Tamil alphabet

The Tamil script (தமிழ் அரிச்சுவடி tamiḻ ariccuvaṭi "Tamil alphabet") is a script that is used to write the Tamil language as well as other minority languages such as Badaga, Irulas, and Paniya. With the use of diacritics to represent aspirated and voiced consonants not represented in the basic script, it is also used to write Saurashtra and, by Tamils, to write Sanskrit.

Characteristics

The Tamil script has twelve vowels (உயிரெழுத்து uyireḻuttu "soul-letters"), eighteen consonants (மெய்யெழுத்து meyyeḻuttu "body-letters") and one character, the āytam ஃ (ஆய்தம்), which is classified in Tamil grammar as being neither a consonant nor a vowel (அலியெழுத்து aliyeḻuttu "the hermaphrodite letter"), though often considered as part of the vowel set (உயிரெழுத்துக்கள் uyireḻuttukkaḷ "vowel class"). The script, however, is syllabic and not alphabetic. The complete script, therefore, consists of the thirty-one letters in their independent form, and an additional 216 combinant letters representing a total 247 combinations (உயிர்மெய்யெழுத்து uyirmeyyeḻuttu) of a consonant and a vowel, a mute consonant, or a vowel alone. These combinant letters are formed by adding a vowel marker to the consonant. Some vowels require the basic shape of the consonant to be altered in a way that is specific to that vowel. Others are written by adding a vowel-specific suffix to the consonant, yet others a prefix, and finally some vowels require adding both a prefix and a suffix to the consonant. In every case the vowel marker is different from the standalone character for the vowel.

The Tamil script is written from left to right.

History
The Tamil script, like the other Indic scripts, is thought to have evolved from the Brahmi script. The earliest inscriptions which are accepted examples of Tamil writing date to a time just after the Asokan period. The script used by these inscriptions is commonly known as the Tamil Brahmi or Tamili script, and differs in many ways from standard Asokan Brahmi. For example, early Tamil Brahmi, unlike Asokan Brahmi, had a system to distinguish between pure consonants (m in this example) and consonants with an inherent vowel (ma in this example). In addition, early Tamil Brahmi used slightly different vowel markers, had extra characters to represent letters not found in Sanskrit, and omitted letters for sounds not present in Tamil, such as voiced consonants and aspirates. Inscriptions from the second century AD use a later form of the Tamil Brahmi script, which is substantially similar to the writing system described in the Tolkappiyam, an ancient Tamil grammar. Most notably, they use the puḷḷi to suppress the inherent vowel. The Tamil letters thereafter evolved towards a more rounded form, and by the fifth or sixth century AD had reached a form called the early vaṭṭeḻuttu.
A Tamil book printed in 1578

The modern Tamil script does not, however, descend from this script. In 7th century, the Pallava dynasty created a new script for Tamil, which was formed by simplifying the Grantha script (which in turn derived from Southern Brahmi), and adding to it the vatteluttu letters for sounds not found in Sanskrit. By the 8th century, this new script supplanted vatteluttu in the Chola and Pallava kingdoms which lay in the north portion of the Tamil-speaking region. Vatteluttu continued to be used in the southern portion of the Tamil-speaking region, in the Chera and Pandyan kingdoms until the 11th century, when the Pandyan kingdom was conquered by the Cholas.
A Tamil book printed in 1781

Over the next few centuries, the Chola-Pallava script evolved into the modern Tamil script. The use of palm leaves as the primary medium for writing led to changes in the script. The scribe had to be careful not to pierce the leaves with the stylus while writing, because a leaf with a hole was more likely to tear and decay faster. As a result, the use of the puḷḷi to distinguish pure consonants became rare, with pure consonants usually being written as if the inherent vowel were present. Similarly, the vowel marker for the kuṟṟiyal ukaram, a half-rounded u which occurs at the end of some words and in the medial position in certain compound words, also fell out of use and was replaced by the marker for the simple u. The puḷḷi did not fully reappear until the introduction of printing, but the marker kuṟṟiyal ukaram never came back into use, although the sound itself still exists and plays an important role in Tamil prosody.

The forms of some of the letters were simplified in the nineteenth century to make the script easier to typeset. In the twentieth century, the script was simplified even further in a series of reforms, which regularised the vowel markers used with consonants by eliminating special markers and most irregular forms.

Relationship with other Indic scripts
The Tamil script differs from other Brahmi-derived scripts in a number of ways. Unlike every other Indic script, it uses the same character to represent both an unvoiced stop and its voiced equivalent. Thus the character க் k, for example, represents both [k], and [ɡ]. This is because Tamil grammar treats only unvoiced stops as being "true" consonants, treating voiced and aspirated sounds as euphonic variants of unvoiced sounds. Traditional Tamil grammars contain detailed rules, observed in formal speech, for when a stop is to be pronounced with and without voice. These rules are not followed in colloquial or dialectal speech, where voiced and unvoiced versions of a stop are, in effect, allophones, being used in specific phonetic contexts, without serving to distinguish words.
[show]Brāhmī

Also unlike other Indic scripts, the Tamil script rarely uses special consonantal ligatures to represent conjunct consonants, which are far less frequent in Tamil than in other Indian languages. Conjunct consonants, where they occur are written by writing the character for the first consonant, adding the puḷḷi to suppress its inherent vowel, and then writing the character for the second consonant. There are a few exceptions, namely க்ஷ kṣa and ஶ்ரீ śrī.

Basic consonants

Consonants are called the 'body' (mei) letters. The consonants are classified into three categories: vallinam (hard consonants), mellinam (soft consonants, including all nasals), and idayinam (medium consonants).

There are some lexical rules for formation of words. Tolkāppiyam describes such rules. Some examples: a word cannot end in certain consonants, and cannot begin with some consonants including 'r' 'l' and 'll'; there are two consonants for the dental 'n' - which one should be used depends on whether the 'n' occurs at the start of the word and on the letters around it. (Historically, one 'n' was pronounced alveolarly, as is still true in Malayalam.)

The order of the alphabet (strictly abugida) in Tamil closely matches that of the linguistically unrelated Indo-Aryan languages, reflecting the common origin of their scripts from Brahmi.

Usage of other lingual consonants

It is sometimes not easy to identify phonemes found in words of other languages. For this reason, some ad-hoc characters have been added over the years. These additions do not form part of the original organization along places of articulation. Most of these additions are called Grantha letters, which are used for writing words of non-Tamil origin, such as "Stalin" or "Shajahan."
Consonant ISO 15919 IPA
ஶ் ś [ɕ], [ʃ]
ஜ் j [d͡ʒ]
ஷ் ṣ [ʂ]
ஸ் s [s]
ஹ் h [h]
க்ஷ் kṣ [kʂ]

The letter ஶ் is used only for words borrowed from Sanskrit (eg. ஶாரதா śāradā) , but is included in Unicode for rendering the common ligature 'Sri' (ஸ்ரீ Śrī), which is made up of ஶ்​ரீ. க்ஷ் is technically a ligature of க்‌ஷ்.