Indo-Aryan loanwords in Tamil
The Tamil language has absorbed many Indo-Aryan, Prakrit, Pali and Sanskrit, loanwords ever since the early 1st millennium CE, when the Sangam period Chola kingdoms became influenced by spread of Jainism, Buddhism and early Brahmanism.
Many of these loans are obscured by adaptions to Tamil phonology.
This is an illustrative list of Tamil words of Indo-Aryan origin, classified based on type of borrowing. The words are transliterated according to IAST system. All words have been referenced with the Madras University Tamil Lexicon, which is used as the most authoritative and standard lexicon by mainstream scholars. In the examples below, the second word is from Tamil, and its original Indo-Aryan source is placed to the left.- ambara - ampala
Loss of initial s
- samayaṃ - amaiyam
- sabhā - avai
- śṛavaṇa - Āvaṇi (also note loss of initial complex consonant Śr
Loss of initial complex consonant (introduction of vowel)
- ḥṛdaya - itaya
Loss of voicing">Voice (phonetics)">voicing
- agati - akati
Loss of voiced aspiration
- adhikāra - atikāra
- adhika - atika
- aṇu - aṇu
- nīti - nīti
- Ākāśa - Ākāya
Change of medial sibilants to stops">Stop consonant">stops
- aśuddha - acutta
- agni - akkini
Others
- ahaṃkāram - akankāram
- agastya - akattiya
- ahambhāva - akampāvam
- Āṣāḍha - Āḍi
- Ārambha - Ārampam
- kāvya - kāppiyam
- kārttika - kārttikai
- śvāsa - cuvācam
- śani - cani
- chitra - cittirai
- budha - putan
- phalguna - pankuni
- manas - manatu
- mārgaśīrSa - mārkazhi
- māgha - māci
- vaiśākha - vaikāci
