[naruvimama]

This politicization and purification drive has made tamil to some extent less usable. Far from preserving tamil, many in the current generation can not read, write or understand tamil.

It is lacking in modern technical literature and comics. Most kids in school memorize tirukural, without understanding a word. Pushing the burden on preserving old language on kids is actually driving them from the language itself.

[furyroad]

> This politicization and purification drive has made tamil to some extent less usable. Far from preserving tamil, many in the current generation can not read, write or understand tamil.

Can you elaborate on how you concluded that Tamil has become less usable? Citing sources will be helpful.

[valarauko]

I have to kind of agree with the parent comment. I lived in Madurai for 3 years, where the people take great pride in the language. Your anecdote of little kids being able to comprehend the Thirukural was oft repeated, though I failed to see it in action. There were couplets from the Thirukural painted inside the city bus, and not once could one of my Tamil classmates actually grok the text. As a non-Tamil who learnt the script, I could read the words about as well as they could, transcribed as it is in the modern Tamil script. They clearly understood more than I did (which was close to none), but not enough to comprehend the text in any meaningful way. They could understand a word or two of the couplet, and kind of guess the meaning of the text. This was a far cry from the trope of 3 year olds reciting the Thirukural. For context, these were Masters students, for whom Tamil was the primary language. In my class of 15 people, there were perhaps two or three who could comprehend these texts with any level of competency.