about half-a-century there was a lull, which was followed by the production of anti-Brah. manical, Christian and Islamic literatures. And it was only during the first half of the last century that the vernacular literature began to revive under the fostering care of the British administration,
With the change in government, religion and social customs many Tamil words had gove out of use giving way to new ones—நாடு, கூற்றம் and கோட்டம் as the administrative divisions of a country, நெல்லாயம், கார்த்திகைப்பச்சை, சின்னம், தறியிறை, செக்கிறை, மகன்மை, &c., as names of public taxes, அமாத்தியம், வாரியம், காவிதிமை, சம்பிரிதி, &c., as official terms, குறுணி, பதக்கு, தூணி, முந்திரி, காணி, கழஞ்சு, and other words of native weights and measures are fast dying out except in out of the way villages, along with காசு, பணம், துட்டு, வராகன், and other denominations of old coinage. Most of the revenue and judicial terms, names relating to office furniture and stationery, and generally most words relating to the adıninistrative machinary are Arabic, Persian or English. The religious terms, of course, are all Sanskrit.
There is nothing new in the gammar of this period, perhaps with the exception of a leaning towards a greater use of Sanskrit and foreign words by the educated classes, and the unconscious creeping in of several English words in the home-speech of the English educated Tamilians.
Poetry was the only medium of literary expression of thought in Tamil till about the begin-
