Tolkāppiyam
Tolkaappiyam is the grammar of the Tamil language. It is based on a scientific analysis of written and spoken Tamil, and its literature. Tolkaappiyam which was published in about the 6th century BC by Tolkaappiyar, is thought to be the world's oldest surviving grammar of any language.
Scientific treatment to Natural Language Grammar
The classification of the alphabet into consonants and vowels by splitting the conso-vowels was a scientific breakthrough. Grammatising this phenomenon was also an achievement of that time. Tolkaappiyam starts by defining the alphabet for optimal writing, grammatises the use of words and syntaxes and moves into higher modes of language analysis. The style and structure of narration of these rules is similar to that of the Backus-Naur form, which was formalised only as recently as 1963. Tolkaappiyam formulated thirty characters and three diacritic like symbols for Tamil. The alphabet has evolved since then and there are as many as 247 alphabets in Tamil now. For a detailed treatment of the alphabet see Tamil alphabet. Though the alphabet has evolved largely, the language as such has remained mostly in tact earning the sobriquet, kannith thamil meaning ever young Tamil.
Chapters
Tolkaappiyam is organised into the following chapters each of which is sub divided into various sections.
- Ezhuththathikaaram
- Sollathikaaram
- Poruzhathikaaram
Ezhuththathikaaram
Ezhuththathikaaram is further subdivided into the following 9 sections.
- Nuul Marabu
- Mozhi Marabu
- PiRappiyal
- PuNaRiyal
- Thokai Marabu
- Urubiyal
- Uyir Mayangial
- PuLLi Mayangial
- KutriyalukarappunaRiyal
Nuul Marabu
This section enumerates the alphabets of the language, organises them into consonants, vowels and diacritic symbols. The vowels are sub classified into short and long vowels based on duration of pronunciation. Similarly, the consonants are sub classified into three categories based on the stress.
Mozhi Marabu
This section defines rules which specify where in a word can a letter not occur and which letter can not come after a particular letter. It also talks about two sounds which occur when some of the compound letters (consonant-vowel combo).
PiRappiyal
This section talks about the pronunciation methods like tongue position etc for each alphabet.
Also, the visual representation of the alphabets is explained.