Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1879-08-20


his friends, he got together fleet Of ships
and sent them away over the sea. They
were gone for three years-long enough now
to go around the world twice--and then
they came back and brought to the great
king good many very precious things
Among those precious things there were
some which were called by some words
which now mean in this Tamil language
elephants teeth, and monkeys and birds
with magnificent tails. Aud that great king
and all his people, so many years ago, used
to speak this same Tamil which you are
studying, Tom, whenever they talked about
from their long voyage. Nov when you go
out for morning walk again, and see the
the monkeys making faces at you, or jump
ing over the fences TO get away from Toms
gun, which they know is a dangerous thing,
or when you see that beautiful bird of the
jungle, whose tail is larger than the bird it.
self and most beautifully painted, too, you
must point to it and say to some Tamil boy
who may be near by Ah-enna' "What is
it p And he will tell you the peacock is
fo-kai And il you know who that great
king was think it will make you glad to
learn this language, because you will think
that his ship captain told him it was to-kai
when the king asked him the same question
almost three thousand years ago. SO you
must all find out what that great kings
name was.
So we read and write and talk Tamil
with our moonshee for some hours. But
we must practice it little, too. So, as the
sun is going down, we must go out and read
from the Bible to some of those fishermen,
and see if they will understand it. But it
is, as told you, pretty hard work. The
fact is, it is one of the hardest Ian
guages in the world. Tom must be very
patient or he will get discouraged before he
can talk much in it. One great trouble is
there are so many new words to learn, and
another is, there are so many words that are
pronounced very nearly alike that unless
you know how to spell them all you will
make some very ridiculous mistakes. Our
good David Scudder, who was once mis-
sionary in this country, had studied Tamil
long time when one day he preached a
sermon in Tamil on The gift of God to
u.s." But instead of saying kodai he said
ku-dai. So, instead of talking of Gods gift,
he talked about Gods umbrella" They
say learned bishop once tried TO repeat
"Our Father who art in Heaven " in Tamil
before he had studied it long enough. But
what different thing he made it by saying,
"Our pigeon who art in the palm tree
But that was not any more ridiculous than
the words of another who once meant to
say to company of these Tamil people he
hoped the Lord would give them each "a
good understanding; but what he did say
was that he hoped the Lord would give
them each "a good old woman" But the
best of it is, Tom, they will never laugh at
you when you make such mistakes. don't
suppose one of those men who heard that
wish ever smiled bit at it. They are too
polite for that And if they see you are
trying to learn how to do them good, they
will not say or do anything to discourage
you at all.
Another hard thing of it, Tom, is that
they put the words together so awkwardy
that you have to stop and think how to say
it when you know all the words. For in
stance, if you want to say " He gave it," yor
must say, He it gave" And then they
have such way of making one word take
an extra syllable, or even two or three Of
them, on perhaps each end of it, and SC
mean good many different things that il
is hard to learn it. They have no relative
pronouns like (which" or that" bu
what they call relative participates of the
verb. So when they want to say, " The boy
who broke the hoe" they just take the vert
" broke and add a few syllabes and say il
all in one or two words. So they make the
verb change so as to say either did it.,
or =" / made some one else do it, or" 81
made that some one make some other one
do it."
Here is sentence, Tom, that found il
a book on the Tamil language that thinl
describes it very well: "The Tamil Ian
guage is wonderful confederation Of sen
fences and intervening words, examinations
sufxes and prefxes." Now see if you car
explain that sentence so that little Nelli'
will know what it means. | think it viii
give you some idea of your moonsheei
thoughts when he has been trying for al
hour to teach you about the Tamil verb.