Tamil Letters & Alphabet

Tamil (தமிழ்) is written in its own script, a member of the Brahmi family of India; inscriptions in Tamil-Brahmi letters in the caves of Tamil Nadu are more than two thousand years old. Like the other Indian scripts it is an abugida: a consonant on its own already carries the vowel a, so க is read ka, and other vowels are added as signs. Tamil grammar gives the letters bodily names. The 12 vowels are uyir (உயிர், 'life'): அ ஆ இ ஈ உ ஊ எ ஏ ஐ ஒ ஓ ஔ. The 18 consonants are mei (மெய், 'body'): க் ங் ச் ஞ் ட் ண் த் ந் ப் ம் ய் ர் ல் வ் ழ் ள் ற் ன். A body joined to a life gives an uyirmei (உயிர்மெய்) letter such as கா or மு, and 12 × 18 makes 216 of them. Add the āytam ஃ and the chart holds 12 + 18 + 216 + 1 = 247 letters, the famous number of every Tamil school chart.

Tamil's native alphabet has 18 consonant letters, with one letter for each stop rather than separate aspirated or voiced forms. In many native words, one letter covers voiceless and voiced realizations, with the sound depending on its position and neighboring sounds. க is a k at the start of கல் (kal, stone), a g in தங்கம் (thangam, gold) and a soft g or h between vowels in மகன் (magan, son); ப is a p in பால் (pāl, milk) and a b in அன்பு (anbu, love). Grammar sorts the 18 into three classes: vallinam (hard) க ச ட த ப ற, mellinam (soft) ங ஞ ண ந ம ன and idaiyinam (medium) ய ர ல வ ழ ள. Each hard letter has a nasal partner said in the same place, and the two go together in words: ங்க in தங்கம், ஞ்ச in பஞ்சு (cotton), ண்ட in வண்டி (cart), ந்த in பந்து (ball), ம்ப in கம்பு (millet), ன்ற in நன்றி (thank you).

Where Tamil is rich is in its l, r and n sounds. There are three l's: ல is an ordinary l, ள is said with the tongue curled back, and ழ, written zh in English, is a curled-back sound between r and l that Tamil shares with Malayalam. It is the last sound of தமிழ் itself (Tamizh) and the middle of மழை (rain) and வாழைப்பழம் (banana), and the three letters make three different words: வலி (pain), வளி (wind, in poetry) and வழி (way). The two r's ர and ற separate அரம் (a metal file) from அறம் (virtue), and ற்ற is said as a hard ttr. Of the three n's, ந mostly starts words (நன்றி), ன ends them (அவன், he) and ண is the curled-back one of கண் (eye) and மண் (soil); மனம் is the mind but மணம் a fragrance.

By CLDR's estimate about 91 million people speak Tamil, about 83 million of them in India, where it is the official language of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, one of the 22 scheduled languages of the constitution and, since 2004, the first language India declared classical. In Sri Lanka, where the same estimate counts about 3.3 million speakers, Tamil is an official language alongside Sinhala, and it is one of the four official languages of Singapore. Malaysia has about 1.5 million speakers and its own Tamil-medium schools, and the diaspora, much of it from Sri Lanka, is large in Canada, around Toronto, and in the United Kingdom; Mauritius and Réunion have old families of Tamil descent. Tamil is the oldest recorded Dravidian language; its closest relative is Malayalam, with Kannada and Telugu further off.

Tamil vowel signs and uyirmei letters (உயிர்மெய் எழுத்துக்கள்)

After a consonant a vowel is written as a sign, and the full row for க reads க கா கி கீ கு கூ கெ கே கை கொ கோ கௌ. The signs are ா for ஆ, ி for இ, ீ for ஈ, ு for உ, ூ for ஊ, ெ for எ, ே for ஏ, ை for ஐ, ொ for ஒ, ோ for ஓ and ௌ for ஔ. In Unicode you always type the consonant first and the sign second, even when the sign is drawn before it: ெ ே ை sit on the left, so கெ is typed க + ெ. ொ and ோ wrap round the consonant, half on each side, and Unicode treats them as ெ + ா and ே + ா; ௌ is ெ plus the length mark ௗ.

The signs for u and ū are the hard part of learning to write. Instead of one sign they change the shape of the consonant itself, differently for different letters: கு, சு, டு, மு, ரு and கூ, சூ, டூ, மூ, ரூ each have to be learned on their own. That is why children recite and copy the whole uyirmei chart row by row, அ ஆ இ ஈ and then க கா கி கீ, and why '247 letters' charts are printed for every classroom.

The pulli ் (புள்ளி, 'dot') turns a uyirmei letter back into a bare consonant: க is ka, க் is k. Most Indian scripts fuse consonant clusters into conjunct letters; Tamil does not, and keeps the dot in plain sight: பக்கம் (page), நன்றி, தமிழ். The only common exceptions are the Grantha clusters க்ஷ and ஸ்ரீ, which many fonts draw as one shape. The dot is ancient, described in the oldest Tamil grammar, the Tolkāppiyam, but older manuscripts often left it out, and they did not tell short e and o from long ē and ō either; the separate signs ெ and ே are usually credited to the 18th-century Jesuit grammarian Constanzo Beschi, known in Tamil as Veeramamunivar.

Āytam ஃ, Grantha letters and the 1978 script reform

The three-dot āytam ஃ (ஆய்தம், also ஆய்த எழுத்து) is a letter of its own in the Tamil chart; Unicode calls it TAMIL SIGN VISARGA after its Sanskrit cousin, but it is used in its own way. In native words it appears between a short vowel and a hard consonant, as in எஃகு (steel) and the poetic அஃது (that). Today it is busiest marking foreign sounds Tamil has no letter for: ஃ before ப writes an f, as in ஃபேன் (fan) and ஃபேஸ்புக் (Facebook).

The Grantha letters ஜ ஷ ஸ ஹ, with the clusters க்ஷ and ஸ்ரீ, were borrowed from the Grantha script that South India used for Sanskrit. They write j, sh, s and h in Sanskrit and foreign words: ராஜா (king), விஷம் (poison), ஜூன் (June), ஹலோ (hello), and the honorific ஸ்ரீ (Sri), typed ஸ + ் + ர + ீ. The Pure Tamil movement (தனித்தமிழ் இயக்கம்) of the 20th century prefers native spellings, such as சனவரி for ஜனவரி (January), so you will see both. ஶ is a separate, rarer sha used mostly for Sanskrit, and ௐ is the sacred syllable Om of temples and prayer books.

In 1978 the Tamil Nadu government under M. G. Ramachandran adopted a reform proposed long before by Periyar: the old looped shapes of ணா றா னா and the 'elephant-trunk' forms of ணை லை ளை னை were replaced by the regular sign written beside the letter. Unicode stores the old and new shapes identically, so the font decides which one you see; books printed before the reform still show the traditional forms.

Tamil numbers, fractions and old account signs

Tamil has its own digits, ௦ ௧ ௨ ௩ ௪ ௫ ௬ ௭ ௮ ௯, so 2026 is ௨௦௨௬, though today they appear mostly on calendars, temple inscriptions and old documents; everyday Tamil uses 0–9. The traditional system had no zero at all: it used signs for ten ௰, a hundred ௱ and a thousand ௲, so 2026 was written ௨௲௨௰௬, and the zero ௦ was only added in Unicode 4.1 (2005) for modern positional use. The numbers 1 to 10 in words are ஒன்று, இரண்டு, மூன்று, நான்கு, ஐந்து, ஆறு, ஏழு, எட்டு, ஒன்பது, பத்து.

Account books, letters and deeds used signs of their own: ௳ for நாள் (day), ௴ for மாதம் (month), ௵ for வருடம் (year), ௶ for பற்று (debit), ௷ for வரவு (credit), ௸ for மேற்படி (as above), ௺ for எண் (number) and ௹ for ரூபாய் (rupee). Unicode 12.0 (2019) added the 51-character Tamil Supplement with the rest of the old arithmetic: fractions from முந்திரி (1/320) through கால் (1/4) and அரை (1/2) to முக்கால் (3/4), measures of grain such as குறுணி and பதக்கு, coins such as காசு, பணம் and பொன், land measures such as குழி and வேலி, and the marks of the account books. கால், அரை and முக்கால் are still the everyday words for a quarter, a half and three quarters.

Modern Tamil prose uses the same punctuation as English: full stop, comma, question and exclamation marks and the curly quotation marks “ ” and ‘ ’. Prices in India are written with the rupee sign ₹, designed by D. Udaya Kumar, a Tamil from Tamil Nadu, and adopted in 2010; in Tamil the word is ரூபாய், short ரூ. In Sri Lanka prices are written Rs or ரூ, and ₨ is the single-character Rs.

How to type Tamil in WhatsApp, on a laptop and in MS Word

On a phone, add Tamil in Gboard (Android and iPhone) or in the iPhone keyboard settings. Gboard's Tamil keyboard can also turn English-letter typing into Tamil, so you type vanakkam and pick வணக்கம் from the suggestions, which is the quickest way to type Tamil in WhatsApp. On Windows 10 and 11, go to Settings → Time & language → Language & region → Add a language → Tamil (India or Sri Lanka), pick a keyboard such as Tamil 99, and switch with Windows + Space. Tamil 99 is the standard layout approved by the Tamil Nadu government in 1999; free phonetic tools such as NHM Writer, Azhagi and e-Kalappai are popular for typing Tamil in English letters on a laptop. On a Mac, add Tamil under System Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources, where Tamil99 and the phonetic Anjal are offered.

In MS Word, any Unicode Tamil keyboard works; set the text in a Unicode font such as Nirmala UI, Latha, Noto Sans Tamil or, on a Mac, Tamil Sangam MN. Without a keyboard, type a character's hex code and press Alt+X: 0BA4 Alt+X gives த and 0BB4 gives ழ. In HTML the same letters are த and ழ. Many older files, and much Sri Lankan and diaspora typing, used legacy Tamil encodings or font mappings such as Bamini, TSCII or TAM/TAB; without matching font or decoding support, the text may display as Latin letters and symbols, so convert it to Unicode first.