Monday 2 April 2012

A for Ammaa


 for Ammaa

Ammaa is mother in Tamil

அம்மா
a-m-maa 
( அ-a,ம்-m, ம-ma,மா-maa)
To denote long vowels(aa) we use the  
All consonants have inherent a sound to it. Absense of vowel sound is denoted by a dot on the consonant. It is "m" ம் (absense of a as opposed to   )

A quick introduction to Tamil

Tamil is my second language in school. I grew up in Tamil Nadu, where Tamil is the official language. It is a language spoken by nearly 74 million native speakers in India. It is a South Indian language. 

Some key features of Tamil
  1. It is written from left to right(like English)
  2. It follows Abudiga system of writing(It is segmental writing system where consonant and vowels are written as a unit)
  3. It does not have capital letters
  4. Vowels take two forms independent form and as sign with they occur with consonants
  5. It is a phonetic language(once you know the syllabary you know to read almost everything in Tamil)
  6. It has 11 vowels(achchulu) and 18 consonants(opposed to 37 in other Indian Languages). So some letters share two sounds. For example ப is used for both pa and ba sounds.
For more vocabulary visit www.languagereef.com











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