Karnataka, Kannada

[Lakshmi Srinivas]

--- "N. Ganesan" <naga_ganesan at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
Dr Ganesan,

It seems to me that this working hypothesis does not
clearly explain why the quantity of the second vowel
has lessened.After all, if the reconstruction is
*ka(l)nnADu/a or *karnAdu/a, why do the speakers of
that language call their own language kannaDa with a
short second vowel? Is a prakritization of a Sanskrit
(or at least a learned) term at work here?

Also, I remember reading somewhere that ViThobA of
Pandharpur was refered to in Old Marathi as kA(a?)naDi
i.e., as the God of Kannada speakers. I draw your
attention to the quantity of the second vowel.

I submit therefore that karnATa(ka) is a learned
back-formation  from kannaDa.

In this connection, it might help to remember that
many regional self-appellations continue to lack
satisfactory etymologies. But they have always had
some sort of "official" Sanskrit Ur-forms/etymologies
but many authorities have chosen to ignore these.
Examples abound:
1. Kuiper thinks the term telugu is ultimately of
Munda origin. (cf "Aryans in the Rigveda").
2. MahArAShTra: I remember reading at least one
etymology deriving it from araTTa, a particularly
long-lived tribal name (cf S.N. Kramer, "The
Sumerians", Witzel "Tracing the Vedic dialects".
Also compare Classical Tamil araTTar for the
Rashtrakutas.

Needless to say, the term tamiz does not even have so
many theories.

Thanks and Warm Regards.
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