S. DORAIRAJ
in Coimbatore,
Scholars at the
historic first World Classical Tamil conference evolve strategies to
enrich the language further.
M. VEDHAN
TAMIL NADU CHIEF Minister M. Karunanidhi addressing the
inaugural session of the first World Classical Tamil conference on June
23.
THE atmosphere at the first World Classical Tamil Conference, held
in Coimbatore from June 23 to 27, was surcharged with Tamil pride but
was totally free of the jingoism that one would expect at a meeting of
its kind. The event was organised six years after the Central
government accorded classical language status to Tamil. Tamil Nadu
Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi had initiated it, and he strained every
nerve throughout the five days to ensure that the mega event was not
marred by controversies and negative propaganda. He walked the extra
mile to see that it was not dubbed a ruling party affair, although he
could not completely curb the praise and adulation showered on him by
some overenthusiastic participants in the cultural events.
Tamil lovers from every nook and corner of the world converged on
the industrial-cum-educational hub of Tamil Nadu and joined the flood
of humanity.
Karunanidhi pointed out in the inaugural session that the
conference, organised by the State government, was different from the
previous eight World Tamil Conferences held since 1966 in that the
latter were held under the auspices of the International Association
for Tamil Research (IATR). The first world Tamil conference was
convened in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. The eighth was held in Thanjavur in
Tamil Nadu in 1995. He said that besides earmarking Rs.69 crore towards
direct expenditure for holding the Tamil conference, Rs.243 crore was
spent on infrastructure development in Coimbatore.
K.ANANTHAN
K. SIVATHAMBI, CHAIRMAN of the Academic Committee of the
conference (centre); Asko Parpola, the Finnish scholar and winner of
the M. Karunanidhi Classical Tamil award (right); and George L. Hart,
Professor of Tamil Language at the University of California, Berkeley,
at the conference.
A day after the conference concluded, a jubilant Chief Minister
announced that World Classical Tamil conferences would be held in the
State once in five years. Evaluating the outcome of the meet, he said
913 papers on 55 topics had been presented at 239 sittings. Of them,
152 were presented by foreign delegates. A total of 2,605 delegates,
including 840 foreigners from 50 countries, attended it.
Without getting drowned in the euphoria caused by the cultural
programmes got up to ensure public participation on a large scale, the
plenary, academic and technical sessions of the conference provided the
much-needed opportunity to scholars, researchers and experts to evolve
a strategy to further enrich Tamil and enable the language to equip
itself to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
The ninth Tamil Internet Conference was also held alongside the main
meet, and was attended by 500 delegates. Its technical sessions were
devoted to discussing recent advances and challenges in Tamil computing
and Tamil Internet in general, and 110 papers were presented at these.
The public response to three exhibitions at the venue – the main
exhibition showcasing around 700 artefacts, including relics from the
Indus Valley civilisation; the Tamil Internet Exhibition and the book
exhibition – was tremendous. The duration of the main exhibition was
extended by a week. According to official sources, around four lakh
people had visited these exhibitions. The opening day of the conference
was marked by an impressive pageant consisting of 40 floats depicting
the antiquity and richness of the Tamil language and culture.
K.ANANTHAN
AT THE VENUE of the conference.
Interesting topics were discussed at the academic sessions, but
it was the plenary sessions that gave the much-needed impetus, focus
and direction to research activities. The plenary sessions were guided
by the eminent Sri Lankan Tamil scholar K. Sivathambi, who was the
chairman of the Academic Committee of the conference. Sivathambi
stressed the need for publishing a monogram highlighting the antiquity
and greatness of the Tamil language in all UNESCO-recognised languages.
This would go a long way in helping the Tamil diaspora, particularly
the children, he said.
Asko Parpola, the Finnish Tamil scholar and Professor Emeritus at
the Institute of World Cultures, University of Helsinki, who presented
a paper titled “A Dravidian Solution to the Indus Script Problem” at
the first plenary session, said: “I am confident that an opening to the
secrets of the Indus script has been achieved: we know that the
underlying language was Proto-Dravidian and we know how the script
functions. The confirmed interpretations and their wider contexts
provide a lot of clues for progress….”
However, he also referred to certain serious difficulties in
achieving this. One of them was the schematic shape of many signs,
“which makes it difficult to recognise their pictorial meaning with
certainty” and “our defective knowledge of Proto-Dravidian vocabulary,
compounds and phraseology”. Expressing the hope that scholars who speak
Tamil and other Dravidian languages as their mother tongue would
actively participate in this exercise and develop it further, he said
laymen, too, could make useful contributions in suggesting possible
pictorial meanings for the Indus sign.
George L. Hart, Professor of Tamil language at the University of
California, Berkeley, discussed in his paper the “Uniqueness of
Classical Tamil”. He made it clear that the languages of South Asia,
with one exception, derived their traditions from Sanskrit or
Persian/Arabic. “Their oldest literatures are based on the literatures
of these languages and when they want to coin new words, it is to those
languages that they turn. The only exception to this pattern is Tamil.”
Referring to the ancient literary traditions of Sanskrit and Tamil
languages, he said, “The aim of a Sanskrit writer is not to connect his
reader with ordinary life, but to lift him out of the morass of
everyday existence into a world in which things are aesthetically
refined, perfect and unreal.” Quite in contrast to this, “each longer
Sangam poem reveals a complex web of real life…. Each poem is like a
journey through the real world.”
K. ANANTHAN
PADMA SUBRAMANIAM AND her team performing a dance drama,
written by M. Karunanidhi, as part of the cultural events at the
conference.
The Russian Tamil scholar Alexander M. Dubyansky, who made a
presentation on Tholkappiyam, the treatise on Tamil grammar, expressed
the view that though “ Tholkappiyam is certainly based on Tamil poetic
tradition and its author had in mind the more or less true description
of the linguistic and poetic aspects of this tradition, he also had a
super task of constructing an ideal model of a poetic universe, using
all the layers of poetic compositions, including the language, as a
foundation for his model, and possibly all aspects of poetry and
poetics.”
M. Anandakrishnan, the chairman of the organising committee of the
Tamil Internet Conference, called for instituting an Internet Tamil
Development Fund. He also suggested the setting up of centres of
excellence in various universities in seven areas – Tamil computational
linguistics, search engines-automatic machine translation, Tamil in
hand-held devices, methodology to teach computer technology in Tamil,
character recognition, database dictionary and e-governance. He said
Rs.10 crore could be set apart for each centre.
Parpola received the “Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi Classical Tamil
Award” for the best contribution to Classical Tamil studies from
President Pratibha Devisingh Patil. In his acceptance speech, he said,
“The Government of India has rightly recognised Tamil as a classical
language, a status that it fully deserves in view of its antiquity and
its rich literature that in quality and extent matches many other
classical traditions of the world. Yet Tamil is not alone in possessing
such a rich heritage in India, which is really a very exceptional
country with so many languages having old and remarkable literatures,
both written and oral. Sanskrit with its three thousand-year-old
tradition has produced an unrivalled number of literary works.”
TAMIL RESEARCH
Describing the conference as a historic event, Karunanidhi also
launched a road map for taking Tamil research forward and sought
adequate funds for this purpose on a par with that earmarked for
Sanskrit. Without referring to the problems faced by the government in
holding the meet, he announced the establishment of an international
body of Tamil scholars – World Tholkappiar Classical Tamil Sangam – in
Madurai to conduct the world conferences at regular intervals. A
permanent exhibition on Dravidian language and culture is among the
tasks of the proposed Sangam.
Karunanidhi urged the Central government to locate the proposed
Indian National Institute of Epigraphy in Chennai, for out of around
one lakh epigraphic representations identified in different parts of
the country, 60,000 were in Tamil. The State government would set up
genetic heritage gardens in the five landscapes identified in Sangam
literature as Kurinchi, Mullai, Neithal, Palai and Marudam. The
agricultural scientist Dr M.S. Swaminathan would organise the heritage
gardens, the Chief Minister announced, adding that this would be “our
contribution to the International Year of Biodiversity being celebrated
this year”.
M. PERIASAMY
FROM A PROCESSION of 40 floats, "Iniyavai Naarpathu", which was
taken out on Avinashi Road, an arterial road of Coimbatore, as part of
the conference.
“Necessary law will be enacted for giving preference in
government jobs for those who study in Tamil,” he announced. He
insisted that Tamil should be made an official language at the Centre
and it should be accepted as a “language of use in the Madras High
Court”.
However, the conference was not entirely free of trouble. The All
India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), the main opposition
party, and the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, its ally,
boycotted it on the grounds that such international meets should be
called by the IATR as per tradition and “it was ridiculous to hold it
when Sri Lankan Tamils were in distress”.
However, several other political parties, including the Congress,
the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the
Communist Party of India, the Pattali Makkal Katchi, the Viduthalai
Chiruthaigal Katchi, the Dravidar Kazhagam and different factions of
the Muslim League, participated in the conference.
The AIADMK and some of its allies urged President Pratibha Patil,
ahead of the conference, to give her consent to their demand to make
Tamil the language of the Madras High Court before attending the
conference in Coimbatore.
Avoiding a direct reference to the opposition move, Karunanidhi
“profusely thanked the President for inaugurating and attending the
meet, brushing aside all the impediments that were created”.
Original story at http://www.flonnet.com/stories/20100730271504000.htm