LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 13:4 April 2013
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Assimilation of English Borrowings in Jaffna Tamil

V. Suntharesan, M.Phil. in Linguistics, Ph.D. Scholar

Abstract

The English borrowings in Tamil are pronounced strangely or differently by monolinguals since the sound system of Tamil differs from that of English. In casual discussions, assimilated forms of borrowings are used by interlocutors who may be all bilinguals or bilinguals and monolinguals. Monolinguals may tend to assimilate the English sound into Tamil due to unfamiliarity with English sound system. In this article, before attempting to study the nature of assimilation of English borrowings in the speech of Jaffna Tamil monolinguals, some general features of the sound system of English and Tamil are discussed initially and then some generalizations regarding the assimilation patterns of English borrowings are given. Ultimately the study intends to suggest a remedy to overcome issues linked with assimilation process.

Key Words: Assimilation, Borrowings, Euphony, Monolinguals, Phonetic Modification

Sound Variations of Languages

It is apparent that sound system of languages varies. The basic sounds in all languages are nearly the same. But the variation of sounds occurs as some sounds are significant in some languages and some other sounds are more significant in some other languages. For example, sounds represented by (la) and (ra) in Tamil and (ha), (sa) and (?a) in Hindi are prominent. In the Australian languages, the sounds represented by (ha) and (sa) are not found at all (Varatharajan, 1975, P.137)

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

V. Suntharesan, M.Phil., Ph.D. Scholar
Senior Lecturer
English Language Teaching Center
University of Jaffna
Jaffna
Sri Lanka
suntharesan@yahoo.com
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