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HISTORY OF TAMIL LEXICOGRAPHY-16


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    ' This Dictionary contains more then 67,000 words, and Rottler's nearly 37,000. In the former are67,452 and in the latter 36,901, making 30,551 more in this work than in Rottler's. The proportion of Primaries and  Secondaries is  about  the same in each; this Dictionary having 22,214 Primaries of which 7944  are Sanskrti, and 45,238 Secondaries, and Rottler's having 12,168 Primaries and 24,733 Secondaries.'

    Besides this enlargement of Vocabulary, three other features of Winslow's Dictionary are worthy of notice here. (1) For along time, it had been the practice to give the verbal noun as the representative of the verb. The nika--u works and Catur-akarƒti  followed this method. Fabricius gave the present neuter singular of the verbs, as irukkiŠatu. Rottler, besides giving it, showed under the same article, past and future, imperative and infinitive forms as well. The Manual Dictionary simply adopted the method of the nika–—u works. Winslow gave, for the frist time, the root of the verb as the leading word. This arrangement is the 'most simple as well  as most philosophical'. (2) Another important feature was the separation of the Sanskrit form the Tamil words, indicating the primitives of the former by an asterisk1 and, in important cases, giving reference to Wilson's Sanskrit Dictionary. (3) A third feature was the addition of Tamil rendering to all the principal words, with English translations of the examples. 'This served the double purpose of fixing the definitions and of making the dictionary useful to the Tamils not understanding English.'

    The work was begun and prosecuted, principally, to promote Christian propaganda, by rendering assistance to missionaries in acquiring the Tamil language.2 But, its scope was not limited by this object. It proved to be a great work and it continued to enjoy deserved popularity until at last copies of it became scarce.

    POPE'S COMPENDIOUS TAMIL-ENGLISH DICTIONARY

    Mean while there was a growing need for handy Tamil-English Dictionaries. The Rev. G.U. Pope added indexes (Tamil-English and English-Tamil) to his "Tamil Hand-Book" Published in 1859. These indexes were later on revised and published in two parts, the title of the first being" A Compendious Tamil-English Dictionary". An attempt made here to mark off foreign words: thus S. (Sanskrit) is prefixed to the word aka-kƒram, Ar. (Arabic) is prefixed to Ac‡r. In the treatment of verbs, the root is given as the leading word. 

    Another compendious work was the 'Classical Tamil-English Dictionary' published. in 1870 under the authority of the Director of Public Instruction, Madras. Some years afterwards, in 1888, Mr. Viswanƒtha Pillai, the then Translator to the Government of Madras. brought out a revised and enlarged edition of this useful work.


    1 As noted in p.XXXVII, it was Fabricius who began this practice.

    2 Winslow's Tamil and English Dictionary : Preface.

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புதுப்பிக்கபட்ட நாள் : 29-08-2017 13:52:38(இந்திய நேரம்)