Appadurai Muttulingam is proud his mother tongue is one of the world’s seven classical languages, but the Markham writer always worries how the centuries-old Tamil language and literature can be preserved without a home.

That’s why he was thrilled when the University of Toronto joined the Tamil community in the GTA earlier this year to create a chair in Tamil Studies at its Scarborough campus with the mandate to develop an academic program on Tamil language, history and culture through research and scholarship.

“Tamil is one of the oldest living classical languages and the U of T is ranked No. 1 in Canada. It’s only fitting a great language finds a place of honour at a great university,” said Muttulingam, 82.

“This chair is not being created by a single rich man, but rather will be owned by the Tamil community worldwide.”

For many people in the Tamil Canadian diaspora, the endeavour symbolizes the coming of age of a relatively young immigrant community, many of its members coming here as refugees fleeing wars and conflicts in Sri Lanka over the last three decades.

“We came and shared apartments. We struggled and worked hard at coffee shops, gas stations and convenience stores to raise families. Others came as professionals and returned to their chosen fields,” said Sivan Ilangko of the Canadian Tamil Congress, who joined his wife and settled here in 2001.

“Our children go to universities and work in different fields. We have done extremely well in a very short time. This (chair) is a recognition of the Tamil community, our language, culture, history and literature.”

In June, at the launch of the drive to create the Tamil chair, members of the community immediately pledged $700,000 toward the $3-million endowment that they must raise in two years. Since then, the community has organized different events monthly from concerts to galas to achieve the target.

The community was inspired by a similar campaign that successfully raised U.S. $6.4 million (U.S.) to fund a Tamil chair at Harvard University last year.

Dr. Vijay Janakiraman, a cardiologist in Pennsylvania, who initiated the Harvard project along with Rhode Island oncologist Dr. Sundaresan T. Sambandam, approached the world-renowned university with a proposal in 2015 after reading a story in the Washington Post about the seven classical languages, including Tamil, which is said to be spoken by 80 million people around the world. The others were Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Latin, Persian and Sanskrit.

“There were all these criteria to qualify as a classical language and Tamil meets all of them,” said Janakiraman, who moved to the U.S. in 1975. “All the top universities were teaching the other (classical) languages except my mother tongue.”

Janakiraman, a native from Tamil Nadu in India, said the community was given five years to raise the money but they completed the feat in three, with donations from Tamils in 35 countries. The university has just started its search for the chair.

“Canada has 300,000 Tamils and the community deserves a chair there,” Janakiraman, president of Tamil Chair Inc., which was established to co-ordinate the Harvard project and is helping the community worldwide, including Toronto, to negotiate with universities to develop similar academic programs.

Muttulingam said the community had approached U of T with the same idea back in early 2000, and the price tag then was $1 million.

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“We couldn’t even raise $100,000 eighteen years ago because at that time 99 per cent of us were new immigrants and most came as refugees. Everyone was struggling,” recalled Muttulingam, who has published 17 books in Tamil, including a collection of stories entitled Kuthiraikaran.

“But now, it’s different. We have one Tamil MP and two Tamil MPPs. We have Tamil heritage month. It’s time to make our mark and leave a legacy for our future generations. And language is such a crucial part of one’s culture and identity.”