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Recent analyses of sluicing focus on the underlying structure of the sluiced clause, i.e. sluicing as deriving from full-fledged wh-questions, or from reduced clefts (Ross 1969, Guesswho? In Robert I. Binnick,AliceDavison, GeorgiaM. Green& Jerry L. Morgan (eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 252-286. Chicago, IL: Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago; Merchant 2001, The syntax of silence. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press; Craenenbroeck, Jeroen van. 2010b. The syntax of ellipsis: Evidence from Dutch dialects. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press., inter alia). In this paper, we investigate two sluicing strategies in Spoken Tamil, namely case-marked (CM) and noncase- marked (NCM) sluicing. In addition to the morphological distinction with respect to the presence/absence of grammatical case on the wh-sluice, we argue that the two types of sluicing differ in the configuration of the underlying embedded CP. ForCMsluicing, the sluiced clause is derived froma full-fledged interrogative CP at the underlying level, whereas the bare wh-sluice undergoes leftward whscrambling to the CP-initial position followed by TP-domain deletion at PF. While we contend that most A/A'-diagnostics are uninformative of the type of operation wh-scrambling in Tamil involves (contra Sarma 2003, Non-Canonical word order: Topic and focus in adult and child tamil. In Karimi Simin (eds.), Word order and scrambling, 238-272. Malden, Oxford: Blackwell), various properties of the CM whsluice (e.g. scope, negation, adverb placement, multiple sluicing) can still be described by postulating that the wh-sluice involves A'-scrambling. For the second type of sluicing (NCM sluicing), the sluiced clause involves a biclausal structure formed by a normal sentence and a null copular question. We claim that the NCM wh-sluice is derived fromSpad (Sluicing PlusADemonstrative), since the null copular question can be accompanied by a demonstrative, cf. English 'John met someone, who is that?' and Dutch spading (Van Craenenbroeck 2010b). Spad is not derived froma full-fledged interrogative CP, and therefore its wh-sluice does not involve any scrambling operation. The present analysis of Tamil sluicing refutes the claim that reduced clefts are one underlying sluicing source in Dravidian languages, and moreover invites an inquiry of whether Dravidian as a language family in the historical sense always receives a homogeneous analysis, given the immense parametric variation among branch languages. In the same vein, we contend that any claim about the 'principles' of Dravidian syntax must be supported by strong crosslinguistic evidence at the microscopic level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study builds on research into the influence of religion on migrant language maintenance in Australia. In the case of Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus, previous studies have found that religious devoutness has a positive influence on the maintenance of Tamil in the home domain. In the religious domain, an ideology which links the Tamil language to the Tamil Hindu (Saiva) religion works in favour of maintaining Tamil in temple spaces in Australia. However this language-religion ideology is challenged by observations that, for the second generation Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu migrants growing up in Australia, a shift to English and disengagement from the religion is occurring. Through interviews with the leaders of three Tamil Hindu temples, I investigate the roles of different languages in the temples and ask whether the temples are contributing to Tamil language maintenance in the religious domain for the second generation. This paper highlights some of the issues faced by temples in engaging young generations in their heritage language and religion; as well as ways that temples are adapting, in a Western setting, in order to establish the religion for the long-term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tamil is a Dravidian language that began to try to develop itself, i.e., undergo Ausbau, when the perception developed that there was a threat from other languages to its very existence. In this study I claim that Tamil linguistic culture's Ausbau project has had limited success, principally because of an excessive concern with and devotion to purism. That is, rather than apply a number of different strategies for vocabulary (i.e., “word-formation”) development that are available to all languages, such as abbreviation, blending, borrowing, and nativization, Tamil linguistic culture has opted primarily for the strategy of loan translation, using “native” (or what are thought to be “pure” native) roots, or neologizing ex nihilo, making up new terms but using only what are thought to be “pure” native resources. This study thus looks back in the history of the language to a number of moments when Tamil (and the other Dravidian languages) were confronted with linguistic “threats” of various sorts, i.e., the influx of loan words from Sanskrit, and later pressures from both English during the British colonial period, and from Hindi, after independence. In the end, the fact that higher education has always been in English in India, and continues to resist any switch to other languages, has severely hampered the development of scientific and technological registers in any South Asian language, including Tamil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tamil and Hindi verbs of cutting, breaking, and tearing are shown to have a high degree of overlap in their extensions. However, there are also differences in the lexicalization patterns of these verbs in the two languages with regard to their category boundaries, and the number of verb types that are available to make finer-grained distinctions. Moreover, differences in the extensional ranges of corresponding verbs in the two languages can be motivated in terms of the properties of the instrument and the theme object. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's opinion on diglossia and sociolinguistic situations. Thus attempts to say that Tamil, for instance, exhibits the features of classical Fergusonian diglossia, but that French does not, or that the sociolinguistic situation in Haiti is one of Fishman-type diglossia rather than Fergusonian diglossia, depends on how one defines things. As is well known, politeness phenomena may be exchanged reciprocally, indicating solidarity or nonreciprocally, indicating power relationships or perhaps as an avoidance of solidarity. I claimed that there are cases of nonreciprocal diglossias, which exhibit the same kind of avoidance phenomena. Because of the massive shifts of population after World War II, however, Hochdeutsch, or a vernacular version of it is now the mother tongue of many Germans, having replaced the Low (L)-varieties, particularly in urban areas. On the issue of differences between diglossia and so-called biglossia, I once argued that the structure of the High (H)-variety and its similarities with the L-vareity psychologically and cognitively each other meant that speakers who only control L-variety have a passive knowledge of H and often demonstrate this in the ease with which they acquire H, as compared with speakers of other languages.

This essay considers the gendering of the Tamil and Hindi languages in the course of the anti-Hindi movement in southern India during the middle decades of this century. The movement, which was principally sponsored by Dravidian and Tamil nationalists, presented the Hindi language to the Tamil public as a bloody demoness, a scheming maid, a tempting whore, and a false mother out to destroy the Tamil language. The paper argues for the significance of the gendering of languages in nationalist mobilizations and activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study the discussion of Standard Lankan Tamil will not be oriented toward purely linguistic data but toward other kinds of data which only a narrow view of data-orientation would fail to see as crucially relevant to a characterization of the notion of language standardization. A purely descriptive linguistic approach would draw attention away from these kinds of data, which relate to sociological, economic, historical and political factors and proceed to characterized any particular standard language studied just as it would any non-standard dialect, simply by means of a description of the forms it actually uses, a description that would be neutral in that it would not entertain any ideal considerations relating to the value, correctness, and so on of these forms. Standardization, on the other hand, necessarily implies a choice from among available dialects on the basis of the supposedly superior value of the dialect chosen over those not chosen. As has been expressed above, it would appear that the choice is made entirely freely and consciously by member of linguistic communities. The history of the development of standard languages demonstrates quite convincingly, however, that, while the freedom and conscious participation of members of linguistic communities are never entirely absent, the question of a standard language is not raised in any genuine way until the socio-historical conditions create the need for such a language, moreover, the conditions that raise the need also largely determine the choice and character of the language that will satisfy it.

Studies on the national language problem in Sri Lanka have generally posed the problem as arising from the conflict of interests between the Sinhalese-speaking majority and the Tamil-speaking minority. This article focuses on contemporaneous movements at the intracommunity level. It deals with certain aspects of the Sinhalese national identity as manifested in the question of the choice of a written standard for the Sinhalese language. The question came to the fore primarily within the Sinhalese-speaking community. Nevertheless, that community's relationship first with the colonial master, the British, and second with the co-partners in independence, the Tamils, affected the form the question was subsequently to take. Also, tensions and anxieties within the Sinhalese community influenced its relationships with the British and the Tamils. Educated speakers of Sinhalese use two codes, one for speaking and the other for writing. The maintenance of such a linguistic distinction has been categorized as diglossia. Certain historical and cultural factors during the period from the fifteenth through the twentieth centuries have been decisive in the inception and continuance of Sinhalese diglossia.

This article discusses the first Tamil Congress. Tamil is one of the Indian languages belonging to the Dravidian spoken mainly in the southern state of Tamilnadu and also in countries such as Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore. Maturait Tamil Cankam, Academy for Tamil at Madurai, Madurai being the second-largest city in Tamilnadu and also the city where the ancient Tamil Sangam is believed to have been held, was actually established on September 14, 1901. There are two types of evaluation available on the Tamil Sangam. One is internal, found in the books and journals supported by the Tamil Sangam. The other is external and analyzes the role of the Tamil Sangam in the political and social development of Tamil society. In short, the Tamil Sangam, which established many organizations for the development of the study of Tamil, in due course became on organization responsible for running a Tamil college with two special features, publishing a quarterly journal and conducting examinations in Tamil for final-year students in regional schools. In conclusion, the Tamil Sangam, which was broad-based in its function and in the composition of the Boards of Management, in due course became restricted in its activities and, in its social composition, restricted in membership to one particular group.