I have been observing for quite long,that the use of the letter 'r ' in Tamil for some words in Tamil is sightly different as to what I have known from young.The Internet and Google transcription provides a platform completely free to type and share Tamil Documents and Papers.I have come across many websites and blogs where this ' r ' is typed differently.As for me personally writing a Tamil Novel (possibly in future ), the typed version of this letter ' r ' is different from the printed one that is available as Books.There is a wide variance and many people well versed in Tamil language find this difference to be a little annoying.They see words that completely appear different although the meaning does not differ much.Surprisingly this can be found only in the letter ' r ' and not in any other letter of from the remaining 17 Tamil consonants.( Tamil Alphabet has 18 consonants, 12 vowels and one character)
One can notice the difference of ' r ' (ir , irr) from the above image.During my chat with a few Tamil Blogger in Face Book,I asked them the same question.Though they understood , they could not come with a proper answer and in fact many feel comfortable with the present Transliterated ' r ' for their blogging.
The letter ' r ' becomes Tamil ' ir' / 'irr' and the letter ' R ' becomes 'itir' / 'itirr' when transliterated .Also from the above picture, you can clearly notice that this happens only for the small letter 'r' .
The letter ' r ' becomes Tamil ' ir' / 'irr' and the letter ' R ' becomes 'itir' / 'itirr' when transliterated .Also from the above picture, you can clearly notice that this happens only for the small letter 'r' .
Recently I came across a paper 'The history of R' from the Journal of the American Oriental Society where in a similar doubt was arised by the use of 'R' in Tamil Linguistics.Though understanding this concept was beyond my knowledge of Linguistics ,I am embedding the same for convince
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| Journal of the American Oriental Society © 1937 American Oriental Society |
PS : Tamil has always been a powerful and interesting language ..The authors of the Unicode fonts and TSCII fonts have come up with a way of typing Tamil easily in Computer and Mobile Applications.As a ardent lover of Tamil , I have highlighted what I felt was different in using the letter 'R' or 'r' than what I know it when I grew up.
The purpose of this post is to highlight my own opinion for Tamil Transliteration of the letter 'R' or 'r'Kindly share your thoughts if you feel I am right or wrong.