Handout of 2 nd lecture to be delivered in the workshop on “Dravidian Languages and the Structure of Tamil Language- a comparison” at the Central Institute of Classical Tamil, Chennai on 27.12.2021. Lecture 2: Old Tamil corpus and the comparative study of Dravidian languages Lt Dr P Sreekumar Dravidian University The expected outcome of the class: The participants are expected to be (1) aware of , acquire and train the skill sets to describe, explain the language of OT for Comparative Dravidian Linguistics. (2) Able to use the OT evidence for the advancement of Comparative Dravidian Linguistics. 1. Introduction 2. Use of OT for CDL 3. Present status of OT Corpus 3.1. Tamil Virtual Academy 3.2. ? 4. Skill sets required for researchers 4.1. Transliteration skill 4.2. Glossing skill 4.3. Description skills 4.3.1. Description of text 4.3.2. Description of context 4.3.3. Description of theme 4.3.4. Description of language 5. Explanation 5.1. Descriptive explanation 5.2. Comparative explanation 5.3. Typological explanation 6. Working cases 6.1. Transliterate an OT text 6.2. Gloss an OT text