constantly being created and continually passing out of active use, to be preserved only in literature which is dated by their very presence. While certain types of words are more transient than others, none are absolutely immortal. Even the most familiar and commonly used words, which might be expected to be most stable, have a mortality rate of about twenty percent in a thousand years.

     “Moreover, in the life history of an individual speaker the birth and death of words is very much more frequent than in the language community as a whole. Every normal person probably learns at least three words every day, over a thousand a year, and forgets old ones at an appreciable but lower rate. This figure must be a minimum, because most people have total vocabularies which could be only reached through even more rapid acquisition of vocabulary during at least part of their life”.¹

     This representation is not correct in so far as Tamil is concerned, and even if it be true in the case of other languages, it seems to be highly exaggerated.

     It is really an illusion to fancy, that anyone can pronounce all the sounds of all foreign languages as correctly as a native. It is impossible for all to attain such ability, even after undergoing life-long training, as the system of vocal organs is subtly varied in some races, owing to peculiarity of climatic conditions and food habits. There is also a story to this effect, that once an American, whose destination was Annamalainagar was issued a railway ticket by the booking clerk at Egmore for ƒnaimalai Road by mistake, owing to the faulty pronunciation of the passenger.

     Only the descendants of naturalized immigrants will be able to speak the language of their adopted motherland, with as much facility as the natives. The later the progeny, the easier the mastery of the language.

     Tamil is a unique language in that it is most developed and highly standardized. Any jargon or barbarous dialect may exist among the uneducated classes in Tamil Nadu. But that is not recognized by the canons of Tamil grammar. This principle has