Inscriptions and Dravidian sound changes "y" > "c" and "y" >

[stephen]

>Fine. But I have shown why we have to assume that the composer was not
>hypercorrective but was using existing forms. So, according to
Krishnamurti,
>the persons in the Tamil society who used "cAn2ai" were hypercorrective.
>Krishnamurti is not considering an important factor, i.e., the basic social
>factor involved in  who was literate and knowledgable in Sanskrit and who
was
>not and who uses -c- forms in native Tamil words. The -c- forms are
>predominantly used by illiterate/lower class persons with little or no
>Sanskrit or linguistic knowledge.


I am curious to know how the following fits in this theory.

The verb cei (do)

In Tamil Nadu you hear this word pronounced both as "sei" and "cei".
According to the above theory (if I understand it correctly), people who
have some sort of Sanskrit background would pronounce it as "sei". If this
is so, what is the explanation for the same verb occuring in the -c- form in
Malayalam, a language "supposedly" developed by the Namboodhris who of
course had a strong Sanskrit background. E.g. in Malayalam - Avan ceidhu (he
did).



P.S. I do not know the Tamil/English transliteration scheme, so may not have
spelt the words correctly.