[Note]: Tamil etc.

[Periannan Chandrasekaran]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Venkatraman Iyer [mailto:venkatraman_iyer at HOTMAIL.COM]
> Sent: Monday, May 24, 1999 2:09 PM
> To: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK
> Subject: [Note]: Tamil etc.
>
>
> On 28 Nov 1996, Shrisha Rao <dvaita at eskimo.com> wrote (in the
> thread, Hindi etc.):
>
> [...]
>  >Tamil Nadu is a linguistically homogenous state to a much greater
>  >extent than other states of the South are; Karnataka for instance
>  >indigenously has Kannada, Tulu, and Konkani, all with their own
>  >scripts even, and then there's a massive presence of Urdu, made all
>  >the more permanent by the historical influence of Tipu Sultan,
>  >et al.
>  >Thus it is that the Tamil people are much more liable than their
>  >neighbors to overreact, see "linguistic imposition," etc., because
>  >                                                           ********
>  >they have a narrower world-view linguistically.  However, this
>  >************************************************
>  >should not be misread as general opposition to Hindi in the South
> [...]
>
>    This analyis, in spite of being too simplistic, is widely popular
> and, is a constantly propagated myth. What Shrisha Rao
> has written in a few postings about Tamil or Tamil Nadu political
> movements in the above thread is simply NOT correct, I am afraid.
>

        Actually the exact opposite is true:
The cosmopolitan classical Tamil poet  kaNiyan2 pUGkunRan2 sang:
"yAdhum UrE yAvarum kELir" (puRanAn2URu)
-->"All lands mine; all people my kin".


Tamils are the only ones who have praised other languages as sweet.
Mahakavi subramanya bharathi (early 20 th century) sang:
"sundharat telugkin2il pAtticaittu tONikaL oTTi viLaiyADi varuvOm"
-->"we shall row the boats singing songs in beautiful Telugu".

man2On2maNIyam piLLai sang (mid 20th century):
"... kaLi teluGkum kavin2 malayALam ..."
-->" sweet telugu and beautiful malayALam"

And one etymology for the word Telugu popular in Tamil circles
is that it is derived from "tEn2" = honey whereas telugus themselves
do not have such a sweet etymological theory!

Now it is a common but sad knowledge that many misguided
Telugus  make fun of Tamil by calling Tamil "aravam" (for "noise" or
"snake").


tolkAppiyam (ca. 3rd century BCE) precscribed
rules on accommodate Skt. words  within the linguistic frameworks of
Tamil.

Madras metrolpolis is rumored to have very very high rate of telugus
and
Tamil nadu has a high proportion of people who speak some form of
Telugu or
Kannada at home.
Tamil Nadu state has  no incidences of religious riots; or of
linguistic riots
where non-Tamils were hurt; Tamils always hurt themselves by immolating
themselves.
unlike in Bangalore of Karnataka where these days it has become routine
to attack non-Kanndaigas.


>
>
> I would say that Tamil does NOT possess a narrower world-view
> linguistically. In fact, it is one of the most sophisticated
> of all the world's grammars. Eg.,  the 3rd century BCE (?)
> TolkAppiyar's theory of poetics (a cook book to compose love poems)
is
> unknown anywhere else (including Sanskrit). Anandavardhana's
> dhvany theory and his exposition on the Natyashastra would have been
> born when Tamil and Kashmiri Shaivism interacted.
>
> Regards,
> V. Iyer
>

I wonder about the relative antiquity of Skt. prosody itself. If
vAlmiki is called the Adhikavi
for Skt. for having invented the sloka metre (see the Cologne Skt
lexicon entry for
vAlmiki) and vAlmiki rAmAyaNam itself  the first instance of a Skt.
work employing
such a metre is dated somewhere 5-3rd century BCE whereas in Tamil
there is a treatise like tolkAppiyam dated about the same time frame
defining
*grammar* for prosody and for poruL (semantics or theory of  poetics)
an even more advanced
literary artifact implying that Tamil prosody was very well advanced
and
there was a long tradition of prosody with very advanced semantic
tradition.

Comments are welcome.

Regards,
Chandra

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