Tamil phonology

Tamil phonology is characterised by the presence of “true-subapical” retroflex consonants and multiple rhotic consonants. Its script does not distinguish between voiced and unvoiced consonants; phonetically, voice is assigned depending on a consonant's position in a word.[1] Tamil phonology permits few consonant clusters, which can never be word initial.

Compare the article Tolkappiyam chapter 1–3
Main article: Tamil language

Vowels
Monophthongs of Tamil, from Keane (2004:114)

The vowels are called உயிரெழுத்து uyireḻuttu ('life letter'). The vowels are classified into short and long (five of each type) and two diphthongs.

The long (nedil) vowels are about twice as long as the short (kuṟil) vowels. The diphthongs are usually pronounced about one and a half times as long as the short vowels, though most grammatical texts place them with the long vowels.

Monophthongs[2]
Front Central Back
long short long short long short
Close iː ஈ i இ uː ஊ u/ɯ உ
Mid eː ஏ e எ oː ஓ o ஒ
Open aː ஆ a அ

Tamil has two diphthongs /aɪ/ ஐ and /aʊ/ ஔ, the latter of which is restricted to a few lexical items. /ɯ/ is found as a variation of /u/ at the end of words.

Consonants

The consonants are known as மெய்யெழுத்து meyyeḻuttu ('body letters'). The consonants are classified into three categories with six in each category: vallinam ('hard'), mellinam ('soft' or nasal), and idayinam ('medium'). Tamil has very restricted consonant clusters (for example, there are no word-initial clusters) and has allophonic aspirated stops. There are well-defined rules for voicing stops in the written form of Tamil, Centamil (the period of Tamil history before Sanskrit words were borrowed). Stops are voiceless when at the start of a word, in a consonant cluster with another stop and when geminated. They are voiced otherwise.

A chart of the Tamil consonant phonemes in the International Phonetic Alphabet follows:

Tamil consonants[3]
LabialDentalAlveolarRetroflexAlveolo-palatalVelarGlottal
Nasal m ம்n̪ ந்n ன்ɳ ண்ɲ ஞ்(ŋ) ங்
Stop p ப்t̪ த்tːr ற்றʈ ட்k க்
Affricate t͡ɕ ச்1
Fricative f3s2 ஸ் (z)3ʂ3 ஷ்ɕ2 ஶ்x4ɦ4 ஹ்
Tap ɾ ர்
Trill r ற்
Approximant ʋ வ்ɻ ழ்j ய்
Lateral approximant l ல்ɭ ள்
  1. /ச/ is pronounced as [s] medially.
  2. [s] and [ɕ] are allophones of initial /t͡ɕ/ in some dialects.
  3. /f/, /z/ and /ʂ/ are found only in loanwords and frequently replaced by native sounds.
  4. [ɦ] and [x] are allophones of /k/ in some dialects.

The voiceless consonants are voiced depending on position.

Tamil stop allophones
PlaceInitialGeminateMedialPost-nasal
Velar kkːx~gɡ
Palatal tɕ~stːɕsdʑ
Retroflex —ʈːɖ~ɽɖ
Alveolar —tːrr(d)r
Dental t̪ t̪ːd̪~ðd̪
Labial ppːb~βb

Overview

Unlike Indo-Aryan languages spoken around it, Tamil does not have distinct letters for aspirated consonants and they are found as allophones of the normal stops. The Tamil script also lacks distinct letters for voiced and unvoiced stop as their pronunciations depend on their location in a word. For example, the voiceless stop [p] occurs at the beginning of the words and the voiced stop [b] cannot. In the middle of words, voiceless stops commonly occur as a geminated pair like -pp-, while voiced stops do not. Only the voiced stops can appear medially and after a corresponding nasal. Thus both the voiced and voiceless stops can be represented by the same script in Tamil without ambiguity, the script denoting only the place and broad manner of articulation (stop, nasal, etc.). The Tolkāppiyam cites detailed rules as to when a letter is to be pronounced with voice and when it is to be pronounced unvoiced. The only exceptions to these rules are the letters ச and ற as they are pronounced medially as [s] and [r] respectively.

Some loan words are pronounced in Tamil as they were in the source language, even if this means that consonants which should be unvoiced according to the Tolkāppiyam are voiced.

Elision

Elision is the reduction in the duration of sound of a phoneme when preceded by or followed by certain other sounds. There are well-defined rules for elision in Tamil. They are categorised into different classes based on the phoneme which undergoes elision.

1.Kutr iyal ukaram (short nature U)the vowel u
2.Kutr iyal ikaram (short nature I)the vowel i
3.Aiykaara k kurukkam ( AI shortening)the diphthong ai
4.Oukaara k kurukkam ( AU shortening)the diphthong au
5.Aaytha k kurukkam ( h shortening)the special character akh (aaytham)
6.Makara k kurukkam ( M shortening)the phoneme m

1. Kutr iyal ukaram refers to the vowel /u/ turning into the close round unrounded vowel /ɯ/ at the end of words (e.g.: ‘ஆறு’ (meaning ‘six’) will be pronounced /aːrɯ/).

2. Kutr iyal ikaram refers to the shortening of the vowel /i/ before the consonant /j/.

See also

References
  1. Schiffman, Harold F.; Arokianathan, S. (1986), "Diglossic variation in Tamil film and fiction", in Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju; Masica, Colin P. (eds.), South Asian languages: structure, convergence, and diglossia, New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, pp. 371–382, ISBN 81-208-0033-8CS1 maint: ref=harv (link) at p. 371
  2. Keane (2004:114–115)
  3. Keane (2004:111)

Bibliography
  • Keane, Elinor (2004), "Tamil", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (1): 111–116, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001549
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.