Monday, January 11, 2010

More simple sentences, plus some adjective work

These sentences and phrases come from the Intermediate Textbook made available by the Tamil Virtual University.
This is from Section 3 of Unit 1. Unit 1 spans 20 pages, some are sample sentences, others are  worksheets. I won't recreate everything here, but instead focus on translations and vocabulary.

Section 3
I have color coded each Tamil/English sentence pair since the sentence word order differs.  This also shows you how certain English words are unnecessary or implied in Tamil.

இது சிங்கம், சிங்கம் விளங்குகளில் வலியது.
This is a lion, the lion is strong among the animals.

இது யானை, யானை விலங்குகளில் பெரியது.
This is an elephant, the elephant is big among the animals.

அது மான், மான் சாதுவான விலங்கு.
That is a deer, the deer is a gentle animal.

இது கங்காரு, இது ஒரு ஆஸ்திரேலியா விளங்கு, இது இந்தியக் காடுகளில் இல்லை.
This is a kangaroo, it is an Australian animal, it is not native in the forest in India. (native is my best guess for காடுகளில்)

அது தான் சிட்டுக்குருவி, சிட்டுக்குருவி புறவைகளில்  சிறியது.
That is indeed a sparrow, the sparrow is small among birds.

இது மயில், மயில் ஆழகானது, இது இந்திய தேசியப்பறவை.
This is a peacock, the peacock is beautiful, it is India's national bird.

8 comments:

rec1man said...

Kadu means forest
Kadugalil means within forest

Jenny said...

OK, cool, so it is the kangaroo is not in the forest in India. Thanks :)

rec1man said...

Vilangu means animal
Paravai means bird

Vilangugalil means among animals
Paravaigalil means among birds

rec1man said...

Tamil has 12 vowels and 18 consonanants
and 18 x 12 syllables

rec1man said...

The problem with Tamil is that it has fallen into the clutches of the 'pure tamil' people
Previously about 50% of the words were derived from Sanskrit
All these sanskritic words were removed and new tamil words or very ancient tamil words were brought in
So, now written tamil is very far from spoken tamil

All Indian languages have the vowel x consonant system

The vowels are the same in all Indian Languages

So Hindi for example has 12 vowels but about 60 consonants
so 12 x 60 = 720 syllables

Written tamil is limited compared to Hindi

Tamil has Ka,
whereas Hindi has Ka, Kha, Ga, Gha

rec1man said...

About 2000 years ago, all Indian languages from Sanskrit to Tamil had one script - brahmi - which was exported to Thailand, Cambodia, Philipines, Indonesia and Tibet

I dont know why the scripts split apart

rec1man said...

In the kangaroo sentence,
the Tamil word

Oru

means One

Jenny said...

That is true, but in English, the translation sounds better to say "an Australian animal" rather than "one Australian animal."

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