Language and dialect (was Re: Etymon: paTTaN, pattan, patan)

[Ramalingam Shanmugalingam]

vanhakkam Thiru Palaniappan,
      Thank you for dealing with the linguist's part of Krishna's unwanted
response to a simple answer to a querry. I am not a linguist, but this
demonising of Tamil and Tamil  scholars past and present is a vocation of
some of the "converts" or 'pUttEvar' - Earth angels as they claim. I wish I
could reply as a linguist which I cannot and hence, I am not dignifying the
undignified onslaught of the so called scholars who sound Tamil but not Tamil
scholars? Or at its best pro-Sanskrit! Thanks again. Shanmugalingam November
23, 1997.