Language
See also: ManipravalamTamil is the mother tongue of most Iyers residing in India and elsewhere. However, Iyers speak a distinct dialect of Tamil unique to their community. This dialect of Tamil is known as Brāhmik or Brahmin Tamil. Brahmin Tamil is highly Sanskritized and has often invited ridicule from Tamil nationalists due to its extensive usage of the Sanskrit vocabulary. While Brahmin Tamil used to be the lingua franca for inter-caste communication between different Tamil communities during pre-independence times, it has been gradually discarded by Brahmin themselves in favour of regional dialects. The Palakkad Iyers have a unique sub-dialect of their own. Palakkad Tamil is characterized by the presence of a large number of words of Malayali origin. The Sankethi Iyers speak Sankethi which borrows words from Kannada,Tamil and Sanskrit.
Iyengars speak a separate dialect of Tamil called Iyengar Tamil. Some regard the Iyengar speech not as a dialect at all, but only as a sub-dialect of Brahmin Tamil.
Further information: Brahmin TamilRead more about this topic: Iyer
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“Syntax and vocabulary are overwhelming constraints—the rules that run us. Language is using us to talk—we think we’re using the language, but language is doing the thinking, we’re its slavish agents.”
—Harry Mathews (b. 1930)
“As in private life one differentiates between what a man thinks and says of himself and what he really is and does, so in historical struggles one must still more distinguish the language and the imaginary aspirations of parties from their real organism and their real interests, their conception of themselves from their reality.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“There’s a cool web of language winds us in,
Retreat from too much joy or too much fear:
We grow sea-green at last and coldly die
In brininess and volubility.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)