Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on Thursday gave a call for translating all the literary treasures of Tamil into other Indian and world languages.
Inaugurating the Tamil Internet Conference (TIC) and the seminar of the World Classical Tamil Conference here, Mr Karunanidhi said the writings on Tamilology and the Tamil race in Greek, French, German and other languages should be translated into Tamil. Books and documents on Tamilology available in any part of the world should be converted into electronic format and arrangements should be made to provide universal access to these treasures.
Emphasising that Tamil should be used in every field, the Chief Minister said dictionaries of different kinds and encyclopaedias of different fields should be produced.
He appealed to scholars and other participants of the seminar and TIC to advise the State government on the future course of action to be taken in this regard.
Giving an exhaustive account of the findings of different historians, scholars and literary personalities on the antiquity of the Dravidian race, the Chief Minister said if the 4th Century BC were to be taken as the starting point of the Sangam age, the Dravidian civilisation could be known from the Sangam literary works. He quoted V.R. Ramachandra Dikshithar who had, in his book, mentioned that the civilisation of Tamils had spread in the Mediterranean region, Kumari continent, Indus Valley, Egypt and Sumeria.
'A repository of noble ideas'
Finance Minister K. Anbazhagan said the Tamil language was a repository of noble ideals. It had various forms of literature including devotional literature.
Presiding over the inauguration of the seminar, K. Sivathamby, Chairperson of the Academic Committee of the World Classical Tamil Conference, said that as done in universities of the United States, universities in Tamil Nadu too should publish information on various research works in Tamil. The State government should ensure that such information is available in the public domain.
Pointing out that Tamil, a civilisational language, contained philosophical thoughts of different religions, Prof. Sivathamby said research should be taken up on fundamentals and various elements of the Tamil society.
Largest collection outside Tamil Nadu
Gregory James, Director of the Language Centre, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, emphasised the need for promoting high-quality linguistic scholarship, nationally and internationally.
Ulrike Niklas, Tamil Professor at the University of Cologne, said the Tamil Department’s library in the University had a collection of over 50,000 titles and this was the largest outside Tamil Nadu.
V.C. Kulandaisamy, vice-president of the International Association of Tamil Research said that a debate had arisen in certain quarters of the U.S. and Europe over the antiquity of Tamil. Some scholars were of the view that all Indian languages got the status of a ‘literary language’ only because of their association with Sanskrit. More research should be carried out to re-establish that Tamil was a distinct language with a long history.
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