Topic started by Vanchi on Mon Dec 6 08:41:39 .
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

No, this is not about the lack of certain sounds.
Nor is this about how one can express complex ideas in brief Thamizh sentences.

This is an attempt to analyze the rules of juxtaposition of sounds (and word-terminating sounds) in forming Thamizh words which seem to naturally result in economy of energy in pronouncing them.

Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: P PANDIYARAJA (@ 61.1.208.161) on: Sat Oct 18 16:09:47 EDT 2003
  
  Dear Mr/Ms. Idiappam
  >>
  //if you prononce 'y', 'r' 'l' and 'v' you will find the same order of 'from the back to the front'. 'z' and 'L' are pure tamil sounds not found in North Indian languages. so they are appended at the end.
  I can hear you scream "Do you mean to say that the tamil script was borrowed from the north?" //
  
  On the same token, many sound of the North Indian Languages are not found in tamil.
  
  I can hear you scream "Do you mean to say that Northern scripts were borrowed from the South?'"
  
  
  I don't surmise anythimg by looking at something lacking here or there. I have just said that apart from the symbols from Brahmi for sounds that we have in tamil, we have developed our own symbols for our own sounds that are notfound in theirs.
  
  I don't want to scream as you had said. In fact that is what I want to refute.
  
  
• From: :) (@ d150-40-7.home.cgocable.net) on: Sat Oct 18 17:36:30 EDT 2003
  
  Dear Pandiyaraja:
  
  Were you also Dr. Gift's math student? It is indeed sad that Tamil lost a researcher like him.
  
  Thank you for a very interesting article. Here are my thoughts.
  
  Old persian seems to have had alphabets in almost the same order, from http://www.ancientscripts.com/oldpersian.html Also notice the similarity between Brahmi « and the Phonecian alphabet.
  
  In your second question, you mentioned that when the vowels, long e and o were added they were inserted in the right spot. If that was indeed the case, then shouldn't the same be applied to the consonants, so ra should have been inserted before or after Ra and the same for na, i.e., after/before Na. If your assumptions for the vowels is correct, then the same logic should have been followed for the consonants as well.
  
  Perhaps the reason for the occurence of Ra and na next to each other is because they often occur together? similar to th a and na??
  
  "Initially, there would have been utter confusion when reading ‘pey’ as either ¦Àö or §Àö , ‘etu’ as ±Î or ²Î , kotu as ¦¸¡Î or §¸¡Î.
  "
  
  not really because in Tamil we had ± ² only they were different, i.e., the alphabets were a triange lying on its side and a triangle with a dot in the middle. What tolkappiyar was trying to say is similar to the mei ezhuththukkal which come with a pulli ± (I mean the triangle) also has a pulli in the middle to determine its short form. Note that · represented þ in old Tamil and something like and · with a kodu (line in the middle) instead of the middle dot represented ®
  
  
  
  "His was the first attempt for ¾Á¢ú ±ØòÐî º£÷¾¢Õò¾õ."
  :)) seer thiruththavathi tholkappiyar? :)) He often keeps refering ot enmanaar pulavar. Also, notice the presence of pulli in the kalvettukkal.
  If Tamil indeed borrowed its alphabets from Northern Brahmi, what was the reason to reduce the number of alphabets? It does not make sense.
  "Ç derived from the letter for Ä with an extension, È derived from a combination of ¼ and ¾ and É derived from the letter for ¿ with an extension.) "
  is it not logical that Ç should be a stronger form of Ä. I am sure if someone were designing new alphabets for Tamil today, they would do the same :) Ra perhaps is similar to ¼ but if it is in line with one person/one group designing the alphabets. Notice the similarity between À and Ä in the original brahmi, also » and ¾, ¹ and ¼, even À and Á etc. So similarity between Ç, È, É and any other alphabets does not sound like a good argument.
  
  
  
• From: P.Pandiyaraja (@ 61.1.209.85) on: Sun Oct 19 13:40:43 EDT 2003
  
  >>He (Thol)often keeps refering ot enmanaar pulavar. Also, notice the presence of pulli in the kalvettukkal.
  Yes, Whenever, Thol. refers to traditional usage, he says ±ýÀ, ±ýÁÉ¡÷ ÒÄÅ÷ etc.,
  (ÓôÀ·¦¾ýÀ, Ìü¦ÈØò¦¾ýÀ,¦¿ð¦¼Øò¦¾ýÀ,Åø¦ÄØò¦¾ýÀ etc.,)
  But when he refers to the pulli notation, he says:
  ¯ð¦ÀÚ ÒûÇ¢ ¯ÕÅ¡Ìõ§Á (14 áø ÁÃÒ)
  ¦Áö¢ý þÂü¨¸ ÒûÇ¢¦Â¡Î ¿¢¨ÄÂø (15 áø ÁÃÒ)
  ±¸Ã ´¸ÃòÐ þÂü¨¸Ôõ «ü§È(16, áø ÁÃÒ)
  ÒûÇ¢ þøÄ¡ ±øÄ¡ ¦ÁöÔõ
  ¯Õ×ÕÅ¡¸¢ «¸Ã¦Á¡Î ¯Â¢÷ò¾Öõ
  ²¨É ¯Â¢¦Ã¡Î ¯Õ×¾¢Ã¢óÐ ¯Â¢÷ò¾Öõ
  ¬Â£Ã¢ÂÄ ¯Â¢÷ò¾ Ä¡§È.(17, áø ÁÃÒ)
  It doesn't seem to be accidental that in all these occurrences where he talks about puLLi, he doesn't say even on one occassion '±ýÀ'
  To me it seems that the pulli concept was discovered by Thol. and those who followed his school of thought used pulli.(Remember, EVR using ¨Ä, ¨Ç, ¨½ and ¨É and also É¡, ½¡ etc., even before there was a Governmnent order and even after that some mgazines like Kumudam were following the old pattern for some time)
  The article by Gift which you refer in your earlier comment,clearly brings out that there were three schools of thought in writing tamil by the Brahmi script. Even though I don't agree to the conclusion by Gift, I take his arguments in support of my hypothesis, namely Brahmi was borrowed for tamil. But unlike the other Dravidian languages, tamil didn't borrow those letters which didn't suit its grammar. remember, I say, Tamils only borrowed the script and not the grammar. In fact Brahmi was only a script and not a language. So those signs which suited Tamil Grammar were only borrowed and new scripts were designed for purely tamil sounds.
  Thol. is verey firm in saying,
  ż¦º¡ü ¸¢ÇÅ¢ ż¦ÅØò ¦¾¡Ã£þ
  ±Øò¦¾¡Î Ò½÷ó¾ ¦º¡øÄ¡Ìõ§Á (¦¾¡ø, ¦º¡ø,±îºÅ¢Âø 5)
  So thol. was very firm in rejecting non tamil sounds.
  has he not done so, tamil would have reached the present status of the other South Indian languages which were flooded with sanscrit words. Thanks to Thol.
  So we had a grammar of our own and probably our own script also. For some compelleing reason(!?) the tamils were forced(?) or influenced (!) to adopt the new script. Even then the tamils didn't adopt the non linear way of writing using the Brahmi script. In the word 'vAkya', the brahmi way of writing is placing 'ya' below 'k'. this was rejected by the tamils and in order to denote a pure consonant , thol invented the pulli above 'ka'. Gift elaborately describes how the tamils were struggling to overcome this difficulty. The Bhattiprolu Brahmi was yet another variation to solve this problem. Finally thol. evolves this technique of pulli.
  PanambAranAr also recognizes this fact and he says in his foreword to tholkaapiyam:
  ...
  ÁÂí¸¡ ÁÃÀ¢ý ±ØòÐ Ó¨È ¸¡ðÊ
  ..
  This means, to me, that there had been many ±ØòРӨȸû which were ambiguous (ÁÂíÌõ ÁÃÒ) and thol, by his pulli has evolved a ÁÂí¸¡ ÁÃÀ¢ý ±ØòÐ Ó¨È. When I presented this point of view in a forum of Tamil scholars ( I am a professor of mathematics, though retired now) it was receives with a stunned silence, since all the uraikaarars had given a different interpretation to this line. I gave the same argument as gift's ( I didn't know then about the article). It is surprising that both of us have the same logic but have totally different conclusions(Gift was a statistician, probably 10 years older to me. I didn't study under him but had his acquaintance through one of my collegues who happened to be Gift's student.)Dr.Muththu Shanmugam who prsided over the meeting said that this was a great turning point in the study of Thokaappiyam and Brahmi script.
  
  2.You have said
  >>in Tamil we had ± ² only they were different, i.e., the alphabets were a triange lying on its side and a triangle with a dot in the middle.
  > similarity between Ç, È, É and any other alphabets does not sound like a good argument.
  << This is not just a similarity. All renowned scholars agree that these are derivations because they were not found in Brahmi. This is not my point of view. I am using the points of view of scholars to support my hypothesis.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• From: P PANDIYARAJA (@ 61.1.209.85) on: Sun Oct 19 13:47:30 EDT 2003
  
  >>in Tamil we had ± ² only they were different, i.e., the alphabets were a triange lying on its side and a triangle with a dot in the middle.
  <<
  This is exactly what i want to raise.
  For 'a' and 'u' we write the symbol for the short form and use a horizontal stroke at the top to denote elongation. The case of 'i' and 'I' is different)Similarly for 'e' and 'E' we should have a trianle first for 'e' and then a horizontal stroke for 'E' to denote elongation. atleast we should have two different symbols for them as in the case of 'i' and 'I'. But here we write 'E' first (a triangle) and then a pulli to denote the shotened form. This is against natural logic. hence my logic of 'insertin' of a new form in the natural order.
  
  
• From: :) (@ d150-40-7.home.cgocable.net) on: Tue Oct 21 09:32:50 EDT 2003
  
  Dear Mr. Pandiyaraja:
  You had said earlier "So, if Brahmi were originally developed for Tamil, ¸ should have been a pure consonant (k) and ¸ + some symbol (like ‘¡’ for kA) should have used for ka.
  "
  
  Wouldn't the above apply to Hindi too? If we follow this logic then Hindi too has borrowed the alphabets from somewhere else.
  
  
• From: P PANDIYARAJA (@ 61.1.208.30) on: Tue Oct 21 15:12:03 EDT 2003
  
  >>
  Wouldn't the above apply to Hindi too? If we follow this logic then Hindi too has borrowed the alphabets from somewhere else.
  << Yes, In fact for most of all the Indian languages, the brahmi script is the original script. Again, Brahmi was only a ascript and not a language. It was developed by somebody(?) somewhere in India(?) and at some time before Cheist(?) and that script has been used for all(?) the Indian Languages. You write + which is the Brahmi for 'ka'. Then write it clockwise without lifting your finger. You will get the primitive form of Tamil 'ka'. Also, if you write the same '+' anticlockwwise, again, without lifting your finger, you will gat Hindt 'ka'. Not only that. In Brahmi 'tha' was written as the Greek lambda but in symmetrically opposite sense.(Pl. re3fer to the Brahmi script somewhere Or the net) again if you write in clockwise without lifting your finget yju get Tamil 'tha' and if donr in the anticlickwise manner, you get Hindi 'tha'Similarities canbe found between the other letters like 'cha', 'Ta', 'pa' etc.,
  It is not my claim but is a fact universally accepted by all epigraphists.
  
  
  
  
• From: :) (@ d150-40-7.home.cgocable.net) on: Tue Oct 21 17:39:24 EDT 2003
  
  "is a fact universally accepted by all epigraphists.
  "
  
  Dear Mr. Pandiyaraja,
  
  "It was developed by somebody(?) somewhere in India(?) and at some time before Cheist(?) and that script has been used for all(?) the Indian Languages. "
  
  Perhaps so.
  
  Even as recent as last month, discovery of 3rd century Tamil inscriptions have bene found. So we are not yet at the point where we can conclude with certainty who borrowed the script from who.
  
  Even with regard to pulli I think the truth is out there and yet to be found IMHO, but the logic that because of pulli, we must have borrowed the alphabets, I am not too certain about. Pulli is unique to Tamil among ancient scripts. Dot was used to represent zero, so perhaps the usage of dot has something to do with zero, i.e., to represent no vowel sound??? I am speculating here of course. I am sure in the course of the years to come we might find an older script, that will throw light on this development.
  
  Inscriptions are still being discovered like the 3rd century inscription discovered recently, the other one near Egypt, etc. So we may have to wait and see.
  
  
• From: R.Srinivasan. (U.S.A) (@ ip68-0-198-105.ri.ri.cox.net) on: Wed Oct 22 17:23:15 EDT 2003
  
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