Camundonguinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4738 days ago 273 posts - 500 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish Studies: Swedish
| Message 9 of 19 14 December 2011 at 5:44am | IP Logged |
Tamils from Chennai have troubel understanding spoken Jaffna Tamil and Malayalam.
On the other hand Jaffna Tamil and Malayalam speakers understand each other perfectly.
When Asin visited Jaffna, she found it easier to use Malayalam than Chennai Tamil.
In Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Indian Tamils speak Indian Tamil and Sri Lanka (Jaffna and Colombo) Tamils speak Sri Lanka Tamil. They are two different peoples culturally and linguistically.
Sri Lanka Indian Tamils were always loyal to the Sri Lanka government,
while Jaffna Tamils fought the civil war against it.
Edited by Camundonguinho on 14 December 2011 at 5:47am
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stephane Newbie France Joined 4681 days ago 5 posts - 6 votes Speaks: French*
| Message 10 of 19 20 January 2012 at 9:39pm | IP Logged |
Camundonguinho wrote:
Learning Tamil is like learning Arabic. The written language hasn't changed from the 13th century while colloquial language changed a lot. Sri Lankan Tamil is closer to the written language, but the Indian Tamils say it sounds like Malayalam! That means they don't even know they own formal written language. :) |
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I'd like to be able to read newspapers or webpages about Sri Lanka in Tamil. It's unclear to me whether the books or the learning material available online is useful for this task (i.e. how close variants of Tamil are). Are usual Tamil language resources (like Teach Yourself, the Colloquial series, Assimil...) suitable for this task or is this a waste of time and should I rather concentrate on Sri Lanka-specific manuals or grammars (which ones?).
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Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5334 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish*
| Message 11 of 19 20 January 2012 at 10:34pm | IP Logged |
Sadly, there is no Teach Yourself Tamil.
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kappale741 Newbie India Joined 4641 days ago 4 posts - 7 votes
| Message 12 of 19 21 January 2013 at 5:03pm | IP Logged |
vonPeterhof wrote:
nunoxic wrote:
Kerala - Malayalam (+ Sri Lanka/Singapore?)
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You're confusing it with Tamil. Malayalam isn't official anywhere outside India.
nunoxic wrote:
Now, I am about to make a generalization which is true most of the
times: there are 2
groups of languages among which it is *possible* to understand the other.
Tamil - Malayalam
Telugu - Kannada (- Tulu?)
A Tamil speaking person *might* understand Malayalam and vice versa. However, people
from different groups will NOT understand each other. |
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Malayalam separated from Tamil around the 9th century, before that they were dialects
of the same language, usually called Middle Tamil. I don't think Telugu, Kannada and
Tulu are that close to each other |
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hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5119 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe
| Message 13 of 19 21 January 2013 at 5:23pm | IP Logged |
Juаn wrote:
Sadly, there is no Teach Yourself Tamil. |
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Believe it or not, there is a "Colloquial Tamil" (Routledge) course, though.
R.
==
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liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6218 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written)
| Message 14 of 19 21 January 2013 at 9:40pm | IP Logged |
hrhenry wrote:
Juаn wrote:
Sadly, there is no Teach Yourself Tamil. |
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Believe it or not, there is a "Colloquial Tamil" (Routledge) course, though.
R.
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... and an Assimil Tamoul Sans Peine if you can read French...
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Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4657 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali
| Message 15 of 19 22 January 2013 at 4:26am | IP Logged |
''Colloquial Tamil '' course does not use the Tamil script, but some kind of phonological (not phonetic!) respelling (which no Tamilian would ever use, not even in the most informal internet chat).
Furthermore, the dialect used is Chennai Tamil/Madras Bashai, which is not the standard of the colloquial Tamil (the central Tamil accent (Trichy, Madurai) is the closest to the standard colloquial Tamil; Anu from Koffee with Anu is from Trichy and she speaks very neutral, so does Sridevi who is from around Madurai). If you watch Tamil cinema, you can hear that Chennai Tamil is not prevalent, female actors don't use it, and as for men, many tone it down (except for some actors like Dhanush who keep the strong Chennai accent, with all those rounded nasalized vowels: marõ instead of maram).
சென்னை - Chennai
[tʃennai] formal Tamil
[tʃennei] standard colloquial Tamil (Trichy/Madurai accent)
[tʃenne] Chennai dialect/accent
மரம் - maram ''wood''
[maram] formal Tamil
[marãm] or [marã] standard colloquial Tamil (Trichy/Madurai accent)
[marõ] Chennai dialect/accent
''Standard Spoken Tamil evolves out of the middle class speakers, primarily non-brahmin castes, who are involved in mercantile and professional activities in central Tamilnadu i.e. Tiruchi, Thanjavur, Karur and South Arcot regions.''
http://www.lisindia.net/Tamil/Tamil_vari.html
Edited by Medulin on 22 January 2013 at 5:10am
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Maikl Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6214 days ago 121 posts - 145 votes Speaks: German*, Dutch, English, Spanish Studies: Turkish
| Message 16 of 19 29 June 2013 at 3:54pm | IP Logged |
Today I found a nice free website for learning Telugu
If you click yourself through it seems quite
extensive.
Not entirely sure yet but I think I'll give it a try.
Edited by Maikl on 29 June 2013 at 3:55pm
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