We do understand your passion for posting Tamil fonts. But this has been extensively discussed MANY TIMES and documented already. If you have time please visit them and understand why we still using english.
Before that please check the links below to understand the why the decision was made.
perspective, our yahoo group is popular because so many people are able to find what they want from search engines, if you ask some of our most recent members, you will know that. If you use tamil fonts, then search engines will understand only if you search in tamil fonts.
How many of you search in pure tamil ? What is the point in having pure tamil forum which people can't reach it through search engines ?
and lot more as new members join, we always get this topic and so far we haven't found the reason to switch.
If you STILL THINK you need post in tamil, PLEASE post AT LEAST the subject in english and the content as PURE tamil.
Dear Sir, Thanks for sending previous discussions. I have read them all. I just wanted to say let us think about Tamil in cyber world, to express, preserve our discussions and works in Tamil. Let us show some interest to make others to understand Tamil. This is what I wanted to say. There are many youngsters in our group working on various platforms of cyber world. Let them think and do something for Tamil. English entered into our Varalaru only a few centuies back and still rules. Let us continue to think in Tamil and do it in english.
Sorry to digress - can we, just for a few minutes put the language issue apart and look what history we have at hand? The real history is confined to only a small group like ours. What is being taught to us in books - the adulterated history by the europeans to disparage Indians. Right.
When we blame the past for setting our history wrong, do we look at the present?
I came across the below link and really did not know whether to laugh or cry.
Dear Sathish, The content of the URL you have sent makes blood boiling. I have done immediately something to stop this. This exists in India and Tamilnadu because the Hindus here are keeping mum. Why dont they make this propaganda about Saudi, Iran, Irak, and Pakistan? In future if this is allowed the Thanjai Peruvudyar Koil by our Ponniyin Selvan will be said to be built for Christ. Madhappatru is not harmful. Madhaveri is venomous and is to be cured as soon as possible. Vishwak
SAtish, am just very confused abut that website you sent. It appears to be a hindu website, but yet is posting this type of evangelical articles. (I can talk at great length on evangelism and its evils). I am very confused on how an article like this could get posted on a hindu website. Just fyi this fellow's arguments are not new. Evangelical chuches engage in lot of arguments to convert thinking hindus to christianity, and they get heavily funded by christian missions abroad. Mostly poor people or those who somehow had bad experiences with hindusim only go this way. It is unfortunate but not new.
> Let us continue to think in Tamil and do it in english.
Wow.. that is a great line. touch of a writer!!!
When I was talking with a friend of mine, who is a young enter pruner, he mentioned that "he can talk in tamil, but he thinks in english". Meaning, when he think about an idea, or anything which are to be expressed, the grip he has on the language's vocabulary is very important, since he is going to put it across to others. Thinking in terms of tamil I think is a bit difficult to corporate guys, who are thinking and talking only in english. Guess it needs a real conscious effort from anyone to change that. If you listen to any FM radio today, you can clearly see what I am talking of.
But I going to make a conscious effort from now on and see how am I faring.
One management mantra I learnt very late in my working life is - not OR but AND. This or that (project, design etc.) always cropped up when decisions were to be made. Eventhough OR appears more logical, we were encouraged (rather forced) to do AND, by planning additional resources. In my working life I have faced this dilemma several times.
Why should we argue - English or Tamil? It is now easy to communicate in both languages. Let us use both; 80% are conversant in both and the rest will decide in due course what to choose.
Yes. Sathis is correct. Please read the full article. Initially I too was confused as half of the article gives a different flavour compared to the sites name. But later it has been objected with valid details. Do read the comments from the readers as well. One Ms.Devapriya had give beautiful arguments with needed reference.
I fully understand and agree with you. I took Hindi as my second language from my 9th std and thats the only decision, I feel bad about in my life till date. I have never looked back on any of my decisions, and if there any decision which I look back, its only this. Simple reason why I took Hindi and not Tamil - The tamil teacher was a terror..she always criticizes and beats everyone for silly reasons.
It was only a 6-7 years back when I thought about this and slowly started getting myself into tamil reading. Mr.Harikrishnan, who is quite famous in the tamil internet world, is the one who instigated a love for tamil literature in me. He once wrote that, in Tamil Nadu, in the past 60 years, though people made a hue and cry on tani tamil, 3 generations have been deprived of tamil educations. Very true.
I openly challenge - can anyone in the forties or lesser, can talk a sentence in tamil without any mix of english words?? Condition is, you should not think before you talk, it should be spontaneous....
I have seen that when Hindi people talk, there will not be a mix of english words, same with Telungu, malayalam people. but tamil's - you hardly find tamil words when we talk. I had a neighbour a few years back, who used beat their UKG daughter if she calls them amma appa. Only Daddy mummy is allowed. Generally Indians, especially tamils, we feel proud in talking english and is a fancy to say, I dont know tamil
This is purely because of the colonial past and tani tamil was used only for politics but never to educate people. literally 3 generations were deprived of tamil education. Can anyone decipher a sangam literature without a urai??
With all these shortcomings, we should try to learn and encourage others to learn Tamil rather than criticizing the current situation.
Again, this is a literary forum searching for true history, and not a Tamil forum. There are lots of forums which insist only on writing tamil.
Even in my other thread, we were discussing how history is being manipulated by vested interest. Tamil history dont get the due place in Indian history. We all know whats the plight of true history in India. Given this, if we write in Tamil, it will never reach a larger audience. Can we bring RRC to limelight in Northindia if we write in tamil?
As Sampath suggested, why tamil or english, let it be tamil and english.
Satish, I am upto your challenge. Whenver I visit home in India i tell my folks that I will not use english and catch me when I do. Rarely I have been caught. That said, I surely can't claim that about thinking. Thinking is a spontaneous thing, if you want to catch yourself thinking in one language or the other, it is really very difficult because you will lose the train of thought.
Also I believe there is a certain misperception on other language people knowing their languages better than tamils do. How well you know a language very strongly depends on where you live and how often you use it. All NRI families growing up like telugus or gujarits know only very little of their native. It is a big grouse in their families as well. I knowseveral telugus in Coimbatore where I grew up who knew only tamil, and would get teased mercilessly by their cousins or relatives from AP. There are several marwaris in Chennai too like that who know tamil better than other languages.
We do use english a lot better than other indians do, no doubt about that. That comes from the fact that we rejected hindi. Everyone has to learn a 'link language', and in our case it became english that is all.
Like you said, i had a tamil teacher who was my inspiration to learn more of tamil, not just as a language but literary interest was inspired by her. Unless we have someone like that in our life we don't learn or it is difficult to push the cause with sentiment alone.
Spoken Tamil in India now is way different from written tamil.
Learning of Tamil is not pursued as a real career or interest except for a handful few who just love the language as much as they love their mothers.
I am curious to know how many kids who finish 12th grade with tamil show the passion to learn more (I am not talking about career path)? Tamil literature is a world on its own, it needs a lot of passion to pursue that knowledge. Youth must take our history seriously. Youngsters must learn it, not by force etc, but by the beauty of it. Tamil must be made accessible and its beauty portrayed in a way that is easily edible by our young generation.
English can be used for anything, link language, trade language or what ever that it can be used for, but tamil must be the inner language, the one that is close to your heart.
In short, use english how ever you want, but ensure that you and others develop and blend tamil and the love of the language into your life.
:-) Drink tamil and become immortal. after all ... thamizukkum amudhendru per...