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Tamil distribution map

Im ready to make a map showing the areas where the language is spoken, but i need data -- 07:10, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

done-- 15:45, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Nice work. Should the Singapore be added to this distribution. Praveen 16:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Is Tamil Brahmi Theory Globally recognised ?

Is there any Inscription in Tamil Brahmi which is completly deciphered? Can anyone Quote it here? As long as i know it is called tamil brahmi because,even though the script is Brahmi the langauge is tamil itself. Now this makes sense only when any Inscription is completly deciphered.Is this Tamil Brahmi theory globally recognised? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nrupatunga (talk • contribs)

See -> Early Tamil Epigraphy. From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. by Iravatham Mahadevan, the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA, 2003--Aadal 21:26, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

The derogatory words KNA and POV

It had already been shown that the outdated description (quite derogatory as well -the word patois) of K.A. Nilakantasastri is not applicable to Tamil. Sarvagna and KNM are re-inserting this derogatory expression. No one denies the influence of Sanskrit on Tamil but on the same token Sanskrit was influenced by Tamil as well (see Hart's book and Burrow's work etc.). The para introduced by Sarvagna, states in every sentence the influence of Sanskrit on Tamil. This is not NPOV. --Aadal

Please do not remove recent findings with earlier disproved, unscientific works. Next time I will be using pop-ups to revert. Thanks Praveen 22:14, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

• Hart is not the be all and end all of Tamil research. I have provided multiple references to Sanskrit's influence on Tamil right from the days of the Tolkappiyam and Sangam literature. And, patois is not a derogatory term. It has been used aptly by KAN to describe the state of affairs. Hart for all we know, has an investment in all this. His letter that is cited here is unabashed fancruft. He himself admits that he knows only Tamil and Sanskrit, but doesnt blink an eyelid before he writes off other languages with a wave of his hand.

• And if I remember correctly of what I've read in his books, he dates Tolk., to 2nd AD and not 2nd BC. His letter that is cited in the lead is hardly a RS. As for Sanskrit influence itself, I've cited Burnell, Trautmann(who agrees with Burnell), Caldwell(the father of Dravidian linguistics), Vaiyapuri Pillai et al. Infact, I am positive that even Hart and Zvelebil talk about Sanskrit's influence in their books. I havent added their names in the citations because I want to double check(which I will do soon).

• As for Tamil's influence on Skt., stop equating "Dravdian influence(and that too minor) on Sanskrit" to "Tamil's influence on Sanskrit". They are not the same. The influence of Proto-Dravidian itself on Sanskrit is debatable and in all probability minor. The influence of Tamil(that too major) on Sanskrit is just fantasy. In any case, I havent seen any refs for your "Tamil's influence claim". Stop revert warring. Sarvagnya 23:02, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

• Merriam-Webster gives the following meanings, relevant here: 1 a : a dialect other than the standard or literary dialect b : uneducated or provincial speech
• Wordnet.princeton.edu gives "regional dialect of a language (especially French); usually considered substandard". And wiki gives "Patois, although without a formal definition in linguistics, can be used to describe a language considered as nonstandard. Depending upon the instance, it can refer to jargon or slang, as well as to pidgins, creoles, dialects, and/or other forms of native or local speech. In many cases, class distinctions are drawn between those who speak patois and those who speak the standard or dominant language. " See patois
• Is the Tamil language a substandard, creole, slang, a dialect?! Even hatred should have some limits Sarvagnya! Don't worry, these silly pleasures in put downs or your group-reverts to pull down the FA status of this article won't change any facts.
• I don't think your comments about a well-known and respected professor Prof. Hart are justified and it is out of place! Your quotes from all others (except Troutman) are way out of date - in the 19th century. Wake up, we are living in the 21st century! If they are facts and continue to have validity, I've no objection to use data from any century, but they have to be validated. In the centuries prior to ~500 CE, the literary dravidian language was Tamil and in fact the the word Dravida itself is a sanskritised form of Tamil (unless you show that it is derived from Kannada or Telugu). Dravidian influence on Sanskrit is almost always a Tamil influence on Sanskritin and if we were to find exceptions it would be a very minor one. Thomas Burrow, another old scholar, says in his Dravidian Studies no less than 750 words in Skt are derived from 'dravidian'. Hart had elaborately shown the influence of Tamil on Sanskrit literature in his book. Go and check the alphabet system of all the indo-european languages and Sanskrit and you can see that the alphabet arrangement and the principles that go with it are from Tamil. But this would be OR and I'm not advocating to add anything of this sort in the article, but findings of Hart on the Tamil influence on Sanskrit poetry (including certain meters and devices) and others on the so called substratum effect, lexical features ought to be mentioned - perhaps briefly and in a balanced way. Sarvagnya's additions (all sentences uniformly declaring the effect of Skt on Tamil with no mention on the other direction) is a highly slanted POV. The description of patois is derogatory and disparaging and I object to it. KNA's words or description does not reflect any scientific fact and it is not supported by evidence. The quotation I've given elsewhere citing the findings of I. Mahadevan and J.V. Chelliah, quoted by Hart in his book on p.11, clearly prove that KNA's premise is factually wrong (about borrowings) and his sweeping statement, belittling Tamil,is not a professional or scientific statement. Sarvagnya and KNM and few others basically are pushing Sanskrit supremacist views -thats all.--Aadal 00:08, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any sources stating that there is no Kannada or Telugu influence on Sanskrit or is that an assumption? Gizza 01:31, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Gizza, prior to ~500 CE Kannada and Telugu do not have any significant attested literature, except a few short inscriptions, and hence the nature of the language etc. can not be reliably determined to talk about significant influences. Secondly, the differences in the spoken languages of Tamil, Kannada, Telugu are harder to determine prior to ~500 CE. --Aadal 04:03, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Saying Hart has an investment on this is totally unacceptable. On what basis are you arguing this line of pure hate? Hart is a graduate in Sanskrit from Harvard . He does not only know Sanskrit & Tamil. see [this Infact kan's argument is without any scientific data and full of 'fan cruft'. He has also proved the work "Kavya in South India" as misleading and incomplete. See this. Praveen 02:32, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Hart wrote that pompous review even before he had read Tieken's book. Says something about his academic ethics to me. And in any case, Hart writing a damning review of another's book means nothing. Hart is not some headmaster with a cane in hand. Nor is Tieken his understudy. Sarvagnya 02:46, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Herman Tieken's thesis is certainly a bold one. His methodology (somewhat similar in some respects to Takahashi) is so flawed, I don't know what to say. How would the 'pure sanskritist' Dr. Herman Tieken going to account for all the inscriptional evidence (25,000 plus), Tirukkural, Cilappathikaaram, Manimekalail, civakacintamai, tevaram, tirumurai (toal including tevaram 18,000+) naalaayira divya prabandam (4000), tirumandiram and others. There are ample dated inscriptional evidences for many of these things and it is absolutely amazing that Dr. Tieken could make such claims with such a flawed approach. Hart is not just writing a damning report, he shows why it is flawed. It is not just a matter of opinion. He shows how it is flawed. --Aadal 03:51, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

He used scientific methods to show the flaws in Tieken's 'thesis'. Hart didn't use unqualified fan-cruft sentences like sanskit is the 'magic wand bringing dead languages to life' or 'rubber band tying all dravidian languages' Praveen 04:06, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

We neither give a damn about your opinion nor your OR. Please cite some respectable person saying so. Praveen 03:34, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

...saying so... - Saying what? That Hart wrote the review even before he had read Tieken's book? Hart says that himself! Read the review. dammit. And of course, I can only hope that Hart is respectable enough for your standards. Sarvagnya 05:17, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

My comment was about your crap comment about his academic ethics.... We need a respectable person to make that judgment. Not you. It is laughable that you consider him as having an investment in all this but you don't Praveen 13:33, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Sarvagnya, can you please quote the relevant sentences in the citations (in the interest of those who don't have the books)? They'll help rephrase the paragraph.

About the word patois, I feel that it's inaccurate and demeaning to describe the Dravidian languages. Its use in this context gives an impression of unscientific reporting (perhaps, that was never his intent).

I think we should add a subsequent line, quoting relevant references, that refutes these assertions. Something like, "However, the extent of influence has been contested based on more recent/later findings ...". Aadal, please add Hart's and Chellia's quotes to the article with such a sentence. -- Sundar 09:57, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

My reply

• First of all "patois", even if it is less than flattering, is not derogatory. I've even used the exact same ref on Kannada and nobody has had a problem. "Patois" here only means that the language, at that point in time, neither had much by way of royal patronage nor did it have a literary tradition that could compare with Sanskrit's. It may well have been a highly evolved language, but without the patronage of the ruling elite, it was still patois.

Anything may not be derogatory for some group. And whether Kannads have problem or not is immaterial... Given the animosity that exist between Tamils & Kannads, kannads would rather establish that Kannada belong to Sanskrit than Tamil-kannada. Praveen 14:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

(1)The 'magic wand' and 'patois' comment is not a scientific fact. It is a derogatory statement and it should be removed. (2) Tamils lived indepedently and they had Tamil as their court and administrative language. It is clearly reflected in the fact that some 60,000 inscriptions are found in Tamil Nadu, of which less than 5% is in non-Tamil. Remember that this 60,000 is out of a total of 100,000 for the whole of India. The fact is - chronologically Sanskrit inscriptions start after Tamil. Tamil literary culture and tradition is quite independent of Skt and it unique. The fact is Skt modeled even one of its well known meter 'Arya] after Tamil. --Aadal 22:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

• Whether somebody likes it or not, Sanskrit literature had reached a state of high cultivation several centuries before any other language(in India).

So sanskrit reached high cultivation(what ever that means) before several centuries... Even if we take your unsupported statement at face value, why are bringing that here? Praveen 14:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

True, Skt is believed to have religious literature (vedic) before any known Tamil literature. But about Kavya etc., it is argued that Skt was indeed influenced by Tamil traditions -even the Adikavya and Buddhacarita (See Hart p. 278). The fact is Skt started to flourish only after its contact with Tamil Dravidians. Tamil and Sanskrit were for centuries mutuaally interacting, - with Tamil a live and vibrant tradition and Sanskrit, a somewhat closed, semi-artificial, but still a tradition in vogue among scholars (check out the facts). I believe a vast majority of work in Skt came from the south esp. Tamil country and from the Tamil milieu. --Aadal 22:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

• And it is not like I put the word(patois) into KAN's mouth. He was a historian and a Tamil himself and he knew what he was writing. Of course, it might give an Aadal the chance to paint him as a "Sanskrit-loving Tamil-hating paarppan", but then, such irrational stereotypes can be of little use to Misplaced Pages.

No you did not put words into Kan's mouth; but you are trying to put words in Aadal's mouth... Praveen 14:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I hold KAN in high regard, but that comment is way out of line and it was shown to be wrong by other scholars. I believe Tamils and scholarly world owe a great deal of debt to KAN for his solid contributions. That doesn't mean everything he had said are valid and should be accepted in toto.--Aadal 22:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

• And if the KAN ref is causing so much grief, I will remove the quote or I will simply even remove the reference itself.

It is wrong and invalid and hence the suggestion to remove. It does not cause any grief, but that description is mean and derogatory. Any knowledgeable Tamil will take offence at that. As I said I respect him, inspite of this unfortunate statement.--Aadal 22:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

• Even without KAN's ref, it is well sourced. I've cited people from Caldwell to Takahashi to Tieken. Infact, if I remember right, Caldwell has even gone to the extent of saying that, Tamil was the first(among D languages) to get influenced by Sanskrit! And what better source do you want than Vaiyapuri Pillai? For heaven's sakes, Pillai edited the official Tamil lexicon. And just the fact that his most vocal critic was Pavanar should speak volumes of the man.

Please do not use your crystal ball to see what Caldwell would've done etc.... We are not interested. Sundar's suggestion seems to be the best one.

Takahashi's approach is flawed and so is Tieken. Tieken had been severely critized by all the knowledgeable western scholars. No sensible person can claim that Sangam literature, post-sangam literature Silappatikaram, bhakti literature like tevaram etc. -all with widely varying linguistic features, poetic features, certain attrition of grammatical structures etc. etc. are concocted by a few in the 8-9th centuries as Tieken incredibly claims! Tieken's statements and claims are so outrageous, it needs a separate article to highlight it. He will definitely go down as a person who erred grievously - and made such totally baseless claims (basically he lost his credibility!). His 'methodology' had already been shown to be fundamentally flawed. About Vaiyapuri pillai, again he is a great scholar, but he made so many serious errors as well- and Devaneya Pavanar had written a whole book highlighting the flaws in his work. One should read it to understand the flaws and errors. Pavanar's scholarship is no less than Pillai - and in the area of linguistics and etymology, certainly way superior. --Aadal 22:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

• And I dont buy the later/recent findings argument. This is not like a clash between classical and quantum physics or something. There has been no such paradigm change. Especially, given the fact that this is a view held by scholars from every generation since Caldwell and needless to say, by scholars before Caldwell. In other words, as far as the question of Sanskrit's influence goes, view hasnt changed in centuries, if ever. For God's sakes, what was the Tanittamil iyakkam about? Wasnt it about 'cleansing' Tamil of Sanskrit influence?!

The influences of Skt on Tamil and Tamil on Skt are mutual, historically, but the fact is - Skt is a language which ceased to be an active language (in the sense of being a mother tongue or a vibrant language in vogue) a long long time ago (perhaps ~500 BCE), whereas Tamil had been and continues to be a vibrant living language. There are at present 70+ million people speaking it today. There are more than 1,800 newspapers. Scores of magazines have readership of 100s of thousands. Tamil is popular and vibrant in multiple media. Of course, Tamil does absorb from a diversity of languages it is interacting with, like any other living language. You keep harping on Skt influence on Tamil, but you don't seem to understand that Skt lost its vakku- some believe precisely because of such arrogant sanskrit supremacist attitudes. Skt is a great language, but stop arrogating more to it than is a fact. FYI Devaneya Pavanar claims that 40% of skt is from Tamil and Gnyanaprakasa Nadar published two books showing that more than 3000 basic words in Latin and Greek and by extension in Skt are from Tamil. I'm not claiming these to be valid, but they have to be examined by competent scholars before they arrive at some consensus. --Aadal 22:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

• Also, see this article from the CIIL website written by an expert (and a Tamil). Let me quote verbatim,

50%!! 20%!! and thats counting just vocabulary. We havent even started considering the influence on grammar, literary styles etc.,. And the indirect influences that would have been exerted on the languages by a polity that overtly patronised Sanskrit; the influence of exalted status of Sanskrit among the literati; the influence through religion and several such other backdoors... Any more influence and Caldwell perhaps might have been tempted to classify these languages under the Indo-Aryan group itself! And you want to compare that to the few dozen or few hundred that Sanskrit may have loaned from Tamil(even assuming 'Dravidian' == 'Tamil)?!

See my comment above. Burrow and Emeneau claim that even Rig Veda had words from Dravidian (for which they give Tamil root words). Aitreya Brahmana, believed to be ~800 BCE, speaks of dramila (=Tamil). The so-called substratum effect is basically the influence of Dravidian on skt. Borrowing is a two-way street. The extent of traffic in either direction is harder to decide without a better understanding. --Aadal 22:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

"Though no statistical study has been made..."

So no scientific study has been done... That is really a surprise given that you provided the citation :) Praveen 14:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I quote Caldwell verbatim from his introduction

"Even in prose compositions on religious subjects in which a larger amount of Sanskrit is employed than in any other department of literature, the proportion of Sanskrit which has found its way into Tamil is not greater than the amount of Latin contained in corresponding compositions in English..."

He clearly says the level of Sanskrit influence here. This is in total contrast with your crystal ball observations. Could you clarify your 'observations'? Praveen 17:17, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Let me quote Sjoberg (1992), "Thus the dravidian grammatical impact on indo-aryan has been far greater than the Indo-Aryan grammatical impact on Dravidian..". George Hart (1975)(p.279) says, talking about Tamil, "The number of southern elements in Kalidasa and classical Sanskrit is, in fact, far higher than is indicated by a few shared themes described above. There is scarcely a verse in which some element can not be found thta can be traced back to the southern tradition."--Aadal 22:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

• I cant believe that there can be so much opposition to this. Even Hart doesnt contest this. He is always gaurded and only deals with specifics. For example, he says Sanskrit and Prakrit poetic traditions dont have a puram counterpart. That's non sequitur. If Sanskrit doesnt have a tradition of puram poetry(which Tieken anyway claims that is inspired by Sanskrit's Kavya), that doesnt mean anything as far as the question of S's overall influence on Tamil is concerned. Not to mention, puram is not so much a literary 'style' as a poetic theme.

It is not a non sequitur... Hart's comment about Puram is in reply to wishful claims by misguided Sanskrit chauvinists that all sangam poetry is 'lifted' from Sanskrit. How can a non-existing concept can be lifted? Praveen 14:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

• And in any case, nobody is claiming that Tamil or other D languages are carbon copies of S. The claim is only that even though they originated independent of Sanskrit, they could not escape Sanskrit's influence. Nothing more, nothing less. Sarvagnya 17:28, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

You don't seem to know Tamil or its linguistic and literary history. Read my comments above about skt versus Tamil.--Aadal 22:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, words like raatri, shigro, samacharon, some of the most common words in the Tamil language and conversation are Sanskrit derived. Its the same logic as to why english is a Germanic language rather than a Romance language.Bakaman

Bakaman has just been blocked for meat puppetry. Praveen 18:49, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

--Aadal 04:26, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Madras Bashai

On a 'unrelated' development, speakers of 'Madras Bashai' demands that all instances of Tamil before 20th century be changed to 'proto-madrastbashai-tamil'. They are also asking for classical language status. In fact recently a scholar has unearthed evidence that there existed a book which was written 2000 years ago. But unfortunately this so called grammar book is not found till now. Praveen 02:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Aadals POV

Gizza, prior to ~500 CE Kannada and Telugu do not have any significant attested literature, except a few short inscriptions, and hence the nature of the language etc. can not be reliably determined to talk about significant influences. Secondly, the differences in the spoken languages of Tamil, Kannada, Telugu are harder to determine prior to ~500 CE

If the nature of the language is not easily determined, then why did I.Mahadevan write is famous book "Early Tamil Epigraphy..." . If the impact of Kannada were minor, why is it mentioned here so explicitly.

Is Aadal is trying to concoct a Tamil origin of Kannada and Telugu here prior to 5th century?Dineshkannambadi 14:19, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

When the differences between the spoken forms of Tamil, Kannada and Telugu can not be reliably determined prior to ca.500CE, then claim of I. Mahadevan leads to doubts. There are many endings used for words in spoken forms in Tamil. The so-called 'impact' of Kannada you are referring to is indeed quite isolated and minor one. And this kind of evidence is harder to show as an influence on Skt. Don't get carried away! I think I should leave your misguided insinuation left unanswered.--Aadal 05:59, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Tieken's views are isolated or minority view

The reference to Tieken's work should be removed because he had followed fundamentally flawed approach. Read the reviews of Hart and others. It is a most outrageous work and his comments in the book are absolutely repugnant such that the people were fools etc. I'll give more details later. See Hart's review in J. Am. Orient. Soc. 124 No.1 Jan/Mar 2004. where he shows the flawed approach. He says, "Suffice to say that Tieken has not produced one plausible argument to justify his contentions about the dating of Sangam literature." Tieken had taken positions with such abandon to show that Tamil works follow Skt Kavya of later times, it is absolutely ridiculous. He is alone in his strange view. He had such contempt for the Tamil songs and works it is not funny - but it is he who loses credibility. Read Luzzi's review in Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 60, No. 2. (2001), pp. 373-374. I don't think a reference to his work is needed here (I've no problem if it should remain, but then I would like to add Devaneya Pavanar's assessments as well!). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Aadal (talk • contribs) 23:10, 26 April 2007 (UTC).--Aadal 23:12, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Aadal, if you have access to references 17 & 20, please cross check. After seeing the Caldwell's statement (I used it one of replies above), I feel that reference 17 might be dubious. Adding to the suspicion is the editor's consistent ignorance of our requests to quote the relevant passage(s). BTW: I have access to two reviews from reputed professors from US universities which questions the Tieken's 'thesis'. They have highlighted his mistakes of ignoring inscription-evidences. Also, they clearly state that Tieken stand to loose the argument that will sure ensue. Thanks.Praveen 23:15, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to check. --Aadal 23:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

From Whiney Cox's review of Tieken, "most intriguingly, a reading of the epic CilappatikaÅram as a narrativization of the westward movement of Pandiyan culture to what is today Kerala (pp. 196±207). This is juxtaposed, however, by the groundless claim that the redactors of the anthologies were identical with the composers of later Saiva and Vaishnava bhakti poetry. "

From a review by Anne E. Monius in The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 61, No. 4. (Nov., 2002), pp. 1404-1406., "Equally troubling is a variety of historical arguments that dismiss evidence contrary to Tieken's overall conclusions." .."Why does the Tamil local literary culture look so different from the manipravtila produced in roughly the same era in Kannada? Whenever individual words or phrases in the poetry belie Tieken's argument, the author accuses the poets of "lapses" (p. 213), as when images of saivate temple worship "intrude" on the construction of an archaic Tamil society. Regarding the earliest inscription that mentions temple recitation of the Tiruppatiyam or "Holy Songs" of devotion to saiva (a Pallava inscription from the eighth century that might challenge Tieken's late dating of the bhakti corpus), the author simply assumes that such information "may well be an addition inserted into the original document by the copyist" (p. 216 n. 4)! Tieken's assertion that the wandering saints of the devotional poetry "actually rejected the temple cult" (p. 217) blatantly ignores the particularly Saiva poetic insistence on the necessity of temple worship." ....The rural images of village life, Tieken asserts, "function . . . as a stereotyped setting for everything backward and foolish" (p. 11); the "dullness, poverty and frustrated ambitions" of the characters serve the literary interests of connoisseurs "who are, or think they are, smart, wealthy and sophisticated" (p. 72). Even the mountain god who dominates the Cankam religious landscape, Murukas, is the object of derision, according to Tieken: "CT)he poets of Akam appear to refer to Murukag mainly to ridicule him and his stupid priest with his useless rites" (p. 142). Yet much of this tone of derision is not immediately obvious in the illustrative stanzas the author provides. Can this be the same poetry of subtle sophistication and nuanced meaning that Dubianskii reads? Much more damaging to Tieken's overall argument is the fact that nowhere does he address why PZntiyas literary culture should produce such a corpus of poetry about awkward fools."

An interested reader should have a reasonable understanding of the Tamil literature, must have read Tieken's work and must have read the several reviews to see how ridiculous and outrageous his work is. Hart has already shown that his method is fundamentally flawed (read his review). The fact that user Sarvagnya wants to quote Tieken in this article on Tamil clearly shows he does not understand an iota of Tamil liteature.

I would ask that the such flawed work as Tieken be removed as a reference. --Aadal 03:52, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Skt-Tamil

If the influence of Skt on Tamil should be taken as proper and not influence of Prakrit on Tamil, then the influence of Skt is from Tamil unless shown to be otherwise. Remember that Tamil is referred as dramila in Skt works and the demonstration of influence is shown with Tamil as a proto-type.--Aadal 23:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Tamil consonant section

AFAICS there are some problems with the Tamil consonant section, reproduced here for reference

• During my study of Tamil, I have heard of palatal affricates tʃ (ச) and dʒ (ஜ), but not of the palatal stops c and ɟ. Take for instance the pronunciation of Chennai, which is and not or , as far as I can see, but I may be wrong. Some dialects at least do have affricates, and this should be mentioned. The English reference grammars only mention the affricates, and do not mention the palatal stops IIRC.

I don't think you're right. There are some variations, for sure. The problem is because of multiple shades in the pronunciation, I think. Tamils have long recognized that every subtle 'sound'(phonemic??) can not be and need not be represented. I've heard people say with cennai, chennai, sennai and also the last vowel pronunced with e, a etc.

• Regarding the different t´s, the dental one (த) and the retroflex one (ட) are clear cases. I am not so sure about the phonemic status of the alveolar one (ற) (not postalveolar BTW?). I think that it is present in Sri Lankan dialects, but not that much in India. The phonological rules t+R=tr and n+R=ndr should be mentioned.

Again I don't agree with your observation. There are indeed differences in the pronunciation of ற்ற, ற among tamils across the world. I have no problem is mentioning different rules, but what needs to be said and how to say them are open questions.

• what about /h/? There is even a letter for it (ஹ), yet it is not mentioned.

Again, it is not a phoneme in the standard language. Tamils use a large number of foreign words and expressions all the phonemes of foreign languages need not be represented here, I hope.

• parens () are currently used for allophones AND for phonemes only occuring in loan words. This is confusing. Maybe use parens for the one and brackets for the other?

I think this can be done. This is now done.--Aadal 13:33, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

• what is this about phonemes in loanwords anyway? Shall we put 57 additional phonemes because some Tamil Muslim uses some Arabic uvular stops and some Brahmin tries to aspirate some stops? I think the whole section can go away.

Needs to review this. Yes this suggestion should be considered.

• the table mentions a palatal fricative /ɕ/ as present in loanwords. From what language would those loanwords come? No language in the region has that sound. Maybe a Visarga was intended???

Not true. Example:*Sanskrit: शत , "hundred"--Aadal 13:40, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

• ɾ̪ is in the table cell for dental approximants. This is complete nonsense

Needs review. I reviewed it, and it appears the entry in the article is correct. It is however possible to consider this as dental or alveolar approximant and the differences in this context is not demonstrated. If you can provide evidence to the contrary, it should be changed otherwise it is wise to leave it as is. And I think it is correct (I didn't create this table BTW).--Aadal 13:47, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

• • Tamil does not have a dental approximant

Could you explain? See above and my response to the next bullet.

• • AFAICS no language has a dental approximant, they are labial, alveolar or further back, but not dental

Tamil has two ர and ன and of which ன would be closer to dental approximant (and not alveolar or further back and it is also not labial). I'm not sure how ர is viewed by the phoeticians.

• • If ever Tamil was shown to have a dental approximant, the IPA character for that would be

I'm not sure either but see my response to the prvious bullet.

If you are sure, please go ahead and change it as needed. --Aadal 13:47, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

• I am seriously wondering how this could become FA.

This is a small section, and if there are concerns it can be addressed. What exactly are your reservations?

Jasy jatere 08:36, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for reviewing this section. --Aadal 15:29, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Jasy Jatere, would you please respond to my reply and suggest what needs to be done. In my view it is already accurate and some of your claims are not clear and would welcome making the needed changes. Please understand that there are a few phonemes or allophones which are not clearly spelled out even by the experts. If you don't make any changes in the next few days, can the accuracy flag be removed? As I said there are differences even among the experts and these hard to pin down exactly because there are serious variations in reality. I would welcome input on making changes or on removing the accuracy flag. --Aadal 13:33, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Let me add the consonant tables given in Bh. Krishnamurti (Dravidian languages, p62) for both Old Tamil and Modern Tamil.

For Old Tamil (Bh.K quotes Lehman 1998: 75-99) (Bh.K's foot note says Lehman treats as an allophone of /n/; /l/ should have been given under alveolars. Old Tamil sandhi l +t -> t (kal 'learn' +tt past -> katt-) suggests that /l/ was an alveolar. Alveolars and retroflexes do not begin a word, but dentals do. Even by this criterion /l/ should have been listed in alveolar clumn; aytam /k/ should have been included in the table. )

For Modern Tamil (quotes Annamalai and Steever 1998: 100-28)

So, there seems to be some confusions among linguists. The table given in Andronov (A comparative grammar of the dravidian languages p.28) varies (even in terminology), but he gives for the whole dravidian and not just for Tamil. --Aadal 22:47, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Nice work Aadal. Praveen 02:40, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. --Aadal 04:34, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi Aadal, sorry for the delay, I was on a trip. Nice work. Either of those tables is fine with me. Note that one is Old Tamil, while the other one is Modern Tamil, so that it is not surprising that the phonemic inventories are described as different. The Annamalai table is pretty much the one I would have expected. I think we should use that one. There are two points of concern:

• ழ் is missing
• It is not in IPA, but in a practical transliteration. I will put the Annamalai table into the article and change the sounds into IPA.

Jasy jatere 18:00, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

References in the Introduction

I think it is not necessary to cite in introduction. Please clarify me & let me know where to move the citations in the introduction. I will do it. Thanks Praveen 15:21, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Concern about copyright status of some pics

I have some doubts about the copyright status of some of the pictures used in the article. The pictures in question are Image:Christian_prayers_in_tamil_on_palm_leaves.jpg and Image:Genesis_in_a_Tamil_bible_from_1723.jpg. Both are pictures of things that are inarguably old for copyright. But my question is, are pictures themselves ineligible for copyright? In other words, unless the photographs are more than 60 years old or unless the photographer has been dead for more than 100 years or so, the picture is still copyright of somebody else(the photographer). The 'Christian prayers page' mentions that it was taken from the Library of Congress website. In that case, the copyright of the image should be with the LoC. To compare, lets take a look at the other pic in the article Image:Vatteluttu.png. It is a derivative I created myself from the original that Venu62 had uploaded. And Venu62 had uploaded his own photography. It is not the case in the other two pics. The photos were clicked by and hence belong(are copyrighted) to someone else. I have always been a little confused with image copyrights. So I'd like somebody who knows better to comment. Thanks. Sarvagnya 00:02, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

AFAIK, digital images owned by library of congress comes under GPL. If you know anything specific, please enunciate here. Thanks Praveen 23:58, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Its not a question of 'AFAYK'. It is a question of what you can verifiably demonstrate. If the LoC has indeed released their works on GPL, show me the evidence. And 'AFAIK' LoC's 'properties' include copies of almost every book printed on the planet. I am sure all those books are not on GPL. Not yet. Sarvagnya 01:11, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Do not draw conclusions that LoC's properties are in question here. We are talking only about digital reproduction of original work whose copyright has expired. Those files are free because I quote,

And since there is no copyright on original work & reproduction, there is no copyright issues here as for as wikipedia is concerned. I hope I have cleared your doubt Praveen 02:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

The copyright tags for both images explain why they're public domain as far as Misplaced Pages is concerned. To put it briefly, as far as the palm leaf manuscripts go, the Library of Congress is an agency of the US Federal Government, and all works it creates (such as photographs of out-of-copyright objects) are in the public domain. The license tag gives you a reference to the relevant provision of US copyright law.

The picture of the Bible page is in the public domain under Bridgeman v. Corel, a summary of which is linked to from the tag, as it is a faithful reproduction of a two-dimensional object which itself is out of copyright (i.e, the page of the book in question).

I happen to teach intellectual property law, so if you have any questions on copyright law, feel free to raise them (although I won't be too quick to answer, being away on a research expedition). -- Arvind 13:55, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Arvind! It is indeed very nice of you to take a look at this even when you were on a research expedition and especially with your expertise on IP/copyright law, it should be clear now. --Aadal 15:05, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Three changes about dates and references

I've reversed some edits of Sarvagnya on the dates and references. (1) The reasonable uncertainity in the dates of Tolkappiyam is between 200 BCE and 500 CE and hence I've changed the text to this effect (the 200 BCE is from Hart and 500 CE for some parts is from Zvelebil and others). There are extremists who claim with no hard evidences that it is 8000 BCE and the other extremists claiming that it is 10th century CE.).

(2) Tamil literary tradition is not 1000 years as Sarvagnya had inserted in the recent edit, but about 2300. Several songs in the Sangam are dated to earlier than 300 BCE which talk about rivers pahRuLi and Kumari which are now lost and on the basis of linguistic features. The Bhakti poets who came late themselves are reliably 600-800 CE, including inscriptional evidences. So claiming 1000 years of literary tradition by Sarvagnya is without any consensus.

(3) The author Herman Tieken had NOT demonstrated that the entire sangam corpus follows the Kavya form of Sanskrit as claimed in the quote "The author demonstrates that the entire Sangam poetic corpus follows the "Kavya" form of Sanskrit poetry"- It is a proposal and to fit his proposal the author had assumed that the entire Sangam literature is a fiction created by one or a few poets (all the 50,000 lines of poems of Sangam literature, the entire cilappatikaram, all the 9,000 plus songs of Tevaram, ~4000 songs of Azhvar pasurams etc.). Although the styles and linguistic features are so different in these works. I've read the book (Tieken's) and read the reviews, which I've listed in this talk page, and I can clearly see that it is fundamentally flawed in so many fronts, it is not possible or appropriate to discuss them here. The best that can be said is that Tieken had proposed these and that it is controversial and claimed to be flawed by some reviewers. It is certainly not the accepted or validated view. Hence I've added some qualification to this reference. --Aadal 21:13, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

• I will be reverting the recent reversion of my edits by Aadal. For starters, not just Tieken but other scholars like Vaiyapuri Pillay, Burnell(one of the greatest paleographers of South Indian history), Caldwell and BGL Swamy have also have dated Tolk., to the 5th CE, 8th CE, 8th-12th CE and 10th CE respectively. Mahadevan while refusing to assign a date has(in his latest work) said that it cannot be before 2nd CE. V S Rajam plays it safe by saying 'pre-5th CE'. Also Hart is not the high priest of Indology or even Tamil studies.

Apart from extremists every one else dates it from 1BCE to 5 CE. See my reply below Praveen 22:25, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

• His criticism of Tieken means zilch. His bias against Tieken's views are apparent given the fact that he even published a critique(albeit on his own website) before even reading Tieken's book! Just because Hart criticised Tieken doesnt mean Tieken is a fool. And even Zvelebil, postulates his own Ur-Tolkappiyam(a precursor to Tolkappiyam) which is what he dates to the 2nd BC. Not Tolkappiyam. Even among scholars who give the earliest dates for the Tolk., they are unanimous that the major bulk was composed between the 3rd and 7th CE.

Anybody with basic knowledge of English who reads Hart's whole review would notice that he commented both before reading (He commented on the contents of the Tieken's book cover) and after reading the Tieken's book. Hart is not the only one who severely criticized Tieken's flawed thesis. G. Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi (Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 60, No. 2. (2001), pp. 373-374) & Anne E. Monius (University of Viginia) literally tore apart his flawed thesis in their reviews. I can send you links if you wish to read anything else apart from ramblings of Kamat. If Tieken's work has to be taken seriously then we have to take works of people like Pavanar & Kamat seriously. Praveen 22:25, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Praveen, Pavanar had not claimed 8000 BCE as Sarvagnya has been trying to allude. He had not answered my specific questions regarding this. Pavanar claims that it is pre-Paninian work and gives an estimate of 700 BCE. A number of tamil scholars like Dr. Ilakkuvanar also estimate that it is prior to Panini's time and give a date 500-700 BCE. It is the range provided by these scholars who believe that it is Pre-Paninian. Even A.C. Burnell who 'discovered' Tolkappiyam says it is Pre-Paninian school - but does not give earlier date. A.C. Burnell's statements quoted in Trautman are also under the old-school assumption that when something is found in both Skt and Tamil, it is the Tamil which borrowed, which is not the case in many situations. For Tolkappiyam, the most conservative estimates are 200 BCE to 500 CE. The 500 CE is actually questionable because some of the premises for assigning such a late date are now shown to be incorrect (like the puLLi rule and the finding in Anaimalai inscription). But this range of 200 or 100 BCE to 500 CE is the reasonable estimate based on current scholarship. --Aadal 15:23, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry Aadal. I didn't cross check his claim. I will be more careful next time. Thanks Praveen 16:05, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh.. only 700 BCE? Uh.. I thought the 'ultimate divine classical mother of all languages' that was 'more divine'(sic) than Sanskrit needed to be atleast 10000 years old. Oh boy. Am I disappointed :( Sarvagnya 16:13, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

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