Tamil words in English

[N. Ganesan]

Mr. Subrahmanya wrote:
>Is it justifiable to jump to the conclusion that just
>because ku occurs in all subgroups southern languages that kuyil is
>dravidian.
>Has any effort been made to see if ku exists in other Indian languages ?
>doesnt ku exist in sanskrit ?
>Dont the words kuvate,kala, kilakila exist in sanskrit too ?
>and dont they all mean to make a sound ?


kuyil in Tamil does not come from Sanskrit kuvate, kalakala, kilakila, etc.,
kuyil in Tamil has definite Proto-Dravidian origins.
Tamil has verbal roots: kuyiRRu-, kuyilv-, kuyin2R- etc.,
Tamil kuyil does not come from kOkila of Sanskrit either.

N. Ganesan

My earlier posting:

kuyil could have arisen independently in Dravidian.
Dravidian Etymological Dictionary (Revised edition) 1984
has the entry no. 1764 as:

1764 Ta. kuyil koel, Indian cuckoo, Eudynamis honorata;
(kuyilv-, kuyin2R-) to call, whoop, halloo; utter, tell;
kuyiRRu (kuyiRRi-) to tell, utter. Ma. kuyil, kuzil
Indian cuckoo, Cuculus or E. Orientalis   ...

In connection with the meaning to call, etc.,
Dr. Bh. Krishnamurti in a posting on 1/17/98 said that
the root "*ku:(y) occurs in all subgroups of Dravidian
(DEDR 1868; Skt. ku:jita- is said to have been derived from Dravidian)."
kuyil could be related to this root.

We must consider another possibility.
In Collected Papers on Dravidian Linguistics, T. Burrow
says in p. 198 that Sanskrit kokila which is attested
from mahAbhArata onward is from Dravidian.