Topic started by Vanchi on Mon Dec 6 08:41:39 .
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.
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No, this is not about the lack of certain sounds.
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Responses:
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- From: Idiappam (@ cache139.156ce.maxonline.com.sg)
on: Thu Oct 2 20:21:18
Interesting! Thank you!
- From: Jk (@ 61.1.201.69)
on: Fri Oct 3 03:23:26 EDT 2003
Read the Menu content of Some Madrasi Restaurants:
Aloo Gopi
barota guruma
thosai putter
danda bani
gasatha ice gream
roddi dhal
Mutter baneer
Aloo Bhoori
Sambar Vathai
Pindi fry
bav paji
pel bhoori
sola bhoori
banneer pry
bani boori
vadha bav
These are the typographical or grammatical wording mistake you can find in most of restaurants in Chennai, ifyou go further down it is still worse. Look how tamil kills the basic vocabulary and meanings.
- From: P.Pandiyaraja (@ 61.1.208.32)
on: Fri Oct 17 14:52:09 EDT 2003
Vanchi says.
>>There is no apparent reason for the order of 6 vallinam...
No, there IS a reason for the ordering of the vallinam consonants.
Just pronounce them one after another.
You will find that you are 'moving forward'.
when you pronounce 'ka', the sound is born at the back of your inner mouth. You press the inner walls and release.
when you pronounce 'ca', the sound is born at the middle of your inner mouth. You press the inner walls (mElaNNam and kIzaNNam)and release.
when you pronounce 'Ta', the sound is born at the front of your inner mouth. You press the alveolar with your tongue (retroflex) and release.
when you pronounce 'tha', the sound is born at the tip of your mouth. You press the tongue with both your upper and lower teeth and release.
when you pronounce 'pa', the sound is born at the very tip of your mouth. You press the lips together and release.
That's why I told you 'you are moving forward'. That is, they are ordered according to the place of articulation (from back to the front).These vallinam (or hard consonants)are called 'voiceless' in linguistics. the corresponding mellinam consonants are 'voiced' consonats. they are called 'nasals'. They have the same place of articulation as their corresponding vallinams but come with a 'voice'.
then about 'iTaiyinam'. if you prononce 'y', 'r' 'l' and 'v' you will find the same order of 'from the back to the front'. 'z' and 'L' are pure tamil sounds not found in North Indian languages. so they are appended at the end.
I can hear you scream "Do you mean to say that the tamil script was borrowed from the north?"
YES, My love for Tamil is no lesser than yours, But my dear friends, that is true and we have to accept it.
I will come with more convincing proof later.
- From: :) (@ d150-40-7.home.cgocable.net)
on: Sat Oct 18 09:16:30 EDT 2003
"But my dear friends, that is true and we have to accept it.
"
Pandiaraja, since you or I did not live 2000 years ago, we really don't know with 100% certainty who borrowed from who. Please read this article by Dr. Siromoney http://www.cmi.ac.in/gift/Epigraphy/epig_tamilorigin.htm
- From: Idiappam (@ cache139.156ce.maxonline.com.sg)
on: Sat Oct 18 11:59:15 EDT 2003
Pandiraja said:
//if you prononce 'y', 'r' 'l' and 'v' you will find the same order of 'from the back to the front'. 'z' and 'L' are pure tamil sounds not found in North Indian languages. so they are appended at the end.
I can hear you scream "Do you mean to say that the tamil script was borrowed from the north?" //
On the same token, many sound of the North Indian Languages are not found in tamil.
I can hear you scream "Do you mean to say that Northern scripts were borrowed from the South?'"
- From: R.Srinivasan. (U.S.A) (@ ip68-0-198-105.ri.ri.cox.net)
on: Sat Oct 18 14:31:40 EDT 2003
Tamil Letters "Æ & Ç" in North Indian Languages
Thiru PANDIARAJA says...
//'z' and 'L' are pure tamil sounds not found in North Indian languages.//
I am sorry to differ. The unusual Tamil-letter"Æ"(zha)prominently used in Malayalam, is currently out of use in some of the South Indian Languages also, like Kannada and Telugu. But it exists in their Literature called "Acha-Telugu" and "Hale-Kannada".
Regarding the other letter "Ç"(LHA) in most of the North Indian Languages this letter does not exist, but exists in MARATHI not only in Literature but also in colloqual usage, similar to SAMSKRIT.
- From: P.Pandiyaraja (@ 61.1.208.161)
on: Sat Oct 18 15:50:04 EDT 2003
Dear Vanchi,
I read the article by Dr.Gift Sironmoney. (By the way, he was very well known to me personally and I had invited him to visit a new Brahmi inscription discovered by me and a colleague with a group of my students. I still remember the long walk we had up the hill (siththar malai near Sholavandan near Madurai) and the praise he bestowed upon our team for having discovered a new inscription – read his article on “ A New Tamil Brahmi Inscription” in his home page). Dr.Gift is no more now or else I could have raised the following questions to him directly. Any way I am posing them here expecting a reasonable and serious answer from any reader.
Dr.Gift’s conjecture is : The Brahmi script was developed first for Tamil and it was modified or improved upon to write languages in the north.
I do not want to take up the various reasons Dr.Gift puts forward and discuss them here. That can be done but it may not be understood by many unless they have a copy of his article and are also relatively well versed with the Brahmi script.
Here are my questions.
1. TholkAppiyar’s (Thol) first verse is;
±Øò¦¾ÉôÀÎÅ
«¸Ã Ó¾ø ɸà þÚÅ¡ö ÓôÀ·¦¾ýÀ.
That is, he says: The first letter of Tamil is ‘a’(«) and the last letter is ‘n2’(É). How come É is the last letter ?
First he lists the vowels (verses 3 and 4 in áø ÁÃÒ). Then he lists vallinam (¸,º,¼,¾,À,È), mellinam(¹,»,½,¿,Á,É) and itaiyinam (Â,Ã,Ä,ÅÆ,Ç) in this order(verses 19,20,21) So, the last letter should have been mentioned as La (Ç). Some may say that the order of the letters should be taken as vallinam, itaiyinam and mellinam and now É would be the last letter. But Thol. gives the letters only in the order vallinam, mellinam and itaiyinam and that is more natural also since the mellinam consonants are the nasalised forms of the corresponding vallinam consonants. Even today, the Tamil alphabet is mentioned as: «,,þ,®,¯,°,±,²,³,´,µ,,¸,¹,º,»,¼,½,¾,¿,À,Á,Â,Ã,Ä,Å,Æ,Ç,È,É.
(Incidentally, you may note that thirukkuraL starts with the letter « and ends with the letter ý). How is it that the vallinam È and its corresponding mellinam É are put at the end of the list?
The letters Æ,Ç,È,É. are not found in the original Brahmi and they are pure Tamil sounds.
So, the hypothesis is :
Tamil borrowed the Brahmi script in the order in which the letters were written in it and appended its own letters (not found in the original Brahmi). Those who are familiar with Brahmi script would see that the letters for these four Tamil sounds are derived forms, especially for Ç,È,É. (Ç derived from the letter for Ä with an extension, È derived from a combination of ¼ and ¾ and É derived from the letter for ¿ with an extension.) Æ also is a derivation according to some people but some people claim that it is a mystic symbol.
Question 2
Take the order of the vowels themselves.
«,,þ,®,¯,°,±,²,³,´,µ,.
We have five short vowels and seven long vowels. Five of the long vowels are elongations of the corresponding short vowels. (The other two are diphthongs but our grammarians have taken them also as vowels.) OK. So, the natural ordering of the vowels should have been.
Short long
Short long
Short long
Short long
Short long
And the other two.
That is, they should have been in the order:
«,,þ,®,¯,°,±,²,´,µ, ³,.
How come ³, comes in between?
The list of vowels in the original Brahmi is:
«,,þ,®,¯,°,², ³, µ, am aha.
The orignal Brahmi does not have short e (±) and short o (´).(Even now, north Indian languages do not have them). So, when it was borrowed for Tamil, the short e and the short o were inserted in their places and hence the present order.
This had to be done for all the uyirmeys also like ke, ko, ce, co etc., Initially, there would have been utter confusion when reading ‘pey’ as either ¦Àö or §Àö , ‘etu’ as ±Î or ²Î , kotu as ¦¸¡Î or §¸¡Î. Thol. clears this ambiguity by saying:
¦Áö¢ý þÂü¨¸ ÒûÇ¢¦Â¡Î ¿¢¨ÄÂø
±¸Ã ´¸ÃòÐ þÂü¨¸Ôõ «ü§È (verse 15,16 áø ÁÃÒ)
That is he says “ You write the Brahmi E, O, kE, cE etc., but place a puLLi to make it ‘short’. According to thol. ±Î means palm leaf (with a long sound) and ±Î with a pulli on the head of ±, is ‘take’(with a short sound)
Otherwise, what is the need of placing a puLLi above the vowels e and o?.
Question 3.
An uyirmey is born by combining a mey with a uyir.(Should it have been meyuyir?!)
That is k + a = ka. OK?
But write it in Tamil. We have:
ì+« = ¸
But what we actually do is: we write ¸ first , place a puLLI on its top to get ì. That is from the uyirmey ¸ we produce ì. So, is ‘ì’ the basic letter or ‘¸’ the basic letter?
The original Brahmi does not have pure consonants like ì,î,etc., its basic letters are ¸,º etc.,(that is basic consonants have akaram along with them).
So, if Brahmi were originally developed for Tamil, ¸ should have been a pure consonant (k) and ¸ + some symbol (like ‘¡’ for kA) should have used for ka.
The process is reversed here. Thol tries to explain this illogical procedure by cleverly describing the process of geminating the uyirmeys in verse 17.(áø ÁÃÒ)
How clever and careful he is, and how meticulous his thinking is can be understood and appreciated when you read that verse very carefully.
He takes a lot of trouble in defending his invention of PULLI to simplify Tamil script. His was the first attempt for ¾Á¢ú ±ØòÐî º£÷¾¢Õò¾õ.
But this needs a separate essay.
I would be the happiest man to be convinced that Brahmi was developed first for Tamil and later borrowed by the North.
But these questions have to be answered.
- From: P.Pandiyaraja (@ 61.1.208.161)
on: Sat Oct 18 15:59:41 EDT 2003
Thiru Srinivasan
>>//'z' and 'L' are pure tamil sounds not found in North Indian languages.//
>>I am sorry to differ.
You say ú is used in Malayalamn and Acha-Telugu" and "Hale-Kannada". But these are south indian languages. What I said was about North Indian languages. about Ç in Marathi, one has to check with the linguists.
But you yourself has agreed
>>other letter "Ç"(LHA) in most of the North Indian Languages this letter does not exist,
I am talking about the languages that were in use when Brahmi was developed. Was marathi in vogue 2300 years ago?
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