[Fwd: two new publications on (modern) Tamil]

[John Peterson]

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Perhaps of interst to some of the list members. Sorry for cross-postings!

Best,
John

------------------------ Ursprüngliche Nachricht ------------------------
Betreff: two new publications on (modern) Tamil
Von:     "Tieken, H.J.H." <H.J.H.Tieken at HUM.LEIDENUNIV.NL>
Datum:   Di, 9.09.2008, 15:24
An:      INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

My colleagues who are involved in teaching (modern) Tamil might be
interested to know that recently two highly useful books have come out.
The first is a new edition of the Cre-A dictionary. Below I quote from the
publication announcement:



"In 1992 Cre-A published the first edition of kriyaavin tarkaalat tamizh
akaraati (tamizh-tamizh-aankilam) which met the needs of students,
teachers and users of the Tamil language. It was received enthusiastically
by the Tamil community around the world. Drawing on our experience in
dictionary making, we have now brought out a revised, expanded version of
this dictionary with a wider coverage. It is a result of eight years of
work, using larger language resources and sharper focus arising from
Cre-A:'s twenty years of engagement with dictionary making in Tamil. Among
the important features of this new edition are:



- a broadened conceptual framework for standard written Tamil



- an exposition of grammar of modern Tamil as reflected in the Dictionary,
by Dr.E. Annamalai and Dr. A. Dhamotharan



- a database of contemporary Tamil which is four times larger than that
used for the first edition



- significant addition of new words and senses



- a wider selection of words from Sri Lankan Tamil



- substantial increase in the number of illustrative sentences/phrases



- more pictorial illustrations than in the first edition.



More details and sample pages are in the brochure sent as an attachment to
this mail. We would appreciate your support and if you could bring this
information to your friends interested in contemporary Tamil.



with best wishes,



S.Ramakrishnan

Editor"



The email address of Cre-A is crea at vsnl.com <mailto:crea at vsnl.com> .



The second book is a new reader published by Mozhi (27, 3rd East Street,
Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai 600041, mozhitrust at yahoo.com
<mailto:mozhitrust at yahoo.com> ). Below a quotation from the publication
announcement:



"A Contemporary Tamil Prose Reader

A New Reader.

There is a felt need for a prose reader for those who learn Tamil as a
second or foreign language. Although course materials are available for
the teaching of Tamil at the beginner's level and to some extent at
intermediate level, there is a dearth of reading material for advanced
students who have obtained some proficiency in Tamil. After Asher and
Radhakrishnan's reader of 1971, this new reader fulfils the need of the
learners.

The present reader contains a selection of 23 texts of contemporary prose,
15 of creative writing and 8 from non-fiction, thereby providing a
cross-section of the myriad Tamil writings.

The Reader is organized as follows:

There is a short note on the author and the theme of the text. Each text
is punctuated by notes in English. Difficult lexical items and culture
specific items are explained in the notes. Points of grammar are given in
an identifiable way. After each text, an English translation follows. The
aim of providing translation is only an aid to step into the Tamil
expressive system. A glossary of words of all the texts is appended at the
end.



Features

1.	The persons who are responsible for the preparation of this reader have
rich experience in teaching Tamil to foreign students and scholars; and
also in conducting Tamil courses to other Indian language teachers.
2.	The selection is based according to a range in themes (from plain to
emotional), on grammatical features (from common to uncommon) and on style
(from popular to academic).
3.	Out of the 23 texts 7 are by women writers. A text from a Srilankan
writer is also included.
4.	A practical solution is found to grade the texts. For grading, the
morphology of words, patterns of sentences, features of style, currency of
words, familiarity of themes are weighed in terms of relatively easy to
relatively difficult axis.
5.	The Reader opens with a traditional folk tale and closes with a
contemporary writer's long story of pathos and humour.
6.	The translations of the texts have been revised with inputs from native
speakers of English.
7.	In the glossary, words are given with textual context and with their
English translation. The glossary is exhaustive and runs into more than
170 pages.
8.	The original texts are reproduced as they are found in print form
except for punctuation and word spacing. Consistency is maintained in
splitting and joining words."





Herman Tieken



-- 
John Peterson
FB 7, Sprachwissenschaft
Universität Osnabrück
Neuer Graben 41
D-49069 Osnabrück
Germany

Telephone: (+49) (0)541-969 4252
Telefax: (+49) (0)541-969 4256
Homepage: http://www.SouthAsiaBibliography.de/


-- 
John Peterson
FB 7, Sprachwissenschaft
Universität Osnabrück
Neuer Graben 41
D-49069 Osnabrück
Germany

Telephone: (+49) (0)541-969 4252
Telefax: (+49) (0)541-969 4256
Homepage: http://www.SouthAsiaBibliography.de/