Tamil is slowly moving towards its death.Some do's and dont's
Do's:1)Translate all engineering,medical,arts science course books in Tamil keeping the nouns in english.Dont translate tea as "ilai availaible in Tamil.Such courses should be offered 100% free of cost by govt.Offer such courses in all govt colleges and aided colleges.This will remove illetracy and as well as keep Tamil alive.
2)Accept nouns from english.Dont try to translate and transliterate names.Englsih accepts so many words from every language in world.Why not Tamil?
3)Popularize Tamil books worldwide.Many gems like kambaramayanam are untouched by so called tamil ina kavalars since its religious book.Translate such treasures in all world languages and send it to foreign universities.
4)Teach the NRI in america,moritius tamil.Many now only know to speak tamil.Make some arrangements to teach those kids tamil.Build Indian schools in places like california where lots of indian children study.teach them tamil.
5)Pay extra 500 rs salary to the poor iyers in temples and ask them to teach thirukural,devaram etc to the kids who come to the temple.
dont do's:
1)Dont force tamil on school children.Dont make them learn tamil medium education compulsary.But make them learn tamil compulsarily except northies and other state people.
2)Dont ever start purifying tamil by saying " I am removing english words from it,sanskrit words from it etc.Lena tamilvanan is doing so currently in kumudam magazine.Nothing can be more useless than this.
THis is the practical solution.Nothing else will work out.
hi priya wats the point in makin all courses into tamil? its a gud thing for tamil, but not for the guys who study it. where r the jobs for purely tamil enginnering and medical courses? and y shdnt we transliterate other lingo words? if we keep on adding these words we mite not ve a tamil language in future. already tv channels and movies r murdering tamil with mundane accnets and names. multi media s one powerful tool which can be used to preserve and spread our heritage, like you say kambaramayanam and other tamil kaaviyams. and most important thing is to have an OS in tamil and the ability to use tamil in the net. this will help bridge the digital divide as well. hope i can write mails in tamil one day.
Really good suggestions. But Thamizh as such is not moving towards death. Ithai oru parinaama vaLarchi'nnu aen solla koodathu. In fact next to English, thamizh occupies the second place for most number of websites.
I have planned to teach my kid Thamizh rhymes, Aathichudi etc.
Naan school padikkum pOthu, oru vithiyaasamaana pOtti nadanthathu. Ithukku peyar seyyuLukku seyyul. oru seyyul mudiyum ezhuthulernthu innoru seyyuL sollaNum. (Naan padithathu Agmark English Matriculation school vEra) Aanaal, antha kaala kattathula athai rasikka mudiyalai. Ippo ninaichaa, enakkE en mEl kobamaa irukku. PaLLikkoodathula intha maathiri pOtti ellam vecha nalla irukkum.
Studying in thamizh medium doesn't mean that the guy should not learn english. We should keep English just as a language for communicating with the non-thamizh speaking people. So, everyone should be able to converse in both thamizh and english. Many people think that studying in english medium only will make us fluent in english. It is not so. We see many people from thamizh medium speak english so fluently. I agree that initially the guy from thamizh medium should struggle while getting into english medium school/college and some sort of fluency is needed for attending interviews. But that struggle will not last forever.
There are some institutes which teach MS level courses in Thamizh medium. I am doing my MS degree in Psychotherapy and Counseling course in Thamizh. The psychotherapy text books are in thamizh, the lecturers teach counseling in thamizh and I write exams in thamizh. Why can't the other courses be taught in the same way? The government cannot change all the courses into thamizh medium but only the private organizations which are run by the people interested in thamizh can do this. At the same time, the quality should not be compromised. The competency level of the students studying in thamizh should be higher than the other medium students. At least that image has to be created. Then only the parents will start thinking about their kids studying in such schools. This can be achieved if the teachers like teaching in thamizh.
Learning things through the mother tongue will definitely make the things easier and need less effort. I am trying this with my students to teach Japanese language. When we teach via thamizh, they understand well and grasp quickly even though they were from english medium schools/colleges.
As for e-mailing in Tamil you can do it even now. ( Pssss.. we are almost near ).
But, my opinion is, Thagaval Thozilnutpam, is just one area, there are many area's that need developement too. As discussed, Books section is also an important one.
But, any valid point for requesting not in translate English wordsm to Tamil?
hi rajendran i just now visited zhakanini site. i never knew a OS for tamil existed r the effort to make one. it shd be more advertised to rope in more volunteers and create awareness abt the efforts. pls let me know if i cud help in anyway.
Dear Priya an iuinteresting thread...Keep it going I would agree and beg to disagree with your statement.
I dont think tamil is nearing slow death but things could be better. availaible in Tamil.Such courses should be offered 100% free of cost by govt.Offer such courses in all govt colleges and aided colleges.This will remove illetracy and as well as keep Tamil alive.
There are moves already to translate medical text books in tamil...But I would disagree with you that all should only be in tamil .
The chinese and japanese do all their education in their mother tongue but when it comes to outside world they struggle.Thats where tamils' prosper In US the californial dialect is the fastest and the texan drawl is the slowest but even the californians first the pace and caommand of tamils very fast.
The fact we have the Zha gives us a great flexibility of our toungues and we master any language we learn very soon So we need English aswell to make more gains of the inroads we have made into the west
I agree we should have tamil for all but I wouldnt agree that should be the only medium of instruction.
We need English for the economic benefits we are appreciating in this time and age of a small world.That is going worldwide and second making use of all the offshore enterprises.
Ofcourse you need tamil at the end of the day its education of someform
2)Accept nouns from english.Dont try to translate and transliterate names.Englsih accepts so many words from every language in world.Why not Tamil? I agree 3)Popularize Tamil books worldwide.Many gems like kambaramayanam are untouched by so called tamil ina kavalars since its religious book.Translate such treasures in all world languages and send it to foreign universities.
Well the first starting point is educating ourselves thats where the points others were making is very important having tamil software and electronic scripts We need to popularise sites like chennainetwork.com and project madurai so that all tamils will be able to read understand and then disseminate.
4)Teach the NRI in america,moritius tamil.Many now only know to speak tamil.Make some arrangements to teach those kids tamil.Build Indian schools in places like california where lots of indian children study.teach them tamil.
Thats one place tamils do falter ie Tamilnadu tamils the ealam cousins tend to have regaular tamilchangams where everyone meets and discuss various issues and finish with education and entertainment for the kids and kootanchoru..everyone brings something and all share and eat. 5)Pay extra 500 rs salary to the poor iyers in temples and ask them to teach thirukural,devaram etc to the kids who come to the temple. I disagree...I would much rather pay the educated unemployed youth to teach and educate rather than the gurukkals....two reasons ....being gurukal is a profession whether it pays or not its something they have opted there are other choices for them... On the contrary educated unemployed youth should be encouraged to do this...that builts their self confidence and independence and that avoids them getting into the bad ways of naxalism or politics(doing menial jobs for the politicians) and thats the way for tamilnadus and india future
dont do's:
1)Dont force tamil on school children.Dont make them learn tamil medium education compulsary.But make them learn tamil compulsarily except northies and other state people. Sorry there should be no exceptions for tamil education they can learn what they want to learn as their third language....but tamil will be either the medium of instruction or second language.
I learned kannada as my second language till second standard could speak tamil but couldnt write that propted my parents to encourage me to read kumudam anandavikatan and kalki when i was in third std and i read PS in my fourth std
2)Dont ever start purifying tamil by saying " I am removing english words from it,sanskrit words from it etc.Lena tamilvanan is doing so currently in kumudam magazine.Nothing can be more useless than this.
Well purifying tamil may not be the reason but to curtail the inraods english os making into tamil may be more the reason
My two cents worth
Sri
Dr Sridhar Rathinam FRCSEd Specialist Registrar in Thoracic Surgery Birmingham Heartlands Hospital Bordesley Green East Birmingham UK