Karnataka/KannaDa (was: Karave caste and Kurus)

[RM. Krishnan]

At 01:08 PM 1/11/01 +0100, you wrote:


>One question to be considered is whether Tamil sandhi should be
>applied to Kannada. :-) Kannada (where a distinction between n
>and n2 is nowhere recorded, unlike in Tamil) goes further in
>consonant assimilation in compounds, as we can see, e.g., in
>words in which the first element is he+[consonant], meaning 'large'.
>(The Kannada adjective hiriya is the cognate of Tamil periya; hiridu
>< OKa piridu 'what is large / old / great / senior'.) The r is obviously
>lexically important, as we can see in older literature: per-maram
>'large tree', but later it becomes hem-mara; cf. also heb-bera.lu
>'large finger = thumb', hed-daari 'big road = highway', hej-jiga.ne
>'large leech'.
>
>If the tapped r in the above examples can be assimilated to the
>following consonant to become just about anything (even a labial
>nasal, as in hemmara), then an assimilation of m > n is only to be
>expected.

An assimilarion similar to 'hemmara' is there in Tamil too.

peru+mAn = pemmAn (meaning God, especially Siva)

>Cf. also hindu 'what is behind' (OKa pindu, cognate of
>Tamil pin2), which produces compounds like him-me.t.tu- 'to turn
>back, retreat', him-ma.di 'heel' etc. Here we see that an originally
>alveolar and a labial nasal can be assimilated; and from all the
>above examples we see that the preceding consonant is
>assimilated to the following.
>
>So I still believe that R. Narasimhacharya's suggestion Kannada <
>kam + naa.du deserves serious consideration. It may be a pity that
>apparently there are no other short syllables with the structure
>(C)Vm- that form such compounds; but I do not see any principle
>why the suggestion should be rejected.
>
>
>
>Robert Zydenbos
>Institut für Indologie und Iranistik
>Universität München