Tamil thesaurus for English words and phrases

[Oldposts]

RJay,
Thanks for informing me about the existence of 'Tharkaala thamizh agaraathi'.
I will keep that in mind next time I shop for
Tamil books.

Chandra

[Oldposts]

The New Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines
Specialize: vb. To concentrate one's efforts in a special activity or field; also: to change in an adaptive manner. ---speicalization n.

I think that thaniththanmai would be difficult to justify in the light of this.
I cannot recall a Tamil equivalent right away.
But thaniththanmai seems to imply specialty
specialty (a particular quality or detail ; a product of a special kind or of special excellence).
Then a shorter equivalent to match this sense (specialty) would be siRappu or veeRu.

I like vagaimai very much at least from the point of view of using short (based on the number of syllables) Tamil words. I would like to contrast
vagaimai with thaniththanmai: the suffix -mai by itself already has the sense of "thanmai" or property or quality or state; thw word thanmai then in thaniththanmai would be redundant.
Of course we might feel uncomfortable with the alternative which is thanimai;
In these days of sorry state of affairs of Tamil which we have set out to change, the space of other potential senses of that word seems to have been arrogated by the obvious sense of "loneliness". I am saying other *potential* senses, because I do not know if the word thanimai has been or could be used in other senses. But I won't be surprised if that were the case.
The principle followed is teh same as in paring the suffix -pAdu from muraNpAdu to arrive at muran. I feel that a key to the success of Tamil is using short words that might at first not seem appropriate either because it is unusually short or it already has a more common sense. I feel tha this will be a scaleable principle.
Too many compound words spoil the attractiveness.
Take for example replacing "surgery" or "operation" in modern Tamil. One would immediately think of "aRuvai-ch-chigichchai"; I beg to differ with that as an effective candidate. I feel aruVai
should suffice. I actually have been using this in my phone conversations with my relatives when referring to such incidents ("mAmAvukku sundu viralle aRuvai senchAngalAme") I feel that using the compound alternative would sound too artificial or long. Of course I would worry less about the former feeling than the latter. But to have this practicable by the average Tamil aspirant, we need to consider all aspects; even then, the speaker has to ultimately have some conviction and guts to regularly use Tamil equivalents in colloquial settings.

As I have said before under a different thread
("Future of Thamizh"), the first step is to stop
using "panni thamizh"; stop worrying about threat to Tamil from modern concepts such as Internet and
stop replacing Tamil words for age-old concepts such as days of the week (use thingaL instead of Monday etc), verbs and nouns (vAdagai instead of rent, kazhuththu instead of neck, vali instead of pain, vizhA instead of function...)...or simplest of all nanRi instead of thanks....can we do it...
I was also guilty of this ...and I have actually started practising this. In the last few weks I greeted relatives (8 year olds through 46 year olds) and friends for birth days and deepavali using the word vAzhththugaL...I never used the english words "Happy", "greetings"; neither instead of no in addiiton to the Tamil words. It works fine...you just have to have the initial feelings worked out.
Replacing Tamil words with English words for such concepts is what is killing Tamil and not usage of
words like internet or airport which come by every now and then.

Well I suppose this is enough for the day and for a thread not titled exactly to accommodate this...

nanRi
Chandra

[Oldposts]

what's the best Thamizh word for "juxtapose"?

[Oldposts]

juxtapose means to place side by side: like in juxtapose unexpected combinations of colors, shapes and ideas.
so i guess a straightforward translation will be aduthaduthu vaithal. i think a better meaning will be "korthal" as in poo korthal. it blends itself well into the profundity given by usage of juxtaposition.

[Oldposts]

i mean , kOrthal and not korthal.

[Oldposts]

I was browsing through the Kazhagath Thmizh Agarathi and voila:
neutral - nodhumal

nodhumal - ayal; viruppu veRuppu inmai.
nodhumalar - ayalAr.

Contrast this with nANbar and pagaivar.
I feel we have a beautiful word for neutral!.

[Oldposts]

balaji, thanks for the kOrthal suggestion.
chandra, nodhumal and ayal are both good finds. I can't wait to use them in some context.

[Oldposts]

thannIrmai = personality; individuality

(please help me with this; what is that kuRaL that ends with

thannIrmai kunRA vidil? )

[Oldposts]

About kOrthal:
folks please note that the correct word is
'kOththal' not 'kOrththal'.
that is the root word is 'kO' = to string together
etc. there is no 'kOr'.
Silappathikaaram:
"kOvaa malaiyaaram kOththa katalaaram"
[chapter: aaychchiyar kuravai?]
here aaram has two meanings: sandal and pearl.
"the aaram from the mountains (sandal) that is not strung together and the aaram from the ocean (pearl) that is strung together".


There are a whole lot of Tamil poetic works
who belong to the 'mummaNikkOvai' genre:
I forgot the definition but it is to do with
composing the book with three different types of
paas, the three different types of gems (for example veNpaas, aasiriya viruththams, kaliththuRai ) alternating in the sequence (kOvai).
e.g.,
Chithampara MummaNikkOvai

chandra

[Oldposts]

romba low-techaana kElvi.. zero-kku thamizh vaarthai enna? poojiyam, sypher-nnu namma use pannara vaarthai ellam vERRu mozhi sorkaLaavE irukkE? muttai was the only tamil word we could think for it, although it is only colloquial.