Tamil Clitics

We see these used frequently in Tamil Newspapers. Clitics are not quite words, but carry meaning which is tied to the word which they follow.

Clitics can be used with a subject which is in the accusative or dative case. They can also be used with personal pronouns.

• மட்டும் "only"
• மட்டும்தான் "only"   
• மாத்திரம் "only"
• மாத்திரம்தான் "only"
• தான் "no one but him" also translated as "indeed"
• கூட "also"
• -உம் "too"
• ஏ "only"

Post to be updated with examples...

Post based on information from Unit 34 of Balasubramaniam's Tamil: A Foundation Course

Tamil Reading: Rights

Tamil Reading: உரிமை
உரிமை / "Rights" is the seventh story in the Duke collection.

• மழை பெய்கிறது. தவளை மகிச்சியோடு உரக்க குரல் எழுப்புகிறது.
  It rains. A frog is happy and raises its voice out loud.
• குளத்தில் ஓர் அமை தவளையை பார்த்து சொன்னது:
  In the pond a turtle looked to the frog and said:
• "இப்படி கத்துகிறீர்களே. உங்கள் குரலை கேட்டு பாம்பு உங்களை பிடித்துவிட்டால் உங்கள் நிலை என்ன ஆகும்?"
  You scream like this. Your voice will be heard by a snake, because of this you will be caught, what will happen to your state/condition?
• தவளை சிரித்தது.
  The frog laughed.
• "நான் கொஞ்சமும் கவலைப்பட மாட்டேன்." என்று கூறியது தவளை.
  "I will not be even a little worried." said the frog.
• ஒன்னொரு தவளை சொன்னது:
  Another frog said:
• "முச்சை இழக்கலாம்.
  You can lose your breath [life].
• பேச்சை இழக்கலாமா?"
  Can you lose your [right of] speech?

Grammar from this selection:

• Negative future tense
• Adverbial Participle

Related Posts:

• Index of Duke "stories pdf" Readings 
• Index of all Readings

Azhagi and a list of more Tamil resources

It makes me happy when one of my first and favorite Tamil language resources links back to me!  Azhagi, which is a transliteration and writing software for Tamil has a page of resources and I got a mention. Hooray!

In all seriousness, although the Google transliteration is fast and easy since it is built in to so many Google products, it will sometimes auto-correct a word and then use what is actually an incorrect spelling. I have never had that problem with Azhagi.  Azhagi also has more functions than the Google transliterate function; namely that it has a reverse transliterate, which can put Tamil characters into Roman characters. It also allows you to save your work as an rtf file and print it.

Go to their downloads page to install the program and get Tamil fonts.