Two Tamils, and words built like trains

The first surprise comes when you compare a textbook with the street. Tamil has two registers that differ more than most languages' do: a formal written Tamil used in newspapers, speeches and signs, and the spoken Tamil everybody actually uses. Where the book says irukkiradhu, there is, people say irukku; the formal peyar, name, is peru in speech. This kit teaches the spoken form. If you learnt from a written grammar, you will be understood, but you will sound like the evening news.

Words are built by stacking pieces on the end. Tamil is agglutinative: what English says with separate little words, Tamil adds as endings, one after another. To Madurai is Madurai-ku; in Madurai, in speech, Madurai-la; and a single long verb can hold who did something, when, whether they meant to and whether you should be polite about it. The trick is to listen for the root at the front and let the tail tell you the rest.

The verb comes last and says who did it. Like Hindi, Tamil keeps the verb for the end of the sentence, but it also marks the person on the verb itself, so the pronoun is often dropped. Varen is I'm coming; varaanga is they're coming, or he or she is, politely. Need and don't need are two different words: venum, I want it, and venaam, I don't.

Respect changes he and she as well as you. Avan is he and aval she, but both are used for people your own age or younger. For an elder, a stranger or anyone you respect, the plural avar, or in speech avanga, is used for one person, just as neenga replaces nee for you. Animals and things get adhu, it.

The numbers are kinder than in the north. Apart from the teens the kit warns about, Tamil numbers are built fairly regularly, and large sums go by latcham, lakh, and kodi, crore. In Chennai shops you will often hear prices given in English numbers anyway, especially if you hesitate.

A different family, and a sound in its own name

Tamil is not a cousin of Hindi. It belongs to the Dravidian family of south India, and it sounds unlike anything north of it: quick, rolling, with long words that end in vowels and doubled consonants held for an extra beat. The sound to listen for is the one in the language's own name. Tamils write it Tamizh, and the last letter, ழ (ZHUH), is made with the tongue curled back and not quite touching the roof of the mouth, somewhere between an r and an l. You will hear it in pazham, fruit or banana, at every stall. Around it sit retroflex n, l and t sounds, curled back, beside their plain versions, and short and long vowels that are different letters, not a matter of emphasis.

The script has fewer letters than it seems to. Tamil writing is rounded and has no line along the top. It does not mark the puff of air that Hindi letters do, and one letter covers both k and g, its sound decided by where it falls in the word. A handful of extra letters, borrowed for Sanskrit sounds, write j, sh, s and h, and a three-dot sign, ஃ (AAY-tham), makes the f in filter. Begin with vanakkam, nandri, evvalavu?, how much?, and seri, okay, and practise reading on signboards, which almost always put Tamil first.

Six things that catch visitors out

A name often comes with an initial instead of a surname. Many Tamils do not use a family name. Instead, the initial in front of a first name stands for the father's name, so R. Karthik is Karthik, son of someone whose name begins with R. Calling him Mr R is a puzzle; Karthik, or Mr Karthik in business, is right. Forms that demand a surname often get the father's name written out in full.

The innermost shrine may not be open to you. At some of the great temples, including Madurai's Meenakshi Amman, the sanctums are open only to Hindus, and the guards at the inner door will say so politely. Everything else, the halls, corridors and tanks, is usually open. Dress conservatively, with shoulders and knees covered, and expect some temples to ask you to deposit your phone and camera at the gate.

Step around the kolam. Every morning, women draw patterns of rice flour on the swept ground in front of their doors, intricate lines and dots that are meant to bless the house and to feed ants and birds. In the month of Margazhi, from mid-December, they grow larger and more elaborate, and at Pongal they fill whole streets. Walking around a fresh one, rather than through it, is noticed and appreciated.

Drink without touching the rim. A shared steel water tumbler is common in homes, offices and roadside stalls, and the polite way to drink from it is to tip the water into your mouth from just above, without your lips touching the metal. It takes practice; a little water down your chin is forgiven. With coffee, the steel davara and tumbler are yours alone, so sip normally.

Fold the leaf when you have finished. At a banana-leaf meal the server works along the leaf, adding each dish to its own place in a set order. Rice comes in waves, and covering the leaf with your hand is the clearest way to stop it. When you are done, fold the leaf in half; which way it folds can carry meaning in some families, so copy the people beside you.

A lowered veshti is a sign of respect. Men in Tamil Nadu often wear a veshti or a lungi, a wrapped cloth, and in the heat they hitch it up to the knee to walk or work. When they meet an elder, enter a temple or step into someone's home, they let it fall to the ankle. If you try wearing one, and many visitors do for temple visits, follow the same habit.

Tamil first, English second

Tamil is one of the world's oldest living classical languages, with a literature stretching back some two thousand years to the Sangam poems, and Tamils are deeply aware of it. The Tirukkural, 1,330 couplets on virtue, wealth and love, is quoted in speeches, displayed in buses and learnt in school. In 2004 Tamil became the first language India's government formally declared classical. It is also an official language in Sri Lanka and Singapore, and there are large Tamil communities in Malaysia and beyond.

Hindi works differently here than in the north. Tamil Nadu saw large protests against the imposition of Hindi, most famously in 1965, and its state schools follow a two-language policy, Tamil and English. In practice that means many Tamil speakers outside the tourist trade speak little Hindi, and some prefer not to be addressed in it. English is the neutral second language, and the practical move is to open with vanakkam and continue in English. You will still meet Hindi among hotel staff and workers from the north.

English goes a long way in Chennai, among the educated, in hotels, hospitals and offices, and with the guides at the big temples. In the temple towns, on a bus or at a village tea stall it fades, and Tamil is all there is. Even a few words go far: people who would never expect a foreigner to try will answer a nandri with a broad grin.

Anna, akka, and the word for enough

Polite Tamil lives in the -nga ending. The kit's neenga is the respectful you, and the same -nga turns an order into a courtesy. A host will greet you with vaanga, please come in, seat you with ukkaarunga, please sit, and set food in front of you with saapdunga, please eat. Copy the ending in your own requests, kodunga, please give, and you will sound polite even when the rest of the sentence is broken.

The city is full of elder brothers. An auto driver, waiter or shopkeeper is anna, elder brother, and a woman is akka, elder sister, even if you have only just met. A younger man, the boy who brings the water, is thambi. Older women are often simply amma, mother, and the old are paati and thaatha, grandmother and grandfather. English sir and madam are everywhere too, and you will be called both many times a day.

Thanks are often shown rather than said. Nandri is the word, and romba nandri, thank you very much, is the warm version for a real favour. But between people who know each other, constant thanking can sound oddly formal, and gratitude tends to come as an extra helping, a return visit or a coffee. Do not be surprised if a small service is acknowledged with a nod and nothing more.

Have podhum, venaam and paravaalla ready. Podhum, enough, is what you say as the third spoonful of rice lands on your leaf, and it may need saying twice. Venaam, I don't want it, is the firm no to a hawker or a tout. Paravaalla, never mind, it's fine, smooths over a mistake, a missing change or an apology from someone who bumped you. And seri, all right, agrees to almost anything.

From the Marina to the temple towns

Chennai, called Madras until 1996, grew up around Fort St George, one of the first English trading forts in India. It sprawls along the Bay of Bengal behind the Marina, one of the longest city beaches in the world, where families walk at dusk. Mylapore, around the Kapaleeshwarar temple, is the old Tamil heart of the city, and in December and January Chennai hosts its music season, weeks of Carnatic concerts and Bharatanatyam dance. Its spoken Tamil, full of English words, is a dialect of its own.

South of the city, Mamallapuram has the shore temple and rock carvings of the Pallava kings, and inland Kanchipuram is a temple town that weaves the heavy silk saris worn at Tamil weddings. Further south lies the Kaveri delta, the old heartland of the Chola kings. At Thanjavur, the Brihadeeswarar temple, completed around 1010, rises in a granite tower over the town. Kumbakonam, nearby, is known for its strong degree kaapi, and the bronze-casters at Swamimalai still make images in the Chola way.

Madurai, deeper south, is built around the Meenakshi Amman temple and its towering painted gateways, and stays awake late; try its jigarthanda, a cold, rich drink of milk, almond gum and ice cream. North-east of Madurai, the Chettinad villages around Karaikudi are full of grand merchant mansions and give their name to a peppery, intensely spiced cuisine. Tamil sounds different in each: Madurai's speech, Coimbatore's Kongu Tamil in the west and Tirunelveli's in the far south are all recognisable to a Tamil ear.

The everyday food is simpler and better than any restaurant menu suggests. Tiffin means light meals, idli, dosa, pongal and vadai, served from dawn into the evening, and meals means lunch: rice on a banana leaf with sambar, rasam, vegetables, kootu, curd rice and a pickle, refilled until you stop it. In mid-January the harvest festival of Pongal, named for the dish, fills the state with sugarcane, sweet rice and new pots boiling over in the courtyards.