Tirunelveli Tamil


Nellai Tamil, also known as Tirunelveli Tamil, is one of the dialects of Tamil which is spoken in the districts of Tirunelveli, Tenkasi and Thoothukudi as well as over the vast area of south Tamil Nadu which was once ruled by the Pandiya Kings. Nellai Tamil is also known as Thenpaandi Tamil. Thenpaandi Seemai refers to the part of a Pandya kingdom which includes the present day Tirunelveli, Tenkasi and Tuticorin Districts.

Features

The Tirunelveli Tamil Dialect has on the whole 41 phonemes of which 31 are segmental and the remaining 10 are suprasegmental.
Nellai Tamil also preserves archaic kinship terms that other dialects have long discarded. However, the most unusual feature of the Tamil spoken in the Tirunelveli region is that the medial "c" is pronounced as a voiceless palatal affricate as in Old Tamil and has not undergone the change to the dental "s" as in most other dialects.

Regions of Nellai Tamil

Nellai Tamil has been used in a number of Tamil movies. Some of them are
Seevalaperi Pandi
Dum Dum Dum,
Saamy,
Ayya,
Kovil,
Thamiraparani,
Roja,
Thirunelveli,
Kushi,
Sillunu Oru Kadhal,
Raman Thediya Seethai,
Pidichirukku,
Kannum kannum,
Dasavatharam,
Seval,
Thoothukudi,
Veeramum Eeramum,
Gentleman,
Anniyan,
Saadhu,
Pudhu Nellu Pudhu Naatthu,
Punnagai Mannan,
Veelai Kedaiciruchu,
Tanneer Tanneer,
Kadal.
osthi,
singham,
singham II
Bhairava
Kamal Haasan's 2015 movie Papanasam, a remake of the 2013 Malayalam film Drishyam, also features Nellai Tamil.