The dialect I speak at home is a vague mixture of Tamil (the language spoken in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, parts of its neighbour Kerala, and Sri Lanka) and Malayalam (the language of Kerala). Ever since reading an extract from David Shulman's excellent history of Tamil,, I've been thinking about an aspect of the language Shulman touches on early on- its use of a rich palette of modes, or suffixes to verbs, which can change the tone or meaning of a sentence in just a syllable or two.
I thought I'd share some with you, as it's an incredibly fascinating linguistic feature. Note that I draw a lot of pronunciation from dialect, but the same forms exist in standard Tamil, too.
Let's start with the sentence:
1. Avan chaaptaan.
He ate.
Avan is 'he' and chaaptaan is 'ate.'
2. Avan chaaptaanaam.
It seems he/I was informed that he ate.
The suffix 'aam' is the one I remember Shulman highlighting in his book, and is one of my favourites. It makes the event a reported one; adding aam to this sentence makes this second-hand information.
3. Avan chaaptaanoh.
I wonder if he ate.
The suffix oh means 'I wonder if.' Pretty wonderfully concise.
4. Avan chaaptaanay
[insisting] But he ate (!)
The suffix ay is an affirmation in the face of possible contradiction, best translated as 'But...'
The next two are slightly more than suffixes, but still incredibly succinct.
5. Avan chaaptaalum
Even if he eats
lum means 'even if'
6. Avan chaaptaathu [+ verb]
He should at least eat (or 'should at least have eaten' depending on the tense of the next verb) before...
The suffix aathu to a verb X means 'at least do/should have done X before...' and can be used with a range of other verb tenses.
e.g. Avan chaaptaathu ponam.
He should at least eat before going.
e.g.
Avan chaptaathu poirukkalaam.
He should at least have eaten before going.
And finally, the plainest suffix:
7. Avan chaaptaanaa (?)
Did he eat?/Has he eaten?
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