Analogies in Jaffna Tamil Dialect - A Linguistics Perception with Nannuul

Abstract

The languages, which evolve with the trend, survive for long. The languages, which could not cope-up with the trend, are distorted. In this respect, Tamil language is the most cherished and antique language among the classical languages in the world. It is observed from the analogical aspects of Tamil language, that Tamil language has been defined and nourished by the language scholars and linguists in the evolving era of languages as per the time. In Sri Lanka, Tamil language has several dialects. Among these dialects, Jaffna Tamil represents the major variety, which is located in the Northern part of the country. In addition, Jaffna Tamil has been sufficiently isolated from the other dialects through having the individual features in the dialect. This research study aims at tracing the antiqueness of Jaffna Tamil dialect and identifying the analogical aspects in that dialects, then those are compared with 'Nannuul', the ancient grammatical book with the limitations of past tense verb formation. The primary data sources are collected from direct observation and discussion methodologies from the people speaking Jaffna Tamil dialect and secondary data derived from the available articles on Tamil grammar and Jaffna Tamil dialect. In the sentence structure, various analogical aspects in Jaffna Tamil dialect are put forward and the primitiveness is proven by comparing those aspects with 'Nannuul' through this research. As the research analysis, this study reveals that the Jaffna Tamil dialect has more analogies and different suffixes in verb formation specified in the 'Nannuul' different from general Tamil dialect. Moreover, this research is beneficial to those who learn Tamil as a second language based on the Jaffna Tamil dialect by getting clarity on that and to register the specific features of Jaffna Tamil dialect.