or personal and low-caste or impersonal, — the former comprising words for rational beings, the latter all the rest. Only in high- caste nouns a distinction between masculine and feminine is observed in the singular; both have a common plural, which is indicated by change of a final ti (feminine Z) into r ; but the neuter plural termination hal {gal) may be superadded in every case. Certain nouns change their base termination before receiving the case affixes, the latter being the same both for singular and plural. They are for the acc, ei, instr. dl, social 6du {odu, udan)^ dat. Jcu^ loo. il {idattil, m), abl. ilirundu {ininru), gen. udeiya {adu). There is, besides, a general oblique affix in, which is not only fre- quently used for the genitive, but may be inserted before any of the above affixes, to some of which the emphatic particle i may also be superadded. In the old poetry there is a still greater variety of affixes, while there is an option of dispensing with all. Adjectives, when attributive, precede the noun and are unchange- able; when predicative they follow it and receive verbal affixes. The pronouns of the 1st person are sing, ndn {ydn), inflexional base en, plural ndm {ydm), infl. including, ndngal, infl. engal,
excluding the person addressed; of the 2d person ni, infl. un {nin, mcti), plural nir {ntyir^ nivir), n%ngal, infl. um, ungaZ {num). To each of those forms, inclusive also of the reflexive pronouns tdn, tdmj tdngal, a place is assigned in the scale of honorific pro- nouns. As in the demonstrative pronouns the forms beginning with i indicate nearness, those with a distance, and (in the old poetry) those with -zc what is between the two, so the same forms beginning with e (or yd, as in ydr, dr, who ?) express the interro- gative. The verb consists of three elements — the root (generally reducible to one syllable), the tense characteristic, and the personal affix. There are three original moods, the indicative, imperative, and infinitive (the 2d singular imperative is generally identical with the root), as well as three original tenses, the present, past, and future. The personal affixes are — sing. {1) -inj (2) -dy, honorific -ir ; (3) masc. -dn, fern, -dl, honor, -dr, neuter -adu ; plural (1) -dm {-d?n, -dm) ; (2) -trkal ; (3) masc. fern, -drlcal, neut. -ana. These a:^es serve for all verbs and for each of the three tenses, except that, in the future, -adu and -ana are replaced by -%(>m {JcTcum). It is only in the formation of the tenses that verbs differ, intransitive verbs generally indicating the present by -Jcir- {-Tcinr-), the past by -d-, -nd-, or -in-, and the future by -v- (-&-), and transitive verbs by the corresponding infixes, -kkir- {-kkinr-j, -ZZ-, (-nd-), and ; but there are numerous exceptions and seemingly anomalous forma- tions. Other tenses and moods are expressed with the aid of special affixes or auxiliary verbs. Causal verbs are formed by various infixes {-ppi-, -vi-, and the passive by the auxiliary padu,
to fall, or by un, to eat, with a noun. The following four pecul- iarities are characteristic of Tamil : — first, the tenseless negative form of the verb, expressed by the infix a, which is elided before dissimilar vowels ; second, the predicative employment of two negative particles illei and alia, the one denying the existence or presence, the other denying the quality or essence ; third, the use of two sets of partici^es, — one, called adjective or relative participle, which supplies the place of a relative clause, the language possessing no relative pronouns, and an ordinary adverbial participle er gerund ; and, fourth, the practice of giving adjectives a verbal form by means of personal affixes, which form may again be treated as a noun by attaching to it the declensional terminations, thus : periya, great ; periydm, we are great ; periydmukku, to us who are great. The old poetry abounds in verbal forms now obsolete. Adjectives, adverbs, and abstract nouns are derived from verbs by certain affixes. All post-positions were originally either nouns or verbal forms. Oratio indirecta is unknown in Tamil, as it is in all the other Indian languages, the gerund enru being used, like iti in Sanskrit, to indicate quotation. The structure of sentences is an exact counterpart of the structure of words, inasmuch as that which qualifies always precedes that which is qualified. Thus the attributive precedes the substantive, the substantive precedes the preposition, the adverb precedes the verb, the secondary clause the primary one, and the verb closes the sentence. The sentence,
Having called the woman who had killed the child, he asked why she had committed such infanticide,” runs in Tamil as follow® ; —
Kujandeiyei kkonrupottavalei aleippittu nt Sn ippadi
The cbUd her who had killed having caused to he called, **Thou why thus ppatta sisu-v-atti seyddy gnru kgttan. made child-murder didst?" having said he asked.
Much as the similarity of the structure of the Tamil and its sister languages to that of the Ugro-Tartar class may have proved suggestive of the assumption of a family affinity between the two classes, such an affinity, if it exist, must be held to be at least very distant, inasmuch as the assumption receives but the faintest shade of support from an intercomparison of the radical and least variable portion of the respective languages.
Literature, — The early existence, in southern India, of peoples, localities, animals, and products the names of which, as mentioned in the Old Testament and in Greek and Koman writers, have been identified with correspond-
I L S 43
ing Dravidian terms goes far to prove the high antiquity, if not of the Tamil language, at least of some form of Dravidian speech (Caldwell, loc. cit., Introd., pp. 81- 106 j Madras District Manual, i., Introd., p. 134 s^.). But practically the earliest extant records of the Tamil language do not ascend higher than the middle of the 8th century of the Christian era, the grant in possession of the Israelites at Cochin being assigned by the late Or Burnell to about 750 a.d., a period when MalayMma did not exist yet as a separate language. There is every probability that about the same time a number of Tamil works sprung up, which are mentioned by a writer in the 11th century as representing the old literature (Burnell, loc. cit,, p. 127, note). The earlier of these may have been Saiva books ; the more prominent of the others were decidedly Jaina. Though traces of a north Indian influence are palpable in ail of them that have come down to us (see, e.g., T. W. Ellis’s notes to the KuraV), we can at the same time perceive, as we must certainly appreciate, the desire of the authors to oppose the influence of Brahmanical writings, and create a literature that should rival Sanskrit books and appeal to the sentiments of the people at large. But the refinement of the poetical language, as adapted to the genius of Tamil, has been carried to greater excess than in Sanskrit ; and this artificial character of the so-called High-Tamil is evident from a comparison with the old inscriptions, which are a reflex of the language of the people, and clearly show that Tamil has not undergone any essential change these 800 years (Burnell, loc. cit., p. 142). The rules of High- Tamil appear to have been fixed at a very early date. The Tolhdppiyam, the oldest extant Tamil grammar, is assigned by Dr Burnell {On the Aindra School of Sansk 7 'it Grain- marians, pp. 8, 55) to tbe 8th century (best edition by C. Y, TUmodaram Pillei, Madras, 1885). The 7tras6liyam, another grammar, is of the 11th century. Both have been superseded by the JSfannul, of the 15th century, which has exercised the skill of numerous commentators, and con- tinues to be the leading native authority (English editions in Pope’s Third Tamil Grammar, and an abridgment by Lazarus, 1884). The period of the prevalence of the Jainas in the Pfi.ndya kingdom, from the 9th or 10th to the 13th century, is justly termed the Augustan age of Tamil literature. To its earlier days is assigned the N'dladiydr, an ethical poem on the three objects of exist- ence, which is supposed to have preceded the Kural of Tiruvalluvan, the finest poetical production in the whole range of Tamil composition. Tradition, in keeping with the spirit of antagonism to Brahmanical influence, says that its author was a pariah priest. It consists of 1330 stanzas on virtue, wealth, and pleasure. It has often been edited, translated, and commented upon ; see the introduc- tion. to the excellent edition, just published, by bheBev. Dr Pope, in which also a comprehensive account of the pecul- iarities of High-Tamil will be found. To the Avvei, or Matron, a reputed sister of Tiruvalluvan, but probably of a later date, two shorter moral poems, called AttisUdi and Konreiveyndan, are ascribed, which are still read in all Tamil schools. Chintdmani, an epic of upwards of 3000 stanzas, which celebrates the exploits of a EZing Jivakan, also belongs to that early Jain period, and so does the Divdkaram, the oldest dictionary of classical Tamil. The former is one of the finest poems in the language ; but no more than the first and part of the third of its thirteen books have been edited and translated. Kamban’s Bdmdyanam (about 1100 A.D.) is the only other Tamil epic which comes up to the Chintdmani in poetical beauty. The most bril- liant of the poetical productions which appeared in the period of the Saiva revival (13 th and 14th centuries) are two collections of hymns addressed to Siva, the one called Tiruvdsakamy by Manikka-V^sakan, and a later and larger
