CHENNAI: Is there a word for 'roadkill' (remains of an animal killed on the road by a motor vehicle) in Tamil? No. However, there are a number of words in Tamil related to animals and their environment and ecology that very few people know and, hence, are slowly disappearing from common use.
A group of nature-writers, scientists, journalists and researchers have now decided to conserve these and prepare a dictionary of words and terms related to environment and ecology in Tamil. "There are quite a lot of dictionaries on environment and ecology in English but we need to have such dictionaries in Tamil as well. If we need to create awareness on environment protection, biodiversity conservation, climate change and global warming, we need to talk and write about these issues in the local language so that it reaches the common man," said P Jeganathan, a scientist with the Nature Conservation Foundation, who is associated with the initiative.
Coining new terms and reviving existing ones are on the agenda of the team. "Since there is no Tamil equivalent for a word like roadkill, we need to coin a new word. In India, thousands of animals get killed on roads due to irresponsible driving and traffic. We can solve this issue by having wildlife-friendly roads. If you want to create awareness among the public about this, you need to talk to them in common man's language," he said.
Roadkill is a word contributed by modernity. However, there are words which were part of the common man's vocabulary when our lifestyles where in sync with the nature. For instance, Jeganathan said while reading the renowned Tamil writer Ki Rajanarayanan's novel, Pinjugal, he found names of so many birds. "One of the valuable findings from this book was a word called Thappu, which means a place where migrant birds rest during long flights. It shows that we have words in Tamil, but we need to collect them and put them in one place," said Jeganathan.
A meeting of the team was held under the auspices of Poovulagin Nanbargal, an environment action group, in Chennai in May in which various environmental organizations and publishing houses participated. "Quite a lot of steps have to be taken such as redeeming and adopting the existing words available for a particular term. Word searches should be made in various sources such as already existing glossaries on this subject in Tamil, local dialect glossaries (Vattara sol agarathi). Tribal communities should be interviewed and old Tamil literature texts should be looked at for new words. Words and terms must be collated from existing books as well as literature available on the internet," said Jeganathan.
Similarly, it is important to have proper and correct names for animals and plants in the school text books. "I see quite a lot of mistakes even in text books. In the Class 10 science book, (Page No. 118 & 119), there is a list of protected areas of Tamil Nadu. They have given "Neelagiri Thar maan" for Nilgiri Tahr. But in Tamil it is called "Varai Aadu". Varai means rocky area and Aadu means goat. This name tells the habitat and which group of animal it belongs to. Nilgiri Tahr is not a deer, it is a goat. It's the state animal of Tamil Nadu. But unfortunately, the students are being taught a wrong word," he said.
The team has created a google group for this. If anyone finds a new word related to environment and ecology, she can mail it to tamilbioterms@googlegroups.com. "We are planning to publish the dictionary online by the end of this year," he said.
