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Tamil

Phylum: Dravidian

Genus: Tamil-Tulu

Lat/lon: 13.0826802, 80.2707184

ISO code: tam

Consonants

Basic short series

bilabiallabio-velardentalalveolarretroflexpalatalvelarglottal
stopp, bt̪, d̪ʈ, ɖc, ɟk, g
trillr
fricativeʐh
nasalmnɳɲŋ
approximantwj
lateral approximantɭ

Vowels

Basic short series

frontcentralback
closeiu
close-mideo
opena

Long series

frontcentralback
close
close-mid
open

Diphthongs

/ai/, /au/

Licit initial clusters

Ø

Source: Annamalai, E.; and Sanford B. Steever. 1998. Modern Tamil. The Dravidian languages, ed. by Sanford B. Steever, 100–128. Routledge language family descriptions. London ; New York: Routledge.

Comments: “In the spoken language, virtually all words end in vowels, while in the literary language, words may end in certain nasals and liquids as well” (103).

Contributed by: Dmitry Nikolaev (dnikolaev@fastmail.com)