Culture, Language and Identity
Culture, Language and Identity

Author: C. T. Indra

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2017-12-12

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13: 1351334379

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume examines the relationship between language and power across cultural boundaries. It evaluates the vital role of translation in redefining culture and ethnic identity. During the first phase of colonialism, mid-18th to late-19th century, the English-speaking missionaries and East India Company functionaries in South India were impelled to master Tamil, the local language, in order to transact their business. Tamil also comprised ancient classical literary works, especially ethical and moral literature, which were found especially suited to the preferences of Christian missionaries. This interface between English and Tamil acted as a conduit for cultural transmission among different groups. The essays in this volume are on chosen areas of translation activities and explore cultural, religious, linguistic and literary transactions. This volume and its companion (which looks at the period between 1900 CE to the present) cover the late colonial and postcolonial era and will be of interest to students, scholars and researchers of translation studies, literature, linguistics, sociology and social anthropology, South Asian studies, colonial and postcolonial studies, literary and critical theory as well as culture studies.

Companion Studies to the History of Tamil Literature
Companion Studies to the History of Tamil Literature

Author: K.V. Zvelebil

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-12-06

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 9004493026

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

There is a number of problems connected with the study and teaching of any Oriental literature in general and of Tamil literature specifically which have to date been mostly ignored, although they are indispensable for solid knowledge and correct interpretation and understanding of the literature in question. These include problems of authenticity and authorship, of transmission and tradition, writing tools and materials, of relationship of orality to literacy, of Sanskrit to Tamil, the prehistory of Tamil written literature, the numerous texts that have been lost, scholarly lineages and the rediscovery of ancient Tamil literature etc. The book deals with all these problems as well as with some specific Tamil cultural phenomena such as the concept of "threefold Tamil" or the relationship of literature ('marked') to grammar ('marker'), with the derivation of the term "Tamil" and with the history of Tamil literary historiography. It will be indispensable as an introduction to the study of the more than 2000 years of Tamil literary history. By addressing questions which have thus far been almost completely neglected, it has also decisive impact on the interpretative comprehension of Tamil literature and on the teaching of this very rich heritage of verbal art.

Manuscript, Print and Memory
Manuscript, Print and Memory

Author: Eva Maria Wilden

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2014-11-10

Total Pages: 462

ISBN-13: 3110352761

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The ancient Tamil poetic corpus of the Caṅam ("The Academy") is a national treasure for Tamilians and a battle-ground for linguists and historians of politics, culture and literature. Going back to oral predecessors probably dating back to the beginning of the first millennium, it has had an extremely rich and variegated history. Collected into anthologies and endowed with literary theories and voluminous commentaries, it became the centre-piece of the Tamil literary canon, associated with the royal court of the Pandya dynasty in Madurai. Its decline began in the late middle ages, and by the late 17th century it had fallen into near oblivion, before being rediscovered at the beginning of the print era. The present study traces the complex historical process of its transmission over some 2000 years, using and documenting a wide range of sources, in particular surviving manuscripts, the early prints, the commentaries of the literary and grammatical traditions and a vast range of later literature that creates a web of inter-textual references and quotations.