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Tamil phrases, by meaning
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Common questions about Tamil
What's covered on this Tamil page?
Twenty-two functional categories with Tamil examples: tense (past, present, future) and aspect (perfective, progressive in -ண்டு, the experiential), modality (-ணும் for must, -லாம் for may), case suffixes (-ஐ accusative, -க்கு dative, -ஆல் instrumental, -இல் locative, -ஓடு associative), the quotative என்று, relative participle clauses, comparison with விட, and 16 others. All glossed.
What is the rational/irrational noun class split?
Tamil divides every noun into உயர்திணை (rational beings — humans and deities) and அஃறிணை (everything else — animals, objects, concepts). The split governs which third-person pronouns and verb agreement forms you use. Plural rational nouns take human-style agreement; plural irrational nouns merge into a single neuter form. Examples on the page mark the class so the agreement target is visible.
How does Tamil build relative clauses?
By turning a verb into a participle and placing it before the noun it modifies. Where English uses 'who/that/which', Tamil uses an inflected participle: வந்த ஆள் 'the man who came', எழுதிய புத்தகம் 'the book that was written'. The participle agrees with the head noun's tense and the head's role in the relative clause. This makes Tamil relative clauses sit cleanly inside head-final SOV order.
What does the quotative என்று do?
என்று (and its colloquial reduction -ண்ணு) marks reported thought, speech, intention, or characterization. நான் வருகிறேன் என்று சொன்னான் 'he said that he is coming' wraps the reported clause with என்று. It also handles 'so that', purpose, and labeling: ராமன் என்று பெயர் 'the name (is) Raman'. It's one of the most-used grammatical particles in everyday Tamil.
Is this Literary Tamil or Spoken Tamil?
Tamil has a sharper diglossia than most languages: செந்தமிழ் (the literary register) and கொடுந்தமிழ் (the everyday spoken language) differ noticeably in pronunciation, verb endings, and some vocabulary. Phrases here lean toward the literary standard (the form taught in textbooks and used in writing), with notes where colloquial speech diverges meaningfully. Spoken-only forms like நாங்க for 'we' versus literary நாங்கள் are flagged.
Sources for Tamil
The grammatical descriptions on this page are informed by the following published reference and descriptive grammars. Grammatical facts themselves are not subject to copyright; the scholars who documented them deserve attribution.
- Schiffman, Harold F. (1999). A Reference Grammar of Spoken Tamil. Cambridge University Press.
- Lehmann, Thomas (1993). A Grammar of Modern Tamil. Pondicherry: Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture.
- Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju (2003). The Dravidian Languages. Cambridge University Press.