A Grammar of Contemporary Literary Tamil (An Old and Rare Book)

The International Institute of Tamil Studies is proud to publish A Grammar of Contemporary Literary Tamil by Prof Pon. Kothandaraman popularly known as Portko, It is a matter of pleasure to record here the fact that Prof Portko was on the staff of our Institute As a scholar in traditional Tamil learning and modern linguistics, his contribution is noteworthy His writings have thrown light on many aspects-now forgotten-of Tamil language and Literature, particularly in grammar.
The present book will surely add to the available material on this subject.
Prof Portko started teaching at Annamalai University and continued it at the SOAS of London University and visited State University of New York at Stony Brook and Northwestern University of USA.
Later he was appointed a Visiting Professor in the programme for a Comparative Study of Tamil and Japanese at Gakushuin University, TOKYO in 1990, 1993 and 1996 At present Dr Portko is Professor and Head of the Department of Tamil Literature, University of Madras.
Thus fully equipped, he has ventured to present grammar of Contemporary Literary Tamil.
The book is divided into six sections starting with phonemics and ending with morphophonemic’s, between them the entire grammatical structure of Tamil is discussed.

Tamil is one of the Dravidian languages which has a continuous history since the age of Tolkappiyam, the earliest grammatical work available in Tamil (5th cent B.C.) It is mainly spoken in the southern part of India, known as Tamil Nadu. It is also spoken in the other parts of India such as Pondicherry, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Bangalore, Mysore, Hyderabad, Thiruvanantha puram, Mumbai, Calcutta, Delhi and Chandigarh. It is one of the official languages in Sri Lanka and Singapore. The Tamil speaking communities are found in the other countries such as Malaysia, Mauritius, South Africa, Fiji, Trinidad, Guyana, Maldives, Great Britain, France, USA, Canada and certain Arab countries.
Apart from India, the Tamil language is found to be in use in the mass-media of many other countries such as Singapore, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, UK and Canada. Tamil is included in the academic programmes in many universities at home and abroad. The area of the use of the Tamil language is fast expanding, especially in the latter half of the present century Scholars of other speech communities increasingly show a keen interest in learning Tamil for various 'purposes. A good knowledge of Tamil is found to be indispensable for the study of Tamil Linguistics, Dravidian Linguistics, Tamil Literature, Saiva Siddanta, Indian History, Indian Culture, Current Politics in India and also the Indus Valley scripts.
In order to cater to the growing needs of the Tamil learners, a large amount of teaching materials have been produced in various centres of Tamil Studies. Although it is long felt that a concise dictionary in the bi-lingual format and a reasonable grammar for easy reference are essential for any advanced learner of Tamil, the need was not legitimately fulfilled until the recent past At this juncture it should be mentioned that the International Institute of Tamil Studies has already published a laboratory manual entitled A Course In Modern Standard Tamil in addition to which another work entitled 'An Intensive Course in Tamil (with work books) has also been published. The Cre-A has published a valuable dictionary of Tamil (Tamil-Tamil English) in the year 1992. Mozhi, a Trust for resource development in language and culture has published a dictionary of Tamil idioms and phrases in the year 1997. The Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture (PILC), has published a grammatical work useful for modern Tamil studies. It is gratifying to note that at least a few works have appeared in the areas of Tamil grammar and dictionary.