...koinés)
My research on Tamil bilingual education in Singapore was funded by a grant from the Council for International Exchange of Scholars. 
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...dialects.
I do not wish in any way to validate the notion that the written variety is actually the historical antecedent of the spoken dialects, since there is evidence that spoken dialects sometimes preserve forms that are historically older than LT. On the other hand, the LT variety does exert some kind of gravitational pull, and forms that exist in LT can be used (with some spoken modification) when ST forms fail to be understood. This paper also ignores the question of whether LT forms are the phonological underlying forms of spoken Tamil forms, though in fact the two issues are related, and in many cases, LT is both the historical and underlying antecedent of spoken forms. 
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...dialects.
It must also be noted that the idea that LT has not changed since the thirteenth century is also a fiction; E. Annamalai (n.d.) has shown how this norm, designed for poetic writing, is inadequate for modern prose writing, and in particular, how more modern writing conventions not covered by the poetic rules have crept in and gained general currency, despite slavish pundit devotion to Pavanandi's rules. 
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...speakers
However, it is used to depict oral communication between mythical beings or deities, such as in the so-called `mythological film' 
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...been.
Tamil linguistic culture strongly reveres the literary dialect and considers it the ``real" language; spoken dialects are not given any respect, and are treated as substandard or used only by uneducated people, etc. 
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...expect.
In Schiffman and Arokianathan 1978, we have presented reasons why this is so variable. 
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...India.
Curiously, the notion is widespread in Singapore that the Tamil spoken there is deficient in some way when in fact, Singapore Tamil is probably closer to SST overall than any other cross-section of Tamil speakers in India, for example. This is not the first attempt to address this issue; there exists a growing body of literature on the notion of SST, whether it exists, how it is defined, etc. Most of this discussion has not left the realm of academia, however, so it seems to bear reviewing what the discussion is all about in terms of its practical application. For a review of the previous literature, see Asher (1982), Bloch (1910), Britto (1986), Annamalai (n.d.), Andronov (1962, 1975), Shanmugam Pillai (1960), Vasantha Kumari (n.d.), Schiffman (1979). It should be noted that while Asher (1982) does not explicitly characterize the variety he describes as a standard one, it is in most cases identical to the one I describe. Since we have not collaborated in any way on our studies of Tamil, but in fact have reached our (more or less identical) conclusions independently, it would seem that this variety is well-known, common, and widely-understood, in short, exhibits some of the features of what elsewhere is known as linguistic `standardization'. 
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...television.
The variability in television stems from the wide variety of spoken `genres' available in that medium, so that in a `high' genre such as news presentation, LT will be used, but in `lower' genres such as talk-shows, sitcoms, etc. more authentic spoken Tamil will be in evidence. 
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...uniform.
I do not wish to give the impression that perfect uniformity is a prerequisite of standardized languages, however. 
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...literacy)
By this I mean the commitment to memory of large bodies of texts, such as was once common practice by Brahman priests, who memorized Vedic texts, the Upanisads, and other Sanskrit `literary' works. This is described in Staal 1986. 
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...pundits.
For a review of Tamil purism see Britto (1986) or Schiffman (1996). Crowley (1989) provides a helpful overview of the emergence of the notion of `standard' English. 
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...decision-making.
There are probably not many languages in this situation, but Arabic is one that shows parallels with Tamil, and the literature on Arabic is quite instructive. 
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...Nadu.
In Sri Lanka the notion of accepting or not accepting the `unifying' ability of SST is another matter, since SST is understood but not accepted as an intercaste mode of communication among SriLanka Tamils, so this matter will not be resolved until the civil war in that island has ended. 
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...planning
For useful definitions of corpus planning vs. status planning, see Eastman 1983:70 ff. 
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...decisions
Usually these involve competing alternatives, such as is the plural of English `brother' brethren or brothers?; is the past of `dive' dove or dived?; is `no one' spelled noone, no-one or no one?, etc. 
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...grammar.
Prescriptive grammars, of course, tell people what to say or write, and what not to say and write; they tend to avoid giving alternatives, or stating that `there are no rules for this sort of thing; say anything you like'. 
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...usage.
There is also a tendency, if no LT norms are used, to occasionally lapse into what might be considered by some as vulgarity or impoliteness, since the spoken norm has never been used for occasions at which solemnity, dignity, or respectfulness are called for. This same charge has been leveled in other linguistic cultures, e.g. in Swiss German, where spoken norms now dominate television, to the almost total exclusion of standard German (Schiffman 1991.) 
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...claims.
Note that this ideology, the Standard Language Ideology Ideology, holds two contradictory views at once: standardization is harmful; and standardization is in the end a figment of someone's imagination anyway. The current debate over English is motivated by notions that standard English is `imperialistic' (Phillipson 1992) in its effect on non-standard Englishes. These standards are used to exclude or disempower, and are applied capriciously in order to preserve the hegemony of the people in power. 
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...exonormic
This is the term used in Singapore, where all linguistic standards are pegged to norms set outside the country: British standards for English, Beijing standards for Chinese, Malaysian standards for Malay, and Tamilnadu Literary Tamil standards for Tamil. 
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...reforms.
The much-vaunted Académie Française delegated its first dictionary-making to an individual (Vaugelas), and its main accomplishment since the 17th century has been to block changes in French orthography and grammar. 
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....
A recent attempt at spelling reform in France (1989-90), only one of many proposed for French in this century, was very minor in nature and actually had the support of the French Academy; but public outcry has put the endeavor into jeopardy. 
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...prominence.
Crowley offers evidence that the beginnings of spoken RP `standard' can be traced much further back, i.e. to the fifteenth century or earlier (Crowley 1989:190. Crowley quotes various sources as RSE being spoken by products of `the older Public Schools.' 
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...extemporaneously.)
The older norm, still in use somewhat, especially for the New York stage when I was a child, is now only represented by actors who are in their nineties, such as Katherine Hepburn. 
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...uniformity.
RP long ago came under the aegis of the BBC etc. and can also be learned in acting schools, so it is not safe to say it is no longer consciously controlled. The American norm was itself not without ways of stigmatizing non-standard speech; the comedy shows of the 1930's and 1940's depended on comedians who had gotten their start in vaudeville, where the `dialect joke' (making fun of the speech of the Irish, the Italian, the Jew, the Swede, the Negro) were par for the course, and non- standard speech was lampooned in various ways, usually by having a non- standard speaker who regularly played the role of some sort of buffoon: Fred Allen's ``Mrs. Nussbaum", Jack Benny's NBC telephone operators, etc. And of course these popular programs also could lampoon the speech of the `upper classes', e.g. Mrs. Buff-Orpington, a character on the radio show Blondie, or the RP speech of upper class `twits' in British comedy shows. 
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...speech.
My own impetus to write my 1979 grammar came when I was preparing teaching materials for the advanced level of spoken Tamil. I wanted to summarize what grammatical information students would need to know in order to be able to use the material to best advantage, without having to state and restate the grammar in every commentary on every sentence. I was reminded of the difficulty of teaching non-standard dialects recently when I spent two summers directing a Southeast Asian summer language institute (SEASSI). One of the languages taught was Vietnamese, whose standard pronunciation and grammar is based on the Hanoi dialect. Many people from around Saigon resent this standard and would like to teach Saigon dialect instead; many émigrés from Vietnam are southerners, too, and have never liked the northern standard; and many foreigners would like to work in the south where Hanoi standard is rarely spoken. But the task of trying to suddenly come up with teaching materials, texts, tapes and reference grammars for Saigon Vietnamese is a daunting one; one cannot do this overnight; finding teachers who would be not only willing, but able confidently to teach this dialect would also be difficult. In the end, I resisted strongly the project of teaching Saigon dialect, simply on the grounds of technical difficulty. 
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...today.
Or, as in the case of Tamil, the thirteenth century grammar is a grammar for poetry and is therefore a grammar of poetical conventions, not for prose. 
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...forms.
When presented with a sample birth certificate labeled BRTH SRTIFICUT, or a bottle of pills with instructions for use written in Pitcairnese, or with recorded telephone information messages delivered in Louisiana Creole, these advocates of the rights non-standard speakers suddenly wish to exclude certain kinds of messages from this `free-to-be-me' dictum. Part of the problem may be that the modern American undergraduate has such a narrow understanding of the different genres of writing are, having never been required to do anything but keep a journal, that other registers and varieties, and their uses, are foreign to him/her. 
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...error.
The grammatical `rule' in question, of course, is that ``as is a conjunction, while like is a preposition; like should not be used as a conjunction". In fact like is used like a conjunction every day by millions of speakers of English. 
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...students.
Though I have spent some thirty years of my life learning Tamil, I can report that most of my Tamil teachers were never able to explain why certain of my Tamil sentences were `ungrammatical', until I finally figured out for myself that what they were unhappy with was largely the style of my sentences, not my grammar. The usual explanation, (`We just don't say that') was deemed sufficient as an elucidation. Unfortunately this way of teaching `grammar' is often par for the course. 
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...out.
That is, if a sentence has too many verbs in it with cci pasts, people may begin to make fun of it. The `expression' ci is an expletive, used to express disgust with something, so taboo may prevent the spread of this form. 
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...1972
Graul's classification is also the one used in Arden 1954. 
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...orthography.
Palatalization probably began at a point when Tamil and Malayalam were still considered one language, since Malayalam also shows palatalization, but the other (mostly tribal) South Dravidian languages do not; there is evidence for it in inscriptions as early as the 5th century. 
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...describe
In fact the subject of `emphatic' markers is a complex one; the best analysis of Tamil `emphatic' clitics can be found in Arokianathan 1981. 
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...adduced;
See the Appendix for a fairly comprehensive list. 
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...things')
Note that plural marking in neuters may actually be newer than lack of plural marking; the neuter future, for example, is never marked for plurality, though the neuter present and past may be; the neuter future forms are obviously an older system than the marking of animate future with pp etc. 
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...accounts
A. K. Ramanujan, p.c. 
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...out.
Anybody who has ever seen a Tamil movie (and what young Tamil person hasn't?) knows what kinds of things are made fun of in the movies. 
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...Tamil
In the early days of western-style higher education in India, many students were not literate in Tamil, but only in English, but today there is likely to be more Tamil literacy than there used to be; however it is not clear that those most literate in Tamil have more weight in the decision-making process. 
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Harold Schiffman
5/1/2001