"Such a change is nothing new in the history of the Tamil language script which
has undergone gradual .... Diaspora Tamil children lack motivation. It is highly ...
Tamil Script Change : Solution in Search of a Problem Periannan Chandrasekaran Atlanta, USA
1. Claimed Benefits of Script Change The script change proposed aims to introduce uniformity in the notations for the vowel-consonants of the short and long i and u series (இ-ஈ -உ-ஊ) thus reducing the total number of distinct symbols needed. Its proponents claim the following benefits: •
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"Such a change is nothing new in the history of the Tamil language script which has undergone gradual changes over the course of more than 2000 years and so nothing to be alarmed about" "In this digital era, children do not have all the time to spend learning the script of their mother tongue alone and so a reduced number of symbols and uniformity will help children learn the Tamil language quicker" "Diaspora Tamil children in non-Tamil countries will be helped immensely by this as it removes a significant stumbling block in learning the Tamil language and thus preserve the Tamil identity and unity worldwide" "A simpler and more uniform Tamil script will help the language flourish in the computer era" "With the simplified script Tamils will be able to compete better in the modern era with other societies"
I will argue here with appropriate evidence from various languages and scholars in the field that such claims are unwarranted and that the proposed script change is a mere solution fancied by some tinkerers in search of a problem to solve and also that it is wrought by a deep cultural inferiority complex that fails to see similar situations in other "superior" languages and societies and thinks that those systems are not negotiable and are to be accommodated by bending over backwards.
2. This is not a yet another usual change Asserting that this is just another change in the long line of changes in Tamil script over its 2300 years history is insensitive to the change in the society that has taken place. What is different now is that there were two major ways of life that are not present any more now: (1) Until about the end of the 19th century all Tamil works were written on palm leaves (2) Education first of all meant expertise in Tamil literature and grammar and then any training in other arts and sciences was also with books in Tamil language.
With all Tamil treatises being on palm leaves that would last only a few generations, they had to be manually copied every generation by a reader so any change in script was immediately reflected in the new copies and actually no copies in old script would exist after a few generations due to loss to the climate and insects. Combined with the fact that all education was in Tamil language there was no threat to continuity. But that is not so now. These days the situation is such that a student can enter kinder garten and pass through the educational system all the way to Ph.D with not a single word of Tamil spoken or written by him or her. In this deplorable environment primarliy sustained by the very government itself serious changes to the Tamil script can only cause disasters to the Tamil culture and society.
2. Chinese script has thousands of symbols Chinese and Japanese languages have scripts with thousands of symbols to attain minimum literacy skills while the Tamil script has only about 100 symbols. But China has a 93% literacy rate, Japan 99% while Tamil Nadu has around 74%! So having hundreds of times fewer symbols in Tamil has not made any difference at all. Nor do Chinese children spend hundreds of years longer than Tamil children in just learning their language. This defeats the argument that complexity of script affects literacy rate or technological and economic advancement of a society.
English language is notorious for the serious lack of uniformity in spelling and pronunciation. Still it has not affected the literacy rates or the technological and economical development of the societies such as England and USA where it is a primary language.
Even among Indian languages Tamil script is one of the simplest. It is well known that a much more complex script is used for north Indian languages such as Hindi and Marathi wherein there are separate symbols for many consonant clusters which is not the case with Tamil that simply writes the symbols for each consonant separately in sequence as done in English. Even Malayalam script is much more complex than does Tamil. But the literacy rate of Kerala is nearly 91% compared to Tamil Nadu's 74%.
So it should be clear by now that a simpler or less voluminous script does not at all mean greater ease of learning on a societal scale. There are other factors that play a critical role in literacy of a society.
3. A language is much more than its script There is a presumption by the proponents of this script change that learning a language means mostly learning the script of the language. That is why they keep emphasizing that a lot of time will be saved in learning Tamil language if the script is simplified. But the
reality is totally otherwise. Learning a language means learning the sounds of the language and the subtle differences among them, acquiring a sizable vocabulary and grammar, and understanding and practicing the idioms and conventions of the language. In addition to the general features to be learnt, particular languages have their own idiosyncrasies. Chinese language dialects have four to nine tones which change the meaning of a word completely (this is different from intonation which simply expresses the emotions of the speaker but does not alter meaning of the word). Languages like Tamil have diglossia meaning considerable differences in grammatical forms and vocabulary of colloquial and formal (cem-tamil) versions of the language. While some might view this as a (yet another!) problem to solve with the language it should be kept in mind that it is the formal version that accords the special status to the Tamil language of being the oldest continuously spoken language in the world (nearly 2300 years). It should now be clear that the script of a language takes only a part of the total effort in learning a language.
4. Diaspora Tamil children lack motivation It is highly baseless to claim that Tamil children in non-Tamil societies will be greatly helped by the proposed change in script. This is not true as it is well known to nearly every parent and tecaher living in countries such as the USA is that a child has not ever stopped learning Tamil language because of any difficulties with the language. Claims of the script standing in the way are based on the presumption that learning Tamil language means mostly the script and as pointed out earlier it is only a small part of learning the language which on the whole involves mastering the sounds unique to the language, acquiring the vocabulary and grammar and idioms. As many teachers have directly observed it is also the difference between the spoken and formal versions that is a considerable part of acquiring the Tamil language. Also these same children in foreign lands learn other languages such as German, Spanish and even Latin which is not even spoken any more making it so much more difficult to learn! This shows that these children are not as a race deficient in learning languages. Their parents also spend so much effort and money to educate them in these languages. So the main reason diaspora Tamil children are not learning Tamil language is due to the lack of motivation from their parents. After all they do not even speak the mother tongue at home! The parents bring their wards to Tamil lessons with the very low expectation of enabling the kids just enough to converse with their grandparents and relatives during vacations. That is, they treat the language as a tourist language! With this deplorable state of motivation, we cannot bend the language to suit their whims. These
parents will keep complaining about every feature of the language until it becomes English!
Also nobody in India changes the spelling system of Indian English to the American spelling just because so many diaspora Indian children are Americans. Why only tamper with Tamil script to suit foreign Tamil children? It is clearly a case of inferiority complex that respects Tamil so little as to view it subject to the whims of diaspora Tamil children and their parents.
5. A whole generation will be spent reprinting old materials In order to make the books and material published in the current script the Tamil society will have to keep itself busy with reprinting earlier books in new script. As it is we have a problem of Tamil publications not keeping up with the flow of the world by translating ideas and books in other languages into Tamil. When the Tamil society keeps itself busy spending its precious resources with simply re-typesetting and reprinting earlier books it is anybody's guess as to the severe consequences it will have on its advancement.
6. Reprinting precious literature is not practical It is easy to say we can reprint precious old literature in the new script. But the reality is different. Republishing old literature in a new script requires typesetting all over again Therein lies the problem. It requires enormous human resources to do it. But even in the unlikely case of resources being allocated to that end, the problem is that the quality of persons professionally devoted to typesetting literary Tamil is so poor that many such projects have ended in failures: there are so many errors that the products are worthless as no serious user of them would be able to tolerate the errors. Because of this many institutions such as the Tamil University of Tanjavur simply publish photo-offset prints of earlier critical works published by such illustrious scholars as U.Ve. Saminata Iyer. But this means sticking to the old script! So in essence we are looking at a case of a massive loss in continuity of Tamil culture if we move forward with the change in script. Many not-so-well-known but precious and exotic books will be lost forever. Medieval commentaries on Nalayirat Tivviyap Pirapantam such as the ones by Periyavaccan Pillai will have to be written off; books on religious philosophy such Saiva Siddhantam, astrological books such as Pulippaani and traditional medical treatises will be gone once and for all. The loss to the culture will be incalculable.
7. It is the poor students who will suffer Caught in the maelstrom will be mainly the poor students who attend Tamil medium government schools. In the already low quality environment, add these additional
problems: their teachers themselves will not be comfortable with the new script, students needing to read books such as vocational guides in areas such as motor rewinding, lathing, cell phone repair, or even self-improvement books etc., will quite likely find them absent as not all these can be immediately republished in the new script or be written fresh in the new script. Moreover in the case of a reversal to earlier script after a brief experiment (not uncommon with ill-thought-out script changes) it is again these poor students who will be caught in the midst of it all. We are looking at a situation wherein Tamil Nadu students be forced to lag behind considerably in relation to students of other competing states in India, Not a good scenario. All this brought upon ourselves just because we tampered with the script which did not have a problem worth the name in the first place!
8. A solution in search of a problem So the upshot of all the above discussion is that the proposed change in the Tamil script is simply a solution looking for a problem to solve, that is: • •
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There are no serious problems with the Tamil script as it is that are specifically hindering progress of the Tamil society or the language. Just because one could improve things in a system one does not plunge headlong into implementing that change without considering the larger context such as the social, cultural and economic situation of the times one is in. The readiness to tamper with the Tamil script is sheerly owing to the massive cultural inferiority complex of the Tamil society vis-a-vis English. After all in spite of its deficiencies in its writing system English is not questioned or even thought about, as apparently it is viewed as something not negotiable and is to be obeyed by bending ourselves backwards to accommodate its idiosyncrasies. Tamil language is treated as nothing more than a tourist language as if its main consumers were the Tamil children born and growing up in foreign lands who visit their grandparents occasionally. There is no thought given to its cultural gravity as a Classical language. Actually the proposal smacks of elitism and total disregard for the plight of millions and millions of Tamil students in the main lands where Tamil is spoken for whom the Tamil language is economically, socially, culturally and spiritually a life line.
9. Let us solve real problems with language and society So let us solve the real problems we have with Tamil language and society. The real problem facing the Tamil language is not with its script complexity or the language itself (such as its sounds or grammar) or even any external enemies mandating its abandonment, but it is the dwindling importance of the language in the economic and cultural domains of its own speakers which dwindling is abetted by the leaders in the society including the intellectuals and the government.
To understand this we must first hear from scholars who have looked at such issues worldwide over the history of human kind. Professor Richard Sproat says the following in his book Language, Technology and Society (Oxford University Press, 2010): William Harris’s excellent study of Ancient Literacy (1989), makes what in hindsight should be an obvious point: no matter how simple a script may be, unless there is a motivation to learn to read and write, people will generally not do it. The motivations may be various. According to Aristotle, there were four basic functions for literacy: “money making, household management, instruction, and civic activities” So we have to realize the above four factors enumerated by Aristotle and act on increasing the importance of those factors to motivate Tamils to compel themselves to learn the Tamil language. •
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Make serious proficiency in Tamil language a requirement for admission to any college especially for professional courses such as engineering, medicine and such. Also continue to enforce university level education in Tamil literature, Dravidian linguistics and history using a carrot-and-stick policy of incentives and a mandatory curriculum. University level education in human rights and diversity appreciation and understanding non-English societies is also critical. Make Tamil medium students economically more powerful by improving the quality of their education at school. Even the way English is taught needs to be completely overhauled and we must use the “English as Second Language” (ESL) approach replacing the present approach put in place by English colonists and aim for business and technical communication rather than appreciation of Shakespeare as its goal. Make wider and newer courses of knowledge taught in Tamil language at school and college levels. Make the popular and social avenues promote better quality Tamil language. Improve the quality of Tamil language taught in schools by training the teachers in correct pronunciation of various letters and in error-free speech and writing. The language should be taught systematically from first principles as if it were not a mother tongue by teaching places of articulation of various sounds such as whether with a flexed tongue or with the tongue tip. Otherwise the script might end up having another perceived burden with respect to multiple symbols for a single sound! Make sure even private and central government institutions increase Tamil language communication. This is not a matter of culture but of the right of any citizen to be able to conduct his daily business in a language he or she understands. It is a sign of an uncivilized society that still lets most of its sixty million members go about every day of their lives unable to understand the bank lending rules or postal or railway forms. It is a violation of their fundamental rights unbecoming of a 21st century democratic society.
In conclusion solving the real problems with Tamil language and the society using the above approaches will bring longevity to the Tamil language and prosperity to the Tamil society. ±ýÚÓÇ ¦¾ýÈÁ¢ú −ÂõÀ¢ −¨º ¦¸¡û§Å¡õ
