Continuing the review of Passions of the Tongue

[nanda chandran]

N Ganesan writes :

>>May be due to Sanskritized thinking, some English writers
>>render Tamil "ka.n.naki" as kannagi. This happens because
>>they transfer all intervocalical Tamil "k"s into "g"s
>>following Sanskrit k, kh, g, gh series. However, Tamils
>>pronounce her as something like kaNNahi.

Even in the Tamil movie PoompuhAr in which the highly Tamizh
literate actress Vijayakumari acted as Kannagi (and killed us
with her overacting :-), if I remember right, didn't pronounce
it as Kannahi, but only Kannagi.

Actually my mother once pointed out Samskrutam alphabets in
Tamizh. I think the "sha" in kashtam (trouble) or nashtam
(loss) is of Samskrutam origin and is not an original Tamizh
alphabet. Similarly if I remember right the "ha" is also not of
Tamizh origin, but borrowed from Samskrutam. (Can Tamil scholars
confirm if the alphabet features in ancient Tamizh words and not
as a noun?). The "ha" is very prominent in Samskrutam -
sam(h)Aram, gra(h)anam etc. Both the "ha" and "sha" feature
heavily in brAhmanic Tamizh which incorporates Samskrutam liberally
with Tamizh.

So Kanna(h)i? And is this the way CilappathikAram has it? If so,
the name of the heroine of CilappathikAram may itself not be of
Tamizh origin!

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