Page:Arden - A Progressive Grammar of Common Tamil.djvu/7



years' experience in teaching Tamil to the members of the Indian Civil Service at Cambridge has made the author increasingly to feel the need that exists for a Tamil Grammar, written on the same general system as the Telugu Grammar, which he published, when in Madras, in the year 1873, and which has for long been adopted as the textbook for the I.C.S., as well as by the various Missionary Societies, working in the Telugu Country.

The author is far from undervaluing the works which have already been published on the same subject. The student of Tamil must ever feel grateful to Dr. Pope, who has done so much to promote the study of this interesting language. But excellent as Dr. Pope's Tamil Handbook is, for its own particular purpose, being written on the Ollendorf system, it necessarily presents the grammar of the language in a somewhat broken and piecemeal form. There appears, therefore, to be a real need for an additional book in the English language, giving a compact outline of Tamil Grammar; and this need the author has now endeavoured to supply.

The Tamil Grammar of the Rev. C. T. E. Rhenius supplies the want to some extent; but not only is it almost out of print, but it needs revision and rearrangement; and as many years have passed since it was published, additional light has been thrown upon the language, and great improvements have been made in Tamil type.