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Writing systems are used to record human language, and may be classified according to certain common features. The usual name of the script is given first; the name of the languages in which the script is written follows (in brackets), particularly in the case where the language name differs from the script name. Other informative or qualifying ...
Tamil lacks relative pronouns, but their meaning is conveyed by relative participle constructions, built using agglutination. For example, the English sentence "Call the boy who learned the lesson" is said in Tamil like "That-lesson-learned-boy call".
Although the name of the language which was developed by these Tamil Sangams is mentioned as Tamil, the period when the name "Tamil" came to be applied to the language is unclear, as is the precise etymology of the name.
Instead of writing like in modern days without any markers, for example (Tamil: அது, romanized: Atu), it was written with a preceding ஃ, like – Tamil: அஃது, romanized: Aḥtu. Another archaic Tamil letter ஂ, represented by a small hollow circle and called Aṉuvara, is the Anusvara.
It persisted in the southern Pandya country up to the end of the 10th century (till the Chola conquest of the Pandya country and its integration to the Chola administrative system). [7] From the 11th century AD (the Chola period) onwards the Tamil script displaced the Pallava-Grantha as the principal script for writing Tamil language. [8] [2]
Tamil has the extant literature amongst the Dravidian languages, but dating the language and the literature precisely is difficult. Literary works in India were preserved either in palm leaf manuscripts (implying repeated copying and recopying) or through oral transmission, making direct dating impossible. [ 22 ]
Example of Manipravalam text converted to Tamil language and script. It is suggested that the advent of the Manipravalam style, where letters of the Grantha script coexisted with the traditional Vatteluttu letters, made it easier for people in Kerala to accept a Grantha-based script Ārya eḻuttŭ, and paved the way for the introduction of the new writing system. [14]
The Grantha script was also historically used for writing Manipravalam, a blend of Tamil and Sanskrit which was used in the exegesis of Manipravalam texts. This evolved into a fairly complex writing system which required that Tamil words be written in the Tamil script and Sanskrit words be written in the Grantha script.