Hydronomy of Tamil rivers (Re: Again, SANSKRIT broadcasts)

[Lakshmi Srinivas]

--- Periannan Chandrasekaran <perichandra at YAHOO.COM>
wrote:
> >
> > Some others like keTilam seem phonetically alien.
>
> Given Tamil words such as neTil, ceTi etc., what is
> alien about
> the phonetics of keTilam?

A neuter ending for a river name is funny. But take
the case of keTi as a stem. MTL gives 5 meanings of
which 2 are derived from Telugu, 2 from Urdu and 1
from Sanskrit.

As an aside,it may be interesting to see what Burrow's
paper on palatalization has to say on this.

(cf. Two developments of initial k- in Dravidian,
Coll. papers on Drav. linguistics, Annamalai Univ.,
Annamalainagar, 1968)

The rule is stated in the first line of the paper:
"Original Dravidian k- is palatalized to c- in Tamil,
Malayalam and Telugu when followed by the front vowels
i, I, e, E."

An exception is also stated: "when the vowels in
question are followed by a cerebral consonant, i.e.,
-T-, -N-, -L-, -z- the palatalization of initial k-
does not take place in Tamil and Malayalam.This
restriction does not apply to Telugu."

He then adds, "The reason for the absence of
palatalization in Tamil and Malayalam in the above
cases is not far to seek. In Tamil as pronounced
today, the vowels i, I, e, E when followed by a
cerebral consonant are pronounced in a manner
noticeably distinct from the normal. J.R. Firth
describes it as a "centralized obscure quality" etc
etc ".

But Burrow breaks his own exception formulation when
he quotes the word ceTi under the regular operation of
the rule!

So a little closer examination of the exception
formulation is required. One notices that Burrow's
examples all have a back vowel following the cerebral
consonant. (Exceptions being kiLi, kizi). Perhaps in
the case of a front vowel following the cerebral
consonant, the exception proviso is breached, whence
ceTi. Phonetically, "keTilam" seems to be an exception
to this too.

Wonder what authorities like Bh. Krishnamurti or
Zvelebil have had to say on this phenomenon.

The balance of probability then is that this is a non
Tamil word. In any case, a sensible etymology for this
hydronym remains to be developed.











Thanks and Warm Regards,

LS







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