This lesson helps us understand the form and structure of the Tamil language. It explains the phonology, morphology and syntax of Tamil. Phoneme, Morpheme and Sentence are the basic units of a language.

The basic unit of any language is sound or to be more precise the phoneme ie (oli). The phonemes in Tamil are made up of vowels (Uyiroli) and consonants (Meyyoli). The phonemes are classified as (Muthaloli or Adippadaioli) and Vakaioli. Tamil language also classifies phonemes on the basis of their length or decibels known as Maathirai. Short vowels (Kuril) measure 1 maathirai or decibel. Long vowels (Nedil) measure 2 maathirais while the consonants (Meyyoli), kuttriyaligaram, kuttriyalugaram and aytham measure less than 1 maathirai

The written letter is a symbolic representation of phonemes. Linguists who trace the evolution of the written script point out that the earliest forms of writing must have been pictographic. This was followed by ideographic and later phonographic writing. Languages all over the world can be classified into 3 types: pictographic, syllabic and phonographic. In pictographic writing each letter represents a picture. In syllabic writing each letter represents a vowel or a mixture of vowel and consonant sounds whereas in phonographic writing, each letter signifies only one phoneme. Tamil script is syllabic in nature. There are 247 letters in Tamil. They are classified as Uyir Ezhuthu (vowels), Meyi Ezhuthu (consonants), 216 Uyirmeyi Ezhuthu (mixture of vowel and consonant sounds) and 1 Aytha Ezhuthu which is (represented by 3 dots and pronounced as a velar fricative).

A sentence (thodar) in Tamil is made of 3 parts: subject (Ezhuvai), predicate (Payanilai) and object (Seyapaduporul). Sentences can be divided into complete sentences (Muttruthodar) and incomplete sentences (Echathodar).