Chennai: Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin on Saturday released the fourth volume of the 'Tamil–Indo-European Root Words Comparative Dictionary' and inaugurated an international conference focused on comparative linguistics and Tamil language research.

The dictionary project, a joint initiative of the Tamil Nadu Textbook and Educational Services Corporation and Oxford University Press, seeks to examine the historical and etymological links between Tamil and Indo-European languages. The fourth volume was formally received by Professor Klaus Peter Sauer of Norway in connection with International Mother Language Day.

Announced in the 2022–23 Tamil Nadu State Budget with an allocation of Rs 8 crore, the four-year Tamil linguistic research project has been underway since July 2022. It is being executed under the supervision of the Tamil Nadu Textbook Corporation by a 20-member scholarly team led by Editor-in-Chief K Arasendran.

 

The research builds on the work of English etymologist Walter Skeat, who identified 461 root words as foundational to Indo-European languages. The project committee maintains that nearly 300 of these root words share a direct linguistic relationship with Tamil, reinforcing arguments about deep-rooted structural and lexical connections.

According to an official release, the fourth volume examines 19 Tamil root words and traces their evolution into Western Indo-European languages — including Latin, Greek, German, French and English — as well as Eastern Indo-European languages such as Sanskrit, Pali and Sinhala, based on established linguistic hypotheses.

The Tamil Nadu government signed an agreement with Oxford University Press on Jan 13, 2025, to publish the research in 12 volumes. Chief Minister M K Stalin released the general introduction and the first volume in March 2025. The second and third volumes were launched during the Chennai International Book Fair in January 2026.

The event was attended by Tamil Development Minister M P Saminathan, Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Minister P K Sekarbabu, and School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi, along with international scholars, linguists and senior government officials.

The Tamil–Indo-European comparative dictionary project is positioned as a major academic effort to strengthen Tamil linguistic scholarship, comparative philology research and global discourse on language origins.

PTI