Page:Tamil studies.djvu/288

Rh is nearly two thousand years after the first Tamil academy, and its members were fixed at forty. Its object was to cleanse the language of the impurities, which had crept into it through the common people who spoke it and 'to render it pure, eloquent and capable of treating the arts and sciences.…It has done much by its example for style and has raised the general standard of writing…though it has tended to hamper and crush originality.' It has been remarked by a Danish scholar that academies of the kind described above operate as a check to the liberty of speech and generally to national independence, and quotes as an example the absence of similar institutions among the liberty-loving British race. The same author continues as follows:—'In England every writer is and has been free to take his words where he chooses, whether from the ordinary stock of every day words, from native dialects, from old authors, or from other languages, dead or living. The consequence has been that English dictionaries comprise a larger number of words than those of any other nation.'

The above remarks of Dr. Jespersen apply with equal force to the Tamil people. In the Tamil language there are 34 synonyms for the word 'wind,' 50 for 'water,' 35 for 'cloud', 62 for 'earth,' 60 for 'mountains' &c. The ancient Tamils were a war-like race; they had their war songs and lyrics. Though the blazing fire of independence and patriotism was put out by