Take pride in mother tongue, says Minister

Three persons, including two youngsters, were honoured at the Tamil Lexicography Day celebrations on Wednesday.

The awardees were selected from a list of applicants from across the world who claimed to speak only pure Tamil.

“We tried our best to make them use other languages, but we could not,” said Thanga. Kamaraj, director of the Tamil Etymology project, announced the prize winners.

R. Haridas, 71, a former Elementary Education Department employee from Jayam Kondan in Tiruvarur; C. Manikandan, a Coimbatore-based Tamil teacher; and Arokiya Oliver Raja, a second-year BSc student of St. Joseph’s College, were chosen for the honour.

The winners were honoured with a shawl, a memento and cash, by Food Minister R. Kamaraj and Minister for Tamil Language and Culture K. Pandiarajan.

Mr. Kamaraj urged the students to take pride in their mother tongue. Sudha Seshayyan, vice-chancellor of the Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University, said thatthe institution had organised the first meeting to identify Tamil words for technical terms in medicine.

As many as 100 professors had put in their efforts for the project, she said.

‘An evolving language’

Mr. Pandiarajan said synonyms for a word in Tamil had existed for many centuries. But it was Veeramamunivar, an evangelist who travelled from Italy to India to preach Christianity, who compiled the words into a dictionary.

T. Udhayachandran, Commissioner of Archaeology, said that the base for the dictionary was laid as early as the 7th century in Tamil Nadu. But the collection of words were scattered in various texts. Tamil is an evolving language that writers and poets have been building by coining new words, he said.

For instance, Bharathiar struggled to find a word for member. He initially came up with urupali but it was only later that urupinar began to be used.

Students from various colleges presented traditional dance performances earlier.