Books for self-instruction in Classical Literary Tamil

[Rupa Viswanath]

Specifically for Cankam literature the Int'l Institute of Tamil Studies
published a two volume set by J. Vacek and S.V. Subramaniam, "A Tamil
Reader: Introducing Sangam Literature," 1989.

Though the authors mention that the book is designed for those with some
modern Tamil, I think you could use it quite easily, especially if you
could consult a teacher occasionally.  The first volume is an introduction
plus selected poems; the second is a list of vocabulary in the poems.  Each
poem is presented in Tamil script and English transliteration, followed by
translation and detailed grammatical and prosodic analysis.  And they are
arranged, roughly, in order of difficulty.  I have found these volumes to
be enormously useful, at least as a place to start.

I agree with Stephen Hodges that Classical Tamil grammar is quite different
from the modern, but for basic grammatical categories, as well as common
sandhi changes (which are covered in the above volumes, but at lightning
speed) it may be useful to consult a modern Tamil grammar.

Best,
Rupa







At 01:57 PM 1/19/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Thank you for your advice; I'll check these out.
>
>It's true that Toronto has a huge South Asian population-- the largest, I
>think, of any city outside of the Subcontinent.  And yet no Dravidian
>language is taught at the University of Toronto, and our once-great
>Sanskrit department is now embodied in a single professor.  I shall have
>to teach myself Tamil from books, or try to overcome my social ineptitude
>and look about for living instructors.
>
>P