Karnataka/KannaDa (was: Karave caste and Kurus)

[Robert Zydenbos]

Am 8 Jan 2001, um 10:38 schrieb Swaminathan Madhuresan:

> --- Prof. Robert Zydenbos <zydenbos at GMX.LI> schrieb:
> > Not many, but they exist: e.g., words in which the first element is
> > 'kem-' ("red"), such as ken-niiru "red water, blood", ken-nettar
> > "red blood", ken-naalige "red tongue".
>
> Perhaps, the above examples are problematic to decide the source of
> kannaDa to be from kammi- (fragrance). Parallel examples from tamil:
> [...]
>
> Any examples where -amn- (or -amVn-) in any position of a Kannada word
> going to -ann-?

I cannot think of any right now. But why should we consider all this
'problematic'? Do your Tamil examples not confirm the suggestion?

What also occurs to me in this connection is the example of ta.n +
niir giving ta.n.niir ("cool water", as in Tamil), where we see the 'n'
being assimilated to the '.n', while on the other hand we also have
the word tampu as an alternative (and the standard modern word)
for ta.npu "coolness", where we see assimilation in the opposite
direction: the '.n' becomes labialised. The quality of the final nasal
in such short syllables seems to have been of lesser importance
than its nasality.

And in any case, 'Kanna.da' remains an odd word. All the proposed
explanations assume that the second part is derived from naa.du:
but why should the aa have been shortened? Perhaps we should
not expect proper nouns to be exemplary for phonetic rules.


Robert Zydenbos
Institut für Indologie und Iranistik
Universität München