Continuing the review of Passions of the Tongue

[N. Ganesan]

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.

NC>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.

    Note that the town, puumpukaar is pronounced as puumpuhaar;
  This is in your post itself; In a similar manner, kaNNaki is
  pronounced as kaNNahi.

Pl. refer to Prof. Bh. Krishnamurti's posting where he says
Skt. kalaha is possibly of Dravidian origin. If so,
ta. kalakam gives birth to skt. kalaha. k->h.

Date:         Mon, 15 Mar 1999
>Mayrhofer EWA (new ed. 1986-1996, of  his etym. dict. of Skt) vol. I p. 321
>says :
>kalaha-- Up.+, kalahin- GRhyaSUtra, Up., "not explained";
>and refers to older Drav. and Munda explanations, in part
>onomatopoetic.
[...]
BhK>I think *kal represents several homophonous roots giving rise to
BhK>different groups of words: 'noise' (1302), 'mix, join' (1299),
BhK> 'learn'(1297), 'stone' (1298),'to accrue, grow' (1300, 1310),
BhK> 'disturb, agitate,stir up, quarrel' (1303)
BhK>[both Skt. kalaha- and kalu.sa- seem to belong here].

MW>>Last point : if kala- is onomatopoetic, the Tamil etc word kalApa
>>'peacock feather/tail ' may, just may be a loan translation from
>>Munda where mara('k) 'peacock' belongs to the root  'to cry'.

BhK>Burrow (1948) gives the meaning 'bundle' as the basis of semantic
BhK>connection with 'peacock's tail' and compares it with Ta. Ma. Ka.
BhK>kalappu'collection of things, mass' etc.(1299).

Nanda Candran:
<<<
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!
>>>

  Now, you are saying that kaNNaki is not a Tamil?!

Regards,
N. Ganesan

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