Tamil phonology
Encyclopedia
Tamil phonology is characterised by the presence of retroflex consonant
s and multiple rhotic
s. Tamil does not distinguish phonologically between voiced and unvoiced consonants; phonetically, voice is assigned depending on a consonant's position in a word. Tamil phonology permits few consonant clusters, which can never be word initial. Native grammarians classify Tamil phonemes into vowels, consonants, and a "secondary character", the āytam.
s.
The long (nedil) vowels are about twice as long as the short (kuRil) vowels. The diphthong
s are usually pronounced about one and a half times as long as the short vowels, though most grammatical texts place them with the long vowels.
Tamil has two diphthong
s /aj/ and /aw/, the latter of which is restricted to a few lexical items.
s are classified into three categories with six in each category: vallinam - hard, mellinam - soft or Nasal
, and idayinam - medium. Tamil has very restricted consonant clusters (e.g. never word initial) and has neither aspirated nor voiced stops
. Some scholars have suggested that in Chenthamil (which refers to Tamil as it existed before Sanskrit
words were borrowed), stops were voiceless when at the start of a word and voiced allophonically
otherwise.
A chart of the Tamil consonant phoneme
s in the International Phonetic Alphabet
follows:
The voiceless consonants have multiple allophones, depending on position.
consonants. The Tamil script does not have distinct letters for voiced
and unvoiced plosives, although both are present in the spoken language as allophone
s--i.e., they are in complementary distribution
and the places they can occur do not intersect. For example, the unvoiced plosive 'p' occurs at the beginning of the words and the voiced plosive 'b' cannot. In the middle of words, unvoiced plosives commonly occur as a geminated pair like -pp- , while voiced plosives do not usually come in pairs. Only the voiced plosives occur after a vowel, or after a corresponding nasal. Thus both the voiced and unvoiced plosives can be represented by the same script in Tamil without ambiguity, the script denoting only the place and broad manner of articulation (plosive, nasal
, etc.). The Tolkāppiyam cites detailed rules as to when a letter is to be pronounced with voice and when it is to be pronounced unvoiced. The rule is identical for all plosives.
With the exception of one rule - the pronunciation of the letter c at the beginning of a word - these rules are largely followed even today in pronouncing centamil. The position is, however, much more complex in relation to spoken koduntamil. The pronunciation of southern dialects and the dialects of Sri Lanka
continues to reflect these rules to a large extent, though not completely. In northern dialects, however, sound shifts have changed many words so substantially that these rules no longer describe how words are pronounced. In addition many, but not all, Sanskrit
loan words are pronounced in Tamil as they were in Sanskrit, even if this means that consonants which should be unvoiced according to the Tolkāppiyam are voiced.
Phonologists
are divided in their opinion over why written Tamil did not distinguish between voiced and unvoiced characters. One point of view is that Tamil never had conjunct consonants or voiced stops
- voice was rather the result of elision
or sandhi
. Consequently, unlike Indo-European languages
and other Dravidian languages
, Tamil did not need separate characters for voiced consonants. A slightly different theory holds that voiced consonants were at one stage allophones of unvoiced consonants, and the lack of distinction between the two in the modern script merely reflects that.
is the reduction in the duration of sound of a phoneme
when preceded by or followed by certain other sounds. There are well-defined rules for elision in Tamil. They are categorised into different classes based on the phoneme which undergoes elision.
Retroflex consonant
A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...
s and multiple rhotic
Rhotic
In linguistics, rhotic can refer to:* Rhotic consonant, such as the sound in red* R-colored vowel, such as the sound in Midwestern American English pronunciation of fur and before a consonant as in hard....
s. Tamil does not distinguish phonologically between voiced and unvoiced consonants; phonetically, voice is assigned depending on a consonant's position in a word. Tamil phonology permits few consonant clusters, which can never be word initial. Native grammarians classify Tamil phonemes into vowels, consonants, and a "secondary character", the āytam.
Vowels
The vowels are called uyir ezhuthu (uyir - life, ezhuthu - letter). The vowels are classified into short and long (five of each type) and two diphthongDiphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
s.
The long (nedil) vowels are about twice as long as the short (kuRil) vowels. The diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
s are usually pronounced about one and a half times as long as the short vowels, though most grammatical texts place them with the long vowels.
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| long | short | long | short | long | short | |
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
iː | ɪ | uː | ʊ | ||
| Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel... |
eː | ɛ | oː | ɔ | ||
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
aː | ə |
Tamil has two diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
s /aj/ and /aw/, the latter of which is restricted to a few lexical items.
Consonants
The consonants are known as mey ezhuttu (mey-body, ezhuttu-letters).The consonantConsonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
s are classified into three categories with six in each category: vallinam - hard, mellinam - soft or Nasal
Nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
, and idayinam - medium. Tamil has very restricted consonant clusters (e.g. never word initial) and has neither aspirated nor voiced stops
Stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
. Some scholars have suggested that in Chenthamil (which refers to Tamil as it existed before Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
words were borrowed), stops were voiceless when at the start of a word and voiced allophonically
Allophone
In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
otherwise.
A chart of the Tamil consonant phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s in the International Phonetic Alphabet
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
follows:
| Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... | Dental Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... | Retroflex Retroflex consonant A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology... | Postalveolar Postalveolar consonant Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate... Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... | Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... | Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ɳ | (ɲ) | ||
| Plosive | p (b) | t̪ (d̪) | ʈ (ɖ) | k (ɡ) | ||
| Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
tʃ (dʒ) | |||||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
(f)1 | [s] (z)1 | [h] | |||
| Tap | ɾ [r] | |||||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
ʋ | ɻ | j | |||
| Lateral approximant Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
l | ɭ |
- /f/ and /z/ are peripheral to the phonology of Tamil, being found only in loanwords and frequently replaced by native sounds.
The voiceless consonants have multiple allophones, depending on position.
| Place | Initial | Geminate | Intervocalic | Post-nasal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Velar | k | kk | h~∅ | ɡ |
| Palatal | tʃ~s | ttʃ | s | dʒ |
| Retroflex | — | ʈʈ | ɖ | ɖ |
| Alveolar | — | t̪t̪ | r | r |
| Dental | t̪ | ð | d | |
| Labial | p | pp | β~w | b |
Overview
Unlike most other Indian languages, Tamil does not have aspiratedAspiration (phonetics)
In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...
consonants. The Tamil script does not have distinct letters for voiced
Voice (phonetics)
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...
and unvoiced plosives, although both are present in the spoken language as allophone
Allophone
In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
s--i.e., they are in complementary distribution
Complementary distribution
Complementary distribution in linguistics is the relationship between two different elements, where one element is found in a particular environment and the other element is found in the opposite environment...
and the places they can occur do not intersect. For example, the unvoiced plosive 'p' occurs at the beginning of the words and the voiced plosive 'b' cannot. In the middle of words, unvoiced plosives commonly occur as a geminated pair like -pp- , while voiced plosives do not usually come in pairs. Only the voiced plosives occur after a vowel, or after a corresponding nasal. Thus both the voiced and unvoiced plosives can be represented by the same script in Tamil without ambiguity, the script denoting only the place and broad manner of articulation (plosive, nasal
Nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
, etc.). The Tolkāppiyam cites detailed rules as to when a letter is to be pronounced with voice and when it is to be pronounced unvoiced. The rule is identical for all plosives.
With the exception of one rule - the pronunciation of the letter c at the beginning of a word - these rules are largely followed even today in pronouncing centamil. The position is, however, much more complex in relation to spoken koduntamil. The pronunciation of southern dialects and the dialects of Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
continues to reflect these rules to a large extent, though not completely. In northern dialects, however, sound shifts have changed many words so substantially that these rules no longer describe how words are pronounced. In addition many, but not all, Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
loan words are pronounced in Tamil as they were in Sanskrit, even if this means that consonants which should be unvoiced according to the Tolkāppiyam are voiced.
Phonologists
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
are divided in their opinion over why written Tamil did not distinguish between voiced and unvoiced characters. One point of view is that Tamil never had conjunct consonants or voiced stops
Stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
- voice was rather the result of elision
Elision
Elision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
or sandhi
Sandhi
Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries . Examples include the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words...
. Consequently, unlike Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
and other Dravidian languages
Dravidian languages
The Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...
, Tamil did not need separate characters for voiced consonants. A slightly different theory holds that voiced consonants were at one stage allophones of unvoiced consonants, and the lack of distinction between the two in the modern script merely reflects that.
Elision
ElisionElision
Elision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
is the reduction in the duration of sound of a phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
when preceded by or followed by certain other sounds. There are well-defined rules for elision in Tamil. They are categorised into different classes based on the phoneme which undergoes elision.
| 1. | Kutriyalukaram | the vowel u | 2. | Kutriyalikaram | the vowel i | 3. | Aiykaarakkurukkam | the diphthong Diphthong A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel... ai |
4. | Oukaarakkurukkam | the diphthong au | 5. | Aaythakkurukkam | the special character akh (aaytham) | 6. | Makarakkurukkam | the phoneme m |