Tamil phonology

Monophthongs of Tamil, from Keane (2004:114)

The vowels are called உயிரெழுத்து uyireḻuttu ('life letter'). The vowels are classified into short and long (five of each type) and two diphthongs.

The long (nedil) vowels are about twice as long as the short (kuṟil) vowels. The diphthongs are usually pronounced about one and a half times as long as the short vowels, though most grammatical texts place them with the long vowels.

Tamil has two diphthongs /aɪ/ ஐ and /aʊ/ ஔ, the latter of which is restricted to a few lexical items. [ɯ] is found as a variation of /u/ at the end of words.

Colloquially the initial /i(:), e(:)/ may have a [ʲ] onglide and [ʷ] for /o(:), u(:)/ eg [ʲeɾi, ʷoɾɯ].[3] It doesnt happen in the Sri Lankan dialects.[4]

Colloquial Tamil also has nasalized vowels formed from word final /VN/ cluster in words which have more than 1 syllable for example அவன் /aʋan/ may be [aʋã] ([aʋẽ] in some dialects), மரம் /maɾam/ maybe [maɾõ], நீங்களும் /niːnkaɭum/ maybe [n̪iːŋgaɭũ], வந்தான் /ʋant̪a:n/ [ʋan̪d̪ã:] etc.[3][5]

Colloquially the high short vowels /i, u/ in the first syllable when next to a short consonant and the vowel /a/ get lowered to [e, o] eg இடம் /iʈam/ to [eɖam], உடம்பு /uʈampu/ to [oɖambɯ]. Additionally, the front long vowels /eː, iː/ are subject to retraction, when in the first syllable of a bisyllabic word, and followed by a retroflex consonant. So, /ʋiːɖu/ "house" becomes [ʋɨɖɪ̈], but it's inflected forms /ʋiːʈʈukku/ remains [ʋiːʈ(ː)uk(ː)ɪ̈]. Likewise, /t̪eːɖu/ "search!" becomes [t̪əːɖɪ̈], but /t̪eːɖinaːn/ "(he) searched" remains [t̪eːɖinãː]. The presence of retraction and degree for each vowel may be different. It varies across dialects and even individual speakers.[5]

The consonants are known as மெய்யெழுத்து meyyeḻuttu ('body letters'). The consonants are classified into three categories with six in each category: vallinam ('hard'), mellinam ('soft' or nasal), and idayinam ('medium'). Tamil has very restricted consonant clusters (for example, there are no word-initial clusters) and has allophonic aspirated stops. There are well-defined rules for voicing stops in the written form of Tamil, Centamil (the period of Tamil history before Sanskrit words were borrowed). Stops are voiceless when at the start of a word, in a consonant cluster with another stop and when geminated. They are voiced otherwise.

Tamil is characterized by its use of more than one type of coronal consonants: like many of the other languages of India, it contains a series of retroflex consonants. Notably, the Tamil retroflex series includes the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ (ழ) (example Tamil; often transcribed 'zh'), which is rare in the Indo-Aryan languages. Among the other Dravidian languages, the retroflex approximant also occurs in Malayalam (for example in 'Kozhikode') and Badaga, disappeared from spoken Kannada around 1000 AD (although the character is still written, and exists in Unicode, ೞ as in ಕೊೞೆ), and was never present in Telugu. In some dialects of colloquial Tamil, this consonant is seen as disappearing and shifting to the retroflex lateral approximant /ɭ/ in the south and palatal approximant /j/ in the north.[6]

The proto Dravidian alveolar stop *ṯ developed into an alveolar trill /r/ in many of the Dravidian languages while *ṯṯ and *ṉṯ remained. The stop sound is retained in Kota and Toda (Subrahmanyam 1983).[7]

[n] and [n̪] are in complementary distribution and are predictable, [n̪] word initially and before /t̪/ and [n] elsewhere, ie they are allophonic.[3]

/ɲ/ is extremely rare word initially and is only found before /t͡ɕ/ word medially. [ŋ] only occurs before /k/.[3]

A chart of the Tamil consonant phonemes in the International Phonetic Alphabet follows:

1. ⟨ச⟩ is pronounced as [s] medially.
2. [s] and [ɕ] are allophones of initial /t͡ɕ/ in some dialects.
3. /f/, /z/ and /ʂ/ are only found in loanwords, and may be considered marginal phonemes; though they are traditionally not seen as fully phonemic.
4. [ɦ] and [x] are allophones of /k/ in some dialects.

The voiceless consonants are voiced in different positions.

In modern Tamil, however, voiced plosives occur initially in loanwords, and some native words as well. Germinate stops get simplified to singleton unvoiced stops after long vowels, suggesting the primary cue is now voicing (cf. kūṭṭam-kūṭam becoming kūṭam-kūḍam in modern speakers). Altogether, we see a shift in progress towards phonemic voicing, more advanced in some dialects than others.[3]

Unlike Indo-Aryan languages spoken around it, Tamil does not have distinct letters for aspirated consonants and they are found as allophones of the normal stops. The Tamil script also lacks distinct letters for voiced and unvoiced stop as their pronunciations depend on their location in a word. For example, the voiceless stop [p] occurs at the beginning of the words and the voiced stop [b] cannot. In the middle of words, voiceless stops commonly occur as a geminated pair like -pp-, while voiced stops do not. Only the voiced stops can appear medially and after a corresponding nasal. Thus both the voiced and voiceless stops can be represented by the same script in Tamil without ambiguity, the script denoting only the place and broad manner of articulation (stop, nasal, etc.). The Tolkāppiyam cites detailed rules as to when a letter is to be pronounced with voice and when it is to be pronounced unvoiced. The only exceptions to these rules are the letters ச and ற as they are pronounced medially as [s] and [r] respectively.

Some loan words are pronounced in Tamil as they were in the source language, even if this means that consonants which should be unvoiced according to the Tolkāppiyam are voiced.

• IPA vowel chart with audio
• IPA pulmonic consonant chart with audio
• IPA chart (vowels and consonants) - 2015. (pdf file)

• Tamil to IPA converter