Book Review: Journey Through Islamic Arts

Book Review: Journey Through Islamic Arts
Author: Na'ima bint Robert 
Illustrator: Diana Mayo 
Tamil Translator: Siva Pillai

Publisher: Mantra Books 2005

This is a spectacularly beautiful book. The storyline follows a girl who travels through the history of Islamic art through her dream. The illustrations by Diana Mayo are stunning.  The story is simple, but elegant.


The English is in prose, but it is very lyrical and poetic in style. At this point in my Tamil,  I really can't comment on how lyrical or elegant the Tamil translation is.


The fact that this is a bilingual edition, with Tamil and English side-by-side, makes it easy to quickly verify the meaning of new vocabulary.  The book is rated by the publisher for ages 6+ and really should appeal to people of all ages.  The only problem with the book is that the illustrations are so good, that I often find myself not reading at all, but just admiring the artwork in front of me!


You can purchase the book in the US from Language Lizard and in the UK from the publisher.

Lifco Dictionaries

Lifco (Little Flower Company) is a publisher in India.

I already owned the Lifco Tamil-Tamil-English Dictionary (the yellow one), having purchased it used on Amazon. I recently ordered the Lifco Tamil-Tamil-English Great Dictionary, directly from their company web page Lifco Books.

If you are not ready to order a book from India just yet, they have an online abridged version of the Tamil-Tamil-English Great Dictionary.

To order books from Lifco within the United States, you will put your items in the shopping cart, but instead of entering your buying information, you will wait a bit and get an emailed quote for your order in US dollars which includes shipping. They have to figure out international shipping to your location. When you accept the price, you then mail your payment to the Lifco rep in the US. When that payment clears, Lifco ships your book from Chennai.  I was very happy with the whole transaction. To my location, the total was $19.

The main difference between the regular T-T-E Dictionary and the Great Dictionary is the printing inside.  The quality of paper and printing is much higher in the Great Dictionary.  I can't tell if the Great Dictionary uses a slightly larger font size, or if the readability is due more to the white space around the entries. The Great Dictionary has more margin space enhancing its appeal.  The Great Dictionary also has more pages and entries than the regular one.  Both have appendixes of lists in the back of the book.

Both are very nice dictionaries and I would recommend either to a student of the Tamil Language. However, considering that your shipping costs to the US are going to be the majority of the cost, you should get the Tamil-Tamil-English Great Dictionary due to its superior readability.

Ordinal Numbers (Adjectives)

In the last article I read, ஆம் and வது occur after numbers.

In A Reference Grammar of Spoken Tamil, Howard Schiffman covers ordinal numbers on pages 136-138.
These pages are currently available in the book preview on Google Books.


Essentially for dates we use ஆம் and for number of times we use வது.

Siruvarmalar, Kid's Tamil Newspaper Magazine

I was looking around Dina Malar (Daily Flower) Newspaper, and found Siruvar Malar,  a children's insert.  It looks like this supplement comes out once a week and Siruvar Malar's Back Issues provide archives going back to October 2008. Downloadable pdfs go back to January 2009.

The stories are still on the long side for a very beginning reader.  It looks like a good resource when I have a larger working vocabulary.

Spoken Tamil: Tamil Amudham Radio

Tamil Amudham is a radio program in Detroit. Their main page has links to previous months' radio broadcasts which you can listen to online or download for later listening.

They have a 10 episode series of Akbar Birbal stories as well.
Since these are very famous stories it should be easy enough to find a general idea of what happens in each story, and listen for those elements.


Episode 1: "Akbar meets Birbal" - Tamil -(Aired Dec 10, 2006) Story in written English (not direct translation)
Episode 2: "Mahesh Das becomes Birbal" - Tamil - (Aired Dec 17, 2006) Story in written English
Episode 3: "Interactions with Akbar" - Tamil - (Aired Dec 24, 2006)
Episode 4: "Birbal goes to Heaven" - Tamil - (Aired Dec 31, 2006)
Episode 5: "Catching the thief" - Tamil - (Aired Jan 7, 2007)
Episode 6: "Three quick wits of Birbal" - Tamil - (Aired Jan 14, 2007)
Episode 7: "Koondup Puli" - Tamil - (Aired Jan 21, 2007)
Episode 8: "Unmaiyum Poiyum" - Tamil - (Aired Jan 28, 2007)
Episode 9: "Azhakaana Kuzhandhai" - Tamil - (Aired Feb 4, 2007)
Episode 10: "Thalai Thappinathu" - Tamil - (Aired Feb 11, 2007)

Tamil Language News Sites

Eventually I want to be able to learn to read Tamil Language Newspapers. Right now, I am really only able to "de-code" them, meaning I can tell how to transliterate it, but not what it actually means. When I have a greater understanding of Tamil, I will change this page to reflect a review of the kinds of news each site provides...

• BBC Tamil
• Dinamalar
• Dinamani
• Dinakaran
• Puthinam News
• Malaimalar
• Global Tamil News
• A meta link of many Tamil newspapers is http://www.cmrtamil.com/

Tamil Children's News: Fish

Here is a short news article about Ancient Fish in Tamil and in English from the February 2000 Chandamama magazine. Click the images to see them larger and more clearly.

Tamil text reads:
பசங் காலத்து மீன் 
முதலில் மீனாகத் தான் கடவுள் அவதாரம் எடுத்தார் என்று இந்தியார்கள் நம்புகிறார்கள். முதல் மீன் எப்போது தோன்றியது?  சமீபத்திய ஆய்வுகளை படி சீனாவில் உள்ள சென்ங்க்ஜியங் என்று இடத்தில் 530 மில்லியன் வருடங்களுக்கு முன்பு வாழ்ந்து மடிந்த இரண்டு மீன்களைக் கண்டு பிடித்துள்ளனர். இவை ஒன்றிலிருந்து மற்றொன்று வேறு பட்டுள்ளன. இரண்டுக்கும் பொதுவான மூதாதை மீன் இன்னும் 50 மில்லியன் ஆண்டுகளுக்கு  முன்பு வாழ்ந்திருக்கலாம் என்று விஞ்ஞானிகள் கூறுகிறார்கள்.  முன்பு நம்பப்பட்ட முடிவைவிட இது மேலும் 50 மில்லியன் ஆண்டுகள் மீனின் வயதை அதிகமாக்கி விட்டது. 

Vocabulary:
முதல் - first
என்று - "that" "said" marker
முன்பு - previous time
எப்போது - when
தோன்று - appearance, origin
ஆய்வு - finding
சமீபம் - recent
கடவுள் - god
இந்தியர் - Indian (person)
எடு - take / assume
நம்பு - believe
தொன்று - seem, appear, spring to existence
இடம் - place
மற்றொன்று - another thing
வேறு - that which is different
பொது - genus
மூதாதை - grandfather (here: common ancestor)
முன்பு - in former time
விஞ்ஞானி - scientist, விஞ்ஞாம் science/knowledge
கூறு -  publish, proclaim
மேலும் - moreover, besides, further
அண்டு - year

Tamil Language Children's Magazine

I just discovered Chandamama (Ambulimama in Tamil), an Indian Children's Magazine.  They have magazines in many Indic languages as well as English. These are definitely more at an Intermediate/Advanced reading level.

Here are some of the useful internal links:

• Tamil Home Page seems to have current stories 
• Magazine Archive has the full issues going back to the 1950s in flash format. 

It is hard to match English and Tamil stories in the main webpage area. In the Magazine archive English and Tamil editions are also hard to match up. The news stories are the same in each month, but I haven't figured out if/how the other stories match. Many of the stories are serials which continue from the previous issue, so they have the same cover picture for the title, but the content is different.

Index of Readings from Duke

This is an index of my work for each story from the stories pdf on Cheran's  "Learn Thamil Through English" page.

1. Boat/தோணி Uses present, future, defective verbs (page 1)
2. Village/கிராமம் Uses present tense and simple sentences. (page 2)
3. Coconut and Grass/தென்னையும் புல்லும்  Uses mostly past tense, also present, participles, direct objects etc.(page 3)
4. "Tamil Nadu/தமிழ் நாடு"  Present tense, use of dative, locative (page 4)
5. காவிரி  (page 5)
6. நினைப்பும் நடப்பும் "Thought and Event" (page 6)
7. உரிமை/Rights (page 7)
8. பழமொழிகள் (page 7-8)
9. ஐயோ! (page 9-10)
10. கணவன் வந்தான் (page 11-12)
11. தாகம் (page 13-14)
12. ஆற்றுத்தண்ணீர் (page 15-16) 

Another Tamil Textbook (Intermediate level)

I have lofty goals to be finished with the beginner's Lessons 1-25 on the Duke page by the end of February, which means I will be looking into using books at an Intermediate level.


This page from the University of Michigan (which also happens to publish a number of Tamil resources) has an Intermediate level textbook; it essentially looks like a reader.

It has stories written in both the spoken and written variations of the language. The website also has mp3 files which correspond to each chapter!

How to learn the Tamil Alphabet

Learning a new orthography can be intimidating, but it is not really that difficult if you know how to start.

A little background:
Tamil is technically an abugida, which means that the letters are based on syllables, they contain (usually) both a vowel and a consonant and each change of consonant follows a predictable pattern. Looking at a Tamil க(ka) and கி(ki) you see a hook added to make the "i."

Online Sources for Learning the Tamil Alphabet

• A B C of Tamil [pdf] Short book from Tamil Virtual University which introduces the alphabet and moves on to basic grammar
• Basic Tamil ebook [pdf] also from Tamil Virtual University. Workbook for alphabet.
• Tamil Script Learner book from a professor at The University of Texas at Austin.

As for learning these new letters...
Start with an alphabet chart, and a couple of words you are learning. Start with maybe 5-10 words. You might start with the Alphabet learning workbook from Tamil Virtual University.  You can also jump straight into the Duke University web lessons, and slowly match up the letters in an alphabet chart. Basically you want to pick a few words, and practice the letters in those words. Practice the letters separately, copying them out, for example:
அ அ அ அ அ அ அ
ம் ம் ம் ம் ம் ம் ம் 
and also within words. அம்மா (mother), ஆமாம் (yes) , மாமா (uncle)

You can use any vocabulary list to start learning the alphabet. I don't recommend making flashcards for all 247 letters. I think it is a better usage of your time to focus on words that are currently in lessons you are working on, and then you will find yourself recognizing and knowing letters that you may not have explicitly practiced.

It is also useful to use Azhagi, NHM or the google transliteration for copying Tamil texts. You can immediately see if you are associating the correct sounds with the letter. Find texts in Tamil, and copy them again into your word processor/email or blog. 

Index of Tamil Readings

Learn Tamil through Tamil language readings...

This page has been reorganized a bit. The collection of beginning level texts is the same, but I removed the individual links from this page because they are still present on the index pages by book.



Beginning

• All posts based on the Duke Stories pdf (11 beginning level texts with good vocabulary footnotes)
• All posts based on the University of Michigan Intermediate Tamil book (The title says "Intermediate" but these are still very accessible to a beginning learner)

Other beginning texts

• Tamil Nadu Textbook Environmental Studies, Standard 1, Lesson 3 Uses simple sentences
• The Tamil Language Online, Reading 1 Uses simple sentences
• The Tamil Language Online, Reading 2 Uses simple sentences 
• "Good Old Fish" from Ambulimama magazine. Short children's article.
• Tamil Nadu Textbook: Tamil Reader Standard 4, Reading 1 "Jackal in the Abode of the Gods"

Intermediate

• Tamil Language Newspaper posts index (5 readings so far)
• Chandamama Magazine's The Golden Throne
• Post on Siruvar Malar children's insert to Dina Malar newspaper  
• 
  

Advanced

On Pronunciation

Tamil pronunciation is hard for me since the vowel sounds are a little off from what I would expect. For example "a"  "அ" is more like the u in "cut."  I have been finding some resources for working on this.

The book, First Steps in Tamil teaches the writing system and has some pronunciation tips along the way.

The book, Tamil Self Taught, does not use the writing system except in the introduction, but does give both a transliteration and a pronunciation for lists of words English-Tamil.

Other dictionary sources

In addition to the Fabricius dictionary I found before. There is a English Tamil google dictionary function

and the Tamil Wiktionary 

and, possibly even better, a dictionary that has pronunciations!!!

Reviews of Favorite Tamil Resources

There are a number of resources available for learning Tamil. Sometimes it can be hard to navigate or find things at the correct level. This is my current list of resources, which I update regularly.

I have them sorted first by what is available free online and which are hard copy books. Within those categories, I have tried to sort resources by type, author, etc.

If you are totally new to Tamil, check out my post on How to Learn the Tamil Alphabet.

Continue reading...