Linguistic Purism

Linguistic purism is therefore one expression (one that can perhaps be measured) of primordial devotion in the Tamil world. I have dealt with this in a recent work:

In many linguistic cultures there exist movements that have as their goal linguistic purism. This has been defined in a number of different ways, but often involves religious or quasi-religious fundamentalism and a return to (or a search for) linguistic authenticity; it often takes the form of removing from the language elements (usually lexical) that appear to be foreign, or corrupt, or lacking in true authenticity in the linguistic culture in question.Excellent studies of purism can be found in Wechlser 1974, Annamalai 1979, and Jernudd 1989. Annamalai's definition is widely used:

Purism is the opening of the native sources and closure of the non-native sources for the enrichment of the language. Though the native sources are open in general, the dialectal and literary sources are often treated differently. The opening and closure can be seen as applied to materials and to models. Models are the derivational, compounding and syntactic patterns. ...The factors which lead to purism may be, theoretically, internal or external to the language ...More important than any structural consideration is the attitude of speakers toward native and non-native elements .... The attitude ...is determined by socio-cultural, political and historical factors which are external to language. There are certain conditions some or all of which must be present for the puristic regulations to emerge in any language ...[such as when the] social order is undergoing change with power relations redefined. (Annamalai 1979:3-5)