Leninkumar Roshini, Garibaldi Adhirai, Venkatesh Lakshmi
Sri Ramachandra Faculty of Audiology & Speech Language Pathology, Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, Chennai, India.
Research Associate, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
Int J Lang Commun Disord. 2025 Sep-Oct;60(5):e70120. doi: 10.1111/1460-6984.70120.
Tamil is a member of the Dravidian language family, and it is spoken extensively in several South Asian countries, including India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore. The phonological development of Tamil-speaking children is examined in the current study within the context of lexical development by including children with typical language development (TD) and late talkers (LTs). The current study was conducted amongst Tamil-speaking children in Tamil Nadu, a southern state of India.
The study aimed to compare the size and nature of the phonetic inventory, the proportion of consonants, vowels and syllable structure types amongst Tamil-speaking children with TD and LTs around 24 months.
The study included 68 Tamil-speaking children, comprising 34 LTs and 34 age- and gender-matched TD children. All children were born preterm and were assessed after their second birthdays as per their adjusted age for prematurity (M = 24.38 months; SD = 1.45). Language samples were recorded during free play and interaction with the caregiver. The transcription of children's spontaneous speech was subjected to independent analyses of speech to derive the phonological characteristics.
LTs produced a significantly lower phonetic inventory (Mdn = 8.5) than TD children (Mdn = 15.5). Only consonants /p/ and /m/ were produced by 90% of Tamil-speaking LTs. In comparison, 90% of TD children produced a wide range of consonants over different manners of articulation, including nasals, semi-vowels and stops. Tamil's retroflex consonants and geminate clusters emerged early in TD children's productions; fricatives and affricates were limited. LTs produced a significantly higher proportion of front vowels and a significantly lower proportion of mid- and back vowels than TD children. Syllable structures produced by LTs predominantly consisted of monosyllables and reduplicated syllables compared to TD children's wide range of complex structures.
The data contribute to an emerging database on early phonological development in Tamil as spoken in Tamil Nadu, India. Observations from 2-year-old LTs and TD children speaking Tamil revealed similarities with English (bilabials, alveolar stops, disyllable and monosyllable production) and differences in line with distinct phonological characteristics of Tamil (lesser production of fricatives, back vowels and closed syllables). The study provides clinical information relevant to the assessment and intervention of young children with phonological and lexical delays.
What is already known on this subject Research from English and other Indo-European languages has revealed bidirectional relationships between phonological and lexical development, as evidenced by findings from typically developing (TD) children and children with language delays. Children identified as Late talkers (LTs) at 2 years of age demonstrate limited phonetic inventory and syllable shapes compared to TD children. What this paper adds to existing knowledge The current study is the first to report on the size and nature of the phonetic inventory, the proportion of consonants, vowels and syllable structure types amongst Tamil-speaking children born preterm who were TD and late-talking. There are considerable differences in TD children's and late talkers' early phonological abilities. The characteristics of Tamil influenced the phonological skills of both groups of children as the ambient language of exposure. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? The study contributes to the much-needed data corpus on early phonological skills, specifically the phonetic inventory and syllable structures from Tamil-speaking children. The data will aid in the identification of delays and atypical patterns in phonological development amongst children learning to speak Tamil. The information will guide intervention programs for children with early language delays. The findings strengthen existing cross-linguistic research on the relationship between early phonological skills and lexical development amongst children.
泰米尔语是达罗毗荼语系的一种语言，在包括印度、斯里兰卡、马来西亚和新加坡在内的几个南亚国家广泛使用。本研究在词汇发展的背景下，通过纳入具有典型语言发展（TD）的儿童和说话较晚的儿童（LTs），对说泰米尔语儿童的语音发展进行了考察。本研究是在印度南部泰米尔纳德邦说泰米尔语的儿童中进行的。
本研究旨在比较24个月左右说泰米尔语的TD儿童和LTs儿童的语音库大小和性质、辅音、元音的比例以及音节结构类型。
本研究包括68名说泰米尔语的儿童，其中34名LTs儿童和34名年龄及性别匹配的TD儿童。所有儿童均为早产儿，在其第二个生日后根据早产调整年龄进行评估（M = 24.38个月；SD = 1.45）。在自由玩耍和与照顾者互动期间记录语言样本。对儿童自发言语的转录进行独立的语音分析，以得出语音特征。
LTs儿童的语音库（中位数 = 8.5）明显低于TD儿童（中位数 = 15.5）。90%说泰米尔语的LTs儿童仅能发出辅音/p/和/m/。相比之下，90%的TD儿童能发出各种不同发音方式的辅音，包括鼻音、半元音和塞音。泰米尔语的卷舌辅音和双辅音在TD儿童的发音中出现得较早；擦音和塞擦音有限。与TD儿童广泛的复杂结构相比，LTs儿童发出的前元音比例明显更高，中元音和后元音比例明显更低。LTs儿童产生的音节结构主要由单音节和重叠音节组成。
这些数据为印度泰米尔纳德邦所说泰米尔语的早期语音发展的新兴数据库做出了贡献。对2岁说泰米尔语的LTs儿童和TD儿童的观察结果显示，与英语有相似之处（双唇音、齿龈塞音、双音节和单音节发音），也有与泰米尔语独特语音特征相符的差异（擦音、后元音和闭音节发音较少）。该研究为语音和词汇发育迟缓幼儿的评估和干预提供了相关临床信息。
关于该主题已知的内容 来自英语和其他印欧语系语言的研究揭示了语音和词汇发展之间的双向关系，典型发育（TD）儿童和语言迟缓儿童的研究结果证明了这一点。2岁时被确定为说话较晚的儿童（LTs）与TD儿童相比，语音库和音节形式有限。本文对现有知识的补充 本研究首次报告了早产的TD儿童和说话较晚的说泰米尔语儿童的语音库大小和性质、辅音、元音的比例以及音节结构类型。TD儿童和说话较晚儿童的早期语音能力存在相当大的差异。泰米尔语的特征作为所处环境语言，影响了两组儿童的语音技能。这项工作的潜在或实际临床意义是什么？该研究为急需的早期语音技能数据语料库做出了贡献，特别是来自说泰米尔语儿童的语音库和音节结构。这些数据将有助于识别学习说泰米尔语儿童语音发展中的延迟和非典型模式。这些信息将指导针对早期语言迟缓儿童的干预项目。这些发现加强了关于儿童早期语音技能与词汇发展之间关系的现有跨语言研究。
