Lingofly் — pulli
«pulli» is a sign of the Tamil script. No vowel at all: க் — just 'k'. The Tamil alphabet has 31 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. This character does not count as a letter of the alphabet. A dot above the letter. Every word ending in a consonant ends with it, and there are many: வணக்கம் (vaṇakkam) — vaṇakkam, not vaṇakkama. On a carrier the character looks like this: க். It appears, for example, in the word “வணக்கம்” (vaṇakkam) — hello.
In short
| Character | ் |
| Name | pulli |
| Sound | - (pulli) |
| What it is | a sign |
| On the carrier | க் |
In our course the character comes 49th of 49: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, before it comes ௌ, appears in roughly every other word on this site.
How to type ்
- On a phone: add the Tamil keyboard in the keyboard settings (Gboard on Android; Keyboards in the iPhone settings).
- In Word on Windows: type U+0BCD and press Alt+X right after it — the code turns into the character.
- On a Mac: switch to the Unicode Hex Input source, hold Option and type 0BCD.
- Type this sign after its base letter, even where it is drawn before it: letter first, then the sign, and they join.
- Unicode code point: U+0BCD. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
No vowel at all: க் — just 'k'
The character in the “vowel signs and the pulli” group
Shown on க (ka): a vowel sign is not written on its own. From கா the 'k' must be subtracted in one's head — and the very vowel the sign means remains. The signs 'e', 'ee' and 'ai' are written to the left of the letter although they sound after it. The signs 'u' and 'uu' fuse with the letter into a new sign.
Words with this character
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound, see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 31 letters — at once.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
Frequently asked
How does the Tamil character ் read?
- (pulli). It is a sign of the Tamil script. No vowel at all: க் — just 'k'.
What is the sign ் called?
Pulli is what this character is called when the alphabet is recited aloud.