Karnataka/KannaDa (was: Karave caste and Kurus)

[N. Ganesan]

>Do you know an example?

In Tamil, I do not know of (C)am + n- becoming (C)amm-.
I believe if kam- 'fragrant' + nADu ---> kannaDa is
the *ONLY* example, kannaDa formed out of 'fragrant land'
may need a review.

>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'.

For OKa. per-maram > pemmara(hemmaara), see parallel consonant
assimilation in Tamil:
http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind9906&L=indology&P=R4239

This again is an example with (C)e- and not with (C)a-.
>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".

There are many examples in Tamil: cem + nIr = cennIr 'blood, red water'.

>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.

Yes, both in Tamil and Kannada assimilation of m > n is to be
expected. But it is conditional. Ie., m > n happens ONLY if
the vowel preceding m is e or i. See below.

>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;

Again, these examples are  related to what you gave before with
-(C)em. Now, what is given is examples with -(C)im > -(C)in, and
closely related with -(C)em > -(C)en. These assimilations are routine
in Tamil as well, pin2 + tu = pintu (Cognate with Ka. pindu/hindu).

Parallel Tamil examples:
tEn2 'honey' + mozi = tEmmozi, tEmozi; tIm ('sweet') + mozi = tImmozi,
> From mUn2Ru 'three' we have mummai, mummalam and so on.

Ka. himmaDi, Ka. himmeTTu, Ta. tImmozi, Ta. mummalam
etc. are relevant and have any bearing in the formation of Kannada.
What is needed is -ann- < -amn- and not -mm- examples.

>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.

R. N's suggestion kam 'fragrant' + nADu is dubious, and no
other examples of this assimilation (C)amn > (C)ann exist in either
Kannada or Tamil.

Regards,
N. Ganesan

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