The

Tamil language Tamil (, , , also written as ''Tamizhil'' according to linguistic pronunciation) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. It is one of the longest-surviving classical languages in the world,. "Tamil is one of ...

has number words and dedicated symbols for them in the

Tamil script The Tamil script ( ) is an abugida script that is used by Tamils and Tamil language, Tamil speakers in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore and elsewhere to write the Tamil language. It is one of the official scripts of the Indian Republic. ...

Basic numbering in Tamil

Zero

Old Tamil possesses a special numerical character for zero ''(see Old Tamil numerals below),'' which is read as (literally, no/nothing). Modern Tamil words for zero include () or ().

First ten numbers ()

Transcribing other numbers

Reproductive and attributive prefixes

Tamil has a numeric prefix for each number from 1 to 9, which can be added to the words for the powers of ten (ten, hundred, thousand, etc.) to form multiples of them. For instance, the word for fifty, () is a combination of (, the prefix for five) and (, which is ten). The prefix for nine changes with respect to the succeeding base 10. + the unvoiced consonant of the succeeding base 10 forms the prefix for nine. For instance, 90 is + ( being the unvoiced version of ), hence, ). These are typically void in the Tamil language except for some Hindu references; for example, (the eight Lakshmis). Even in religious contexts, the Tamil language is usually more preferred for its more poetic nature and relatively low incidence of consonant clusters.

Specific characters

Unlike other modern Indian number systems, Tamil has distinct digits for 10, 100, and 1000. It also has distinct characters for other number-based aspects of day-to-day life.

Powers of ten ()

There are two numeral systems that can be used in the

: the Tamil system which is as follows The following are the traditional numbers of the region.

Original Tamil system

Current Tamil system

Partitive numerals ()

Fractions ()

Proposals to encode Tamil

fractions A fraction (from , "broken") represents a part of a whole or, more generally, any number of equal parts. When spoken in everyday English, a fraction describes how many parts of a certain size there are, for example, one-half, eight-fifths, thre ...

and symbols to

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

were submitted.Government of Tamil Nadu. (2017). ''Finalized proposal to encode Tamil fractions and symbols''. Retrieved 12 March 2019 from http://unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4822-tamil-frac.pdf As of version 12.0, Tamil characters used for fractional values in traditional accounting practices were added to the Unicode Standard.

=Transcribing fractions ()

= Any fraction can be transcribed by affixing - (-il) after the

denominator A fraction (from , "broken") represents a part of a whole or, more generally, any number of equal parts. When spoken in everyday English, a fraction describes how many parts of a certain size there are, for example, one-half, eight-fifths, thre ...

followed by the numerator. For instance, 1/41 can be said as (). The suffixing of the - () requires the last consonant of the number to be changed to its () form. For example, + ( + ) becomes (); note the () has been omitted. Common fractions () have names already allocated to them, hence, these names are often used rather than the above method. Other fractions include: ''Aṇu'' was considered as the lowest fraction by ancient Tamils as size of smallest physical object (similar to an atom). Later, this term went to Sanskrit to refer directly to atoms.

Decimals ()

Decimal point is called () in

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

. For example, 1.1 would be read as (). In Sri Lankan Tamil, Thasam தசம்.

Percentage ()

Percentage is known as () in

or (). These words are simply added after a number to form percentages. For instance, four percent is () or (). Percentage symbol (%) is also recognised and used.

Ordinal numbers ()

Ordinal numbers are formed by adding the suffix - () after the number, except for 'First'.

Collective numerals ()

* As always, when blending two words into one, an unvoiced form of the consonant as the one that the second starts with, is placed in between to blend.

Traditional Tamil counting song

This song is a list of each number with a concept its primarily associated with.

Influence on other dravidian languages

As the ancient classical language of the

Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages are a language family, family of languages spoken by 250 million people, primarily in South India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan, with pockets elsewhere in South Asia. The most commonly spoken Dravidian l ...

numerals influenced and shaped the numerals of the others in the family. The following table compares the main Dravidian languages. Also,

through the Pallava script which itself through the

Kawi script The Kawi script or the Old Javanese script (, ) is a Brahmic script found primarily in Java and used across much of Maritime Southeast Asia between the 8th century and the 16th century.Aditya Bayu Perdana and Ilham Nurwansah 2020Proposal to en ...

Khmer script Khmer script (, )Huffman, Franklin. 1970. ''Cambodian System of Writing and Beginning Reader''. Yale University Press. . is an abugida (alphasyllabary) script used to write the Khmer language, the official language of Cambodia. It is also use ...

and other South-east Asian scripts has shaped the numeral

grapheme In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived from Ancient Greek ('write'), and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other emic units. The study of graphemes ...

of most South-east Asian languages.

History

Before the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...

unveiled as the new rupee symbol, people in Tamil Nadu used the Tamil letter as the symbol. This symbol continues to be used occasionally as rupee symbol by Indian Tamils. It is also used by Tamils in Sri Lanka. The symbol is also known as the (), a symbol that most

Hindus will start off any auspicious document with. It is written to invoke the god , known otherwise as

Ganesha Ganesha or Ganesh (, , ), also known as Ganapati, Vinayaka and Pillaiyar, is one of the best-known and most worshipped Deva (Hinduism), deities in the Hindu deities, Hindu pantheon and is the Supreme God in the Ganapatya sect. His depictions ...

, who is the remover of obstacles.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Numerals Tamil culture Tamil language

Tamil numerals The Tamil language has Numeral (linguistics), number words and dedicated symbols for them in the Tamil script. Basic numbering in Tamil Zero Old Tamil possesses a special numerical character for zero ''(see #Old Tamil numerals, Old Tamil ...