Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: How many vowels does Tamil have?
After Tamil Brahmi fell out of use, Tamil was written using a script called the ' amongst others such as Grantha and Pallava script. The current Tamil script consists of 12 vowels, 18 consonants and one special character, the "āytam". The vowels and consonants combine to form 216 compound characters, giving a total of 247 characters (12 + 18 + 1 + (12 x 18)). All consonants have an inherent vowel "a", as with other Indic scripts. This inherent vowel is removed by adding a tittle called a ', to the consonantal sign. For example, is "ṉa" (with the inherent "a") and is "ṉ" (without a vowel). Many Indic scripts have a similar sign, generically called virama, but the Tamil script is somewhat different in that it nearly always uses a visible "puḷḷi" to indicate a 'dead consonant' (a consonant without a vowel). In other Indic scripts, it is generally preferred to use a ligature or a half form to write a syllable or a cluster containing a dead consonant, although writing it with a visible virama is also possible. The Tamil script does not differentiate voiced and unvoiced plosives. Instead, plosives are articulated with voice depending on their position in a word, in accordance with the rules of Tamil phonology.
Tamil-Brahmi, or Tamili aka Tamizhi is a variant of the Brahmi script used to write the Tamil language. These are the earliest documents of a Dravidian language, and the script was well established in the Chera and Pandyan states, in what is now Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Sri Lanka. Inscriptions have been found on cave beds, pot sherds, Jar burials, coins, seals, and rings. The language is Archaic Tamil, and led to classical Sangam literature.
The vowels of the Turkish language are, in their alphabetical order, , , , , , , , . The Turkish vowel system can be considered as being three-dimensional, where vowels are characterised by how and where they are articulated focusing on three key features: front and back, rounded and unrounded and vowel height. Vowels are classified [±back], [±round] and [±high].
Tamil, one of India's major classical language, descends from Proto-Dravidian languages spoken around the third millennium BCE in peninsular India. The earliest inscriptions of Tamil have been found on pottery dating back to 500 BC. Tamil literature has existed for over two thousand years and the earliest epigraphic records found date from around the 3rd century BCE.
The evolution of language within India may be distinguished over three periods: old, middle and modern Indo-Aryan. The classical form of old Indo-Aryan was "sanskrit" meaning polished, cultivated and correct, in distinction to "Prakrit" – the practical language of the migrating masses evolving without concern to proper pronunciation or grammar, the structure of language changing as those masses mingled, settled new lands and adopted words from people of other native languages. "Prakrita" became middle Indo-Aryan leading to "Pali" (the language of early Buddhists and Ashoka era in 200–300 BCE), "Prakrit" (the language of Jain philosophers) and "Apabhramsa" (the language blend at the final stage of middle Indo-Aryan). It is "Apabhramsa", scholars claim, that flowered into Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi and many other languages now in use in India's north, east and west. All of these Indian languages have roots and structure similar to Sanskrit, to each other and to other Indo-European languages. Thus we have in India three thousand years of continuous linguistic history recorded and preserved in literary documents. This enables scholars to follow language evolution and observe how, by changes hardly noticeable from generation to generation, an original language alters into descendant languages that are now barely recognisable as the same.
Sanskrit has had a profound impact on the languages and literature of India. Hindi, India's most spoken language, is a "Sanskritised register" of the Khariboli dialect. In addition, all modern Indo-Aryan languages, Munda languages and Dravidian languages, have borrowed many words either directly from Sanskrit ("tatsama" words), or indirectly via middle Indo-Aryan languages ("tadbhava" words). Words originating in Sanskrit are estimated to constitute roughly fifty percent of the vocabulary of modern Indo-Aryan languages, and the literary forms of (Dravidian) Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. Tamil, although to a slightly smaller extent, has also been significantly influenced by Sanskrit. Part of the Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, the Bengali language arose from the eastern Middle Indic languages and its roots are traced to the 5th-century BCE Ardhamagadhi language.
There are three simple stop positions in the Romani language. These come from the Indo-Aryan and are maintained in every dialect of this language. The positions are as follows; labial /p/, dental /t/, and velar /k/. Along with these stop positions, there are also palatal positions which are unique to the Romani language. Specific voicing alterations have changed grammatical endings and different dialects have different ways of interpreting vowels. Some have morphed into newer versions of the Romani language and others have implemented other elements like screams.
Turkish is written using a Latin alphabet introduced in 1928 by Atatürk to replace the Ottoman Turkish alphabet, a version of Perso-Arabic alphabet. The Ottoman alphabet marked only three different vowels—long "ā, ū" and "ī"—and included several redundant consonants, such as variants of "z" (which were distinguished in Arabic but not in Turkish). The omission of short vowels in the Arabic script was claimed to make it particularly unsuitable for Turkish, which has eight vowels.
The Turkish alphabet () is a Latin-script alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters, seven of which (Ç, Ş, Ğ, I, İ, Ö, Ü) have been modified from their Latin originals for the phonetic requirements of the language. This alphabet represents modern Turkish pronunciation with a high degree of accuracy and specificity. It is the current official alphabet and the latest in a series of distinct alphabets used in different eras.
So, while having unique "tadbhav" sets, modern IA languages have a common, higher "tatsam" pool. Also, "tatsam"s and their derived "tadbhav"s can also co-exist in a language; sometimes of no consequence and at other times with differences in meaning:
What remains are words of foreign origin ("videśī"), as well as words of local origin that cannot be pegged as belonging to any of the three prior categories ("deśaj"). The former consists mainly of Persian, Arabic, and English, with trace elements of Portuguese and Turkish. While the phenomenon of English loanwords is relatively new, Perso-Arabic has a longer history behind it. Both English and Perso-Arabic influences are quite nationwide phenomena, in a way paralleling "tatsam" as a common vocabulary set or bank. What's more is how, beyond a transposition into general Indo-Aryan, the Perso-Arabic set has also been assimilated in a manner characteristic and relevant to the specific Indo-Aryan language it is being used in, bringing to mind "tadbhav".
Until the Twenty-first Amendment of the Constitution of India in 1967, the country recognised 14 official regional languages. The Eighth Schedule and the Seventy-First Amendment provided for the inclusion of Sindhi, Konkani, Meitei and Nepali, thereby increasing the number of official regional languages of India to 18. The Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, as of 1 December 2007, lists 22 languages, which are given in the table below together with the speaking population and the regions where they are used. 
The individual states, the borders of most of which are or were drawn on socio-linguistic lines, can legislate their own official languages, depending on their linguistic demographics. The official languages chosen reflect the predominant as well as politically significant languages spoken in that state. Certain states having a linguistically defined territory may have only the predominant language in that state as its official language, examples being Karnataka and Gujarat, which have Kannada and Gujarati as their sole official language respectively. Telangana, with a sizeable Urdu-speaking Muslim population, has two languages, Telugu and Urdu, as its official languages.
The Constitution of India designates the official language of the Government of India as Hindi written in the Devanagari script, as well as English. There is no national language as declared by the Constitution of India. Hindi is used for official purposes such as parliamentary proceedings, judiciary, communications between the Central Government and a State Government. States within India have the liberty and powers to specify their own official language(s) through legislation and therefore there are 22 officially recognized languages in India of which Hindi is the most used. The number of native Hindi speakers is about 25% of the total Indian population; however, including dialects of Hindi termed as Hindi languages, the total is around 44% of Indians, mostly accounted from the states falling under the Hindi belt. Other Indian languages are each spoken by around 10% or less of the population.
ǂʼAmkoe has bilabial clicks, which are found in only two other living languages. It has been in intense contact with Gǀui and previously with Taa, and some of the sounds of ǂʼAmkoe appear to have been borrowed from Gǀui. On the other hand, the moribund state of the language is apparent in its phonology, and sounds not found in Gǀui appear to have been lost by many of the remaining speakers.
The letter Ʈ (minuscule: ʈ), called T with retroflex hook, is a letter of the Latin alphabet based on the letter t. It is used to represent a voiceless retroflex plosive in the International Phonetic Alphabet, and is used some alphabets of African languages. A ligature of ʈ with h was part of the Initial Teaching Alphabet to represent the voiceless dental fricative.
There are over 90 distinct native languages spoken by the different ethnic populations of Laos. Lao, the official language of Laos, is a monosyllabic tone based language from the Tai-Kadai family as spoken in Vientiane. There are 19 million Lao speakers in Thailand and 3 million in Laos, a reflection of geopolitical history. Lao can be further divided according to regional dialects including Vientiane, northern, northeastern, central and southern. Northern dialects are spoken in Sainyabuli, Bokeo, Phongsali, Luang Nam Tha, Udomxai, and Luang Prabang. Northeastern Lao is spoken mainly in Xiang Khoang and Houa Phan. Central Lao is found in Khammuan and Bolikhamsai. The Southern dialect is used in Champasak, Salavan, Savannakhet, Attapeu, and Sekong.
As part of the Tai-Kadai language family spoken Thai is similar to Lao, with some distinctions. Lao has six tones, whereas Bangkok Thai has five, the standard lexicon, grammar, usage and pronunciations are also different. The two languages are not mutually intelligible, although Lao speakers tend to have an easier time understanding Thai because of the prevalence of Thai radio and media in and around Laos.
India is home to two major language families: Indo-Aryan (spoken by about 74% of the population) and Dravidian (spoken by 24% of the population). Other languages spoken in India come from the Austroasiatic and Sino-Tibetan language families. India has no national language. Hindi, with the largest number of speakers, is the official language of the government. English is used extensively in business and administration and has the status of a "subsidiary official language"; it is important in education, especially as a medium of higher education. Each state and union territory has one or more official languages, and the constitution recognises in particular 22 "scheduled languages".
The varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, but may be even more varied. There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese (depending on classification scheme), of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin (about 960 million, e.g. Southwestern Mandarin), followed by Wu (80 million, e.g. Shanghainese), Min (70 million, e.g. Southern Min), Yue (60 million, e.g. Cantonese), etc. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, and even dialect groups within Min Chinese may not be mutually intelligible. Some, however, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms and a certain degree of intelligibility. All varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic.
Over 100 different languages are spoken in Tanzania, making it the most linguistically diverse country in East Africa. Among the languages spoken in Tanzania are all four of Africa's language families: Bantu, Cushitic, Nilotic, and Khoisan. Swahili and English are Tanzania's official languages. Swahili belongs to the Bantu branch of the Niger-Congo family. The Sandawe people speak a language that may be related to the Khoe languages of Botswana and Namibia, while the language of the Hadzabe people, although it has similar click consonants, is arguably a language isolate. The language of the Iraqw people is Cushitic. Other languages are Indian languages and Portuguese (spoken by Goans and Mozambicans).
Baltic languages, such as Baltic Romani, have unique rules that their numerals follow when they are written. Their numerals govern their nominals but not to the degree that Slavic languages do. Baltic genitives mark partial objects and sometimes subjects and also play a prominent role in the syntax of numeral constructions. Baltic languages are very similar as both Latvian and Latvian Romani share the same opposition of preverbs and verb particles.
Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local language varieties or dialects, many of which are not mutually intelligible. The differences are similar to those within the Romance languages, with variation particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast. A widely quoted classification divides these varieties into seven groups: Mandarin, Wu, Min, Xiang, Gan, Hakka and Yue, though a more recent classification splits some of these to obtain ten groups, and some varieties remain unclassified.
Thai is the official language of Thailand, natively spoken by, according to Ethnologue, over 20 million people (2000). In reality, the number of native Thai speakers is likely to be much higher, since the Thai people of ethnic Chinese origins throughout the country learn it as their first language. The populations of western and eastern parts of Thailand, which had since ancient time formed the core territory of Siam, also speak central Thai as their first language. Moreover, most Thais in the northern and the northeastern (Isaan) parts of the country today are bilingual speakers of Central Thai and their respective regional dialects due to the fact that (Central) Thai is the language of television, education, news reporting, and all forms of media. A recent research finds that the speakers of Northern Thai language (or Kham Mueang) have become so few, as most people in northern Thailand now invariably speak standard Thai, such that they are now using mostly central Thai words and seasoning their speech only with "kham mueang" accent. Standard Thai is based on Ayutthaya dialect, and register in the educated classes.
In addition to Central Thai, Thailand is home to other related Tai languages. Although some linguists classify these dialects as related but distinct languages, there is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between these regional dialects/languages. Nonetheless, it is often claimed that the language policy of the Thai government has shaped the dominant view that these languages are only regional variants or dialects of the "same" Thai language, or as "different kinds of Thai".
Central Thai is composed of several distinct registers, forms for different social contexts:
South India consists of the five southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Puducherry, Lakshadweep and Andaman and Nicobar. Puducherry and the five states have an elected state government each, while the Lakshadweep and Andaman islands are centrally administered by the President of India. Each sub-region is further divided into districts. Each state is headed by a Governor, who is a direct appointee of the President of India, while the Chief Minister is the elected head of the state government and represents the state's ruling party or coalition.South India elects 132 members to the Lok Sabha accounting for roughly one-fourth of the total strength. The region has an allocation of 58 seats in Rajya Sabha out of the total 245. Each state is headed by a Governor, who is a direct appointee of the President of India; the Chief Minister is the elected head of the state government and represents the ruling party or coalition. Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry follow unicameral legislature while Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana follow bicameral legislature.
The official language of Thailand is Thai, a Tai–Kadai language closely related to Lao, Shan in Myanmar, and numerous smaller languages spoken in an arc from Hainan and Yunnan south to the Chinese border. It is the principal language of education and government and spoken throughout the country. The standard is based on the dialect of the central Thai people, and it is written in the Thai alphabet, an abugida script that evolved from the Khmer alphabet.
Venba ("" in Tamil) is a form of classical Tamil poetry. Classical Tamil poetry has been classified based upon the rules of metric prosody. Such rules form a context-free grammar. Every venba consists of between two and twelve lines.Vowels and consonant-vowel compounds in Tamil alphabet have been classified into ones with short sounds ("kuril") and the ones with long sounds ("nedil"). A sequence of one or more of these units optionally followed by a consonant can form a ner asai (the Tamil word "asai" roughly corresponds to "syllable") or a nirai asai depending on the duration of pronunciation. Ner and Nirai are the basic units of meter in Tamil prosody. A siir or cheer is a type of metrical foot that roughly corresponds to an iamb. Thalai is the juxtaposition of iambic patterns.
Sedang itself has 24 pure vowels: 7 vowel qualities, all of which may be plain ([a]), nasalized ([ã]), and creaky ([a̰]) and three of which /i a o/ may be both nasal and creaky ([ã̰]). While it does not have the length distinctions of other North Bahnaric languages, it has more diphthongs, between 33 and 55 vowel sounds altogether. Sedang is thus sometimes claimed to have the largest vowel inventory in the world. However, other Bahnaric languages have more vowel qualities (Bahnar, for example, has 9) in addition to phonemic vowel length so the language with the record depends closely on how the languages are described and distinct vowels are defined.
Like other South Asian scripts in Unicode, the Tamil encoding was originally derived from the ISCII standard. Both ISCII and Unicode encode Tamil as an abugida. In an abugida, each basic character represents a consonant and default vowel. Consonants with a different vowel or bare consonants are represented by adding a modifier character to a base character. Each code point representing a similar phoneme is encoded in the same relative position in each South Asian script block in Unicode, including Tamil. Although Unicode represents Tamil as an abugida all the pure consonants (consonants with no associated vowel) and syllables in Tamil can be represented by combining multiple Unicode code points, as can be seen in the Unicode Tamil Syllabary below.
Unlike Indo-Aryan languages spoken around it, Tamil does not have aspirated consonants. The Tamil script does not have distinct letters for voiced and unvoiced stop, although both are present in the spoken language as allophones—i.e., they are in complementary distribution and the places they can occur do not intersect. For example, the voiceless stop occurs at the beginning of the words and the voiced stop cannot. In the middle of words, voiceless stops commonly occur as a geminated pair like -pp-, while voiced stops usually do not. Only the voiced stops occur after a vowel, or after a corresponding nasal. Thus both the voiced and voiceless stops can be represented by the same script in Tamil without ambiguity, the script denoting only the place and broad manner of articulation (stop, nasal, etc.). The Tolkāppiyam cites detailed rules as to when a letter is to be pronounced with voice and when it is to be pronounced unvoiced. The rule is identical for all stops.