8.LITERARY
CULTIVATION OF TAMIL EVOLUTION OF THE MIL ALPHABET
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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
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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 Nann‡l, 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.
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