R. Chandrasekaran, Director, Central Institute of Classical Tamil, Chennai, at a stall set up by the institute as part of Kasi Tamil Sangamam 4.0 at Namo Ghat in Varasani on Tuesday. | Photo credit: Special arrangement
R. Chandrasekaran, Director, Central Institute of Classical Tamil, Chennai, at a stall set up by the institute as part of Kasi Tamil Sangamam 4.0 at Namo Ghat, Varasani on Tuesday, December 2, 2025 | Photo credit: S.Ganesan
The Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT), Chennai, will soon launch a free online course to teach Tamil through Hindi, according to its director R. Chandrasekaran.
The online certificate or diploma course will be launched in a month or two in view of good demand, Mr. Chandrasekaran said on the sidelines of Kashi Tamil Sangamam 4.0 in Varanasi on Tuesday.
CICT has released a book on learning Tamil through Hindi in 15 days and the module is to be used to teach students in Varanasi. “We have already made videos of 90 episodes of 30 minutes each. Each episode will have several questions that the student has to answer before moving on to the next episode. At the end of four months, there will be an exam for successful completion of the course. Once that is done, we will introduce similar courses to teach Tamil through other languages, including Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu and even English, so that people can learn the language from anywhere.
CICT, which has already published translations of Thirukkural in 25 Indian languages and nine foreign languages, will bring translations of Thiruvalluvar magnum opus in 30 more languages by Pongal 2026. This would include translations in 23 Indian languages and seven foreign languages including Spanish and French, he said.
Sign language version
A sign language version of Thirukkural with 45 video episodes will be released soon. The version would benefit about four million people with disabilities in Tamil Nadu and the version would be uploaded on the CICT website and YouTube channel.
The CICT translations of Tholkappiyam into 10 languages, including Odi, Assamese, Tulu, Urdu, Spanish, Hungarian, German, Burmese, Malay and Arabic, were released on Tuesday at the inauguration ceremony of Kashi Tamil Sangamam 4.0, themed ‘Let’s Learn Tamil’.
Published – 02 Dec 2025 21:05 IST
