Tamil Literary dictionaries - the need and uses of Encyclopedia

Abstract

Though Tamil is recognised as the world’s oldest language, its a matter of great concern that there aren’t persistent efforts to create and maintain Tamil language dictionaries. While there have been many instances right from the sangam era in creating dictionaries and encyclopedia, they haven’t been continually updated to refine, remove errors or to add in the developments to the language by way of new words introduced. With English being used as the main language across the board, it’s important to have well maintained dictionaries and encyclopedia without which there will be no growth of the language. This paper traces the history of Tamil language dictionaries, about the pioneers and their attempts to bring out encyclopedia in various fields and emphasises the need to create a comprehensive dictionary and encyclopedia, update it yearly and the need to make it a mandatory subject of study in schools.