Talk:Tamil language/Archive 5

Tamil distribution map
Im ready to make a map showing the areas where the language is spoken, but i need data --Plane Mad 07:10, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
 * done--Plane Mad 15:45, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Nice work. Should the Singapore be added to this distribution. Praveen 16:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Is Tamil Brahmi Theory Globally recognised ?
Is there any Inscription in Tamil Brahmi which is completly deciphered? Can anyone Quote it here? As long as i know it is called tamil brahmi because,even though the script is Brahmi the langauge is tamil itself. Now this makes sense only when any Inscription is completly deciphered.Is this Tamil Brahmi theory globally recognised? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nrupatunga (talk • contribs)


 * See -> Early Tamil Epigraphy. From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. by Iravatham Mahadevan, the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA, 2003--Aadal 21:26, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Madras Bashai
On a 'unrelated' development, speakers of 'Madras Bashai' demands that all instances of Tamil before 20th century be changed to 'proto-madrastbashai-tamil'. They are also asking for classical language status. In fact recently a scholar has unearthed evidence that there existed a book which was written 2000 years ago. But unfortunately this so called grammar book is not found till now. Praveen 02:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Tieken's views are isolated or minority view
The reference to Tieken's work should be removed because he had followed fundamentally flawed approach. Read the reviews of Hart and others. It is a most outrageous work and his comments in the book are absolutely repugnant such that the people were fools etc. I'll give more details later. See Hart's review in J. Am. Orient. Soc. 124 No.1 Jan/Mar 2004. where he shows the flawed approach. He says, "Suffice to say that Tieken has not produced one plausible argument to justify his contentions about the dating of Sangam literature." Tieken had taken positions with such abandon to show that Tamil works follow Skt Kavya of later times, it is absolutely ridiculous. He is alone in his strange view. He had such contempt for the Tamil songs and works it is not funny - but it is he who loses credibility. Read Luzzi's review in Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 60, No. 2. (2001), pp. 373-374. I don't think a reference to his work is needed here (I've no problem if it should remain, but then I would like to add Devaneya Pavanar's assessments as well!). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Aadal (talk • contribs) 23:10, 26 April 2007 (UTC). --Aadal 23:12, 26 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Aadal, if you have access to references 17 & 20, please cross check. After seeing the Caldwell's statement (I used it one of replies above), I feel that reference 17 might be dubious. Adding to the suspicion is the editor's consistent ignorance of our requests to quote the relevant passage(s). BTW: I have access to two reviews from reputed professors from US universities which questions the Tieken's 'thesis'. They have highlighted his mistakes of ignoring inscription-evidences. Also, they clearly state that Tieken stand to loose the argument that will sure ensue. Thanks.Praveen 23:15, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll try to check. --Aadal 23:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

From Whiney Cox's review of Tieken, "most intriguingly, a reading of the epic CilappatikaÅram as a narrativization of the westward movement of Pandiyan culture to what is today Kerala (pp. 196±207). This is juxtaposed, however, by the groundless claim that the redactors of the anthologies were identical with the composers of later Saiva and Vaishnava bhakti poetry. "

From a review by Anne E. Monius in The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 61, No. 4. (Nov., 2002), pp. 1404-1406., "Equally troubling is a variety of historical arguments that dismiss evidence contrary to Tieken's overall conclusions." .."Why does the Tamil local literary culture look so different from the manipravtila produced in roughly the same era in Kannada? Whenever individual words or phrases in the poetry belie Tieken's argument, the author accuses the poets of "lapses" (p. 213), as when images of saivate temple worship "intrude" on the construction of an archaic Tamil society. Regarding the earliest inscription that mentions temple recitation of the Tiruppatiyam or "Holy Songs" of devotion to saiva (a Pallava inscription from the eighth century that might challenge Tieken's late dating of the bhakti corpus), the author simply assumes that such information "may well be an addition inserted into the original document by the copyist" (p. 216 n. 4)! Tieken's assertion that the wandering saints of the devotional poetry "actually rejected the temple cult" (p. 217) blatantly ignores the particularly Saiva poetic insistence on the necessity of temple worship." ....The rural images of village life, Tieken asserts, "function . . . as a stereotyped setting for everything backward and foolish" (p. 11); the "dullness, poverty and frustrated ambitions" of the characters serve the literary interests of connoisseurs "who are, or think they are, smart, wealthy and sophisticated" (p. 72). Even the mountain god who dominates the Cankam religious landscape, Murukas, is the object of derision, according to Tieken: "CT)he poets of Akam appear to refer to Murukag mainly to ridicule him and his stupid priest with his useless rites" (p. 142). Yet much of this tone of derision is not immediately obvious in the illustrative stanzas the author provides. Can this be the same poetry of subtle sophistication and nuanced meaning that Dubianskii reads? Much more damaging to Tieken's overall argument is the fact that nowhere does he address why PZntiyas literary culture should produce such a corpus of poetry about awkward fools."

An interested reader should have a reasonable understanding of the Tamil literature, must have read Tieken's work and must have read the several reviews to see how ridiculous and outrageous his work is. Hart has already shown that his method is fundamentally flawed (read his review). The fact that user Sarvagnya wants to quote Tieken in this article on Tamil clearly shows he does not understand an iota of Tamil liteature.

I would ask that the such flawed work as Tieken be removed as a reference. --Aadal 03:52, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Did anyone read Herman's comment on harts review? If you had seen those comments you people would not have reacted like this.Tieken research is slowly getting accepted by scholars all over the world.hart has tried to do a loud shouting,but tieken justification has really shut hart's mouth.why do you think hart has not put tiekens's reviews? Is hart really afraid to do so?

Nrupatunga 07:49, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The criticism is not only by Hart. If you have references of Tieken's views getting accepted 'world over', please be kind enough to share with us. Praveen 14:01, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Nrupatunga, please stop feeding trolls. Its just not worth it.  Sarvagnya 15:23, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Skt-Tamil
If the influence of Skt on Tamil should be taken as proper and not influence of Prakrit on Tamil, then the influence of Skt is from Tamil unless shown to be otherwise. Remember that Tamil is referred as dramila in Skt works and the demonstration of influence is shown with Tamil as a proto-type.--Aadal 23:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Tamil consonant section
AFAICS there are some problems with the Tamil consonant section, reproduced here for reference


 * During my study of Tamil, I have heard of palatal affricates tʃ (ச) and dʒ (ஜ), but not of the palatal stops c and ɟ. Take for instance the pronunciation of Chennai, which is [tʃenne] and not [cenne] or [senne], as far as I can see, but I may be wrong. Some dialects at least do have affricates, and this should be mentioned. The English reference grammars only mention the affricates, and do not mention the palatal stops IIRC.
 * I don't think you're right. There are some variations, for sure. The problem is because of multiple shades in the pronunciation, I think. Tamils have long recognized that every subtle 'sound'(phonemic??) can not be and need not be represented. I've heard people say with cennai, chennai, sennai and also the last vowel pronunced with e, a etc.


 * Regarding the different t´s, the dental one (த) and the retroflex one (ட) are clear cases. I am not so sure about the phonemic status of the alveolar one (ற) (not postalveolar BTW?). I think that it is present in Sri Lankan dialects, but not that much in India. The phonological rules t+R=tr and n+R=ndr should be mentioned.
 * Again I don't agree with your observation. There are indeed differences in the pronunciation of ற்ற, ற among tamils across the world. I have no problem is mentioning different rules, but what needs to be said and how to say them are open questions.


 * what about /h/? There is even a letter for it (ஹ), yet it is not mentioned.
 * Again, it is not a phoneme in the standard language. Tamils use a large number of foreign words and expressions all the phonemes of foreign languages need not be represented here, I hope.


 * parens are currently used for allophones AND for phonemes only occuring in loan words. This is confusing. Maybe use parens for the one and brackets [] for the other?
 * I think this can be done. This is now done.--Aadal 13:33, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


 * what is this about phonemes in loanwords anyway? Shall we put 57 additional phonemes because some Tamil Muslim uses some Arabic uvular stops and some Brahmin tries to aspirate some stops? I think the whole section can go away.
 * Needs to review this. Yes this suggestion should be considered.


 * the table mentions a palatal fricative /ɕ/ as present in loanwords. From what language would those loanwords come? No language in the region has that sound. Maybe a Visarga was intended???
 * Not true. Example:*Sanskrit: शत, "hundred"--Aadal 13:40, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


 * ɾ̪ is in the table cell for dental approximants. This is complete nonsense
 * Needs review. I reviewed it, and it appears the entry in the article is correct. It is however possible to consider this as dental or alveolar approximant and the differences in this context is not demonstrated. If you can provide evidence to the contrary, it should be changed otherwise it is wise to leave it as is. And I think it is correct (I didn't create this table BTW).--Aadal 13:47, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Tamil does not have a dental approximant
 * Could you explain? See above and my response to the next bullet.


 * AFAICS no language has a dental approximant, they are labial, alveolar or further back, but not dental
 * Tamil has two ர and ன and of which ன would be closer to dental approximant (and not alveolar or further back and it is also not labial). I'm not sure how ர is viewed by the phoeticians.


 * If ever Tamil was shown to have a dental approximant, the IPA character for that would be [ɹ̪]
 * I'm not sure either but see my response to the prvious bullet.
 * If you are sure, please go ahead and change it as needed. --Aadal 13:47, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I am seriously wondering how this could become FA.
 * This is a small section, and if there are concerns it can be addressed. What exactly are your reservations?

Jasy jatere 08:36, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for reviewing this section. --Aadal 15:29, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Jasy Jatere, would you please respond to my reply and suggest what needs to be done. In my view it is already accurate and some of your claims are not clear and would welcome making the needed changes. Please understand that there are a few phonemes or allophones which are not clearly spelled out even by the experts. If you don't make any changes in the next few days, can the accuracy flag be removed? As I said there are differences even among the experts and these hard to pin down exactly because there are serious variations in reality. I would welcome input on making changes or on removing the accuracy flag. --Aadal 13:33, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

---

Let me add the consonant tables given in Bh. Krishnamurti (Dravidian languages, p62) for both Old Tamil and Modern Tamil.

For Old Tamil (Bh.K quotes Lehman 1998: 75-99) (Bh.K's foot note says Lehman treats [n overdot] as an allophone of /n/; /l/ should have been given under alveolars. Old Tamil sandhi l +t -> t (kal 'learn' +tt past -> ka tt -) suggests that /l/ was an alveolar. Alveolars and retroflexes do not begin a word, but dentals do. Even by this criterion /l/ should have been listed in alveolar clumn; aytam / k / should have been included in the table. )

For Modern Tamil (quotes Annamalai and Steever 1998: 100-28)

So, there seems to be some confusions among linguists. The table given in Andronov (A comparative grammar of the dravidian languages p.28) varies (even in terminology), but he gives for the whole dravidian and not just for Tamil. --Aadal 22:47, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Nice work Aadal. Praveen 02:40, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. --Aadal 04:34, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi Aadal, sorry for the delay, I was on a trip. Nice work. Either of those tables is fine with me. Note that one is Old Tamil, while the other one is Modern Tamil, so that it is not surprising that the phonemic inventories are described as different. The Annamalai table is pretty much the one I would have expected. I think we should use that one. There are two points of concern: Jasy jatere 18:00, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
 * ழ் is missing
 * It is not in IPA, but in a practical transliteration. I will put the Annamalai table into the article and change the sounds into IPA.

References in the Introduction
I think it is not necessary to cite in introduction. Please clarify me & let me know where to move the citations in the introduction. I will do it. Thanks Praveen 15:21, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Concern about copyright status of some pics
I have some doubts about the copyright status of some of the pictures used in the article. The pictures in question are Image:Christian_prayers_in_tamil_on_palm_leaves.jpg and Image:Genesis_in_a_Tamil_bible_from_1723.jpg. Both are pictures of things that are inarguably old for copyright. But my question is, are pictures themselves ineligible for copyright? In other words, unless the photographs are more than 60 years old or unless the photographer has been dead for more than 100 years or so, the picture is still copyright of somebody else(the photographer). The mentions that it was taken from the Library of Congress website. In that case, the copyright of the image should be with the LoC. To compare, lets take a look at the other pic in the article Image:Vatteluttu.png. It is a derivative I created myself from the original that Venu62 had uploaded. And Venu62 had uploaded his own photography. It is not the case in the other two pics. The photos were clicked by and hence belong(are copyrighted) to someone else. I have always been a little confused with image copyrights. So I'd like somebody who knows better to comment. Thanks. Sarvagnya 00:02, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
 * AFAIK, digital images owned by library of congress comes under GPL. If you know anything specific, please enunciate here. Thanks Praveen 23:58, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Its not a question of 'AFAYK'. It is a question of what you can verifiably demonstrate.  If the LoC has indeed released their works on GPL, show me the evidence.  And 'AFAIK' LoC's 'properties' include copies of almost every book printed on the planet.  I am sure all those books are not on GPL.  Not yet.  Sarvagnya 01:11, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Do not draw conclusions that LoC's properties are in question here. We are talking only about digital reproduction of original work whose copyright has expired. Those files are free because I quote,
 * This image is a faithful reproduction of a two-dimensional work of art and thus not copyrightable in itself in the U.S. as per Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.; the same is also true in many other countries, including Germany.
 * And since there is no copyright on original work & reproduction, there is no copyright issues here as for as wikipedia is concerned. I hope I have cleared your doubt Praveen 02:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The copyright tags for both images explain why they're public domain as far as Wikipedia is concerned. To put it briefly, as far as the palm leaf manuscripts go, the Library of Congress is an agency of the US Federal Government, and all works it creates (such as photographs of out-of-copyright objects) are in the public domain.  The license tag gives you a reference to the relevant provision of US copyright law.
 * The picture of the Bible page is in the public domain under Bridgeman v. Corel, a summary of which is linked to from the tag, as it is a faithful reproduction of a two-dimensional object which itself is out of copyright (i.e, the page of the book in question).
 * I happen to teach intellectual property law, so if you have any questions on copyright law, feel free to raise them (although I won't be too quick to answer, being away on a research expedition). -- Arvind 13:55, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you Arvind! It is indeed very nice of you to take a look at this even when you were on a research expedition and especially with your expertise on IP/copyright law, it should be clear now. --Aadal 15:05, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Need help at Gottuvadhyam
Hi, can we get the Tamil script at the Gottuvadhyam article? And are there other South Indian scripts that should also be given there? Badagnani 01:29, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Also, does anyone know the etymology of this word? I thought it was derived from a famous player of the instrument, years ago. Badagnani 01:31, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Old Tamil Cahkam literature and the so-called Cankam period,Herman Tieken
Instituut Kern University of Leiden, The Netherlands

The reconstruction of the early history of Tamilnadu has been based mainly on the so- called Cankam poetry. This poetry is generally taken to provide descriptions of Tamilnadu by contemporary poets during the period before the rise of the Pallavas and the introduction of Sanskrit culture in the South. However, the argument is basically circular, that is to say, Cankam poetry is dated before the Pallavas because it does not mention the Pallavas and describes a purely indigenous culture which is hardly touched by Sanskrit culture. In the present article it will be argued that Cankam poetry does not describe a contemporary soci ety or the poets' own culture, but a society from the past, or life in small, primitive villages which are far removed from the poets' own cosmopolitan milieu. This means that Cankam poetry is to be dated after the period it describes. On closer consideration, we appear to be dealing with certain literary genres borrowed from the North Indian Kâvya tradition, more in particular with compositions which are typically not written in Sanskrit but in Prâkrit or Apabhramsa. In Cankam literature, the regional Tamil language has been assigned the role of a Prâkrit. This use of Tamil we otherwise meet in the inscriptions of the Pântiyas of the eighth or ninth century and only in the inscriptions of that dynasty. This suggests that Cankam poetry was composed by the same poets who were responsible for the Velvikudi and Dalavaypuram inscriptions of the Pântiyas. As such, it is no longer possible to use this poetry for the reconstruction of the early history of Tamilnadu. On the other hand, Cankam poetry does supply interesting material for the study of the cultural politics of a newly arisen regional dynasty in eighth-century South India. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nrupatunga (talk • contribs) 08:03, 11 May 2007 (UTC).

Tieken reply to Hart's critiscism
Up to now, Hart's remarks concerning my book Kavya in South India. Old Tamil Cankam Poetry (Gonda Indological Studies X), Groningen 2001 have been general. Actually, they had been written before he had seen, let alone read my book. However, a few days ago Hart was more specific, addressing in some detail my paragraph on the arrangement of the poems in the anthologies. Before reacting on Hart's comments I would first like to provide some brief context to the discussion.

In the first part of my book I have argued that the villagers who are made to speak in the so-called love poems (Akam) are not, as has been assumed by Hart and others, the authors of the poems but characters in the poems. The authors of the poems do not belong to the village but have to be sought in a cosmopolitan milieu found in the city. I have done the same for the historical poems (Puram). The poor, starving bards who in the poems are wandering from one patron to the other, trying to make a living by their poetry, are not the authors of the poems but, again, personae in the poems.

In both the love poems and the historical poems we are dealing with stock-characters represented in fictional situations. As far as the historical poems are concerned, they had not been composed by the bards featuring in them but by later authors who were trying to bring back to life an earlier bardic poetry.

In the introduction I have noted that I had been somewhat embarrassed at having to prove the fictional nature of scenes of Cankam poetry, but the idea that in, for instance, Puram we are dealing with actual, "tape-recorded" conversations by historical persons is fairly wide-spread in Tamil studies. Another idea current in Tamil studies is that the Cankam poems are extempore, on the spot compositions. The poems do indeed contain some characteristics which are otherwise typical of such poetry. However, anyone familiar with Cankam poetry will agree that the poems cannot have been composed on the spot. In this connection I have mentioned the length of the sentences and the resultant complex style of the poems, which is a far cry from the simple adding style of epic poetry. These facts had already been noted by Hart in his 1975 book, but, as I have tried to show, his conclusions are a half-hearted compromise between regarding the poems as oral or written compositions.

As far as I know, nobody has tried to make clear by whom, in what way, and to what purpose the poems have been memorized and passed on to be put in anthologies only centuries later. And this brings me to the compilation of the anthologies.

In the majority of the anthologies the poems seem to have been put together more or less at random. Content does not seem to play any role at all. However, instead we find that each poem echoes certain words from the preceding poems. As an example I have quoted Kuruntokai 344 (the presentation below may not be as clear as the one on p. 96 of my book as it may well be the case that the tab positions are lost in the transmission):

336                                            pirinticinole 337                                                    mulai   nirai 338 annal eru          punkanmalai 339 340    katalar                                 peyar 341                                    katalar 342            tan     punkan 343 annal eru 344 annal eru  tan     punkanmalai     katalar peyarum mulai   nirai pirintu

The echoes are not restricted to lexemes. Occasionally, they involve suffixes, as in aku-mati (Kur. 18) and inai-mati (19) and in un-iiyar (27), tal-ii (29), mar-iiya (30) and kul-iiya and tal-iiya (31); particles, as in kuruk-um (25) and katuvan-um (26); and similar phrases, as in varutalum varuuam (88) and nuvaralum nuvalpa (89). Also some rare instances involving synonyms have been noted, as in aruntu (26) and un (27).

According to the current interpretation, the Tamil anthologies contain merely a selection from a boundless reservoir of floating, orally transmitted poems. However, the type of concatenation met with in, for instance, the Kuruntokai introduces a complication. For, while it may be relatively easy in the case of 344 to find in the vast corpus of existing poems another one containing the words annal and eru, to find one which in addition also contained the word punkan(malai) must have been much more difficult. In addition to that, the poem should not have been shorter than 4 lines or longer than 8.

My conclusion was, and is, that the idea that the compiler selected the poems from a reservoir of existing poems has to be abandoned. Instead, I suggested that the poems were composed for the first time at the moment of their inclusion in the anthology, if only because it might after all have been easier, starting from words in the preceding poems, to compose a new poem that to search one's memory for one.

This conclusion has been extended to include all eight Cankam anthologies. I take this opportunity to point to the Kalittokai and in particular to the inclusion of the kuravai poems in this collection. As I have suggested, the Kalittokai poems are Tamil counterparts of the lasyas and catuspadis of the Sanskrit Kavya tradition. The kuravai poems are hallisaka scenes transplanted to Tamilnadu. How did these hallisakas, which belong to the category of festival songs, find a place in a collection of lasyas and catuspadis? As I have tried to show on p. 185 ff., this can be explained with reference to a misunderstanding in the poetical tradition of Sanskrit, which misunderstanding is attested for the first time only in the ninth century, namely in Abhinavagupta's commmentary on the Natyasastra. This same misunderstanding is also found in Bhoja's Srngaraprakasa (tenth or eleventh century).

Hart now argues that the chance of identical words occurring in the poems is so great that it is actually impossible to find a poem which does not have one or more words in common with any other poems. In this connection I would like to note the following. If we turn to the scheme given above, the word annal occurs only 6 times in the 400 poems of Kuruntokai, the word eru altogether 9 times, punkan 7 times, and peyar (noun and verb) 25 times. And, as I have noted in footnote 15 on p. 98, also in the Purananuru "common" words appear typically in clusters of poems. Take the verb nikku/ninku: 150-153-154, 247-249-250, 392-393-397-398-400 or the verb pay: 23-24-25-30-31, etc.

Whatever the value of the statistics put forward by Hart, the prediction which he abstracted from it does not appear to come true.

All the points adduced by Hart in his earlier comment (the one written before he had read my book) are of course directly or indirectly addressed in my book. A point I have treated only briefly is the language of the poems. According to Hart and others the Cankam texts abound in archaic forms. I am, however, dealing with the language of Cankam poetry in an article, which is soon to be offered for publication. What I would like to mention here is that, while the Cankam texts are indeed full of curious forms, what is unique is not necessarily old. Often the need to prove this was not even felt by scholars as the occurrence of the forms in question in Cankam poetry was believed to take care of that. To claim, as Hart does, that the forms are "demonstrably much more archaic" (than the ninth or tenth century) is premature.

Finally, I hope that this reaction of mine will not provoke a similar kind of discussion as we have recently witnessed in connection with Axel Michaels' book on the subject of the pandit. As far as I am concerned, this is my last reaction before the publication of the complete version of Hart's review of my book in JAOS.

Herman Tieken Instituut Kern Universiteit te Leiden

Nrupatunga 09:01, 11 May 2007 (UTC)