Tamil basics...

4 and Les; I've printed out your listings and will ask Mrs N to give it the once over. May be next week: busy weekend.

(for those coming new to the site, my wife is a native Tamil speaker)

ok thanks, l thought it was tumbi that refered to young brother or young boy in sort of an affectionate way, as referring the boy as like a family member, i think that there is also differant dialects in different areas.

There again it was 30 years ago when i lived out there, i drove a tata truck for a company delivering vegtables all over the south from kodia kanal for 6 months, so some of the words i learnt might be local slang

Mrs N uses it as a polite way to talk to people working here, or to call out to an auto driver for directions when we're out.

thambi, I think. Isn't thombi snake? Another one of those pairs one has to be careful about!
Impressive!
It may also be that you learned village pronounciation --- but I'm certainly not the one to judge; as I said, you are way ahead of me

saying i havent spoke it in 30 years is almost right, however my son just come in and he reminded me that when he was little (about 5 years old) i used to speak it to him, as i thought it would be good for him and we had a laugh comunicating when we went the local indian take a way for a meal.

ps My son is 22 years old now

i went to Kodai Kanal in tamil nudu up in the hills, i ran out of money whilst i was there and ended up driving a tata truck for a tamil company delivering vegatables to trichi, madurai, cochin, madras and all over south india, i did that for 6 months, learnt alot doing that (the language) (culture) and a lot of other things, got me a lot of respect with the local people,dont know if anyone has done it since but at the time i was the only none indian doing that, i was working driving for 2 or sometime 3 days at a time, no sleep apart from half hour to an hours nap when you arrived at your destination, whilst the lorry was getting unloaded before returning to kodia kanal.

i was getting paid 5 ruppies a day for that, I think that was 1977, the local people at the tea shops and road side cafes used to really look after me, because they could see i was no differant from them and was prepared to work very hard for very little money. After doing that, I had a lot of sympathy for the truck driver and realised why so many accidents happened due to the lack of sleep.
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Les, you must have so many stories from that time! I doubt that many IMers (or many Brits) have had that sort of immersion in the culture. This Brit spends more time on IndiaMike than he does talking to the neighbours

This was before visas were necessary for UK citizens, I guess?

If you ever have the time and inclination to write a long post about it, in its own thread, I'm sure it would make a good read. Might even get 'promoted' to the articles section.

Hi NICK-H yeah would love to write a post about my time driving out there, i started helping at a very small machanics shop a one man outfit repairing moterbikes, and back-pack crop sprayers, from that i was offered a job driving tata trucks, i worked for 2 differant compan's diving, Primmer roadways was one, and off hand cant remember other company, but sure it will com back to me. so over the next week i will write down some of the stuff i can remember and post it in,

ps i was issued with what i can only call like a wild west sherifs badge (star shaped), at the local police station, that was the driving permit, which i thought was funny, and yes it was before visa's were needed. best wishes les

Good. Looking forward to reading that

Disclaimer: I haven't read all the posts
WHY? do want to learn all those?

Tamil is a tough language with various regional dialects. There are some sounds that I, as a native speaker of English can not produce. My husband is a native speaker of Tamil and I hear him use it nearly every day when talking to family or friends. I hate to say it but I have learned very little even after so much exposure. (He is too lazy to teach me.) Even so, I understand slightly more than I can actually speak, but only those phrases I've heard many, many times.

Naalaki paakkalam (see you later!)

I'm glad I'm not the only one!

My wife is quite willing to teach me, only my ineptitude and laziness gets in the way.

Whilst I tend to think it is amazing how she knows people's origins, caste, etc by the way they speak or the words they use, I suppose it is no different to us Brits recognising regional accents.

wow, really awaiting your write up

hahaha..

I guess it is because it is an agglutinative language, Thamizh is harder to pick up from books, recognizing from words etc. There is no choice but to learn from immersion.

First the 12 vowels and 18 consonants combine to give 216 compound characters and then we keep on combining entire words to form one single word.

maram - tree
maamaram - mango tree
maamarathil - in a mango tree
maamarathileri - climbed a mango tree
maamarathileriyirunthaan - he climbed and was on a mango tree.

Some minor corrections

Yaray - should be Yaaru

nalla irukkaan.

the aan means male, aal - means girl and aar means plural or elder. 'aanga' also used for the same.

ex - nalla irukkaanga. A wife can say that for a husband (respect), a cousin can say that for his parents (plural)


This is a mismatch.

It should either be respectful the whole sentence or be addressed to a peer the whole sentence.

ex

nee enga porae? (peer or lesser)

neenga enga poreenga? (elder or plural)

Unnoda veedu engae?
en veedu angae irukku


I am sorry, but I just had to laugh at that.

Sethu Pochu. (emphasis on th and ch - almost like Seththu Pochchu)

Not for young girl. It is a morph from a proper word used in olden days - Penpillai. Dicey word and implied meanings change with the tone used.

I would rather use 'ponnu' for young girl. 'amma' for older ones. 'paatti' for even older.

Does agglutinative mean that it makes a sticky mess on the tongue?

It certainly makes a sticky mess in my ears .

(I did look up the real meaning )