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Old Tamil
Old Tamil is the period of the Tamil language spanning from the 3rd century BCE to the seventh century CE. Prior to Old Tamil, the period of Tamil linguistic development is termed as Proto-Tamil. After the Old Tamil period, Tamil becomes Middle Tamil. The earliest records in Old Tamil are inscriptions from between the 3rd and 1st century BCE in caves and on pottery. These inscriptions are written in a variant of the Brahmi script called Tamil-Brahmi. The earliest long text in Old Tamil is the ''Tolkāppiyam'', an early work on Tamil grammar and poetics, whose oldest layers could be as old as the mid-2nd century BCE.Zvelebil, K. ''The Smile of Murugan: On Tamil Literature of South '' p. xx Old Tamil preserved many features of Proto-Dravidian, the reconstructed common ancestor of the Dravidian languages, including inventory of consonants, the syllable structure, and various grammatical features. History According to Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, Tamil, as a Dravidian language, d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamiḻakam
Tamilakam () also known as ancient Tamil country as was the geographical region inhabited by the ancient Tamils, Tamil people, covering the southernmost region of the Indian subcontinent. Tamilakam covered today's Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry, Lakshadweep and southern parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Traditional accounts and the ''Tolkāppiyam'' referred to these territories as a single cultural area, where Old Tamil, Tamil was the natural language and permeated the culture of all its inhabitants. The ancient Tamil country was divided into kingdoms. The best known among them were the Chera dynasty, Cheras, Chola dynasty, Cholas, Pandyan dynasty, Pandyans and Pallava dynasty, Pallavas. During the Sangam period, Tamil culture began to spread outside Tamilakam. Ancient Tamil settlements were also established in Sri Lanka (Sri Lankan Tamils) and the Maldives (Giraavaru people, Giravarus). During the Prehistorical, Classical, Middle and Early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proto-language
In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattested, or partially attested at best. They are reconstructed by way of the comparative method. In the family tree metaphor, a proto-language can be called a mother language. Occasionally, the German term ' (; from 'primordial', 'original' + 'language') is used instead. It is also sometimes called the ''common'' or ''primitive'' form of a language (e.g. Common Germanic, Primitive Norse). In the strict sense, a proto-language is the most recent common ancestor of a language family, immediately before the family started to diverge into the attested ''daughter languages''. It is therefore equivalent with the ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'' of a language family. Moreover, a group of lects that are not considered separate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thirukural
The ''Tirukkuṟaḷ'' (), or shortly the ''Kural'' (), is a classic Tamil language text on commoner's morality consisting of 1,330 short couplets, or kurals, of seven words each. The text is divided into three books with aphoristic teachings on virtue ( ''aram''), wealth ( ''porul'') and love ( ''inbam''), respectively. It is widely acknowledged for its universality and secular nature. Its authorship is traditionally attributed to Valluvar, also known in full as Thiruvalluvar. The text has been dated variously from 300 BCE to 5th century CE. The traditional accounts describe it as the last work of the third Sangam, but linguistic analysis suggests a later date of 450 to 500 CE and that it was composed after the Sangam period. The Kural text is among the earliest systems of Indian epistemology and metaphysics. The work is traditionally praised with epithets and alternative titles, including "the Tamil Veda" and "the Divine Book." Written on the ideas of ''ahimsa'', it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sangam Literature
The Sangam literature (Tamil language, Tamil: சங்க இலக்கியம், ''caṅka ilakkiyam''), historically known as 'the poetry of the noble ones' (Tamil language, Tamil: சான்றோர் செய்யுள், ''Cāṉṟōr ceyyuḷ''), connotes the early classical Tamil literature and is the earliest known literature of South India. The Tamil tradition links it to Legendary Tamil Sangams, legendary literary gatherings around Madurai in the ancient Pandya dynasty, Pandya kingdom. It is generally accepted by most scholars that the historical Sangam literature era, also known as the Sangam period, spanned from 100 BCE to 250 CE, on the basis of linguistic, epigraphic, archaeological, numismatic and historical data; though some scholars give a broader range of 300 BCE to 300 CE. The Eighteen Greater Texts (Patiṉeṇmēlkaṇakku), along with the Tamil grammar work Tolkāppiyam, Tolkappiyam, are collectively considered as Sangam literature. These tex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maritime History
Maritime history is the study of human interaction with and activity at sea. It covers a broad thematic element of history that often uses a global approach, although national and regional histories remain predominant. As an academic subject, it often crosses the boundaries of standard Academic discipline, disciplines, focusing on understanding humankind's various relationships to the oceans, list of seas, seas, and major waterways of the globe. Nautical history records and interprets past events involving ships, shipping, navigation, and seafarers. Maritime history is the broad overarching subject that includes fishing, whaling, international maritime law, naval history, the history of ships, ship design, shipbuilding, the history of navigation, the history of the various maritime-related sciences (oceanography, cartography, hydrography, etc.), sea exploration, maritime economics and trade, shipping, yachting, seaside resorts, the history of lighthouses and aids to navigation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lingua Franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a First language, native language or dialect, particularly when it is a third language that is distinct from both of the speakers' native languages. Linguae francae have developed around the world throughout human history, sometimes for commercial reasons (so-called "trade languages" facilitated trade), but also for cultural, religious, diplomatic and administrative convenience, and as a means of exchanging information between scientists and other scholars of different nationalities. The term is taken from the medieval Mediterranean Lingua Franca, a Romance languages, Romance-based pidgin language used especially by traders in the Mediterranean Basin from the 11th to the 19th c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Guy (historian)
John Alexander Guy (born 16 January 1949) is a British historian and biographer specialising in the early modern period. Biography Born in Warragul, Victoria, Australia, Guy moved to Britain with his parents in 1952. He was educated at King Edward VII School in Lytham St Annes in Lancashire, and Clare College, Cambridge, where he read history, achieving a First in 1970. At Cambridge, Guy studied under the Tudor specialist Geoffrey Elton. He was awarded a Greene Cup by Clare College in 1970 and the Yorke Prize by the University of Cambridge in 1976. He was appointed a Research Fellow at Selwyn College in 1970, completing his PhD on Thomas Wolsey in 1973. During his academic career, Guy has held posts at St Andrews University (where he is Honorary Professor and was sometime Vice-Principal for Research), Bristol University, UC Berkeley, University of Rochester and Johns Hopkins. Guy currently teaches at Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamil Loanwords In Biblical Hebrew
The importance of Tamil loanwords in Biblical Hebrew lies in the fact that these words are the earliest recorded attestation of the Tamil language. At some point before 500 BCE, they were incorporated into the various writings of the Hebrew Bible. Although a number of authors have identified many biblical and post-biblical words originating from Old Tamil or the Dravidian languages in general, a number of them have competing etymologies, and some Tamil derivations are considered controversial. It is believed that Tamil's linguistic interaction with Biblical Hebrew, which belongs to the Afroasiatic languages, occurred amidst the wider international exchange of goods and ideas (e.g., the ancient spice trade) between merchants travelling throughout Eurasia via the Silk Road. Origins The incorporation of Tamil loanwords into the Hebrew language originally came about through the interactions of merchants from the Levant and South India. The mainstream view is that the beginnings of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Egyptian Pottery
Ancient Egyptian pottery includes all objects of fired clay from ancient Egypt. First and foremost, ceramics served as household wares for the storage, preparation, transport, and consumption of food, drink, and raw materials. Such items include beer and wine mugs and water jugs, but also bread moulds, fire pits, lamps, and stands for holding round vessels, which were all commonly used in the Egyptian household. Other types of pottery served ritual purposes. Ceramics are often found as grave goods. Specialists in ancient Egyptian pottery draw a fundamental distinction between ceramics made of Nile clay and those made of marl clay, based on chemical and mineralogical composition and ceramic properties. Nile clay is the result of eroded material in the Ethiopian mountains, which was transported into Egypt by the Nile. This clay has deposited on the banks of the Nile in Egypt since the Late Pleistocene by the flooding of the Nile. Marl clay is a yellow-white stone which occurs in li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quseir Al Qadim
Myos Hormos () was a Red Sea port founded by the Ptolemy II Philadelphus upon a headland of similar name, around the 3rd century BC. Later, it was renamed to Aphrodites Hormos () but the elder appellation is more generally retained. Following excavations carried out recently by David Peacock and Lucy Blue of the University of Southampton, it is thought to have been located on the present-day site of Quseir al-Quadim (old Quseir), eight kilometres north of the modern town of El Qoseir in Egypt. Etymology The Myos Hormos may mean the "Harbour of the Mouse", but most probably meant the "Harbour of the Mussel" (μύειν, to close, e.g. the shell), since on the neighbouring coast the pearl mussel was collected in large quantities. Also, it seems to have obtained the name of ''Aphrodite'' (technically meaning ''foam of the sea''), from the abundance of sea-sponge found in its bay. History Ptolemy II Philadelphus selected it for the principal harbour of the trade with India, in pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion, diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age#South Asia, Bronze Age. Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a lingua franca, link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting effect on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Indo-Aryan languages# ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South India
South India, also known as Southern India or Peninsular India, is the southern part of the Deccan Peninsula in India encompassing the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area () and 20% of India's population. It is bound by the Bay of Bengal in the east, the Arabian Sea in the west and the Indian Ocean in the south. The geography of the region is diverse, with two mountain ranges, the Western and Eastern Ghats, bordering the plateau heartland. The Godavari, Krishna, Kaveri, Penna, Tungabhadra and Vaigai rivers are important non-perennial sources of water. Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Coimbatore and Kochi are the largest urban areas in the region. The majority of the people in South India speak at least one of the four major Dravidian languages: Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. During its history, a number of dynastic kingdoms ruled ove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
