TAMIL CULTUREI. TAMIL PROVERBSThe Tamil language abounds in proverbs. The people take special delight in quoting them. No one can speak toa Tamilian without coming across a proverb or 2. This is especially the case with Tamil women. Whether forpurposes of approval or rebuke, satire or appeal, figure or illustration, truth or precept, or mere negation orassertion, a proverb is ever at their command. Old women are so very familiar with them that they often argueby means of proverbs. Even yes and no are expressed in similes. This desire on the part of the people for theconstant use of proverbs in ordinary talk and the wealth of their poetic and proverbial literature indicate thegreat antiquity and poetic nature of the Tamil people. It is said that the members of the Madura College used toask and answer questions in perfect verse. The total number of Tamil proverbs cannot be less than 12000. Thisis certainly more than most other languages can boast of.A proverb has been defined as the "wisdom of many and the wit of one." Ray, the first to publish a complete listof English proverbs, defines a-proverb as "a short sentence or phrase in common use, containing some trope,figure, homonym, rhyme or other novelty of expression." The Tamil word for proverb is 'an old saying'.The most usual of a Tamil proverb is an iambic tetrameter, with a rhyme in the first and third feet: Agattil aragumugattil tedyum; the beauty of the mind is seen in the face. Sometimes alliteration takes the place of the rhyme:kâytta maram kalladi padum; it is the tree laden with fruit that is pelted with stones. The saying may bedestitute of both these ornaments: âru kadantal nî yar, nân âr? after the river is crossed, who are you and whoam I? Still there is a rhythm which gives it grace and smoothness. Some proverbs are also double tetrameters,while others again are simple dimeters. Whatever form a proverb may assume, there is always somethingpeculiar in its construction, which distinguishes it from an ord...