About Tamil, etc.

[André Signoret]

Dear Friends,

I knew not much about Tamil, Telugu (Telinga), Malayalam, Kannada, Konda,
Nahali, etc. until now but the passionate exchanges prompted me to improve
my knowledge about Dravidian languages. When assimilated, digested, I will
place a few paragraphs about the subject on my site (in French, of course, I
am not so daring (a Skt. root !).

As far as I can see, Tamil (we say also Tamoul in France, Gott weiss warum)
is the vector of a very impressive literature the documents of which are
available since + 600.

I have a few Tamil texts on my desk and discover that it is quite different
from Sanskrit (if we neglect borrowings), as different as Basque from French
(In fact Basque is nearer to Japanese !).

ETTOUTTOGEI for "Huit recueils - ashta-sam'hitaa", PEROUNKADEI for "Grande
Histoire - Brihat-kathaa"

Beside the paraphrasing of Sanskrit texts (we know a number of them through
Tamil translations), there are pages which are among the greatest
master-pieces of religious lyrism in the world (par exemple, for example :
the TIROUVAAShAGAM "Paroles divines" by Maanikka VaaShagar, the Father of
the didactic form called "Saiva-siddhaanta" in Sanskrit (unfortunately, it
is difficult to include this entry in my French-Sanskrit Dictionary unless I
turn it into an endless encyclopaedia !).

Anyhow, many thanks to all those who prompted me to open books about
Dravidian languages and Tamil in particular. I did learn a lot about them
but I still ignore how to say "Fireman", "Cherry" and a number of other
words in Sanskrit !!! Can somebody help me ?

This morning, my dear Indology brought me "angular frequence" which added a
page to the 748 of the Dictionary. This alone justifies the presence of
INDOLOGY on the Web. Adding words to words... the dream of a lexicograph !

Thank you very much and don't hesitate to correct me if I am wrong !

André Signoret
Les Romarins
84460 CHEVAL-BLANC
Tél. +33(0)490710910
Portable 0609450202
E-mail : sanskrit at club-internet.fr
Site Web : http://asignoret.free.fr/index.html