Search for Tamil Resources

This is a database of brief reviews of the best resources available in the Tamil language field. An editorial board consisting of E. Annamalai, Ronald E. Asher, Prathima Christdas, Norman Cutler, James W. Gair, K. Karunakaran, R. Radhakrishnan, Vasu Renganathan, and Harold Schiffman compiled these resources during a weekend workshop in June of 1999; it was recently updated again by Prathima Christdas in consultation with various members of this board.

Many of these resources date from the early 1960's onward, when Tamil began to be taught in the United States. Before that, Tamil was taught in Europe, and some of the older sources, though pedagogically somewhat outdated, stem from earlier in the 19th or 20th centuries. Reference works of all periods are still valuable, and many have been updated during the 20th century. These are almost all print-based materials, but some on-line materials are beginning to become available, especially under the auspices of the Pedagogical Materials Project of the South Asia Language Resource Center. Another workshop to establish priorities for the development of electronic resources for Tamil was held in March of 2003, sponsored by the SALRC.

The focus of the resources is on learners and what is available to them, and in some cases for teachers and what they can obtain or best put to use. Some materials are out of print, but can be found in libraries or in used editions. Tamil being a diglossic language, with spoken styles that are quite different from written, these issues must be addressed. Tamil does not have a recognized and standard transliteration system, especially for the spoken language, so various competing systems exist, which learners and teachers must take cognizance of. Users and learners are invited to contribute suggestions for updating this list as appropriate.

Search for Tamil Resources