பக்கம் எண் :

212THE PRIMARY CLASSICAL LANGUAGE OF THE WORLD

8.LITERARY CULTIVATION OF TAMIL EVOLUTION OF THE MIL
ALPHABET

     Though evidences are wanting, it is quite reasonable to suppose, that the present phonemic alphabet was preceded by three earlier systems of writing, viz., picture writing, ideograph, or hieroglyphics, and syllabary in succession.

Arrangement of the Tamil Alphabet

     Tamil Orthography comprises twelve divisions dealing with number of letters, names of letters, order of letters, generation of letters, forms of letters, quantity of letters, initial letters, final letters, medial letters, mutation of letters, combination of words and structure of words; the first ten treating of letters directly, and the last two indirectly.

     These twelve aspects of Tamil orthography, though not enumerated in Tolkƒppiyam as in Nannl, already existed even before Tolkƒppiyam, nay, even before the First Academy came into existence, as integral and essential features of Tamil.

     The vowels, being self-enunciative, are placed first, and the consonants which cannot be pronounced without the aid of vowels, next.

     The ƒydam, which is a subtle variety of ‘k’, is placed before that consonant.

     Among the vowels, the short ones precede the long, on the basis of the length of quantity, though it was the long ones that proceeded first from the mouth of the primitive Tamilian.