தமிழ்

தமிழ்

Most Tamil words split into a native register and a Sanskrit-borrowed one, with the native word turning everyday and the borrowing turning formal. Tamizh inverts the pattern. The word did not borrow; it lent. Prakrit took tamiḻ as damiḷa and Sanskrit reshaped it into draviḍa, which centuries later returned to Tamil as tirāviṭa. This is the only entry in the dictionary whose subject is the dictionary's own medium, the