Learning about Local Nature through Tamil Alphabet

-by P.Jeganathan

If we walk into any book stores or book fairs we often see alphabet charts representing and introducing us to various shapes, colours, animals, birds and flowers. Most of them will have a few animals depicted for certain letters but generally it will have African Elephants and Macaws and none or a few from what we will see locally. When we conduct any nature education programs and interact with young students and teachers they all often immediately recognize Penguins and Anacondas but very rarely the common and wonderful babblers that we see everyday close to our home. I always wanted to see the animals and plants from our regions in those charts, in our school books and our educational material.

Nature Alphabets in Tamil

There are a few animal alphabet books and charts produced in English (such as The Alphabet book for Lisu children by Aparajita Datta, Vena Kapoor, Pavithra Sankaran) and Learn About Some Common Birds of India through English Alphabet produced by Nature Classrooms and Early Bird but very rare in regional languages. When I got this idea few years ago to do a chart or a book with Tamil alphabet I started collecting names of animals and plants in Tamil but didn’t proceed further. I was excited to learnt that Nature Classrooms was putting together nature alphabet charts in the local Kashmiri language. They are also collaborating with other regional organisations and individuals to co-create more localised Alphabet charts in different languages that will represent local biodiversity, culture and nature. Discussing this idea with their team resulted in producing this chart beautifully illustrated by Karunya Baskar

As the name suggests this chart will have all the commonly found flora and fauna seen in Tamil Nadu with their Tamil names. This chart is produced mainly to introduce the biodiversity

of Tamil Nadu through the Tamil alphabet for the kids, teachers and nature educators. The flora and fauna presented here are carefully chosen so that (i) it covers organisms representing all the landscapes of Tamil Nadu. For instance Dugong, Sea shell, Sardine are from marine ecosystems, Indrella snail, Strobilanthus are from the forests, and the wasp, spider, skink are from the plains and our urban settings, (ii) organisms are not the so called iconic or charismatic but lesser known organisms such as the stingray, butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies, (iii) and not just from one or two groups of organisms but cover most of the taxa such as fungi, plants, invertebrates, reptiles, birds and mammals.

Tamil scripts got vowels - uyir eluttukkal உயிர் எழுத்துகள் and a special letter called āyta eḻuttu ஆய்த எழுத்து (12+1), consonants - mey eluttukkal மெய் எழுத்துகள் (18) and compound letters - uyirmei eluttukkal உயிர்மெய் எழுத்துகள், which is basically a combination of vowels and consonants. These compound letters would be 216, however it is not possible to find nature related words for all these letters. Hence, we have taken the first set of 18 compound letters (Ka to Na க-ன) as it is usually done in other Tamil alphabet charts.

In alphabet charts words have to be simple. In general it has to be a single word. But since we wanted to fulfil various criteria (as explained above) it was compromised in some cases and we used two letter words (for e.g. spider in Tamil will have two letters – Ettukkkal Poochi எட்டுக்கால் பூச்சி). Care was taken to choose the word commonly spoken by the general public, however when it was not possible a synonym was given within the bracket (for e.g. Palm tree is called Panai பனை but since we have to use Aintharam ஐந்தரம் which also means palm we have given ஐந்தரம் (பனை). Although commonly known names of the organisms are used we have also chosen only the linguistically correct words. For instance the Indian Pangolin is also known as an ant eater and this word is literally translated into Tamil as Erumbuth thinni எறும்புத் திண்ணி while there is a Tamil name Alangu அலங்கு. Popularizing and redeeming these lesser known words in the parlance is important and hopefully the chart will help in achieving this.

A ghost crab illustration by Karunya B

All the names of the organisms were taken from various sources except for the Malabar Grey Hornbill. In Tamil Hornbill is called Iruvachi இருவாச்சி. The coined Tamil name for the Malabar Grey Hornbill is Sholai Iruvachi சோலை இருவாச்சி which means hornbill of ense forests. We do not have any Tamil word starting with the letter Ṅa ங. So, coining a new word is essential and one that would fit for the organism as well. Hence, Ṅa Iruvachi ங இருவாச்சி was coined. Here Ṅa indicates an onomatopoeic word from the sound of their call. If we listen to their single note nasal call it will sound like the Tamil letter ங. (Listen here) Some Tamil scholars may not approve of starting a word with the letter Ṅa ங, but we hope birders and naturalists would agree with this given Tamil name for this bird, and find it appropriate as well.

Although this poster is produced mainly for Kindergarten going students it can be used for students up to the 5th standard as well. This chart can be a useful and important educational resource for teachers as well since many of the animals and plants are nor familiar to the general public. There is an explainer document (in Tamil) on each organism featured in this chart. We are currently designing additional resources for educators to use along with this nature alphabet chart. A short video with all these letters and words in a flash card format with the illustration and the letter, and separate charts for vowels, consonants and vowels- consonants with more organisms are being planned. We hope that these locally-relevant resources will be useful for our students and teachers to learn and be introduced to all the wonderful organisms that share our world with us. Illustrations used in this chart are contributed to the Wikimedia Commons.

This resource is open source and free to use for educational purposes: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Illustrations_by_Karunya_Baskar

Download the Nature Alphabets in Tamil chart here.

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Nature Alphabets in Tamil

Produced by: Nature Classrooms & Nature Conservation Foundation

Concept: P. Jeganathan, Aditi Rao & Vena Kapoor

Illustration: Karunya Baskar

Reviewed: by Ara. Selvamani, Ramki (Parithi) & K. Asha