Talk:Tamil language/Archive 4

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Dating Early Tamil Literature and/or Writing

It is wise to be conservative. But, that should not translate to downplaying the ancient origins of Tamil language. A helpful article: http://www.hindu.com/2005/02/17/stories/2005021704471300.htm

--Natkeeran 17:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

See this. Sarvagnya 20:16, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
I can provide scholarly background information about ancient Tamil works. However, most of the materials are in Tamil. You can get a sense of the scholarly work if you review the newsletter: http://www.ciil-classicaltamil.org/newsletter/Chemmozhi_Oct-Dec_2K6.pdf (It's in English.). It contains summary articles. In Tamil scholarly circles, the conservative estimates place early Tamil Literature to 3 BCE. It is not possible to place one source, that provides a definite date. The dating is based on a general agreement based on wide area of research. --Natkeeran 21:15, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Ranking

Tamil is #15, according to the following paper: http://www.frenchteachers.org/bulletin/articles/promote/top%20languages.pdf

Tamil is #18, according to Ethnologue. http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/help/top-100-languages-by-population.html

Another source: http://encarta.msn.com/media_701500404/Languages_Spoken_by_More_Than_10_Million_People.html

--Natkeeran 21:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Classical Language

Sarvagnya, the statement here is Govt. India declared Tamil as a Classical language. It is a simple message and it is best stated as such. Why do you dilute the factual message with adding quotation marks and adding other clauses ? --Aadal 22:04, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I used the quotation marks because I thought it wasnt appropriate to just matter of factly state that the Indian government declared Tamil as classical.  :I thought so because of two reasons,
  1. The Indian government is NOT an authority, expert or judge to decide on what a classical language is,...
  2. ... nor is it the authority to declare languages it chooses as classical.
If anything the Government of India can only declare languages as classical languages of India. And in doing this, the Indian government follows its own guidelines which may even not have scholarly sanction.
As for the quotation marks once again, on second thoughts I'll remove it as the pipelink now is to CLofIndia. Sarvagnya 22:36, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
If you have a problem with the way Govt. of India declared, this is not the place to vent it. Govt. of India consulted all the experts it could and on the basis of all the considerations, it had declared. A Govt. is a well recognized authority. It is not that the President or Prime Minister individually decided to grant this status. Your vague statement, "may even not have scholarly sanction." has no standing or basis and can not be a reason to paint in such negative colours. The value of the original factual statement which was there is being diluted by your attempts to colour it with negative tones. Please stop this. --Aadal 23:16, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Please stop attributing motives to my arguments. I have nothing to say about the government's decision. I am not questioning it. It is entirely the government's prerogative to decide what criteria and guidelines they will go by to accord the status to a language. But then, that is irrelevant to wikipedia and the scholarly world. Because, countries and governments dont decide on matters like this. It needs a much larger and wider consensus. This is what I was trying to point out and this is what this article in The Hindu also says. Let me quote verbatim from the article.
"That Tamil has at long last gained recognition in India is wonderful, but not enough. The next step is to get other nations to recognise the classical status of Tamil and also have it recognised by world bodies like the UNESCO."
Obviously, recognition from UNESCO and other countries does matter. Your arguments are a bit like saying, "Govt of India has declared Kannada and Tamil and Telugu etc., as official languages. So they are official languages for the whole world!" Sorry.
As an aside, in that article, you might notice that the author of that article who seems to be batting for Tamil, candidly 'confesses' that Tamil got the status because of DMK's 'arm twisting' of the central government. But I'll let that go. That, I'm sure you will say is just the author's POV. Thanks. Sarvagnya 23:37, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
It is so obvious that you can not bear to have a simple factual statement -that Gov. of India declared Tamil as a Classical Language- to be included in a Tamil language article. It shows your explicit bias. Even if UNESCO were to declare it as a classical language, I won't be surprised if you use your inane argument that they have no authority, they are not the experts and the whole slew of your whining. That Tamil is a classical language is a fact; Govt. of India's declaration is the recognition of the fact. The declaration by itself did not make Tamil a classical language. But such recognition is an honour and provides more visibility (to a larger audience). All well meaning dravidian langauge speakers will only take pride in this declaration. If Kannada or Telugu or Malayalam were to be declared as a CL- as a Tamil, I would be among the first to celebrate. --Aadal 00:22, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Phonology

The article currently says:

The vowels /ə/, /æː/, and /ɔː/ are peripheral to the phonology of Tamil, occurring only in loanwords.

Aren't these, respectively, the sounds of the kuRRiyal ukaram, kuRRiyal aikaram and kuRRiyal ekaram, all of which are most definitely native to Tamil phonology?

Yes, I think they are, however, the precise meaning description of /ə/, /æː/, and /ɔː/ MAY differ from my understanding. Definitely they are very close.--Aadal 22:24, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Similarly:

The sounds /b/, /d̪/, /ɖ/, /ɟ/, /g/, /f/, /ʂ/, /ɕ/, /x/ are peripheral to the phonology of Tamil, being found only in loanwords and frequently replaced by native sounds.

sounds just plain wrong. As far as I am aware, voiced stops like /b/, /g/, /d̪/ and /ɖ/ are very much a part of Tamil, as is the voiceless velar fricative /x/ (listen to the Jaffna pronunciation of the intervocalic க, which is pretty much how it was pronunced in Sangam Tamil). -- Arvind 22:05, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree voiced stops /b/, /g/, /d̪/ and /ɖ/ are very much part of Tamil, but in standard Tamil, they occur in a well-dfined manner using the rule of Tolkāppiyam; the fricative /x/ is also present, I think, in Āytham and in many colloquial language (both in Tamil Nadu and in Jaffna). --Aadal 22:24, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Content Disputes #1 Tamil is a Classical language vs Tamil is not a Classical lanaguage

User:Sarvagnya wants to diminish the ancient quality of Tamil, and its legal (in India), and scholarly status (global) as a Classical language. There are many others who think this as counter factual position to take. If he has quarrels, he can take that up at with the Indian government or at other platforms. But, it is not helpful to try to insert that bias cynically in the Tamil language article. Thanks. --Natkeeran 22:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I've rewritten the sentence to reflect what actually is stated in the given reference, also making sure that Tamil gets the credit for being the first language to be included in classical language category. Gnanapiti 04:41, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
The statement which was there was simple and direct and that is all that is required to be stated in the lead section. Other details are already in the official languages of India page. --Aadal 12:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Comments about the Intro

  • Information about the number of speakers should be included.
  • The information about Diglossia is not required in the intro. Most languages have formal and informal versions of language, and Tamil is no different.
  • Much of the detail comments about the grammar can be avoided as well.
  • Tamils ancient origins, continuity, and modern vibrancy should be clearly stated.
I see what you are saying, but Wikipedia has its own standards for what the introduction of a featured article should have, and they are not always what seem most obvious to us as native speakers. The old introduction, with which this article first attained FA status, will simply not pass the FA process today because Wikipedia's standards have changed. The article about Russian language is usually held up as a model in this regard, and I've tried to follow its pattern in the introduction. -- Arvind 11:34, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I see whay you are saying. --Natkeeran 16:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

An Alternative Intro

The following intro from a previous version can be apprioriately modified.


Tamil (தமிழ் tamiḻ) is classical language and one of the major languages of the Dravidian language family. Spoken predominantly by Tamils in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Singapore, it has smaller communities of speakers in many other countries. As of 1996, it was the eighteenth most spoken language, with over 74 million speakers worldwide. It is one of the official languages of India, Singapore and Sri Lanka.

Tamil is one of the few "living classical languages" [1], and Tamil literature has an unbroken literary tradition of over two millennia. The written language has changed little during this period, with the result that classical literature is as much a part of everyday Tamil as modern literature. Tamil school-children, for example, are still taught the alphabet using the átticúdi, an alphabet rhyme attributed to the poet Auvaiyar who lived during the thirteenth century CE. [2]

The name 'Tamil' is an anglicised form of the native name தமிழ் (IPA /t̪ɐmɨɻ/). The final letter of the name, usually transcribed as the lowercase l or zh, is a retroflex r. In phonetic transcriptions, it is usually represented by the retroflex approximant.

--Natkeeran 00:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Good changes Arvind!

Arvind, I think your edits are making the content more cogent and things like transliteration are being well harmonised. Thanks! --Aadal 13:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. --Natkeeran 16:54, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds

A more general introduction along the lines of 'Tamil is a phonetic language' may be suitable. --Natkeeran 16:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Agree, somewhere it should be mentioned that it is a phonetic language.--Aadal 16:56, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Phonology

I think it would be important to mention, at least in brief, about the remarkable Tolkāppiyam rules on the production of phonemes (letter-sounds) of the language by the body. In Chapter 3 entitled 'piRappiyal' he spells out these. The systematic way the consonants are arranged in accordance with the piRapiyal is a remarkable fact and it is worth mentioning it here. Ideally we need a picture to explain and I can get it. Arvind, what do you think? Welcome comments from other users as well.--Aadal 16:56, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Arvind, I meant by 'production of phonemes' what is known today as articulatory phonetics or Place of articulation - described in the ~ 2nd century BCE work Tolkāppiyam's (chapter on piRappiyal).--Aadal 20:11, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I know the bits you're talking about. Sure, it will probably be worth adding a bit about that in the section on phonetics! Incidentally, I'm going to be offline for some days from tomorrow onwards so I probably won't be able to contribute to this article for a while, but I think it should get through the review now. -- Arvind 17:25, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

The Vatteluttu pic

I uploaded a sharpened version of the original Vatteluttu pic . Should I have uploaded it on commons or should I have just uploaded it as a new version of the original pic that User:Venu62 had added? And anyway, how does it look. I just sharpened it so the inscription is easier to read. Feel free to revert if people feel the old one is better. Sarvagnya 08:36, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Devaneya Pavanar

Could people with a Tamil background have a look at Devaneya Pavanar? There seems to be a lot of insane nonsense flying around, and it is difficult to assess it without knowledge of Tamil (I have already scrounged as much as I could off search engines). If possible also reference the bibliography section. thanks, dab (𒁳) 08:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the wiki page and it is indeed badly organized and presented, but it is true that Devaneya Pavanar was a leading light in tamil linguistics (actually without a parallel). I'm quite familiar with his works and they are of excellent quality. He was knowledgeable in some 30-40 languages (in linguistic, etymological sense). Excepting a few quite exotic and unproven claims (that Tamil is the most ancient language based on his surmise that they originally lived in the landmass south of India which was lost due to tsunami-like "flood" and their history goes back to some 10,500 years ago), his linguistic analysis is pretty strong and unmatched. He is not as well recognized and known as Murray Emeneau or Thomas Burrow, but his contributions are nonetheless comparable and I would dare say even more deep quality. He was very poor (economically) and was not recognized even by political powers of Tamilnadu. But his linguistic genius is extremely rare to find. When I have time I'll go to that page and make changes I think will be appropriate. If you have any questions about Devaneya Pavanar, please let me know and I'll be happy to share. I've almost all his books (some 30+).--Aadal 13:03, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
please do. The present material in the article doesn't present him in a favourable light to say the least. In fact, as an autodidact with utterly confused notions of linguistic fundamentals (what does it even mean to say "Tamil is superior to Sanskrit"?). If he as done any work of linguistic value, this should by all means be presented. Since there is a living field of Dravidology, such contributions would certainly have been reviewed academically, and I am sure it would be possible to cite the opinion of established Dravidologists. Outside Dravidology, it appears he is only noted for his fanciful mysticist claims of Stone Age Dravidians from Lemuria. Also, the article needs references for various claims (awards etc., what does it mean that his works have been "nationalised") that can probably only be answered by editors who can read Tamil. dab (𒁳) 15:16, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Pavanar and linguistic genius?! Yeah right :) How else would you "prove" that all languages in the world have borrowed half their vocabularies from 'classical divine' Tamil! Pavanar's theories have long been discredited by the 'mainstream' though there is always the odd author who'd love to live out his fantasies on paper. Sarvagnya 00:49, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Excepting a few quite exotic and unproven claims (that Tamil is the most ancient language [..snip..] - dont tell me you're harboring fantasies that his claims will be 'proven' some day. Sarvagnya 00:52, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
are you asking me? His forays into etymology and historical linguistics are quite obviously worthless, no debate required. His qualities as an author (of literature and poetry, not scholarship) and his command of the Tamil language are obviously unrelated to that, and can only be assessed by people who know the language. It appears that he is very notable as a poet, even if his Lemurian "Dravidology" is a surreal joke. dab (𒁳) 12:36, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Say what you want, because it is a 'free medium'. I've read most of the works of Devaneya Pavanar, and am quite familiar with works of Murray Emeneau and such scholars, I can tell that one can not touch his etymological research and findings. Had people like Emeneau and Burrow discussed with Devaneya Pavanar, the situation today would be far different. Dab's comment about DP's contributions "His forays into etymology and historical linguistics are quite obviously worthless, no debate required." is such a blatant and ignorant statement. Dab had not obviously read his works and he is making such a sweeping statement who is actually a consumate scholar. DP is a far greater scholar in Tamil and Dravidian and comparative linguistics than anyone I can think of. The problem with Sarvagna and Dab is that they don't have an iota of knowledge of DP and still they make such sweeping statements. About the comment that DP's works being nationalized: It means, due to its importance and for the common bebenefit, Govt. had put DP's works in the 'common'- in the sense that anyone can print his works free of copyright restrictions. Make it clear that I'm only saying that he is a genius in Tamil/Dravidian etymological/comparative historical linguistic area. Many great scientists and scholars have made numerous unproven and some quite unreasonable statements right from Aristotle, Rene Descarte, Ernst Haeckel and Einstein - so, don't be surprised that if DP had said something that don't sit well with you. Based on his research and notes, a 10-volume Tamil etymological dictionary had been published and another 10+ more volumes are yet to come out. DP's knowledge is truly amazing and it is important to approach what you don't know with an open mind rather than making sweeping statements and with a negative bias. --Aadal 14:16, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I readily admit I had never even heard of Pavanar one week ago. I admit he may well have been a genius, and may have possessed supreme command of the Tamil language. This has nothing to do with historical linguistics or etymology. If he was a great Tamil author, let's say he was a great Tamil author. But any "scholar", be he Tamil or German or British or whatever, who proves that his native language is "divine" and the mother tongue of mankind, if possible deriving from some sunken continent of the Paleolithic, is simply outside anything that may be considered academic. It is simply run-of-the-mill "antiquity frenzy", a rather common symptom of naive national mysticism. I am sorry if this somehow mars an otherwise ingenious author, but that's how it is. We don't even need to argue about Lemuria. Calling a language "divine" has nothing to do with historical linguistics, and is purely a statement of linguistic mysticism. This is 17th-century-style "linguistics", and such stuff wouldn't be better received in actual 20th century scholarship than an alchemist claiming to have found the Philosophers' Stone would have been received in the 1966 edition of Physics Today: Pavanar is "not even wrong", he lives in a world apart: mysticism. dab (𒁳) 18:25, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
I understand your point, but why don't you continue this elsewhere (like Devaneya pavanar page), rather than here? I'll answer it there for you, if you wish. The connotation of divine language is in the context of Sanskrit-Tamil controversy and it only means that one can pray in Tamil, and it is not such an outrageous comment as you make out. Sanskrit was claimed to be the exclusive language to 'speak with gods' (so called Deva Basha) and DP's comments were in relation to this. Anyways, I'll not reply to you in this regard here, though I can in an appropriate talk page. --Aadal 20:29, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Metalanguage

Almost all indian languages use sanskrit-derived terminology to describe their grammar. Tamil uses Tamil terms. In English too grmmatical terms (except in modern times) come from other languages - for example noun comes from latin nomen meaning "name." The english term verb comes from Latin verbum, the term gerund comes from Latin gerundium etc. The meta language for tamil is Tamil from more than 2300 years ago- at the least. --Aadal 17:38, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

you mean 2100 years, at the most, per Tolkāppiyam. I agree it's impressive, but to say "the metalanguage of Tamil is also Tamil" is confusing. Look at metalanguage. You can make statements on Tamil in any language. You can describe any language in its own terms. What you mean is "the oldest known native grammar of Tamil dates to ca. 2000 years ago." dab (𒁳) 18:30, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
The point is not that you can describe, but rather -in Tamil it had been described unlike in most of the languages. Will you stop deleting valid statements such as the one on metalanguage?! Will you also go and check other indian languages and most other literary languages? I don't understand what is confusing in the statement "the metalanguage of Tamil is also Tamil" . Modify it to remove the confusion if you can, but just don't delete the whole statement. It is not trivial fact to mention. I don't have the ready reference to point to, but others have made an explict pointed reference to this fact. It is a unique feature of Tamil (by unique I don't mean 'the only one', but rather 'one of the very few' in the world). --Aadal 20:20, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Recent misformed edits

Recent edits by Sarvagna reflect his serious misunderstanding. Read George Hart's book on Ancient Tamil Poems and one would see that Sastri's words about Sanskrit don't apply to Tamil. Secondly, this editor thinks Tamil came into existence only after Kannada emerged (see his misguided edits in the kannada page and his comments in talk pages strewn all over the place). According to him, Tirukkural, Tevaram, Cilappathikaram, Sangam literature and numerous other works are not Tamil but 'proto-Tamil-Malayalam' which is complete nonsense. He is perhaps doing it with the intention of ruining FA status. --Aadal 17:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Dear Aadal, please dont get emotional. There is no point getting emotional. Please have a glass of water and answer these questions.
  • Where have I claimed that Kannada came into 'existence' before Tamil did? At the same time, I have to tell you that, if you are under any delusions that the converse is true, please let go of them NOW. Because, not me, not you, not anybody can prove that language A came into 'existence' before language 'B' or vice versa. It may be a rude shock to you, but the fact is that no linguist makes any such claims and it does not behove us amateurs to make such claims.
  • All that the linguists have researched and reported is that all Dravidian languages evolved from a single 'Proto-Dravidian language' which is neither Kannada nor Tamil. This Proto-Dravidian evolved in many stages yielding Proto-Tamil-Kannada, Proto-Tamil-Malayalam etc., before it yielded the Proto-Kannada, Proto-Tamil etc., which correspond to 'Old' Kannada, 'Old' Tamil etc.,. And if you see the chart that I have cited, it should be clear to even a kid that Kannada branches off much earlier than Tamil. When I say much earlier, be advised that I am not positing an earlier date. It may well be possible that Kannadigas were for a long time talking Proto-Dravidian itself and then suddenly overnight in the 18th century switched to Proto-Kannada and then Kannada.
  • Be that as it may, if you can read the chart it should be clear to you that Malayalam descends from Pre/Proto-Tamil-Malayalam and NOT from either Pre/Proto-Tamil or Tamil. Note the difference in the way the chart represents the descent of Malayalam from Pre/Proto-Tamil-Malayalam as compared to the descent of Irula from Tamil or Badaga from Kannada. This is what the JSTOR citation also states.
  • As for the rest of your comments, which I can only see as an ad hominem attack made by an excited person, I will forgive them even as I revert your misinformed revert. Sarvagnya 18:10, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
  • And oh, btw, Mr. Hart(even if I were to take your claim at face value) is not the last word on the matter(of Skt influence). Shastri, infact, is a more widely respected and recognised name in Indian history in general and Tamil history in particular. Needless to say, I am not claiming that Shastri is the last word either. Sarvagnya 18:18, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Because, not me, not you, not anybody can prove that language A came into 'existence' before language 'B' or vice versa. It may be a rude shock to you, but the fact is that no linguist makes any such claims and it does not behove us amateurs to make such claims.
If no body can prove that language 'A' came into existence before language 'B', how come your chart can conclude Kannada branched off much earlier? A pathetic effort to conceal your POV. Praveen 18:31, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Do you have trouble comprehending any prose beyond the first paragraph? If so, please enlist the services of a normal 12-year old to help you. Thanks. Sarvagnya 18:35, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I thought of enlisting you. But you said 'normal 12 year', so I can not. Sorry. First paragraph is in total contradiction with rest; so how do you expect me to give your babble any more reading? I wonder if these nice 'contradiction' tags can be applied to your babble. And, JSTOR citation does not say there was a proto-malyalam-tamil language. Praveen 18:51, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I think Aadal needs to assume good faith, Sarvagnya needs to avoid personal attacks, and contributors to this talk page in general should take a few deep breaths and reflect for a moment before posting. PubliusFL 18:45, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

  • how come your chart can conclude Kannada branched off much earlier? A pathetic effort to conceal your POV. - It is not my chart. I didnt make it up. It is a chart that represents the scholarly view of the academic world. It is borne out of Caldwell's works and acknowledged by every major scholar.
  • If otoh you believe, a la Mr. Pavanar adigaL that Dravidian languages descended from Tamil instead of "Proto-Dravidian", please come up with your sources. Not that there exist any(in the scholarly world atleast). Sarvagnya 19:35, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I quote from your 'findings'
Because, not me, not you, not anybody can prove that language A came into 'existence' before language 'B' or vice versa. It may be a rude shock to you, but the fact is that no linguist makes any such claims and it does not behove us amateurs to make such claims.
If no body can prove that language 'A' came into existence before language 'B', how come your chart can conclude Kannada branched off much earlier?
Your JSTOR source does not mention that Malayalam evolved from proto-tamil-malayalam (Whatever that means). I wonder what the contemporaries called the so called proto-tamil-malayalam? (yeah you are right; it was called tamil). Or may be according to the great kamath's pseudo-history, it would have been tale-male-kannada Praveen 19:45, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The JSTOR ref: The JSTOR ref was not added by me. I presume that it was added either by Arvind or Sundar or any of the earlier editors of the article. I only changed the prose to reflect what the ref says. Let me quote verbatim from the ref(emphasis as in the article).

“ On the basis of several phonological and morphological features, scholars concluded that at the stage known as late Old and early Middle tamil, Tamil and Malayalam were one language with pre-Malayalam as a diverging western dialect of that common language. ”
  • From the above, it follows that, that common language was NOT Tamil.
How did you come to this conclusion? It is Tamil, though they they may call it "Late Old Tamil to Early Middle Tamil" - still Tamil.--Aadal 21:47, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

further the article goes on to say..

“ Tamil and Malayalam are two sister dialects of the same language... ”
That 'same language' is Tamil (the author may mean 'late old tamil to early middle tamil' kind of Tamil.--Aadal 21:47, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Mathematical logic tells me - If x and y are sisters, it follows that x didnt give birth to y and vice versa.
  • that same language here is Proto-Tamil-Malayalam.Praveen if you are wondering why they called it "Proto-something something" please read any of the most popular works on the subject. Caldwell, Zvelebil, Hart, Shastri, Kamath,... there's lot of choices Sarvagnya 20:06, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
The ancestors of both Tamils and Malayalees called "that same language" 'Tamil'. I've added a reference - a discussion of background against which the Lilatilakam was written - which says that explicitly, and tossed in references to Bh. Krishnamurti and Andronov's views on the split between the languages. One might also point to the fact that a huge chunk of Sangam, post-Sangam and early devotional Tamil literature was written by people from Kerala, but all that's really getting into too much detail for this article though it might be an interesting enough discussion in an article on Tamil and Malayalam. Oh, and I've also moved all this it to the "History" section. A statement that Tamil's closest relative is Malayalam is appropriate in a section on "Classification", but a discussion of the split and the pre-split relationship belongs under "History".
I will not have easy internet access for the foreseeable future, so this is my only word on this point. Do with it what you will. -- Arvind 00:23, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
The proto-tamil-malayalam is Tamil, which the author himslef describes 'late old tamil to early middle tamil'. --Aadal 21:47, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I quote Note1 of the JSTOR source verbatim.
“It is not the intention of this article either to prove that Malayalam is an independent offshoot of Proto-Dravidian or to disprove that it is a dialect of Tamil"
So it is clear that the author of JSTOR source does not disapprove that Malayalam is a dialect of Tamil. Could anyone be more unambiguous? And regarding your sister, mother theories, please see WP:OR. As a ‘seasoned’ wikipedia user, I expected you to be more knowledgeable about these guidelines. Kamath might be interested in those theories though.
Further, even in your quote it clearly states that the so called proto-malayalam-tamil is nothing but old/middle tamil. I repeat your quote for your convenience.
On the basis of several phonological and morphological features, scholars concluded that at the stage known as late Old and early Middle tamil, Tamil and Malayalam were one language with pre-Malayalam as a diverging western dialect of that common language.
It should be clear by now that one can not provide 'any' citation for any random sister, mother theory.Praveen 20:29, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
It seems like KNM suddenly got interested in Tamil language and aids Sarvagnya in escaping the 3RR rule. How convenient!
The material added by Sarvagnya are on two different subjects
1. Influence of sanskrit - this is a redundant entry and he just repeats the sentences in the end of the section.
2. Proto-Tamil-Malayalam - see my reply above.
In view of these, the article should be reverted back to original stable state. Praveen 20:38, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Govindankutty's article in JSTOR says on p. 90,"Because we are confronted with retention and innovation co-existing side by side in the early stages, we are hesitant to draw a final conclusion regarding the Tamil-Malayalam relationship."

Further, this is not a place to do OR. The above author clearly states, "For example, if a feature X of Proto-Tamil-Malayalam develops into Y in Tamil and Z in Malayalam, without X coexisting either with Y or with Z or with both, in the historic period, then a prehistoric split is obvious.". There are numerous problems in interpreting even the above and I don't want to elaborate here. If a new feature were to develop in english today and that separate practice were to become a separate language K in 40 years, then people may start to call today's english as Proto English-K. It does not mean English was born or became a language today and prior to today it is a common language called proto english-k and not english. Keep in mind English also may change in these 40 years. The proto business is just a theory combining common features and there are numerous problems in the proper interpretions and temporal dyanmics. Spoken and literary varieties and various forms in each of literary and spoken forms etc. are all problematic. --Aadal 21:13, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, I could not comprehend the 'Mathematics' here. :)). Praveen 21:36, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
  • "Because we are confronted with retention and innovation co-existing side by side in the early stages, we are hesitant to draw a final conclusion regarding the Tamil-Malayalam relationship." - If that is what the article says, then, how is it that you have no qualms in pompously claiming that Malayalam came/evolved from Tamil. When the scholars themselves are not so sure of themselves, how can you be? Blessings of Pavanar munivar eh? Also, stop acting like I claimed that Tamil came/evolved from Malayalam. The fact is that both Tamil and Malayalam evolved(seperately) from an earlier layer which scholars have simply named "Proto-Tamil-Malayalam". This Proto-T-M in turn, evolved from "Proto-Dravidian" after passing through several intermediary layers(which you can see in the chart). Sarvagnya 21:39, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Let me copy the quote you yourself used above from Govindankutty Menon, "..scholars concluded that at the stage known as late Old and early Middle tamil, Tamil and Malayalam were one language with pre-Malayalam as a diverging western dialect of that common language." Can't you see that it is 'late Old and early Middle tamil'. That is Tamil. In fact I can quote numerous lines from that 'stage'of and ordinary tamils will understand it today. So, proto-t-m is tamil. Pre-malayalam is Tamil. For academic discussions they may want ot characterize it as 'late old tamil to early middle tamil' - but it is Tamil.--Aadal 22:01, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

This and that

  • I've blocked the disruptive anon for three hours -- longer blocks of shared IPs are a mixed blessing, so I just hope he doesn't come back. Otherwise the article can still semi-protected
  • Whatever the final outcome of the "Sanskrit" influence issue is, having three mutally contradicting statements in one section isn't a pleasant situation. Perhaps a subsection "Sanskrit influence" can be created and the divergent views of different scholar can be presented, with references of course.
  • Just for a comparison, I suggest every editor, who hasn't done yet, take a look into the corresponding Britannica articles.
I have access to EB and I will refer that. Thanks for the suggestion Praveen 22:28, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Anyway, I fear no real progress can be made until some expert joins and settles the discussion. Referencing is no cure-all. Non-expert typically cannot judge which reference deserve which weight.

Pjacobi 21:51, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

  • The issue of Sanskrit influence is a foregone conclusion. There really are no two views about the fact that Tamil has been influenced greatly by Sanskrit. The only argument that some people make(these include serious scholars and also Pavanar-inspired tamil nationalist quacks) is that Tamil has been influenced lesser than the other Dravidian languages. Even they do not claim that there is no influence at all. Ofcourse, we also have some Tamil nationalist partisans who claim that every language in the world came from Tamil. We cant be giving space to every such quack in this article. They already have their own where they can have a ball.
  • I can and will add more refs for the Sanskrit influence. But there is no way anybody can deny Sanskrit's influence on Tamil. And in any case, I havent yet seen a ref supporting the "no Sanskrit influence on Tamil" pitch. I have, otoh, provided a reference from one of the foremost names in the business who was, incidentally, a Tamilian himself. Sarvagnya 22:12, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
The point is redundancy. you are just repeating the 'influence of Sanskrit' claim in the later portion of the section that you are keep adding to. I agree that Tamil loaned words from Sanskrit; but the degree of influence is not a forgone conclusion. English loaned a word for "Mango" from probably Tamil. Does this means Tamil greatly influenced English? No. And moreover this research better be left to the scholars (Not Pseudo-historians like kamat).
And the proto-malayalam-tamil argument does not hold in view of above arguments. Praveen 22:25, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
there seems to be a consensus that Tamil was greatly influenced by Sanskrit. The "Pure Tamil" people say this: only, for them, it's a case of pollution: they seem to have campaigned against "Sanskritised Tamil" and for a restoration of "Pure Tamil" as if they were two different languages. Only, of course, for them "Sanskritized Tamil" is not "really" Tamil, but a degraded mix: for them, "Real Tamil" was spoken before 300 AD. I suppose this is as if England had a "Real English" movement that tried to go back to pre-Conquest Old English, claiming that "Real English" was never contaminated by French, and that the thing we know as "English" today is a degraded mix imposed on the true English by the evils of the Norman Invasion. dab (𒁳) 07:29, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Dab, while I don't deny Sanskrit influence on Tamil, let me note that the "pure Tamil" movement, however one might characterise its intent to be, had a huge impact, nevertheless.
Your general frustration at "antiquity-frenzy" is understandable, but you're not in a position to be aware of the political underpinnings in this instance to give a correct analogy. The "cleansing" and "defensiveness" were, to a large extent, caused by incorrect assertions of a Sanskrit-origin (also tied with social factors). Even today, there are people here, who're reasonable enough, but who secretly hope that extant evidence just vanish and it be established that Dravidian languages had Sanskrit origins. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 07:48, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
And its roots go back to mediaeval times. Sanskritising and anti-sanskriting forces have warred for a decent bit of time in one guise or the other, with religion playing a significant part, as witnessed by the "Tamil scriptures" and "Tamil archanai" moves of the 12th and 13th centuries, the ideology behind the peculiar mixing of scripts in Tamil Manipravalam (in sharp contrast with the Kerala Manipravalam that gave birth to Malayalam), the production of religious commentaries in a blindingly pure Tamil at Srirangam, the compilation of puram anthologies such as Purattirattu which emphasised the continuity of the puram poetical tradition from the Sangam period to the 15th century or so, the deliberate structuring of some religious poetry as akakkovais (rather than the Sanskritised norm) as late as the 18th century (e.g. the Thanikai puranam), the bitter disputes over what was worth reading and what was not, and so on. The standard narrative - constructed in equal part by 20th century nationalism and its opponents - which portrays the "Pure Tamil movement" as being a radically new effort aimed at freeing Tamil from Sanskrit is simply incorrect. As modern academic accounts recognise, it's simply the latest stage in a long struggle for the soul of Tamil culture and defining what is "Tamil" literature, seasoned with a dash of 19th century style nationalism and 20th century social politics. Venkatachalapathy's 2005 piece on this in the Indian Economic and Social History Review is a must-read, though its scope is somewhat narrow, and I think (if memory serves) Norman Cutler has some interesting things to say about this as well in his chapter in Pollock's brilliant Literary cultures in history volume. But I despair of ever being able to get a proper treatment of this down. -- Arvind 12:59, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
I admit this, Sundar, the "Pure English" parallel is flawed. I have only recently begun to fathom the piled up resentment and anger in the "political underpinnings" of India. I am at this point considering to strike the India-related topics from my watchlist simply because these circumstances severly impede progress even on en-wiki (I wouldn't want to know how things stand on hi- or ta-wiki). Still, we need to keep linguistics and politics separate, that's the first and most important step, and also the pedagogical mission of Wikipedia: people should be able to come here and read up on politics and on linguistics, but also on the difference between the two. It is my considered impression, that the division between ideology and scholarship is blurred in many Indian minds (not unlike the European minds of 1900), and the wide availability of Wikipedia is a great opportunity to set this right without taking sides. I naturally agree that what this article needs is a dispassionate evaluation of the historical impact of Sanskrit on Tamil without any wallowing in ideology. Such ideologies as there are need to be discussed seperately, on articles like Pure Tamil movement etc. dab (𒁳) 08:33, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
It's sad that you're led to remove India-related topics from your watchlist. And, I completely agree with you on the need for separating politics from linguistics in our treatment and with the other things you said above. I'll do what I can even as I'm on an extended vacation. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 08:42, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thank you -- also, whatever we say about "Sanskritisation" of Dravidian languages, it will be beneficient to point out that language contact was mutual in any case. dab (𒁳) 09:12, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for reminding us about that point on mutual contact. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 06:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Tamil and Sanskrit

Let me quote a few words from Prof. Hart's book on The Poerms of Ancient Tamil (see pages 10-12). Quoting and commenting on K.A. Nilakantasastri (KAN), he says on p.11, "..though there certainly was northern influence, Nilakandatasastri has exaggerated its extent." Quoting KAN's words (KAN p.117), "The language of the short Brahmi inscriptions of the second century B.C. was Tamil, still in its [formative] stages, with an admixture of words of clearly Sanskrtic origin", Hart says, "It is from this stepping stone, I believe, that he has derived many of his notions concerning the later Tamil anthologies.". In the same para Hart says, "Mahadevan has recently shown that in fact they contain few such words [Aadal: sanskrit] and they are relatively pure Tamil, though with a slightly greater number of northern words than the anthologies [quotes Mahadevan's Tamil Brahmi Inscriptions p.93]." "It is difficult to indeed to see how Nilakantasastri can state that early Tamil is full of norhtern words. Any reader who knows which words are of Sanskrit origin can see that they are few and far in between. J.V. Chelliah has estimated that Tirumurukurkārrupatai, one of the ten poems of Pattupāttu, which is later than most of the poems of the anthologies, contain only two percent Sanskrit words, even when such words as mīn, tāmarai, and muttu, which are now known to be of Dravidian origin, are counted as Sanskritic."

Elsewhere many, including Hart, have pointed out how Sanskit was influenced by Tamil. Not only loan words but even syntax, numerous grammatical devices, poetic conventions, the alphabet and the order, and so on. it is true that Tamil was influenced by every language it had interacted with Arabic, persian, portuguese, english and of course sanskrit, just as any living language would in one way or another, but to say that it is greatly influenced is sheer exaggeration and out of proportion. --Aadal 15:06, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

It should be clear that adding old (disproved) concepts to this article is similar to applying Newtonian Physics for estimating motion of celestial bodies. Or is it more like applying Ptolemy's theory? Praveen 15:19, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't have access to this Hart book, I will look in local library. I think it would be great idea to rewrite the sanskrit influence according to this relatively current scholarly position. Praveen

We dont need Hart to tell us what KAN said or meant. KAN has put his words down in print. Note how Hart, qualifies his claims with weasels and straw man arguments.

KAN has not only pointed to the Sanskrit words in the Brahmi inscriptions(which itself is another wholly different debate), he has also gone ahead and said that "Sanskrit was the 'magic wand'...that raised these languages from the level of patois to literary languages". But Hart could only cherrypick, KAN's observations about two bit Brahmi inscriptions to disagree. These inscriptions are at the most few words or a paragraph long and if out of those few words even couple of words are of Sanskrit origin, that still makes up for more than 2%, a specious figure Hart throws in for good measure by analysing what is probably an isolated case.

Did you read that part about I.Mahadevan, a modern scholars assessment? KAN's scholarship and assessment is way out of date. KAN had been corrected by many. If you want a counter example to KAN, belonging to the same period or so, read: "Dravidian India" by T.R. Sesha Iyengar, Madras, 1925, Asian Educational Services, 31 Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi 110016, 1995 reprint, Rs. 265 postage included http://www.asianeds.com (asianeds@nda.vsnl.net.in), ISBN: 81-206-0135-1. --Aadal 20:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Also who are you kidding? Even the basic Tamil alphabet, like all other Sanskrit influenced languages, follows the a, aa, i, ee,... arrangement. Just because you drop a couple of alphabets or add a couple of your own cannot wash away what you might see as 'impurities'. The so called 'classical', 'secular' Sangam literature is full of several examples. Even the very name 'Silappadikaram' has the sanskrit adhikara hiding in it. Sangam literature has several references to 'Aryan' Gods, Indra, Varuna etc.,.

The whole alphabet system including arragement in Skt is from Tamil. Go and check all the indo-european langauges to which skt belong. Retroflex in Skt is from Tamil. Numerous syntax and idiom in Skt is from Tamil. Many poetic conventions in Skt were influenced by Tamil (see Hart's book). Go and read Vedas (even before Skt), you'll see references to rich Dasa/Dasyu. The idea that Skt influenced everything is a root cause of lot of distortions. Sure Skt influenced many languages including Tamil. Skt was influenced by Tamil. Adi Sankara, Ramanuja and many of the skt comentators were from Tamil Nadu. Many of the teachers of religious heads were Tamils. That there is mutual influence esp. between Skt and Tamil is beyond question. How much in each direction is a long and complex debate - not needed here. --Aadal 20:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Just because you take Sanskrit words and convert and use them as tatbhavas doesnt make them Tamil. kaRpanai(kalpana) or arputam(adbhuta) and countless(thousands and thousands) such other examples dont become words of 'Dravidian' origin just because you massacre the tatbhava beyond recognition. Sure, there might exist(and still be in use) the 'Dravidian' equivalents of many of these 'Sanskrit' imports. These equivalents exist in all Dravidian languages, not just Tamil. That still doesnt mean you can simply wish away the thousands and thousands of words you've already imported.

Please understand that Skt has imported thousands of words and what is more important a number of syntax and grammatical devices - not to mention the very alphabet system from tamil (again go and check IE languages). You don't seem to have any idea of richness and independence of Tamil. About the words you've quoted, you've no idea of their origin and I don't have to discuss them here. Tamil has a rich vocabulary and a semnatic depth and richness you don't seem to have any clue. For example they have 30 words for Sea/ocean and they don't need samudram. They have 20 plus words for sun, dozens of words for elephant and so on. Believe it or not Tamil can express, in fact beautifully, with virtually no sanskrit. --Aadal 20:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

The very fact that there even was a tanittamil iyakkam proves the Sanskrit influence. Even if we assume that the tamilttani iyakkamists got rid of every scrap of Skt., influence(a fantasy and an impossible task), we still cant wish away the centuries and centuries of Skt., influenced-Tamil literature. Or do you want to?

The iyakkam you talk about came into existence to stop the excessive sanskritization. Any normal Tamil is not averse to Skt and almost ever tamil uses skt, english, dutch, persian, arabic words. When there are simple Tamil words for flower like 'pū' 'malar', why should pushpam be used. This is the line of thinking in the tanitamil iyakkam (tt.iyakkam) I believe. There are numerous benefits to use perfectly natural native tamil words (and unfortunately some people like you think it is an attempt to get rid of skt or english words). Anything done in excess can be counter productive. One has to know Tamil and its history and development in context to understand and appreciate some of these. Sarvagna, you've to understand that Tamils and the Tamil milieu contributed enormously to Skt. --Aadal 20:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

And some one was talking about 'mango' etc.,. Show me that English has borrowed even one tenth as many words from Tamil as Tamil has borrowed from Sanskrit and I'll personally help you make a case for a "Tamil greatly influenced English..." pitch.

If you see 1968 edition Oxford Dictionary you'll see tamil words like 'anicut' for dam, 'tire' for yogurt/curd etc. listed, but they are not to be found in modern oxford dictionary. English were not trying to purify their language by removing Tamil words. At one time it was meaningful to interact with Tamils, but not needed now. English had a word for anicut, but to interact with Tamils they used it. Same with Tamils. The influence of other languages in English is given in the article on English and you'll see that Latin and French constitute more than 50% and Germanic is only 25%. Tamils were not involved in their formative period, and so English is not directly influenced by Tamil. But read Devaneya Pavanar's (DP) etymological writings and you'll see how much of Latin-Tamil-Greek connection exists. You don't have to accept anything DP says, just consider his arguments and follow through with your own unbiased thinking. You'll be surprised. Another scholar (not DP) Gnanaprakasa Nadar had compiled some 3,000 words of Greek and Latin words showing the root in Tamil. Much of these are not known to western scholars and they all have to be carefully examined with modern scholarship (accepted or dismissed).--Aadal 20:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Good luck trying to wish away Sanskrit influence on Tamil. Sarvagnya 18:37, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Understand a bit about the influence of Tamil on Sanskrit. Skt's influence in Tamil is well known and no one is wishing it away, but the extent and importance of it are seriously misunderstood and misreprsented by people like you. --Aadal 20:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
No body is saying Tamil didn't get influenced by Sanskit or Sanskrit didn't get influenced by Tamil. Even a child would note that KANS's observation is not objective. Scholarly works does not contain sweeping statements such as "magic wand .. that raised these languages from the level of patois to literary languages" etc (with out evidence). This just shows the author's emotional attachment to the subject. Praveen 19:19, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

More Comments

bah! i dont care how many words tamil has for flowers and fruits. Every language has multiple words for several things. Kannada has it. Telugu has it. Hindi has it. English has it. It is not some special divine quality of Tamil.
It may well have words other than pushapam for flower. Even kannada has for that matter. So does telugu. They didnt get it from tamil. They were handed down by Proto-Dravidian as linguists call it. Anyway, thats besides the point. The point is, whether you like it or not, "pushpam" is part of tamil vocabulary today. So are the other examples I gave and thousands of such others. You cannot just wish it away. For that matter, even Tamil grammatical terms like ilakkaNam and ilakkiya are rooted in sanskrit's lakshaNa and lakshya. They are called tadbhavas. Other than tadbhavas, Tamil, like other Sanskrit influenced languages has tatsamas too. And the numbers run into thousands. If I took a 200 page tamil novel, I could point out several sanskrit words in literally every page.
What a tragedy that Arvind is busy and I am having to discuss all this with you. You have zero-idea about the histories and wealth of other languages. You only have a blinkered vision and view of things the way quacks like DP painted it. I cant believe you are still clinging on to DP and trying to make a case for his nonsense. Show me even one serious scholar who has taken DP's bullshit seriously. Infact, forget about me. I dont think even Arvind and Sundar will vouch for Pavanar's crap. Sarvagnya 22:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Listen, the purpose is to say fair things in this article. There is mutual influence between skt and Tamil is all that is needed to be included. Although not relevant here, let me explain -pushpam is the vocabulary of < 5% Tamil people, pū or malar is the vocabulary of 100% of Tamil people. If some people are encouraging to use pū or malar in Tamil, rather than pusuhpam, because of numerous benefits, you can't blame them. Sure, some people term it puritanical movement. They don't see that it reaches all sections of people (a wider audience). tt.iyakkam gained popularity only because it made sense to people. If you did an analysis of 19th century Tamil and 20th-21st century Tamil, you'll see the difference. You may not agree, but Tamil influenced Sanskrit in a far more fundamental and extensive way than there was a Skt influence on Tamil. --Aadal 22:55, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Aadal, Professor Sarvagnya has more knowledge than you. The knowledge is oozing out from his usage of words like "bah!" etc. BTW: Aadal, I have a suggestion for you: Do not feed the Kannada regionalistic troll. Praveen 00:05, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
This is classic Straw man strategy by Sarvagnya. Nowhere in the article, Devaneya Pavanar is quoted. Praveen 00:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Sarvagnya, even I don't see why you're beating around "DP's bullshit" here. The point here is that nobody denies the fact that Sanskrit had an influence on Tamil. And, as Dab has pointed out above, the contact was mutual.
As an aside, can you point me to an article on Sastri which I can read to know more about his specialisation and the state-of-the-art during his period? -- Sundar \talk \contribs 06:13, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
  • My talking about Pavanar has only to do with Aadal's obsession and preoccupation with DP's views. If you care to read the section right above this section, Aadal exhorts me to ...read Devaneya Pavanar's (DP) etymological writings and you'll see how much of Latin-Tamil-Greek connection exists. You don't have to accept anything DP says, just consider his arguments and follow through with your own unbiased thinking. You'll be surprised. . His adherence to DP(and his school)'s views on the matter is seriously impeding discussion and collaboration on this and other pages. If you could impress upon Aadal that DP's views are in the realm of nationalistic fantasies and that, as far as scholarship is concerned, his views are bullshit, we all could save ourselves a lot of time and reduce frayed tempers.
  • As far as the mutual thing is concerned, we can surely point it out, but on the Proto-Dravidian article, not on this article. And in any case, when we are talking about mutual contact, we have to be careful not to trivialise it to suit somebody's POV. While even I dont doubt that there would have been mutual give and take, it certainly is not of the same order. Sanskrit is well entrenched in the vocabulary, grammar and literature of all Indian languages. The same cannot be said of Tamil or Kannada or any language for that matter. All these languages may surely have influenced Sanskrit in small measures, but there is no evidence to point to the fact that, for example, ... "Tamil.. or Kannada or .. Telugu is the 'magic wand' that elevated Sanskrit from the level of patois to a literary language". Talking of 'mutual influence' so very matter-of-factly as if the influences were of equal or even comparable magnitudes is not NPOV.
  • In some ways, it is like, say, the influence of USA on the rest of the world. We can strain to make the best case we can, we can point to things like Yoga, chicken tikka masala and bollywood etc., but saying that India exerts the same influence on America and the rest of the world that America exerts is simply a lie. The reasons why x influences y or why y gets influenced by x may be several and many times has to do with geopolitics but the 'influence' exerted cannot be wished or written away. Just because we admit that Sanskrit exerted greater influence on Kannada or Telugu or Tamil(than the other way round) will not mean that Skt is a 'greater' language than the others. It just means that the geo-culturo-politics(my own word) of those days were in favour of Sanskrit. Thats all. Admitting that is not demeaning to either K or Ta or Te in any way. Sarvagnya 06:47, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Do you realise that, for example, almost until the end of the first millenium CE and even thereafer, even the dynasties that ruled tamil land and the rest of southern India were mostly bilingual for official purposes. There are any number of bilingual inscriptions belonging to the Pallavas, Cholas and even Pandyas - who are often portrayed as the flagbearers of Tamil pride. Several inscription of early Pandyas(I am not talking about the mythical Pandyas) are in both Sanskrit and Tamil. It was only later that they changed to Tamil alone. You like it or not, Sanskrit influenced every sphere of life in India, be it literature or be it governance, culture, etc etc.,. Sarvagnya 06:55, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
  1. I agree that the influence was not comparable in either directions.
  2. I haven't followed any discussion on Pavanar, so no comments on his scholarship. But, I want to note that what he or others said must be taken with the historical and "utterance" context. Also, scientific understanding evolves significantly over time. I wouldn't call Ptolemy's utterances "bullshit" that way.
  3. As far as I can see, Sastri is primarily a historian and not a linguist. Also, a lot of advancements in comparative linguistics, paleolinguistics, epigraphy, etc., have happened since his times. In fact, desanskritisation as a natural consequence of evolution and isolation has happened and continues to happen over time without conscious purist movements. So, countering all that with Sastri's older publications is not wiser. More specifically, this "magic wand" thing really is not a quote to base any statement that claims to be factual. It's a mere assertion.
  4. I get your point about matter-of-factness of Sanskrit influence and a non-implication about its superiority. I do agree that it's not demeaning to Tamil or any other language. (To me, the fact that Kannada, Telugu, and Tamil are thriving is a good thing.) But, over-stressing the Sanskrit influence would distort proportions. Likewise, that the current level of Sanskrit "entrenchment" in Tamil is much lower than the other Dravidian languages is neither great nor mean, but a remarkable fact.
Finally, I would urge all those concerned to stop talking rhetoric and sit down to copyediting the article. Everyone seems to agree with mentioning Sanskrit influence, it's just the phrasing that needs to be worked out. I might be away over the weekend and, hence, will not reply until then. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 12:52, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Sundar, I agree with your point about less talk & more work. But, Aadal was not the first one to bring up DP here. Anyways, I checked the Encyclopedia Britannica online. There is no new content which is present in EB that can be added here. I will try to find Hart's book. Thanks. Praveen 01:28, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Recent edits

I've added some and removed some. Please check out. Instead of discussing Tamil history, the section following the different period contained references only to Sanskrit influence. It should be mentioned but the contribution of Tamil to Sanskrit have to be mentioned as well. All these mutual influences need to be short. --Aadal 19:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Loan words

Wording had been modified. Re the word mango, I quote the entry in Oxford English Dictionary (some of their phonetic notations don't turn out to be correctly displayed here) :

“

[< Portuguese manga (early 16th cent.) < a Dravidian word such as Kodagu ma{ng}ge, Malayalam māñña, or Tamil māñkāy mango, perh. via Malay mangga (which may itself, however, be < Portuguese). Portuguese manga also {goesto} Middle French manga (1540), French mangue, {dag}mengue (1604), whence the appearance of the last 2 forms in the work cited in quot. 1678 at sense 2. The origin of the -o ending is not clear: Dutch and Spanish mango are < English. The first occurrence of the word in a European language appears to be in a passage referring to Calicut (Kozhikode), and is therefore prob. < a Dravidian language: 1510 L. DI VARTHEMA Itin. f. lviiv, Se troua quiui anchora unaltro fructo che se chiama Amba, el pede suo se chiama Manga.

Its first recorded occurrence in certain languages, e.g. post-classical Latin (1511) and French (1540) (both as manga), appears to be in translations of this text. The relevant passage was not translated into English but may have had an indirect influence.]

 ”

A couple of other points are worth stating. The number of words in English at one time must have been more than a hundred, but many have fallen out of use (some examples are like tope (grove), anicut (dam) etc.). It is a normal process. At one time many russian and japanese words came into vogue in English and they too dropped out (or much less used) later - like glasnost etc.

do you realise that almost all these words are part of the vocabularies of all south indian dravidian languages? tOpu, aNekattu, suruTu, pandal etc are all part of kannada vocabulary too(and I would imagine, the other dravidian languages too) with the same meanings. these are cognates. so to claim that all these were loaned from Tamil is ill informed and nonsense. Sarvagnya 23:23, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm only quoting the lexicographer's assessments. I believe they mention only the source from which they obtained those words. That is why you'll see copra listed with Malayalam, though it is in Tamil too. A proper identification would be from Dravidian, I agree. Perhaps lexicographers would do so in future, but then they need not list the word origins as French, Spanish etc. because they are all indo-european (IE). I did not attempt to list words in Sanskrit because the loan words would be termed as 'dravidian' though most often they would be from Tamil and should be termed as Tamil - but it would raise unnecessary controversy. Although you may get offended, if you remove all the sanskrit/prakrit words from Kannada, you will end up with at least 98% Tamil words, but you would perhaps feel comfortable to say that it is from proto-Tamil-Kannada language and not Tamil. One has to understand that no such language (proto-Tamil-Kannada) was ever spoken, it is just a device in lingusitics. So, I agree all those Tamil words in the above list are also Kannada words. Perhaps because the British had their headquarters in Madras and Calcutta, they would have absorbed several words from these regions primarily and hence the attribution. --Aadal 00:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
“ ...if you remove all the sanskrit/prakrit words from Kannada, you will end up with at least 98% Tamil words... ”
I think its high time you read some serious books on history and language and also read about the histories of other people and languages before you waste any more time of people here. In case you havent noticed, DP is dead. Sarvagnya 01:33, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Full text of KAN Sastri's citation Literature in all Dravidian languages owes a great deal to Sanskrit, the magic wand whose touch raised each of the languages from a level of patois to that of a literary idiom and the influence they excercised on one another was also not inconsiderable . Basically, thay have all influenced each other, no language is exclusive.Dineshkannambadi 03:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

KAN has not provided any support for his statement and it is not a fact. My quote from George Hart citing I. Mahadevan and Chelliah prove that KAN was wrong. KAN's words 'from a level of patois to that of a literary idiom' and the 'magic wand' are not supported by any scientific data. Basically KAN's words are not supported and it had been pointed out by more recent scholars like Hart in UC Berkeley and I. Mahadevan and Chelliah. One can give citations for showing earth was flat or that earth was the centre. Citations don't prove anything. --Aadal 04:39, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
As I said earlier, quoting disproved notions of earlier scholar like Ptolemy will not bode well in the current scientific community (of course for an intelligent person).
“ "In case you haven't noticed, DP is dead." ”
Its a pity that some are not. 06:13, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
"One has to understand that no such language (proto-Tamil-Kannada) was ever spoken, it is just a device in linguistics."
What did contemporaries call this language? Tamil probably. And, if somebody has to be proud of the literary advancements, achievements in this "old" language, it has to be all the people who is speaking any language derived from this language. Not only Tamilians. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Praveen pillay (talk • contribs) 06:23, 15 April 2007 (UTC).

It is sometimes classified as being part of a Tamil language family

Now where did this term tamil language family pop up? Can anyone list down the the 35 langauges which come under this family. This is a quite controversial Issue.As far as i know tamil has 20 dialects, but dialects can't be considered as languages. Even a language like kannada has 20 dialects.But it can be considered as a language family.There is a difference in a language and langauge family.I want discussion on this,i will delete that contents in about 2 days. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nrupatunga (talk • contribs) 09:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

I had deleted the comments but again MR sundar has put it back.Sundar can you give proper references of what exactly a tamil language family.Tamil itself belong to dravidian language family.I am deleting it again.If you anything to say,please put it here.


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