Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c26.s16.1

c26.s16.1

The length of *e* and *o* (initial and medial) is not indicated in the Tamil-Brāhmī inscriptions of the Early Period,¹ and only sporadically in the Late Period and in the Early Vaṭṭeḻuttu inscriptions with the addition of the *puḷḷi* ('dot'). There is, however, no doubt that the respective short and long vowels existed in the language. This is proved by the following contrasting pairs of words in the Corpus.