some occurring in early Tamil, but which have now become obsolete ; for example, past tense in பு as in நக்குபு, future in கு as in இரக்கு, instrumental case in இன் as in நின்னிற்றந்த, &c.
III. Production of new materials-new words and new forms. Civilization brings with it new thoughts and new ideas which require new words to express them. Such words are either borrowed or coined for the nonce out of the existing words in the language, or by metaphorically extending the meanings of old words. Most words relating to religion and philosophy are borrowed from Sanskrit; revenue terms are adopted from Persian and Arabic; administrative terms are borrowed from English, besides some colloquial words like 'gate', 'compound', 'coat', 'tiffin', 'clean', etc., used in daily life. There are not very many grammatical forms newly introduced as we find in English (if we compare modern English with that of Bede or Chaucer), because the grammar of the Tamil language was written so early as the third or fourth century B. C., and the conservative instinct of the Tamils has been so strong, that new grammatical forms either by coinage or by loan have been jealously guarded against. It is a settled principle that when a language borrows, it borrows mostly nouns and adjectives ; verbs are rarely taken from other languages ; and particles never.
All the above changes were due to the operations of the principles of phonetic decay and emphasis, and analogy, aided, doubtless, by climate, food and edu-
