Malaysian Tamil

Malaysian Tamil
Malaysian Tamil
Bahasa Tamil Malaysia
மலேசியத் தமிழ் மொழி
Native to	Malaysia and Singapore
Ethnicity	Malaysian Indian (Tamil Malaysians)
Native speakers	~3.9 million in Malaysia and Singapore (2006 – 2010 census)
Language family	Dravidian Southern Southern I Tamil–Kannada Tamil–Kota Tamil–Toda Tamil–Irula Tamil–Kodava–Urali Tamil–Malayalam Tamiloid Tamil–Paliyan Tamil Malaysian Tamil; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Early forms	Old Tamil Middle Tamil ;
Official status
Regulated by	Malaysian Tamil Language Standardisation Council
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	mala1467

Malaysian Tamil (Tamil: மலேசியத் தமிழ் மொழி, romanized: Malēsiyat Tamiḻ Moḻi), also known as Malaya Tamil, is a local variant of the Tamil language spoken in Malaysia.^[2] It is one of the languages of education in Malaysia, along with English, Malay and Mandarin.^[3]^[4] There are many differences in vocabulary between Malaysian Tamil and Indian Tamil.^{[clarification needed (see talk)]}

Influence

An element needed to carry out commercial transactions is a common language understood by all parties involved in early trade. Historians such as J.V. Sebastian, K.T. Thirunavukkarasu, and A.W. Hamilton record that Tamil was the common language of commerce in Malaysia and Indonesia during historical times. The maritime Tamil significance in Sumatran and Malay Peninsula trading continued for centuries and borrowings into Malay from Tamil increased between the 15th and 19th centuries due to their commercial activities. In the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company was obliged to use Tamil as part of its correspondence. In Malacca and other seaports up to the 19th century, Malay terminology pertaining to book-keeping and accountancy was still largely Tamil.^{[citation needed]}

Borrowings into Malay from Tamil (sometimes Sanskritized) include such everyday words as:


Tamil	Malay	English
அநியாயம் aniyāyam	aniaya	persecute, misjustice
கடை kaṭai	kedai	shop
கடை kaṭai	gadai	pawn
கப்பல் kappal	kapal	ship
கோட்டம் kōṭṭam	kota	city
சதை catai	sate	satay
சுங்கம் cuṅkam	cukai	tax
சுசி cuci	cuci	to clean/wash
சும்மா cummā	cuma	only/merely
சொர்க்கம் corkkam	syurga	heaven/paradise
சௌத்து cauttu	contoh	example
நகரம் nakaram	negara	city
பூமி pūmi	bumi	earth
மாமா māmā	mamak	Tamil Muslim
முத்து muttu	mutiara^{[dubious – discuss]}	pearl
ரகசியம் rakaciyam	rahsia	secret
ரொட்டி roṭṭi	roti	bread
வகை vakai	bagai	variety/type
வர்ணம் varṇam	warna	colours

References

^ Tamil at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ "Language Shift in the Tamil Communities of Malaysia and Singapore: the Paradox of Egalitarian Language Policy". Ccat.sas.upenn.edu. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
^ Tamil Schools. Indianmalaysian.com. Retrieved 28 July 2013.
^ Ghazali, Kamila (2010). UN Chronicle – National Identity and Minority Languages. United Nations.

Sources

Andronov, M.S. (1970), Dravidian Languages, Nauka Publishing House
Annamalai, E.; Steever, S.B. (1998), "Modern Tamil", in Steever, Sanford (ed.), The Dravidian Languages, London: Routledge, pp. 100–128, ISBN 0-415-10023-2
Caldwell, Robert (1974), A comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family of languages, New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corp.
Hart, George L. (1975), The poems of ancient Tamil : their milieu and their Sanskrit counterparts, Berkeley: University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-02672-1
Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju (2003), The Dravidian Languages, Cambridge Language Surveys, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-77111-0
Kesavapany, K.; Mani, A; Ramasamy, Palanisamy (2008), Rising India and Indian Communities in East Asia, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, ISBN 978-981-230-799-6
Lehmann, Thomas (1998), "Old Tamil", in Steever, Sanford (ed.), The Dravidian Languages, London: Routledge, pp. 75–99, ISBN 0-415-10023-2
Mahadevan, Iravatham (2003), Early Tamil Epigraphy from the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D, Harvard Oriental Series vol. 62, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-01227-5
Meenakshisundaran, T.P. (1965), A History of Tamil Language, Poona: Deccan College
Murthy, Srinivasa; Rao, Surendra; Veluthat, Kesavan; Bari, S.A. (1990), Essays on Indian History and culture: Felicitation volume in Honour of Professor B. Sheik Ali, New Delhi: Mittal, ISBN 81-7099-211-7
Ramstedt, Martin (2004), Hinduism in modern Indonesia, London: Routledge, ISBN 0-7007-1533-9
Rajam, VS (1992), A Reference Grammar of Classical Tamil Poetry, Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, ISBN 0-87169-199-X
Ramaswamy, Sumathy (1997), "Laboring for language", Passions of the Tongue: Language Devotion in Tamil India, 1891–1970, Berkeley: University of California Press, ISBN 0-585-10600-2
Shapiro, Michael C.; Schiffman, Harold F. (1983), Language and society in South Asia, Dordrecht: Foris, ISBN 90-70176-55-6
Schiffman, Harold F. (1999), A Reference Grammar of Spoken Tamil, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-64074-1
Southworth, Franklin C. (1998), "On the Origin of the word tamiz", International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 27 (1): 129–132
Southworth, Franklin C. (2005), Linguistic archaeology of South Asia, Routledge, ISBN 0-415-33323-7
Steever, Sanford (1998), "Introduction", in Steever, Sanford (ed.), The Dravidian Languages, London: Routledge, pp. 1–39, ISBN 0-415-10023-2
Steever, Sanford (2005), The Tamil auxiliary verb system, London: Routledge, ISBN 0-415-34672-X
Tharu, Susie; Lalita, K., eds. (1991), Women Writing in India: 600 B.C. to the present – Vol. 1: 600 B.C. to the early twentieth century, Feminist Press, ISBN 1-55861-027-8
Talbot, Cynthia (2001), Precolonial India in practice: Society, Region and Identity in Medieval Andhra, New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-513661-6
Tieken, Herman (2001), Kavya in South India: Old Tamil Cankam Poetry, Gonda Indological Studies, Volume X, Groningen: Egbert Forsten Publishing, ISBN 90-6980-134-5
Varadarajan, Mu. (1988), A History of Tamil Literature, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi (Translated from Tamil by E.Sa. Viswanathan)
Zvelebil, Kamil (1992), Companion studies to the history of Tamil literature, Leiden: Brill, ISBN 90-04-09365-6

Tamil is written in a non-Latin script. Tamil text used in this article is transliterated into the Latin script according to the ISO 15919 standard.

[1] Tamil at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)

[2] "Language Shift in the Tamil Communities of Malaysia and Singapore: the Paradox of Egalitarian Language Policy". Ccat.sas.upenn.edu. Retrieved 29 March 2015.

[3] Tamil Schools. Indianmalaysian.com. Retrieved 28 July 2013.

[4] Ghazali, Kamila (2010). UN Chronicle – National Identity and Minority Languages. United Nations.

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