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

Tamil script The Tamil script ( , ) is an abugida script that is used by Tamils and Tamil speakers in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and elsewhere to write the Tamil language. Certain minority languages such as Saurashtra, Bada ...

. In 1978, the Government of

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil languag ...

reformed certain syllables of the modern

with view to simplify the script. It aimed to standardize non-standard ligatures of , , and syllables. These reforms only spread in India and the digital world, whereas

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...

, Reunion and other

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, nati ...

speaking regions continue to use the traditional syllables. Furthermore, only 13 out of 15 of the proposed simplifications were successful as people continued to use instead of the proposed and instead of the proposed .

History

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy (17 September 1879 – 24 December 1973), revered as Periyar or Thanthai Periyar, was an Indian social activist and politician who started the Self-Respect Movement and Dravidar Kazhagam. He is known as the 'F ...

was one of the people to suggest script reform. A Script Reform Committee was formed in 1947 under Periyar E. V. Ramasamy, while in 1951 the Government of

accepted its recommendations, it failed to enforce them. 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

This was preceded by many reforms during early 20th century, led by Tanittamil Iyakkam, Tamil purist movement, which purged most of the Grantha consonants from the

Tamil-Grantha script Extended-Tamil script or Tamil-Grantha refers to a script used to write the Tamil language before the 20th century Tamil purist movement.K. Kailasapathy (1979)The Tamil Purist Movement: A Re-evaluation Social Scientist, Vol. 7, No. 10, pp. 23-27 Ta ...

(except , , , ) and standardized the modern Tamil alphabet.K. Kailasapathy (1979)
The Tamil Purist Movement: A Re-evaluation
Social Scientist, Vol. 7, No. 10, pp. 23-27

References

{{Tamil language Spelling reform Tamil language