simplified Tamil script

{{Short description|Several governmental reforms to the Tamil script}}

Simplified Tamil script or Reformed Tamil script refers to several governmental reforms to the Tamil script.

In 1978, the Government of Tamil Nadu reformed certain syllables of the modern Tamil script with view to simplify the script.{{cite book|last=Bellary Shamanna Kesavan|first=Prathivadibayangaram Narasimha Venkatachari|title=History of printing and publishing in India: a story of cultural re-awakening, Volume 1|year=1984|publisher=National Book Trust|pages=82}} It aimed to standardize non-standard ligatures of {{lang|ta|ஆ}} {{Transliteration|ta|ā}}, {{lang|ta|ஒ}} {{Transliteration|ta|o}}, {{lang|ta|ஓ}} {{Transliteration|ta|ō}} and {{lang|ta|ஐ}} {{Transliteration|ta|ai}} syllables.Unicode Consortium. (2019). [https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode12.0.0/ch12.pdf South and Central Asia I: Official Scripts of India]. In The Unicode Standard, Version 12.0 (pp. 489–498).

Furthermore, only 13 out of 15 of the proposed simplifications were successful as people continued to use {{lang|ta|ஐ}} {{Transliteration|ta|ai}} instead of the proposed {{lang|ta|அய்}} {{Transliteration|ta|ay}} and {{lang|ta|ஔ}} {{Transliteration|ta|au}} instead of the proposed {{lang|ta|அவ்}} {{Transliteration|ta|av}}.{{cite web|last=Mello|first=Fernando|title=Evolution of Tamil typedesign|url=http://www.leonidas.org/rdg/matd/dissertation/FernandoMello_dissertation.pdf|access-date=31 December 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120311223833/http://www.leonidas.org/rdg/matd/dissertation/FernandoMello_dissertation.pdf|archive-date=11 March 2012}}

History

Kuthusi Gurusamy initially proposed script reform and seems credit was not given to him.{{cite book|last=Caṇmukam|first=Ce. Vai.|title=Aspects of language development in Tamil|year=1983|publisher=All India Tamil Linguistics Association|pages=96}} A Script Reform Committee was formed in 1947 under Periyar E. V. Ramasamy, while in 1951 the Government of Tamil Nadu accepted its recommendations, it failed to enforce them.{{cite book|last=James|first=Gregory|title=Colporuḷ: a history of Tamil dictionaries|year=2000|publisher=Cre-A}} He encouraged it on the basis that it allegedly eased typesetting as Periyar was himself a typesetter of his newspapers in early days. Other person who was responsible for helping Periyar was Kuthusi Gurusamy

[https://ta.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/குத்தூசி_குருசாமி]

This was preceded by many reforms during early 20th century, led by Tamil purist movement, which purged most of the Grantha consonants from the Tamil-Grantha script (except {{lang|ta|ஜ}} {{Transliteration|ta|ja}}, {{lang|ta|ஷ}} {{Transliteration|ta|sha}}, {{lang|ta|ஸ}} {{Transliteration|ta|sa}}, {{lang|ta|ஹ}} {{Transliteration|ta|ha}}) and standardized the modern Tamil alphabet.K. Kailasapathy (1979), [https://www.jstor.org/pss/3516775 The Tamil Purist Movement: A Re-evaluation], Social Scientist, Vol. 7, No. 10, pp. 23-27

References

Category:Spelling reform

Category:Tamil language