Brahmin Tamil - History

History

See also: Manipravalam and Grantha alphabet

Brahmin Tamil is believed to have evolved over a long period of time starting from the days of the legendary sage Agastya. However, the dialect took its present form during the reign of the Vijayanagar Empire. During the heyday of Brahmin domination in the early 1900s, Brahmin Tamil was used as the lingua-franca for inter-caste communication. The principal characters in the Tamil movies of the period (1930s and 1940s) also spoke the Brahmin dialect. However, with the rise of the Pure Tamil Movement and the entry of Dravidian ideologues into Tamil cinema in the 1950s, Brahmin Tamil was gradually displaced from public spheres. Today, Brahmin Tamil is only used in films and television soaps centred on the Brahmin society. Brahmin Tamil, has however, continued to flourish among the expatriate community.

The first systematic study of Brahmin Tamil was undertaken by Jules Bloch in 1910. However, the most detailed study was conducted by A. K. Ramanujan and William Bright in the 1960s. More recent researches on Brahmin Tamil and other socio-dialects have been conducted by Kamil Zvelebil.

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