Marketing Multilingualism: Vernacular Aesthetics and Consumer Culture in Early Twentieth-Century Tamil Print Advertisements

Abstract

My paper examines how early twentieth-century Tamil print advertisements mobilized multilingual aesthetic registers to engage with and shape localized consumer behaviors. By analyzing advertisements that blended Tamil, English, and other regional languages, it studies how print capitalism negotiated linguistic hierarchies to reach diverse audiences. I argue that these advertisements did not merely reflect existing language divisions but actively manipulated them to create aspirational consumer identities. Situating these practices within a broader genealogy of vernacularity, this study interrogates the intersections of language, consumerism, and modernity. By doing so, it challenges conventional understandings of linguistic boundaries by demonstrating how advertising functioned as a site where multiple linguistic registers coexisted, simultaneously reinforcing and complicating colonial and nationalist language policies. This paper contributes to discussions on the fluidity of vernacular print cultures and their role in shaping everyday consumption practices in colonial South India.