.Language lacks the capability to express itself.It badly needs nourishment.Its more because of us..who failed to enrich it in the due course of time.
Dravidian Parties came to Power on this plank.
Its just one means of coming to power and plain
gimmick.
Natpudan,
Senthil.
- From: Hi (@ avproxy2.alcanet.com.au)
on: Tue Aug 6 00:17:31
In most of the families in TN, parents believe that children have to study only their curriculum books. If not those, it will have to be Wisdom or Competition success or what ever that will get good marks or job.
Even though it is required, it is more important that children understand their identity as self. When I mean self, it is not just I, it also means where am I born, what are my capabilities, what were my ancestors capable of, what more should I do? etc.
In the past 50 years, TN/India hasn't produced many rolemodel citizens. But I am sure there were plenty of them in previous centuries. If this trend continues and we start saying "come on there is no use in it", we are going to become totally useless.
There are no technical books available in Tamil doesn't hurt, because most of the words you wouldn't understand(Believe me I bought books in Tamil and had to undestand most words from English words in brackets). If we had been learning engineering in Tamil, even the few percentage of people who are now able to work abroad would have been searching for a job in India. And the jobs and studies that seems to be so attractive now would have been in some other state.
It isn't a very happy situation but thats how it is.
>.Can anyone of us here read and readily understand TAMIL in old lits like purananru...
It worse if we don't understand them but it is still more worse if we don't realise what we are missing.
>Does this argument is gonna alleviate ones pain or help poor ?
Driver drives vehicle
Cobbler makes shoe
Hair stylist styles hair
...
Let some people help poor (I am damn sure that not all will be in a position to help poor)
Why don't we leave atleast some people to discuss(if not do) anything about this topic.
- From: Ekalavya Krishnan (@ 203.199.242.60)
on: Tue Aug 6 06:54:03
Since no posting is allowed in the former topic http://forumhub.com/tnhistory/10609.25446.18.22.15.html the following posting should revive the hatred of DK scums.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/op/2002/07/02/stories/2002070200110200.htm
.....None of the early written records like Tamil (Brahmi) inscriptions found so far, could be dated earlier than 2nd century BC. The latter already shows impressive and indisputable mixture of Prakrit language integrated into Tamil. That leaves hardly two or three Tamil words, like Chola, Pandya, found in the Asokan inscriptions that could be securely dated to 3rd century BC. One should not forget that we are looking for indisputable evidence as in the case of Harappan horse, and so what and where is the Dravidian language? What is its structure and how much of it is chronologically dated to even 500 BC, (granting a few centuries for the development of Tamil language, and its classical structure) not to speak of 1000 BC or the beginning of the Harappan age 3000 BC? Which of the Dravidian language, Central Dravidian, or North Dravidian group, is dated securely to have existed in pre-Christian era? Whether the date of the Brahui language found in Baluchistan, said to belong to the Dravidian language group, is dated scientifically with the help of dated inscriptions or artefacts? The existence of Dravidian language before say 3rd-4th centuries BC is purely based on conjectural inference. How a language, the existence of which is not known by any verifiable means for over three thousand years except in hypothesis, could be accepted as the language of Harappans?.........
R. NAGASWAMY
Former Director of Archaeology
- From: Hi (@ avproxy2.alcanet.com.au)
on: Thu Aug 8 23:50:56
How about this?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1923794.stm
"Scientists now want to explore the possibility that the city was submerged following the last Ice Age. If this proves correct, it would date the settlement at more than 5,000 years old. "
Try Try Try until you succeed. Don't say I can't find so it is not there!
Please help to maintain this a constructive thread.
- From: ranjit (@ cache83.156ce.scvmaxonline.com.sg)
on: Tue Aug 20 12:02:42
maval---kili shut the fu?k u bi?ch
- From: plz read this (@ cache83.156ce.scvmaxonline.com.sg)
on: Tue Aug 20 12:08:04
April 11, 2000
Statement on the Status of Tamil as a Classical Language
Professor Maraimalai has asked me to write regarding the position of Tamil as a classical language, and I am delighted to respond to his request.
I have been a Professor of Tamil at the University of California, Berkeley, since 1975 and am currently holder of the Tamil Chair at that institution. My degree, which I received in 1970, is in Sanskrit, from Harvard, and my first employment was as a Sanskrit professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1969. Besides Tamil and Sanskrit, I know the classical languages of Latin and Greek and have read extensively in their literatures in the original. I am also well-acquainted with comparative linguistics and the literatures of modern Europe (I know Russian, German, and French and have read extensively in those languages) as well as the literatures of modern India, which, with the exception of Tamil and some Malayalam, I have read in translation. I have spent much time discussing Telugu literature and its tradition with V. Narayanarao, one of the greatest living Telugu scholars, and so I know that tradition especially well. As a long-standing member of a South Asian Studies department, I have also been exposed to the richness of both Hindi literature, and I have read in detail about Mahadevi Varma, Tulsi, and Kabir.
I have spent many years -- most of my life (since 1963) -- studying Sanskrit. I have read in the original all of Kalidasa, Magha, and parts of Bharavi and Sri Harsa. I have also read in the original the fifth book of the Rig Veda as well as many other sections, many of the Upanisads, most of the Mahabharata, the Kathasaritsagara, Adi Sankara’s works, and many other works in Sanskrit.
I say this not because I wish to show my erudition, but rather to establish my fitness for judging whether a literature is classical. Let me state unequivocally that, by any criteria one may choose, Tamil is one of the great classical literatures and traditions of the world.
The reasons for this are many; let me consider them one by one.
First, Tamil is of considerable antiquity. It predates the literatures of other modern Indian languages by more than a thousand years. Its oldest work, the Tolkappiyam,, contains parts that, judging from the earliest Tamil inscriptions, date back to about 200 BCE. The greatest works of ancient Tamil, the Sangam anthologies and the Pattuppattu, date to the first two centuries of the current era. They are the first great secular body of poetry written in India, predating Kalidasa's works by two hundred years.
Second, Tamil constitutes the only literary tradition indigenous to India that is not derived from Sanskrit. Indeed, its literature arose before the influence of Sanskrit in the South became strong and so is qualitatively different from anything we have in Sanskrit or other Indian languages. It has its own poetic theory, its own grammatical tradition, its own esthetics, and, above all, a large body of literature that is quite unique. It shows a sort of Indian sensibility that is quite different from anything in Sanskrit or other Indian languages, and it contains its own extremely rich and vast intellectual tradition.
Third, the quality of classical Tamil literature is such that it is fit to stand beside the great literatures of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Chinese, Persian and Arabic. The subtlety and profundity of its works, their varied scope (Tamil is the only premodern Indian literature to treat the subaltern extensively), and their universality qualify Tamil to stand as one of the great classical traditions and literatures of the world. Everyone knows the Tirukkural, one of the world's greatest works on ethics; but this is merely one of a myriad of major and extremely varied works that comprise the Tamil classical tradition. There is not a facet of human existence that is not explored and illuminated by this great literature.
Finally, Tamil is one of the primary independent sources of modern Indian culture and tradition. I have written extensively on the influence of a Southern tradition on the Sanskrit poetic tradition. But equally important, the great sacred works of Tamil Hinduism, beginning with the Sangam Anthologies, have undergirded the development of modern Hinduism. Their ideas were taken into the Bhagavata Purana and other texts (in Telugu and Kannada as well as Sanskrit), whence they spread all over India. Tamil has its own works that are considered to be as sacred as the Vedas and that are recited alongside Vedic mantras in the great Vaisnava temples of South India (such as Tirupati). And just as Sanskrit is the source of the modern Indo-Aryan languages, classical Tamil is the source language of modern Tamil and Malayalam. As Sanskrit is the most conservative and least changed of the Indo-Aryan languages, Tamil is the most conservative of the Dravidian languages, the touchstone that linguists must consult to understand the nature and development of Dravidian.
In trying to discern why Tamil has not been recognized as a classical language, I can see only a political reason: there is a fear that if Tamil is selected as a classical language, other Indian languages may claim similar status. This is an unnecessary worry. I am well aware of the richness of the modern Indian languages -- I know that they are among the most fecund and productive languages on earth, each having begotten a modern (and often medieval) literature that can stand with any of the major literatures of the world. Yet none of them is a classical language. Like English and the other modern languages of Europe (with the exception of Greek), they rose on preexisting traditions rather late and developed in the second millennium. The fact that Greek is universally recognized as a classical language in Europe does not lead the French or the English to claim classical status for their languages.
To qualify as a classical tradition, a language must fit several criteria: it should be ancient, it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own not as an offshoot of another tradition, and it must have a large and extremely rich body of ancient literature. Unlike the other modern languages of India, Tamil meets each of these requirements. It is extremely old (as old as Latin and older than Arabic); it arose as an entirely independent tradition, with almost no influence from Sanskrit or other languages; and its ancient literature is indescribably vast and rich.
It seems strange to me that I should have to write an essay such as this claiming that Tamil is a classical literature -- it is akin to claiming that India is a great country or Hinduism is one of the world's great religions. The status of Tamil as one of the great classical languages of the world is something that is patently obvious to anyone who knows the subject. To deny that Tamil is a classical language is to deny a vital and central part of the greatness and richness of Indian culture.
(Signed:)
George L. Hart
Professor of Tamil
Chair in Tamil Studies
- From: vanisa (@ 203.115.213.2)
on: Tue Aug 27 03:34:50
hello i wanna know more about thirukural? so where should i go true to get it ya
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