Standardisation of Tamil script includes various attempts in the past as well as ongoing attempts to uniformalise the

Tamil script The Tamil script ( , ) is an abugida script that is used by Tamils and Tamil speakers in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and elsewhere to write the Tamil language. Certain minority languages such as Saurashtra, Badaga, ...

Historical background

Tamil-Brahmi Tamil-Brahmi, also known as Tamizhi or Damili, was a variant of the Brahmi script in southern India. It was used to write inscriptions in the early form of Old Tamil.Richard Salomon (1998) ''Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptio ...

is considered to be the earliest script used to write the

Tamil language Tamil (; ' , ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. Tamil is an official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the sovereign nations of Sri Lanka and Singapore, and the Indian territory of P ...

. This was replaced by Vattezhuttu, possibly due to writing on palm-leaves. The relationship between Vattezhuttu and

are inconclusive.

Pallava dynasty revision

The Pallava court of

Mahendravarman I Mahendravarman I (600–630 CE) was a Pallava emperor who ruled the Southern portion of present-day Andhra region and Northern regions of what forms present-day Tamil Nadu in India in the early 7th century. He was a scholar, painter, architec ...

replaced Vattezhuttu with two scripts:

and Pallava grantha to write

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

and

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

respectively. Pallava grantha was also divided into early and late forms. Late Pallava grantha is the precursor to the Kawi script. Although, whether the

emerged during the

Pallava dynasty The Pallava dynasty existed from 275 CE to 897 CE, ruling a significant portion of the Deccan, also known as Tondaimandalam. The dynasty rose to prominence after the downfall of the Satavahana dynasty, with whom they had formerly served as f ...

or indeed from

is contested among scholars.

Vīramāmunivar revision

In his ''Tonnūḷ Viḷakkam'', he differentiated between elongated and shortened vowel sounds in the

. For instance, 'எ' used to be written for both 'e' and 'é' before Veeramamunivar who introduced 'ஏ'. He brought about எ, ஏ, ஒ and ஓ. The Tolkppayian use of the ''puḷḷi'', which had fallen into disuse was revived by Veeramamunivar.

Simplified Tamil script

The government of

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...

introduced some reforms in the script in order to simplify it.

References

{{Tamil language Tamil script