121-584: Black July ( Tamil : கறுப்பு யூலை , romanized: Kaṟuppu Yūlai ; Sinhala : කළු ජූලිය , romanized: Kalu Juliya ) was an anti- Tamil pogrom that occurred in Sri Lanka during July 1983. The pogrom was premeditated, and was finally triggered by a deadly ambush on a Sri Lankan Army patrol by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on 23 July 1983, which killed 13 soldiers. Although initially orchestrated by members of
242-468: A lexical root to which one or more affixes are attached. Most Tamil affixes are suffixes . Tamil suffixes can be derivational suffixes, which either change the part of speech of the word or its meaning, or inflectional suffixes, which mark categories such as person , number , mood , tense , etc. There is no absolute limit on the length and extent of agglutination , which can lead to long words with many suffixes, which would require several words or
363-502: A "serious disadvantage". Protests against the Sinhala-only policy by Tamils and by the nation's leftist parties were met with mob violence that eventually escalated into the riots of 1958 . Throughout the 1960s, protests, and state repression in response, created further animosity. In 1972, the policy of standardization , which restricted Tamils' entry into universities, strained the already tenuous political relationship between
484-484: A , as with other Indic scripts . This inherent vowel is removed by adding a tittle called a puḷḷi , to the consonantal sign. For example, ன is ṉa (with the inherent a ) and ன் is ṉ (without a vowel). Many Indic scripts have a similar sign, generically called virama , but the Tamil script is somewhat different in that it nearly always uses a visible puḷḷi to indicate a 'dead consonant' (a consonant without
605-759: A 2001 survey, there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil, of which 353 were dailies. Tamil is the primary language of the majority of the people residing in Tamil Nadu , Puducherry , (in India) and in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka . The language is spoken among small minority groups in other states of India which include Karnataka , Telangana , Andhra Pradesh , Kerala , Maharashtra , Gujarat , Delhi , Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India and in certain regions of Sri Lanka such as Colombo and
726-567: A Tamil shop was firebombed by a Sinhalese mob. A tiny old woman running with the mob shouted: "The Sinhalese blood is boiling...The Tamils have brought this on themselves. They have killed our soldiers. They have shot our policemen. They have murdered our leaders. So today, in the name of King Dutugamunu , it is our turn." By 10 am, the rioting had spread to the slums of Canal Bank, Grandpass, Hattewatte, Kirilapone , Kotahena , Maradana, Modara , Mutwal , Narahenpita, Slave Island , and Wanathamulla. Mobs armed with crowbars and kitchen knives roamed
847-533: A Tamil-owned shop near the Laksala building was set on fire; and the violence spread to Castle Street and Colombo Street. The police managed to get control of the situation, but an hour later a mob armed with petrol cans and Molotov cocktails started attacking Tamil shops on Castle, Colombo, King's, and Trincomalee streets. The mob then moved on to nearby Gampola . A curfew was imposed in Kandy District on
968-545: A curfew came into force which lasted until 5 am on Monday 1 August. Badulla, Kandy, and Trincomalee were calm on 29 July; but there was violence in Nuwara Eliya, beginning around midday. The Tamil-owned Ganesan and Sivalingam stores were attacked and set on fire. The violence then spread to Bazaar Street and Lawson Road. Violence was also reported in Kegalle District and Matara District . In Kegalle District
1089-600: A front-page headline stating in Sinhala : "To counter Northern Terrorism, there is going to emerge another Terrorism". It specifically stated that after 22nd and 23rd July "a very strong course of action" would be taken to eliminate terrorism. On 23 July 1983 at around 11:30 pm, the rebel group LTTE ambushed the Four Four Bravo military patrol in Thirunelveli , near Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka. A roadside bomb
1210-504: A member of the governing Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and its chief organiser in Jaffna District . With the support of the ruling party, Duraiappah was able to channel government money for municipal works. Tamil militants considered Duraiappah to be a traitor and government collaborator. In February 1971 Tamil militant Pon Sivakumaran tried to assassinate Duraiappah by throwing a hand grenade on to Duraiappah's car which
1331-607: A number of apparent Tamil loanwords in Biblical Hebrew dating to before 500 BCE, the oldest attestation of the language. Old Tamil is the period of the Tamil language spanning the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The earliest records in Old Tamil are short inscriptions from 300 BCE to 700 CE. These inscriptions are written in a variant of the Brahmi script called Tamil-Brahmi . The earliest long text in Old Tamil
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#17327655364101452-518: A number of sound changes, in particular, a tendency to lower high vowels in initial and medial positions, and the disappearance of vowels between plosives and between a plosive and rhotic. Contact with European languages affected written and spoken Tamil. Changes in written Tamil include the use of European-style punctuation and the use of consonant clusters that were not permitted in Middle Tamil. The syntax of written Tamil has also changed, with
1573-535: A relative parallel to Tamil, even as Tamil has undergone some changes in modern ways of speaking. According to Hindu legend, Tamil or in personification form Tamil Thāi (Mother Tamil) was created by Lord Shiva . Murugan , revered as the Tamil God, along with sage Agastya , brought it to the people. Tamil, like other Dravidian languages, ultimately descends from the Proto-Dravidian language , which
1694-480: A sentence in English. To give an example, the word pōkamuṭiyātavarkaḷukkāka (போகமுடியாதவர்களுக்காக) means "for the sake of those who cannot go" and consists of the following morphemes : போக pōka go முடி muṭi accomplish Alfred Duraiappah Alfred Thangarajah Duraiappah (15 June 1926 – 27 July 1975) was a Sri Lankan lawyer who served as Mayor of Jaffna from 1970 until his assassination. He
1815-647: A small number speak the language. In Reunion where the Tamil language was forbidden to be learnt and used in public space by France it is now being relearnt by students and adults. Tamil is also spoken by migrants from Sri Lanka and India in Canada , the United States , the United Arab Emirates , the United Kingdom , South Africa , and Australia . Tamil is the official language of
1936-610: A subject of study in schools in the French overseas department of Réunion . In addition, with the creation in October 2004 of a legal status for classical languages by the Government of India and following a political campaign supported by several Tamil associations, Tamil became the first legally recognised Classical language of India. The recognition was announced by the contemporaneous President of India , Abdul Kalam , who
2057-568: A third prisoner were killed during a riot at Jaffna prison on the same day. Badulla was still on fire on 28 July, and the rioting spread from Lunugala to Passara. There was also rioting in Nuwara Eliya and Chilaw . But the violence had subsided in Colombo, Kandy, and Trincomalee. President Jayewardene and his cabinet met in an emergency session on 28 July. Jayewardene then made a primetime televised address in which he appealed for an end to
2178-582: A total of fifteen dead. A number of the rebels were also killed. Col. Kittu , a regional commander of the LTTE, would later admit to planning and carrying out the ambush. This attack has been described as retaliation for the killing of one of the LTTE's founding members, Charles Anthony , by Sri Lankan Army and for the alleged abduction and rape of three Tamil schoolgirls in Jaffna by the Army. Around midnight, following
2299-463: A variety of dialects that are all collectively known as Brahmin Tamil . These dialects tend to have softer consonants (with consonant deletion also common). These dialects also tend to have many Sanskrit loanwords. Tamil in Sri Lanka incorporates loan words from Portuguese , Dutch , and English. In addition to its dialects, Tamil exhibits different forms: a classical literary style modelled on
2420-438: A vowel). In other Indic scripts, it is generally preferred to use a ligature or a half form to write a syllable or a cluster containing a dead consonant, although writing it with a visible virama is also possible. The Tamil script does not differentiate voiced and unvoiced plosives . Instead, plosives are articulated with voice depending on their position in a word, in accordance with the rules of Tamil phonology . In addition to
2541-410: A well-documented history with literary works like Sangam literature , consisting of over 2,000 poems. Tamil script evolved from Tamil Brahmi, and later, the vatteluttu script was used until the current script was standardized. The language has a distinct grammatical structure, with agglutinative morphology that allows for complex word formations. Tamil is predominantly spoken in Tamil Nadu , India, and
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#17327655364102662-537: Is a burnt-out hulk to this day (image at right). One of the most notorious incidents of the rioting took place at the Welikada Prison on 25 July. Fifty three Tamil prisoners, most of them detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act , were killed by Sinhalese prisoners using knives and clubs. Survivors claimed that prison officers allowed their keys to fall into the hands of Sinhalese prisoners; but at
2783-543: Is also relatively close to the Tamil language and shares the format of the formal ancient Tamil language. While there are some variations from the Tamil language, Kannada still preserves a lot from its roots. As part of the southern family of Indian languages and situated relatively close to the northern parts of India, Kannada also shares some Sanskrit words, similar to Malayalam. Many of the formerly used words in Tamil have been preserved with little change in Kannada. This shows
2904-457: Is based on the dialect of Jaffna . After Tamil Brahmi fell out of use, Tamil was written using a script called vaṭṭeḻuttu amongst others such as Grantha and Pallava . The current Tamil script consists of 12 vowels , 18 consonants and one special character, the āytam . The vowels and consonants combine to form 216 compound characters, giving a total of 247 characters (12 + 18 + 1 + (12 × 18)). All consonants have an inherent vowel
3025-563: Is extensively described in the oldest known grammar book for Tamil, the Tolkāppiyam . Modern Tamil writing is largely based on the 13th-century grammar Naṉṉūl which restated and clarified the rules of the Tolkāppiyam , with some modifications. Traditional Tamil grammar consists of five parts, namely eḻuttu , col , poruḷ , yāppu , aṇi . Of these, the last two are mostly applied in poetry. Tamil words consist of
3146-405: Is generally taken to have been completed by the 8th century, was characterised by a number of phonological and grammatical changes. In phonological terms, the most important shifts were the virtual disappearance of the aytam (ஃ), an old phoneme, the coalescence of the alveolar and dental nasals, and the transformation of the alveolar plosive into a rhotic . In grammar, the most important change
3267-409: Is generally used in formal writing and speech. For instance, it is the language of textbooks, of much of Tamil literature and of public speaking and debate. In recent times, however, koṭuntamiḻ has been making inroads into areas that have traditionally been considered the province of centamiḻ . Most contemporary cinema, theatre and popular entertainment on television and radio, for example,
3388-410: Is in koṭuntamiḻ , and many politicians use it to bring themselves closer to their audience. The increasing use of koṭuntamiḻ in modern times has led to the emergence of unofficial 'standard' spoken dialects. In India, the 'standard' koṭuntamiḻ , rather than on any one dialect, but has been significantly influenced by the dialects of Thanjavur and Madurai . In Sri Lanka, the standard
3509-771: Is not always consistently applied. ISO 15919 is an international standard for the transliteration of Tamil and other Indic scripts into Latin characters. It uses diacritics to map the much larger set of Brahmic consonants and vowels to Latin script , and thus the alphabets of various languages, including English. Apart from the usual numerals, Tamil has numerals for 10, 100 and 1000. Symbols for day, month, year, debit, credit, as above, rupee, and numeral are present as well. Tamil also uses several historical fractional signs. /f/ , /z/ , /ʂ/ and /ɕ/ are only found in loanwords and may be considered marginal phonemes, though they are traditionally not seen as fully phonemic. Tamil has two diphthongs : /aɪ̯/ ஐ and /aʊ̯/ ஔ ,
3630-646: Is one of the two longest-surviving classical languages in India , along with Sanskrit , attested since c. 300 BCE. The language belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian language family and shares close ties with Malayalam and Kannada . Despite external influences, Tamil has retained a sense of linguistic purism, especially in formal and literary contexts. Tamil was the lingua franca for early maritime traders, with inscriptions found in places like Sri Lanka , Thailand , and Egypt . The language has
3751-409: Is the Tolkāppiyam , an early work on Tamil grammar and poetics, whose oldest layers could be as old as the late 2nd century BCE. Many literary works in Old Tamil have also survived. These include a corpus of 2,381 poems collectively known as Sangam literature . These poems are usually dated to between the 1st century BCE and 5th century CE. The evolution of Old Tamil into Middle Tamil , which
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3872-848: Is used as one of the languages of education in Malaysia , along with English, Malay and Mandarin. A large community of Pakistani Tamils speakers exists in Karachi , Pakistan , which includes Tamil-speaking Hindus as well as Christians and Muslims – including some Tamil-speaking Muslim refugees from Sri Lanka. There are about 100 Tamil Hindu families in Madrasi Para colony in Karachi. They speak impeccable Tamil along with Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi. Many in Réunion , Guyana , Fiji , Suriname , and Trinidad and Tobago have Tamil origins, but only
3993-684: The Federal Party . He was re-elected at the July 1960 parliamentary election defeating G. G. Ponnambalam and S. Kathiravelupillai once again. He lost his seat in the 1965 parliamentary election , finishing third after G. G. Ponnambalam and C. X. Martyn of the Federal Party. He contested the 1970 parliamentary election , finishing second to C. X. Martyn after Ponnambalam. He was elected Mayor of Jaffna on 15 February 1970 and re-elected on 22 April 1971. By April 1971, Duraiappah had become
4114-490: The Irula and Yerukula languages (see SIL Ethnologue ). The closest major relative of Tamil is Malayalam ; the two began diverging around the 9th century CE. Although many of the differences between Tamil and Malayalam demonstrate a pre-historic divergence of the western dialect, the process of separation into a distinct language, Malayalam, was not completed until sometime in the 13th or 14th century. Additionally Kannada
4235-701: The Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka . It has significant speaking populations in Malaysia , Singapore , and among diaspora communities . Tamil has been recognized as a classical language by the Indian government and holds official status in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Singapore. The earliest extant Tamil literary works and their commentaries celebrate the Pandiyan Kings for the organization of long-termed Tamil Sangams , which researched, developed and made amendments in Tamil language. Even though
4356-552: The Peugeot 404 which had been given to Duraiappah by his supporters. As they arrived at the temple, Duraiappah was shot dead by masked men. D.K. Rajaratnam, who was a member of the Jaffna Municipal Council who was with Duraiappah was also shot and injured. It was reported that the three masked men who carried out the shooting got into the mayor's car and drove off. It was later found abandoned at Sendankulam by
4477-564: The Tamil Union Cricket and Athletic Club . Tamil shops and houses were also burned with their furniture and goods destroyed. The police fired tear gas at the crowd; but after exhausting all of their stock, they were then forced to fire their rifles into the air. The crowd then dispersed in the direction of Dematagoda , Maradana , Narahenpita , Grandpass , and Thimbirigasyaya , where they attacked and looted Tamil properties and set them alight. Members of criminal gangs came to join
4598-599: The University of Madras , was one of the earliest dictionaries published in Indian languages. A strong strain of linguistic purism emerged in the early 20th century, culminating in the Pure Tamil Movement which called for removal of all Sanskritic elements from Tamil. It received some support from Dravidian parties . This led to the replacement of a significant number of Sanskrit loanwords by Tamil equivalents, though many others remain. According to
4719-680: The Unofficial Bar of Jaffna in 1948. Duraiappah entered local government politics in 1952 having been elected to Jaffna Municipal Council and was became its deputy mayor in 1958. Duraiappah stood as an independent candidate in Jaffna at the March 1960 parliamentary election . He won the election and entered Parliament , defeating G. G. Ponnambalam from the All Ceylon Tamil Congress and S. Kathiravelupillai of
4840-491: The 11th century, retain many features of the Vaishnava paribasai , a special form of Tamil developed in the 9th and 10th centuries that reflect Vaishnavite religious and spiritual values. Several castes have their own sociolects which most members of that caste traditionally used regardless of where they come from. It is often possible to identify a person's caste by their speech. For example, Tamil Brahmins tend to speak
4961-831: The Bristol building, and the Tamil-owned Ambal Cafe, was ablaze. Also close by, on York Street, the Tamil-owned clothier Sarathas was ablaze as well. Soon all the Tamil-owned shops on Baillie Street opposite the President's House were on fire. Every Tamil-owned business in the Fort area was on fire by the time the Security Council meeting finished. The President ordered a curfew in Colombo from 6 pm. The mob moved on to Olcott Mawatha, where they set fire to
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5082-436: The Colombo cemetery where the bodies of the soldiers were to be buried, they were later joined by elements associated with Sinhalese political activists involved in the organisation of the riots. During the early stages of the riots, it is alleged that the local police and military stood by and did nothing, or even assisted the mobs. Numerous eyewitness accounts suggest that "in many places police and even military personnel joined
5203-605: The Indian High Commission being attacked and the Indian Overseas Bank being completely destroyed. Estimates of the death toll range between 400 and 3,000, and 150,000 people became homeless. According to Tamil Centre for Human Rights (TCHR), the total number of Tamils killed in the Black July pogrom was 5,638. Around 18,000 homes and 5,000 shops were destroyed. The economic cost of the riots
5324-532: The Indian state of Haryana , purportedly as a rebuff to Punjab , though there was no attested Tamil-speaking population in the state, and was later replaced by Punjabi , in 2010. In Malaysia, 543 primary education government schools are available fully in Tamil as the medium of instruction . The establishment of Tamil-medium schools has been in process in Myanmar to provide education completely in Tamil language by
5445-474: The Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the 22 languages under schedule 8 of the constitution of India . It is one of the official languages of the union territories of Puducherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands . Tamil is also one of the official languages of Singapore . Tamil is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka, along with Sinhala . It was once given nominal official status in
5566-484: The Jain king of Kalinga , also refers to a Tamira Samghatta ( Tamil confederacy ) The Samavayanga Sutra dated to the 3rd century BCE contains a reference to a Tamil script named 'Damili'. Southworth suggests that the name comes from tam-miḻ > tam-iḻ "self-speak", or "our own speech". Kamil Zvelebil suggests an etymology of tam-iḻ , with tam meaning "self" or "one's self", and " -iḻ " having
5687-548: The Sinhala people had been "frustrated for years" and had been "discriminated", and that "if the Sinhala is the majority race, why can't they be the majority?" He is widely regarded as one of the key ministers responsible for instigating the pogrom, and was seen leading mobs to burn Tamil businesses. On Friday 29th July, the Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa in a nationwide broadcast blamed
5808-516: The Sinhala people will be here... really, if I starve the Tamils, Sinhala people will be happy.... The finance minister Ronnie de Mel in an interview with The Economist on 20 August tried to justify the pogrom by claiming that "the Tamils have dominated the commanding heights of everything good in Sri Lanka", and that the "only solution" was to "restore the rights of the Sinhalese majority". This
5929-599: The Sri Lankan security forces, and several killings of policemen by Tamil militant groups. Organised violence by Sinhalese mobs and security forces commenced against Tamils in Trincomalee between June and July 1983. At least 27 Tamils (including women and children) were killed in the ensuing violence, with hundreds of Tamil homes and properties being destroyed. On the 17th July 1983, the Dawasa newspaper released
6050-971: The Tamil-owned Ananda Bhawan food store, Rajeswari Stores, and the Ajantha Hotel. The President's ministers were seen that morning in various parts of Colombo directing their thugs to attack Tamils and their properties. Cyril Mathew was seen in Colombo Fort , R. Premadasa ’s trusted henchmen, mainly pavement hawkers, in Pettah , Colombo Mayor’s thugs and municipal labourers and Transport minister M. H. Mohamed ’s men in Borella , District Minister Weerasinghe Mallimarachchi ’s thugs in Colombo north and Deputy Minister Anura Bastian ’s thugs in Colombo South. In downtown Colombo,
6171-518: The Tamils for the week long mayhem that occurred during the pogrom. Another minister Ranil Wickremasinghe stated that the burning of factories and other premises belonging to Tamils during the pogrom was "nothing compared to the tragedy imposed on the Sinhala entrepreneur by the Bandaranaikes since 1956." He claimed that the SLFP had favoured the Tamils through their nationalization policies to
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#17327655364106292-643: The Tamils who settled there 200 years ago. Tamil language is available as a course in some local school boards and major universities in Canada and the month of January has been declared "Tamil Heritage Month" by the Parliament of Canada . Tamil enjoys a special status of protection under Article 6(b), Chapter 1 of the Constitution of South Africa and is taught as a subject in schools in KwaZulu-Natal province. Recently, it has been rolled out as
6413-442: The ancient language ( sankattamiḻ ), a modern literary and formal style ( centamiḻ ), and a modern colloquial form ( koṭuntamiḻ ). These styles shade into each other, forming a stylistic continuum. For example, it is possible to write centamiḻ with a vocabulary drawn from caṅkattamiḻ , or to use forms associated with one of the other variants while speaking koṭuntamiḻ . In modern times, centamiḻ
6534-942: The approximately 100,000 inscriptions found by the Archaeological Survey of India in India are in Tamil Nadu. Of them, most are in Tamil, with only about 5 percent in other languages. In 2004, a number of skeletons were found buried in earthenware urns dating from at least 696 BCE in Adichanallur . Some of these urns contained writing in Tamil Brahmi script, and some contained skeletons of Tamil origin. Between 2017 and 2018, 5,820 artifacts have been found in Keezhadi . These were sent to Beta Analytic in Miami , Florida , for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dating. One sample containing Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions
6655-417: The army was engaged in a battle with the Tamil Tigers. Panicking workers began to flee in any mode of transport they could find. Mobs started gathering in the streets—armed with axes, bricks, crowbars, iron rods, kitchen knives, and stones—ready to fight the Tigers. The Tigers never came, so the mobs turned their attention to the fleeing workers. Vehicles were stopped and searched for Tamils. Any Tamil they found
6776-442: The assassination of Alfred Duraiappah , the Mayor of Jaffna, in 1975 and the killing of Inspector Bastianpillai and his police team in 1978. In 1981, the renowned Jaffna Public Library was burnt down by a violent Sinhalese mob. Until 1983, there had been similar incidents of low-level violence between the government and the mushrooming Tamil militant groups. There were many murders, disappearances, and cases of torture attributed to
6897-412: The bodies arrived at Ratmalana Airport at 7:20 pm, by which time the crowd at the cemetery had swollen to more than 8,000. The crowd wanted the bodies to be handed over to the families rather than to be buried at the cemetery. Violence broke out between the crowd and police, and the riot squad was summoned. The riot squad then fired tear gas at the crowd and baton-charged them before handing control of
7018-440: The bodies were still at Palali Army Camp near Jaffna. The bodies were eventually moved from Palali Air Force Base shortly after 6 pm. Whilst this was occurring, tensions were growing at Colombo General Cemetery because of the delay. A large crowd, including around 3,000 people from the Wanathamulla slum , started gathering at the cemetery, angered by news of the ambush, which was magnified by wild rumour. The Avro plane carrying
7139-420: The cemetery was informed of the president's decision at around 10 pm. The crowd left the cemetery in a restive mood. A section of the crowd marched up D. S. Senanayake Mawatha to Borella , where they destroyed Tamil-owned Nagalingam Stores. The mob—which by that time numbered around 10,000—attacked, looted, and set fire to any building near Borella Junction that had a Tamil connection, including Borella Flats and
7260-434: The city in vans and buses that they had stolen and headed for Bandarawela , Hali-Ela, and Welimada , where they continued to set properties on fire. The riot had spread to Lunugala by nightfall. The daytime curfew in Colombo was lifted on 27 July, and the day began in relative calm. But then at Fort Railway Station , a train heading for Jaffna was stopped as it was pulling out of Platform One after cartridges were found on
7381-478: The city's bazaar area, setting shops on fire. The rioting then spread to residential areas, and the homes of many Tamils were burnt down. The home of one Mr Ramanathan, an Indian Tamil camphor dealer in Badulla was attacked by the Sri Lanka Army with the support of UNP MP Vincent Dias' three brothers and a Sinhalese mob. They shot and hacked to death Mr Ramanathan, his brother, his four sons (aged from 15-22), his crippled father, and brother-in-law. Mr Ramanathan
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#17327655364107502-413: The connotation of "unfolding sound". Alternatively, he suggests a derivation of tamiḻ < tam-iḻ < * tav-iḻ < * tak-iḻ , meaning in origin "the proper process (of speaking)". However, this is deemed unlikely by Southworth due to the contemporary use of the compound 'centamiḻ', which means refined speech in the earliest literature. The Tamil Lexicon of University of Madras defines
7623-446: The country was quiet. That night the government banned three left-wing political parties—the Communist Party of Sri Lanka , Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna , and the Nava Sama Samaja Party —blaming them for inciting the riots. A few leaders of other groups were arrested, as well. The president and top ranking members of the cabinet publicly justified the pogrom. Although the violence was first started by Sinhalese mobs who had gathered at
7744-519: The detriment of Sinhalese entrepreneurs. The government denied any involvement of its members and blamed the opposition for the riots and banned the Communist Party, the Nava Sama Samaja Party and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). The claims were disputed by the opposition and were not widely accepted. JVP which had entered democratic politics after first failed insurrection was forced to go underground resurfacing to launch its second insurrection in 1987. On August 4th, Sarath Muttetuwegama questioned
7865-780: The dialect of Madurai , and iṅkaṭe in some northern dialects. Even now, in the Coimbatore area, it is common to hear " akkaṭṭa " meaning "that place". Although Tamil dialects do not differ significantly in their vocabulary, there are a few exceptions. The dialects spoken in Sri Lanka retain many words and grammatical forms that are not in everyday use in India, and use many other words slightly differently. Tamil dialects include Central Tamil dialect , Kongu Tamil , Madras Bashai , Madurai Tamil , Nellai Tamil , Kumari Tamil in India ; Batticaloa Tamil dialect , Jaffna Tamil dialect , Negombo Tamil dialect in Sri Lanka; and Malaysian Tamil in Malaysia. Sankethi dialect in Karnataka has been heavily influenced by Kannada . The dialect of
7986-522: The district of Palakkad in Kerala has many Malayalam loanwords, has been influenced by Malayalam's syntax, and has a distinctive Malayalam accent. Similarly, Tamil spoken in Kanyakumari District has more unique words and phonetic style than Tamil spoken at other parts of Tamil Nadu. The words and phonetics are so different that a person from Kanyakumari district is easily identifiable by their spoken Tamil. Hebbar and Mandyam dialects, spoken by groups of Tamil Vaishnavites who migrated to Karnataka in
8107-407: The elites of the Tamil and Sinhalese communities. The quota affecting political representation became another cause for contention between Sinhalese and Tamil people. There was also a series of anti-Tamil pogroms in 1977 , following the United National Party 's (UNP) coming to power, which further increased hostility. In the 1970s, Tamil militant groups began taking form with notable incidents such as
8228-474: The ensuing chaos. Students from Buddhist schools also followed the first rioters, which included some Buddhist monks. Just hours after the news of the ambush reached Colombo , small gangs were on the streets with typewritten lists of the names and addresses of Tamil owned properties, suggesting prior planning and organisation. President Jayewardene convened the country's Security Council at the President's House , at 9:30 a.m. on 25 July. A hundred yards away,
8349-493: The evening of 26 July. In Trincomalee, false rumours started spreading that the LTTE had captured Jaffna, that the Karainagar Naval Base had been destroyed, and that the Naga Vihare had been desecrated. About 130 sailors based at Trincomalee Naval Base went on a rampage, attacking Central Road, Dockyard Road, Main Street, and North Coast Road. The sailors started 170 fires and damaged 175 properties before returning to their base. The Sivan Hindu temple on Thirugnasambandan Road also
8470-459: The exclusive Cinnamon Gardens were also attacked, as were those in the suburbs of Kadawatha , Kelaniya , Nugegoda , and Ratmalana . The residence of the Indian High Commissioner was also attacked and ransacked. Its members were brutally attacked with iron rods and chased and kicked by a gang of 25 armed Sinhala youths. By lunchtime, virtually the entire city was on fire. The curfew was advanced to 4:00 pm and then to 2:00 pm, and it
8591-416: The government in parliament on why it did not announce an immediate curfew on the morning of 25th July, when violence had begun the previous evening. He further stated: "Everybody knows Sir, the houses and the areas that were attacked, that State CTB buses came with thugs. If you go and ask your friends in those areas you will know. Electricity board vehicles brought thugs to Agalawatte. The state apparatus
8712-699: The hill country . Tamil or dialects of it were used widely in the state of Kerala as the major language of administration, literature and common usage until the 12th century CE. Tamil was also used widely in inscriptions found in southern Andhra Pradesh districts of Chittoor and Nellore until the 12th century CE. Tamil was used for inscriptions from the 10th through 14th centuries in southern Karnataka districts such as Kolar , Mysore , Mandya and Bengaluru . There are currently sizeable Tamil-speaking populations descended from colonial-era migrants in Malaysia , Singapore , Philippines , Mauritius , South Africa , Indonesia, Thailand, Burma , and Vietnam . Tamil
8833-468: The impact the riots had had in India. She requested that Jayewardene receive Minister of External Affairs P. V. Narasimha Rao as her special envoy . Jayewardene accepted, and a few hours later Rao arrived in Sri Lanka. Colombo was still calm on 29 July. Tamil residents visited friends and relatives who had taken refuge in the many refugee camps in the city. Around 10:30 a.m. two Sinhalese youths were shot on Gas Works Street. A large crowd gathered at
8954-815: The incident was occurring. While a number of Tamils fled the city, many Sinhalese and Muslims saved the lives and properties of Tamils despite the activities of the gangs. Many Tamils were sheltered in government buildings, temples as well as Sinhalese and Muslim houses in the following days. Outside of the Western Province , there was violence in Galle , Kegalle , Trincomalee , and Vavuniya . The mob attacks continued in Wellawatte and Dehiwala on 26 July. There were 53 houses on Ratnakara Road. The 24 Tamil owned/occupied houses were burnt. Three houses had Sinhalese owners but were rented by Tamils. The mob removed
9075-439: The industrial area of Ratmalana, which contained a number of Tamil-owned factories. Jetro Garments and Tata Garments on Galle Road were completely gutted. Other factories attacked included Ponds, S-Lon, Reeves Garments, Hydo Garments, Hyluck Garments, AGM Garments, Manhattan Garments, Ploy Peck, Berec, and Mascons Asbestos. Indian-owned factories such as Kundanmals, Oxford, and Bakson Garments were not attacked, giving credence to
9196-432: The introduction of new aspectual auxiliaries and more complex sentence structures, and with the emergence of a more rigid word order that resembles the syntactic argument structure of English. In 1578, Portuguese Christian missionaries published a Tamil prayer book in old Tamil script named Thambiran Vanakkam , thus making Tamil the first Indian language to be printed and published. The Tamil Lexicon , published by
9317-461: The latter of which is restricted to a few lexical items. Tamil employs agglutinative grammar, where suffixes are used to mark noun class , number , and case , verb tense and other grammatical categories. Tamil's standard metalinguistic terminology and scholarly vocabulary is itself Tamil, as opposed to the Sanskrit that is standard for most Indo-Aryan languages . Much of Tamil grammar
9438-632: The majority voters and directed hostility against the Tamil minority who were seen as privileged despite the majority of them being no better off. In 1956, the Official Language Act, commonly known as the Sinhala Only Act , was introduced which made Sinhala the only official language of Sri Lanka with no parity for Tamil . The policy turned out to be "severely discriminatory" and placed the Tamil-speaking population at
9559-416: The mobs, which enabled them to identify Tamil homes and property, implied prior organization and cooperation by elements of the government. As President Jayewardene would later admit in a statement, "a pattern of organization and planning has been noticed in the rioting and looting that took place." Eighty-one out of the 92 Tamil-owned flats at Soysa Flats were attacked, looted, and set on fire. The mob attacked
9680-485: The name of the language which was developed by these Tamil Sangams is mentioned as Tamil, the period when the name "Tamil" came to be applied to the language is unclear, as is the precise etymology of the name. The earliest attested use of the name is found in Tholkappiyam , which is dated as early as late 2nd century BCE. The Hathigumpha inscription , inscribed around a similar time period (150 BCE), by Kharavela ,
9801-505: The news of the attack, the Army began to move all their Tamil officers from Colombo and Panagoda to a camp in Ampara , in an isolated area not affected by the subsequent riots. In response to the ambush, truckloads of Sri Lankan soldiers left the Palaly camp at 4:30 AM, smashing all the shops on the way to Thirunelveli . Over 60 Tamil civilians in Jaffna were subsequently massacred by
9922-537: The old aspect and time markers. The Nannūl remains the standard normative grammar for modern literary Tamil, which therefore continues to be based on Middle Tamil of the 13th century rather than on Modern Tamil. Colloquial spoken Tamil, in contrast, shows a number of changes. The negative conjugation of verbs, for example, has fallen out of use in Modern Tamil – instead, negation is expressed either morphologically or syntactically. Modern spoken Tamil also shows
10043-483: The period of British colonial rule , Sri Lankan Tamils from the Jaffna peninsula benefited greatly from educational facilities established by American missionaries . As a result, the colonial administration recruited many English-speaking Tamils to the civil service and other professions on a merit basis. Tamils came to be overrepresented in the clerical services, professions and universities. After independence, Sinhalese leaders promoted Sinhalese nationalism to appeal to
10164-487: The pogrom had only 20-30 members. Black July is generally seen as the start of the Sri Lankan Civil War between the Tamil militants and the government of Sri Lanka . Sri Lankan Tamils fled to other countries in the ensuing years, with July becoming a period of remembrance for the diaspora around the world. To date no one has been held accountable for any of the crimes committed during the pogrom. During
10285-464: The pogrom, in September 1983, Gamini Dissanayake , a cabinet minister, gave this message to Tamil estate workers in reference to the violence: Tamil language Sri Lanka Singapore Malaysia Canada and United States Tamil ( தமிழ் , Tamiḻ , pronounced [t̪amiɻ] ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia . It
10406-428: The police. The police began a major search operation to locate the killers while a special team headed Ana Seneviratne , Deputy Inspector General of Police for Range B was sent on orders from Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike. The entire Jaffna peninsula was cordoned off by the police and all vehicles searched. The inquest into the death was carried out by J.M.D. Jesurathnam Magistrate of Malakkam. As news spread of
10527-421: The property from these three houses out to the road and burnt it. The three houses were not burnt down, neither were the 26 Sinhalese owned/occupied houses. In many parts of the city, the Army merely looked on as property was destroyed and people were killed. The violence spread to the country's second largest city, Kandy , on 26 July. By 2:45 pm Delta Pharmacy on Peradeniya Road was on fire. Soon afterwards,
10648-430: The rampaging army in revenge. Whereas the prior killing of soldiers was reported instantly in the local Sri Lankan media, this subsequent massacre of civilians was not reported and remained unknown to the Sinhalese public. The Army—including its commander , Tissa Weeratunga —decided that the soldiers' funerals should not be held in Jaffna because of the high likelihood of disturbances at multiple locations. The decision
10769-399: The rioters". The Sri Lankan government was accused from various corners of being complicit during the pogrom and of supporting and encouraging the Sinhalese mobs. President Jayewardene has been accused of failing to condemn the violence or to express sympathy to the survivors, blaming Tamils for bringing it upon themselves, failing to take any meaningful measures to punish the perpetrators of
10890-551: The rioters. The soldiers killed in the Thirunelveli ambush were quietly buried during the night curfew. In the Central Province , the violence spread to Nawalapitiya and Hatton . Badulla , the largest city in neighbouring Uva Province , had so far been peaceful; but around 10:30 a.m. on 27 July, a Tamil-owned motorcycle was set on fire in front of the clock tower. Around midday an organised mob went through
11011-411: The ruling UNP , the pogrom soon escalated into mass violence with significant public participation. On the night of 24 July 1983, anti-Tamil rioting started in the capital city of Colombo and then spread to other parts of the country. Over seven days, mainly Sinhalese mobs attacked, burned, looted, and killed Tamil civilians. The looting, arson and killings later spread to include all Indians , with
11132-535: The scene, and soon rumours started circling that the youths had been shot by Tamil Tigers from the Adam Ali building. The building was surrounded by the army, navy, and police who proceeded to fire at the building using submachine guns and semi-automatic rifles . A helicopter also fired at the building with a machine gun. The security forces stormed the building but found no Tamil Tigers, weapons, or ammunition inside. However, rumours began to spread around Colombo that
11253-504: The shooting, many gathered at the Chelliah Kumarasuriar , Minister of Posts and Telecommunications visited the hospital. Some members of his family believed that Posts and Telecommunications Minister Kumarasuriar, Duraiappah's political rival, was behind the assassination. However, his assassination was widely blamed on the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and its leader V. Prabhakaran . On 25 April 1978
11374-400: The situation over to the army. The president then decided to cancel the military funeral and hand the bodies over to the families. The vehicles carrying the bodies had been driven away from Ratmalana at 8:30 pm and the drivers were heading to the cemetery. Due to the situation, the bodies were then diverted to army headquarters, so that they could be handed over to the families. The crowd at
11495-470: The standard characters, six characters taken from the Grantha script , which was used in the Tamil region to write Sanskrit, are sometimes used to represent sounds not native to Tamil, that is, words adopted from Sanskrit, Prakrit , and other languages. The traditional system prescribed by classical grammars for writing loan-words, which involves respelling them in accordance with Tamil phonology, remains, but
11616-414: The standard procedure of handing over fallen soldiers to their families for burial in their home villages. Preparations were made for the funeral, including putting the riot squad at the police station in nearby Borella on standby; but by 5 pm the bodies hadn't arrived in Colombo. The soldiers' families wanted the bodies handed over to them and to be buried according to tradition. Due to procedural issues,
11737-489: The streets, attacking and killing Tamils. Wellawatte and Dehiwala , which contained the largest number of Tamils in Colombo, were the next target of the mob. Homes and shops were attacked, looted, and destroyed. Tamil shops on Main Street and Bo Tree Junction were also attacked. The riots then spread to the middle-class residential areas of Anderson Flats, Elvitigala Flats, Torrington Flats, and Thimbirigasyaya. Tamil targets in
11858-472: The subsequent inquest, prison officers claimed that the keys had been stolen from them. Amnesty International however, reported that the Sinhala prisoners were assisted by prison authorities in killing the Tamil inmates, with reports of cell doors being left open on purpose. The superintendent in charge of the prison, Alexis Leo de Silva, later testified that the "army aided and abetted" the murders. He witnessed them cheering and saying "Jayawewa" (victory) whilst
11979-589: The suggestion that the mob was deliberately going after Sri Lankan Tamil targets. Seventeen factories were destroyed in Ratmalana. Capital Maharaja, a Tamil-owned company, is one of Sri Lanka's largest conglomerates. Six of their factories in Ratmalana and their headquarters in Bankshall Street were destroyed. The mob ended the day by setting fire to Tilly's Beach Hotel in Mount Lavinia . The hotel
12100-631: The track. Sinhalese passengers on the train started attacking Tamil passengers, killing twelve. Some Tamils were burnt alive on the railway tracks. Following the riot at Welikada prison on 25 July, Tamil prisoners had been moved from the Chapel Ward to the Youth Offenders Building. On the evening of 27 July, Sinhalese prisoners overpowered the guards, armed themselves with axes and firewood, and attacked those Tamil prisoners. Fifteen Tamil prisoners were killed. Two Tamil prisoners and
12221-497: The violence spread from Dehiowita to Deraniyagala to Avissawella . In Matara District the worst affected areas were Deniyaya and Morawake. There was violence in Chilaw as well. Indian External Affairs Minister Rao held discussions with President Jayewardene and Foreign Minister A. C. S. Hameed before visiting Kandy by helicopter. Violence was reported in Nuwara Eliya, Kandapola , Hawa Eliya, and Matale on 30 July. The rest of
12342-470: The violence, and praising the mobs as heroes of the Sinhalese people. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph on 11 July 1983, about two weeks prior to the riots, Jayewardene admitted to a reporter: I am not worried about the opinion of the Jaffna (Tamil) people now. Now we cannot think of them. Not about their lives or of their opinion about us. The more you put pressure in the north, the happier
12463-569: The violence. Jayewardene blamed the violence on "the deep ill feeling and suspicion that has grown between the Sinhalese and the Tamil people" caused by the calls for an independent Tamil state that began in 1976, when the Tamil United Liberation Front , the largest political party representing the Tamils, had passed the Vaddukoddai Resolution . He blamed the violence committed by the Tamil militants for
12584-435: The way "the Sinhalese people themselves have reacted". Jayewardene vowed that the "Sinhalese people will never agree to the division of a country which has been a united nation for 2,500 years [sic]" and announced that the government would "accede to the clamour...of the Sinhalese people" and ban any party which sought to divide the nation. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi called Jayewardene on 28 July and informed him of
12705-487: The word "Tamil" as "sweetness". S. V. Subramanian suggests the meaning "sweet sound", from tam – "sweet" and il – "sound". Tamil belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian languages , a family of around 26 languages native to the Indian subcontinent . It is also classified as being part of a Tamil language family that, alongside Tamil proper, includes the languages of about 35 ethno-linguistic groups such as
12826-526: The word for "here"— iṅku in Centamil (the classic variety)—has evolved into iṅkū in the Kongu dialect of Coimbatore , inga in the dialects of Thanjavur and Palakkad , and iṅkai in some dialects of Sri Lanka . Old Tamil's iṅkaṇ (where kaṇ means place) is the source of iṅkane in the dialect of Tirunelveli , Old Tamil iṅkiṭṭu is the source of iṅkuṭṭu in
12947-534: Was a Tamilian himself, in a joint sitting of both houses of the Indian Parliament on 6 June 2004. The socio-linguistic situation of Tamil is characterised by diglossia : there are two separate registers varying by socioeconomic status , a high register and a low one. Tamil dialects are primarily differentiated from each other by the fact that they have undergone different phonological changes and sound shifts in evolving from Old Tamil. For example,
13068-489: Was also a Member of Parliament for Jaffna from 1960 to 1965. Duraiappah was killed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam . Duraiappah was born on 15 June 1926. He was the son of an ice and aerated water manufacturer from Vannarpannai in northern Ceylon . He was educated at St. John's College, Jaffna . Following his schooling, he joined the Ceylon Law College , qualifying as a proctor and joining
13189-420: Was attacked and set on fire. A Tamil was burnt alive on Kirula Road. Eleven Tamils were burnt alive on Attidiya Road. The police found an abandoned van, on the same road, that contained the butchered bodies of two Tamils and three Muslims. Police shot dead 15 rioters. An elderly Plantation Tamil man who worked for a Sinhalese family as a gardener was chased by his employer with a kitchen knife. At 2 pm on 29 July,
13310-422: Was attacked. One person was killed and several injured in the rampage. The curfew was extended nationwide on 26 July as a precautionary measure. There were more outbreaks of violence and looting against Tamils in areas where various ethnic groups had coexisted. By the evening of 26 July, the mob violence began to slacken as police and army units patrolled the streets in large numbers and began to take action against
13431-544: Was claimed to be dated to around 580 BCE. John Guy states that Tamil was the lingua franca for early maritime traders from India. Tamil language inscriptions written in Brahmi script have been discovered in Sri Lanka and on trade goods in Thailand and Egypt. In November 2007, an excavation at Quseir-al-Qadim revealed Egyptian pottery dating back to first century BCE with ancient Tamil Brahmi inscriptions. There are
13552-419: Was despite his own Karava community being far overrepresented in leading positions in the economy, society, politics and the church. Another cabinet minister Cyril Mathew stated in parliament that the pogroms targeting the Tamils were "long overdue and only a spark was needed to make it happen and that the spark fell on 24th July". On August 4th, he further defended the violence in parliament by stating that
13673-423: Was detonated beneath a jeep that was leading the convoy, injuring at least two soldiers on board. Soldiers travelling in the truck behind the jeep then dismounted to help their fellow soldiers. Subsequently, they were ambushed by a group of LTTE fighters who fired at them with automatic weapons and hurled grenades . In the ensuing clash, one officer and twelve soldiers were killed, with two more fatally wounded, for
13794-502: Was estimated to be $ 300 million. The pogrom was organised to destroy the economic base of the Tamils, with every Tamil owned shop and establishment being plundered and set alight. The NGO International Commission of Jurists described the violence of the pogrom as having "amounted to acts of genocide " in a report published in December 1983. The pogrom spurred thousands of Tamil youth to spontaneously join militant groups, which prior to
13915-550: Was extended to include Gampaha District , due to the violence spreading as far as Negombo . In Kalutara , the TKVS Stores were set on fire. The owner jumped out of an upstairs window, but the mob threw him back into the fire. The curfew was then extended to Kalutara District . The police being unable, or unwilling, to enforce the curfew, the army was called in to assist the police. The rioters used voter registration lists to target Tamils. The possession of electoral lists by
14036-465: Was himself disembowelled and his head was staved in. Other Tamils killed included a tenant and the tenant's three-year-old daughter and brother-in-law. The army then caused the house and surrounding vehicles to be burnt down, throwing the 15 dead bodies into the flames. All Tamil shops and three Tamil schools were destroyed in Badulla , and four Hindu temples were also looted and burnt. The mob then left
14157-446: Was made to hold the funerals, with full military honours, at Kanatte Cemetery , Colombo 's main burial ground, instead. Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa , fearing violence, was against holding the funeral in Colombo, but was overruled by President J. R. Jayewardene . The president, the prime minister, and the rest of the cabinet were to attend the funeral, which was to take place at 5 pm on 24 July. This arrangement went against
14278-614: Was most likely spoken around the third millennium BCE, possibly in the region around the lower Godavari river basin. The material evidence suggests that the speakers of Proto-Dravidian were of the culture associated with the Neolithic complexes of South India, but it has also been related to the Harappan civilization . Scholars categorise the attested history of the language into three periods: Old Tamil (300 BCE–700 CE), Middle Tamil (700–1600) and Modern Tamil (1600–present). About of
14399-663: Was parked on Second Cross Road in Jaffna. Duraiappah was not inside the car at the time. Duraiappah was criticised for his handling of the 1974 Tamil conference incident in which 11 people were killed. On 27 July 1975, Duraiappah who had returned from Brunei where his wife was the Chief Medical Officer, went to the Varadaraja Perumal Temple (Maha Vishnu Temple) in Ponnalai with his fourteen-year-old daughter Eesha for their weekly worship in
14520-451: Was the emergence of the present tense. The present tense evolved out of the verb kil ( கில் ), meaning "to be possible" or "to befall". In Old Tamil, this verb was used as an aspect marker to indicate that an action was micro-durative, non-sustained or non-lasting, usually in combination with a time marker such as ṉ ( ன் ). In Middle Tamil, this usage evolved into a present tense marker – kiṉṟa ( கின்ற ) – which combined
14641-421: Was used..." Following the riots, Prime Minister Premadasa formed a committee to organise shelter for, and feeding of, an estimated 20,000 homeless Tamils in Colombo. These temporary shelters were situated at five school buildings and an aircraft hangar. After the number of refugees increased to around 50,000, the government, with help from India, took measures to transport Tamils north on ships. A few weeks after
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