Historical dictionary of Classical Tamil
TamilexHistorical dictionary
of Classical Tamil
of Classical Tamil
Eva Wilden & Jean-Luc Chevillard at the Séminaire mondes indiens in Paris
3 December 2025
Eva Wilden & Jean-Luc Chevillard will be in Paris to present at the Séminaire mondes indiens, on their work with Tamil nikaṇṭu-s.
How to make good use of an ancient Tamil poetical vocabulary, while preparing a dictionary of Classical Tamil?
Although the roots of Tamil lexicography lie inside the Tolkāppiyam, the Tivākaram (possibly 8th cent.) is the oldest among those Classical Tamil texts referred to as Nikaṇṭu-s. Its initial part is thematically organized and divided in ten sections: (1) divine names, (2) human beings, (3) animals, (4) plants, (5) places, (6) natural items, (7) artefacts, (8) qualities, (9) actions, (10) sound. These are followed by a section on polysemic words and a section devoted to Bhūtasaṃkhyā-s, i.e. collections of items symbolically associated with a given number.
The current presentation will visit the Tivākaram both as a target and as a predecessor of the recently started Tamilex project, which consists in preparing a First-Millennium Classical Tamil dictionary. It will raise and try to answer questions concerning, among other things, its macrostructure, its microstructure, its coverage, its interpolations and its intended use.
