Talk:Tamil phonology

NASAL VOWELS
Modern spoken Tamil has nasal vowels. These should be mentioned in this review. Source: http://books.google.es/books?id=Oqe-QsaZnnQC&pg=PA18&dq=tamil+%22nasal+vowels%22&hl=es&ei=MTluTJiyBY6Z4AauiMGtCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false —Preceding unsigned comment added by Linda Martens (talk • contribs) 02:18, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Go for it. — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 22:42, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Another Tamil vowel
(mistakenly put in the article by 59.178.168.154)

There is another vowel in Tamil which usually occurs word-finally. It is an unrounded closed back vowel denoted in IPA by ɯ. This vowel is different from its rounded counterpart ʊ. eg: The English word 'book' would be pronounced as [bʊkˑɯ]. It will not be pronounced as either [bʊkˑə] or as [bʊkˑʊ]. --PLEASE INCORPORATE THE SAME IN THE TABLE-- by Freelance Phonologist
 * Do you have a source? — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 13:41, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I remember seeing this phenomenon mentioned in Krishnamurti (2003), The Dravidian Languages. It is certainly automatic and not a full phoneme, and it never occurs anywhere else than word-finally after a consonant. It is best described as a paragogic vowel. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:38, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
 * The phenomenon is called 'குற்றியல் உகரம்' (kurriyal ukaram, lit. 'short u') in Tamil grammar textbooks, FWIW. Kishore G (talk) 04:57, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I just noticed the Tamil Wikipedia has an article on it. Kishore G (talk) 04:59, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Already mentioned here in the section on Elision. Sorry for the noise. Kishore G (talk) 05:02, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Aspirated and voiced stops
There is information in this article that suggests that there are no aspirated or voiced stops in Tamil. This is plain wrong and there are words (albeit few) with them. I would suggest that everyone help in finding such words and provide the information needed to rectify that point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Razr99 (talk • contribs) 17:39, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Self-contradiction
This page has the same issue as Tamil language, described here [ ]]. Calthinus (talk)  17:40, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Shouldn't அ be [ə] and not [a]?
I have no idea where [a] comes from because to my knowledge it does not even exist in the Tamil language. The source given describes it as such but contradicts itself when describing it as [ə] in the "transcribed passage]" which is given in it. SourceIsOpen (talk) 04:08, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

SpT, StT
The page mentions "SpT" a few times and "StT" at least once, without definining those abbreviations. (Presumably something like "spoken Tamil" versus "standard Tamil"?)

I'm guessing that this is due to quoting from a particular source which used (and defined!) those abbreviations.

Could the abbreviations please be defined at least once, or expanded everywhere they are used? - pne (talk) 15:36, 21 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Schiffman uses LT for literary Tamil and ST for Spoken Tamil, I think using LT and ST would be better but how do you define an abbreviation? is there a template for that? AleksiB 1945 (talk) 08:58, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Gnothidichselbst (talk) 09:01, 15 October 2022 (UTC) I expanded all abbreviations for clarity (it was driving me crazy as well).

Fixes (Feb 2023)
Tamil does contrast [nɡ ɳɡ ŋɡ] as in nān̠ku kaṇkaḷ and nīṅkaḷ but doesnt have [mg], /mk/ becomes [ŋɡ] as in suffixed maram-kaḷ > [maɾaŋɡaɭ] so should /nk/s with [ŋg] be changed to /mk/? also many like Krishnamurti considers [n] to be the allophone of /n̪/ instead of the other way as alveolars cant begin a word but n does occur initially.

On dialectical /tʃ/, (some) Brahmin dialects have [ʃ] as in pēcu as [pe:ʃɯ] instead of [peːsɯ] and [ʃaɾi] instead of [saɾi] but I dont have a source to back it. AleksiB 1945 (talk) 20:19, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

What about accent?
The words ‘stress’ and ‘accent’ are nowhere to be found here, and that’s fairly crucial for an article on this topic. Is Tamil weight-to-stress? Fixed stress? Does it even have stress or rather pitch accent? שונרא (talk) 23:49, 1 May 2024 (UTC)