Tamil phonology

Tamil phonology

The Tamil alphabet distinguishes 12 vowels and 18 consonants. These combine to form 216 compound characters. There is one special character ("aaytha ezutthu"), giving a total of 247 characters.

Vowels

The vowels are called "uyir ezhuthu" ("uyir" - life, "ezhuthu" - letter). The vowels are classified into short and long (five of each type) and two diphthongs.

The long ("nedil") vowels are about twice as long as the short ("kuRil") vowels. The diphthongs are usually pronounced about one and a half times as long as the short vowels, though most grammatical texts place them with the long vowels.

References

Bibliography

*citation
last = Keane
first = Elinor
year= 2004
title=Tamil
journal=Journal of the International Phonetic Association
volume=34
issue=1
pages=111-116


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