Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c27.s7.t1.1

c27.s7.t1.1

The Tamil script is an alpha-syllabic writing system in which not only vowels and consonants but also consonant-vowels (*uyirmey*), open syllables of the CV type, are graphically represented as single letters (*Tol. Eḻu.* 17-18). In theory, 216 consonant-vowels are possible by the combination of 18 consonants with 12 vowels. However, the actual number is less as some of the combinations do not occur in the language.