Last Updated: 2019-11-21
Background
Language Family: Dravidian / Southern / Tamil-Kannada / Tamil-Kodagu / Tamil-Malayalam / Tamil
- Tamil is a language primarily spoken in the Indian state Tamil Nadu, as well in the countries Sri Lanka, Malayasia, and Singapore. Tamil exhibits diglossia, wherein the written variety of the language is formal or literal, and the spoken variety of the language (which is more colloquial) is used in most other contexts. We used Standard Spoken Tamil for this project (Keane 2004, 111).
Phonology
Consonants
- Unlike other related languages, Tamil doesn’t have voiced obstruents or aspirated consonants (Keane 2004, 111–12).
- Like other Dravidian languages, Tamil has multiple rhotic sounds and makes use of the retroflex place of articulation (ibid.).
- All consonants carry an inherent /a/ following the consonant (Shulman 2016, 22).
- /dʒ/, /h/, /ʂ/, /ʃ/, /s/, /f/, and /z/ appear in Sanskirt loanwords, and their corresponding graphemes come from the Grantha writing system (Keane 2004, 112). In terms of standard Tamil, Keane (2004) explains them to be rather marginal, so they won’t be accounted for.
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Place of Articulation
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Manner of Articulation
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Labial
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Dental
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Alveolar
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Postalveolar
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Retroflex
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Palatal
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Velar
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Stops
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p
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t̪
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ʈ
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k
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Affricates
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tʃ
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Nasals
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m
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n
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ɳ
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Flaps
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ɾ
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Approximants
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ʋ
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l
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ɻ ɭ
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j
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Note: The retroflex approximant on the right is lateral.
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Vowels
- Vowel length is contrastive in Tamil (Keane 2004, 114–15).
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Front
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Central
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Back
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High
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i
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u
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Mid
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e
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o
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Low
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a
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Alphabet
- The alphabet is somewhat phonetic, but I have transcribed it such that the underlying phonemes are represented.
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Consonant Grapheme
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Phoneme
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Comment
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க
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/ka/
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ங
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/na/
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always precedes nasal consonants; represents the allophone [ŋ]
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ச
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/tʃa/
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ஞ
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/na/
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represents the allophone [ɲ]
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ட
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/ʈa/
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ண
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/ɳa/
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த
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/t̪a/
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ந
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/na/
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represents the allophone [n̪]
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ப
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/pa/
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ம
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/ma/
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ற
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/ɾa/
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in some dialects, this is realized as a trill [r]
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ன
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/na/
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ர
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/ɾa/
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ல
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/la/
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ள
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/ɭa/
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ழ
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/ɻa/
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ய
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/ja/
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வ
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/ʋa/
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ஃ
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/ka/
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in some dialects, this is realized as [x], but in Standard Spoken Tamil, [x] is an allophone of /k/ (often used to show aspiration from English loanwords)
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(Word-initial) Vowel Grapheme
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அ
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/a/
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ஆ
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/aː/
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இ
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/i/
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ஈ
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/iː/
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உ
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/u/
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ஊ
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/uː/
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எ
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/e/
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ஏ
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/eː/
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ஐ
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/aɪ/
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ஒ
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/o/
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ஓ
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/oː/
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ஔ
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/aʊ/
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Vowel Diacritic
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vowel diacritics attach to consonants, changing the inherent /a/ to different vowels
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ா
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/aː/
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ி
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/i/
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ீ
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/iː/
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ு
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/u/
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ூ
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/uː/
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ெ
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/e/
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ே
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/eː/
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ை
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/aɪ/
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ொ
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/o/
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ோ
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/oː/
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ௌ
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/aʊ/
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்
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erases the inherent vowel /a/ after a consonant
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Lenition Rules
- Voiceless obstruents become voiced following nasals (Keane 2004, 112).
- Geminate voiceless obstruents remain voiceless.
- Intervocalically (Schiffman 1999, 10):
- /t̪/ fricates
- /tʃ/ reduces to /s/
- /p/ becomes voiced and may spirantize or become a glide
- /ʈ/ becomes voiced
- /t/ becomes a flap
- /k/ debuccalizes to /h/
- Following a nasal, the above stops and affricates become voiced (ibid.).
- Occasionally, /ʋ/ and /k/ delete intervocalically (ibid.).
Misc. Rules
- All consonants except ⟨ர⟩ and ⟨ழ⟩ can geminate. Although ⟨ர⟩ is underlying the same phoneme as ⟨ற⟩, ⟨ற⟩ is said to be able to undergo gemination (Schiffman 1999, 11–12).
References
Keane, Elinor. 2004. “Tamil.” Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34.
Schiffman, Harold F. 1999. A Reference Grammar of Spoken Tamil. Cambridge Univeersity Press.