The

Tamil language Tamil (; ' , ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. Tamil is an official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the sovereign nations of Sri Lanka and Singapore, and the Indian territory of P ...

has absorbed many Indo-Aryan,

Prakrit The Prakrits (; sa, prākṛta; psu, 𑀧𑀸𑀉𑀤, ; pka, ) are a group of vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The term Prakrit is usu ...

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of '' Theravāda'' Buddh ...

and

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

loanwords ever since the early 1st millennium CE, when the

Sangam period The Sangam period or age (, ), particularly referring to the third Sangam period, is the period of the history of ancient Tamil Nadu, Kerala and parts of Sri Lanka (then known as Tamilakam) spanning from c. 6th century BCE to c. 3rd century CE. ...

Chola kingdoms became influenced by spread of

Jainism Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle bein ...

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religions, Indian religion or Indian philosophy#Buddhist philosophy, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha. ...

and early Hinduism. Many of these loans are obscured by adaptions to Tamil phonology. There are many words that are common in Sanskrit and Tamil. This is an illustrative list of

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

words of Indo-Aryan origin, classified based on type of borrowing. The words are transliterated according to IAST system. All words have been referenced with the Madras University Tamil Lexicon, which is used as the most authoritative and standard lexicon by mainstream scholars. In the examples below, the second word is from Tamil, and its original Indo-Aryan source is placed to the left.

), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated betw ...
to dental

*ambara - ampalaMadras University Tamil Lexicon

Loss of initial s

*samayaṃ - amaiyam at p. 133 *sabhā - avai

Loss of initial complex consonant (retaining initial
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
)

* śṛavaṇa - Āvaṇi (also note loss of initial complex consonant ''Śr'')

Loss of initial complex consonant (introduction of vowel)

*ḥṛdaya - itaya (also loss of voicing)

Loss of voicing

*agati - akati

Loss of voiced aspiration

*adhikāra - atikāra *adhika - atika

Tatsama Tatsama ( sa, तत्सम , lit. 'same as that') are Sanskrit loanwords in modern Indo-Aryan languages like Assamese, Bengali, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Hindi, Gujarati, and Sinhala and in Dravidian languages like Malayalam and Telugu. They ...
borrowing

*aṇu - aṇu *nīti - nīti

Change of final sibilant to
semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the c ...

*Ākāśa - Ākāya

Change of medial sibilants to stops

*aśuddha - acutta

Split of complex syllables

*agni - akkini (gni to kini, also note loss of voicing)

Others

*ahaṃkāram - akankāram *agastya - akattiya *ahambhāva - akampāvam *Āṣāḍha - Āḍi *Ārambha - Ārampam *kāvya - kāppiyam *kārttika - kārttikai *śvāsa - cuvācam *śani - cani *chitra - cittirai *budha - putan *phalguna - pankuni *manas - manatu *mārgaśīrSa - mārkazhi *māgha - māci *vaiśākha - vaikāci

References

Notes

Bibliography

*S Vaidyanathan, ''Indo-Aryan loanwords in old Tamil'', Rajan Publishers (1971), ASIN B0000CQQI

*Chandran Tucker, ''A dictionary of English loan-words in modern Tamil: Contributions towards a modern Tamil-English dictionary '', Biblia Impex (1986), *R Wallden, ''Hidden Indo-European and/or Indo-Aryan "Loanwords" in Old Tamil?'', Orientalia Suecana Uppsala 1980, vol. 29, pp. 140–156

External links

Madras University Tamil lexicon
{{DEFAULTSORT:Indo-Aryan Loanwords In Tamil Sanskrit words and phrases, T Tamil language-related lists Tamil Indo-Aryan

Change of final retroflex A retroflex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal (Help:IPA/English, /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated betw ... to dental