Sumerian is Archaic Tamil / the Tamil of First CaGkam

Central to my various claims about the Dravidian past remains my identification of Sumerian as Archaic Tamil, a fossil of the past of Tamil Language, a fossil in the sense of Aurobindo’s Evolutionary linguistics. Languages evolve in various ways and it happens that Tamil language has evolved over the last 5000 years at least throwing on the way many fossils of which we have abundance of such fossils in Sumeria (4000 BC to 1000 BC) and from about 300 BC to 300 AD in CaGkam classics and so forth. There is a gap perhaps from about 2000 BC to about 500 BC that needs to be filled up.

Dr K.Loganathan

http://arutkural.tripod.com/sumstudies/sum-as-arch-tamil.htm

Affinity of Indus texts with Dravidian language Tamil

There has been considerable debate regarding whether the Indus texts have affinity with the Dravidian languages (such as Tamil), Indo-European languages (such as Sanskrit), or some other language family. A frequently cited argument in favor of the Dravidian hypothesis is that the Indus texts appear to be agglutinative in their morphological structure: sign sequences often have the same initial signs but different final signs (ranging from 1 to 3 signs).Such modification of morphemes by a system of suffixes is found in Dravidian languages but is rare in Indo-European languages (such as Sanskrit) which tend to be inflectional (changing the final sound of a word rather than adding suffixes). Our result that the conditional entropy(measure of the loss of information in a transmitted signal or message) of the Indus texts is closest to Old Tamil, a Dravidian language, among the datasets we considered is suggestive in this regard. However, this result is also tied to our use of an alpha-syllabic script to represent the Sangam era Tamil texts.

Citation

Entropic Evidence for Linguistic Structure in the Indus Script

Rajesh P. N. Rao, Nisha Yadav,Mayank N. Vahia,Hrishikesh Joglekar,R. Adhikari, Iravatham Mahadevan

Tamil the language of Dravidians

The extensive excavations carried out at the two principal city sites, Harappa nd Mohenjo-Daro, both situated in the Indus basin, indicates that this Dravidian culture was well established by about 2500 B.C., and subsequent discoveries have revealed that it covered most of the Lower Indus Valley. What we know of this ancient civilization is derived almost exclusively from archaeological data since every attempt to decipher the script u sed by these people has failed so far. Recent analyses of the order of the signs on the inscriptions have led several scholars to the view that the language is not of the Indo-European family, nor is it close to the Sumerians, Hurrians, or Elamite, nor can it be related to the structure of the Munda languages of modern India. If it is related to any modern language family it appears to be Dravidian akin to Old Tamil, presently spoken throughout the southern part of the Indian Peninsula.

Citation

"The Development of Civilization and Religion in India and its Influence on the World Society"

Dr. Alexander Harris

Vedas compiled and worte by Dravidians

The bibliographical evidences indicate that the Vedas are written in the Grantha and Nagari scripts, and according to tradition Veda Vyasa, a Dravidian, compiled and wrote the Vedas. The Grantha script belongs to the southern group of scripts and Veda Vyasa being a Dravidian would certainly have used it.

Citation

"The Development of Civilization and Religion in India and its Influence on the World Society"

Dr. Alexander Harris

Tamil browser - Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox

Its nice to see the internationalization of the browsers Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. I have tried firefox tamil and its good. Thumbs up to Google and Mozilla. This is one reason for the tamils in the rural areas to start using computers and the flow of information could help them educate and reap the benifits with the knowledge they gain out of it.

Awesome job Google and Mozilla !!!

Iam looking forward to see Google Search in Tamil .

Google Chrome Tamil

http://www.google.com/chrome/index.html?hl=ta&brand=CHMB&utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-na-us-sk&utm_medium=ha

Mozilla Firefox Tamil

Download

Origin of the word "Tamil"

The English word Dravidian was first employed by Robert Caldwell in his book of comparative Dravidian grammar based on the usage of the Sanskrit word "IAST|drāviḍa" in the work "Tantravārttika" by IAST|Kumārila Bhaṭṭa (Zvelebil 1990:xx). As for the origin of the Sanskrit word "IAST|drāviḍa" itself there have been various theories proposed. Basically the theories are about the direction of derivation between "IAST|tamiẓ" and "IAST|drāviḍa".

There is no definite philological and linguistic basis for asserting unilaterally that the name "Dravida" also forms the origin of the word "Tamil" (Dravida -> Dramila -> Tamizha or Tamil). Zvelebil cites the forms such as "dramila" (in IAST|Daṇḍin's Sanskrit work "Avanisundarīkathā") "IAST|damiḷa" (found in Ceylonese chronicle Mahavamsa) and then goes on to say (ibid. page xxi): "The forms "damiḷa"/"damila" almost certainly provide a connection of "IAST|dr(a/ā)viḍa" " and "... "IAST|tamiḷ" < "IAST|tamiẓ" ...whereby the further development might have been *"IAST|tamiẓ" > *"IAST|damiḷ" > "IAST|damiḷa"- / "damila"- and further, with the intrusive, 'hypercorrect' (or perhaps analogical) -"r"-, into "IAST|dr(a/ā)viḍa". The -"m"-/-"v"- alternation is a common enough phenomenon in Dravidian phonology" (Zvelebil 1990:xxi)Zvelebil in his earlier treatise (Zvelebil 1975: p53) states: "It is obvious that the Sanskrit "IAST|dr(a/ā)viḍa", Pali "damila", "IAST|damiḷo" and Prakrit "IAST|d(a/ā)viḍa" are all etymologically connected with "IAST|tamiẓ" and further remarks "The "r" in "IAST|tamiẓ" > "IAST|dr(a/ā)viḍa" is a hypercorrect insertion, cf. an analogical case of DED 1033 Ta. "kamuku", Tu."kangu" "areca nut": Skt. "kramu(ka)".".

Further, another eminent Dravidian linguist Bhadriraju Krishnamurti in his book "Dravidian Languages" (Krishnamurti 2003: p. 2, footnote 2) states:"Joseph (1989: IJDL 18.2:134-42) gives extensive references to the use of the term "IAST|draviḍa", "dramila" first as the name of a people, then of a country. Sinhala inscriptions of BCE [Before Christian Era] cite "IAST|dameḍa"-, "damela"- denoting Tamil merchants. Early Buddhist and Jaina sources used "IAST|damiḷa"- to refer to a people of south India (presumably Tamil); "IAST|damilaraṭṭha"- was a southern non-Aryan country; "IAST|dramiḷa"-, "IAST|dramiḍa", and "IAST|draviḍa"- were used as variants to designate a country in the south ("IAST|Bṛhatsamhita-", "Kādambarī", "Daśakumāracarita-", fourth to seventh centuries CE) (1989: 134-8). It appears that "IAST|damiḷa"- was older than "IAST|draviḍa"- which could be its Sanskritization."

Based on what Krishnamurti states referring to a scholarly paper published in the International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, the Sanskrit word "IAST|draviḍa" itself is later than "IAST|damiḷa" since the dates for the forms with -r- are centuries later than the dates for the forms without -r- ("IAST|damiḷa", "IAST|dameḍa"-, "damela"- etc.). So it is clear that it is difficult to maintain Dravida -> Dramila -> Tamizha or Tamil.

The Monier-Williams Sanskrit Dictionary [ [http://webapps.uni-koeln.de/tamil/ Sanskrit, Tamil and Pahlavi Dictionaries ] ] lists for the Sanskrit word "draviUnicode|ḍa" a meaning of "collective Name for 5 peoples, viz. the Āndhras, KarUnicode|ṇāUnicode|ṭakas, Gurjaras, TailaUnicode|ṅgas, and MahārāUnicode|ṣṭras".

Tamil never came from Sanskrit

April 11, 2000

Statement on the Status of Tamil as a Classical Language

Professor Maraimalai has asked me to write regarding the position of Tamil as a classical language, and I am delighted to respond to his request.

I have been a Professor of Tamil at the University of California, Berkeley, since 1975 and am currently holder of the Tamil Chair at that institution. My degree, which I received in 1970, is in Sanskrit, from Harvard, and my first employment was as a Sanskrit professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1969. Besides Tamil and Sanskrit, I know the classical languages of Latin and Greek and have read extensively in their literatures in the original. I am also well-acquainted with comparative linguistics and the literatures of modern Europe (I know Russian, German, and French and have read extensively in those languages) as well as the literatures of modern India, which, with the exception of Tamil and some Malayalam, I have read in translation. I have spent much time discussing Telugu literature and its tradition with V. Narayanarao, one of the greatest living Telugu scholars, and so I know that tradition especially well. As a long-standing member of a South Asian Studies department, I have also been exposed to the richness of both Hindi literature, and I have read in detail about Mahadevi Varma, Tulsi, and Kabir.

I have spent many years -- most of my life (since 1963) -- studying Sanskrit. I have read in the original all of Kalidasa, Magha, and parts of Bharavi and Sri Harsa. I have also read in the original the fifth book of the Rig Veda as well as many other sections, many of the Upanisads, most of the Mahabharata, the Kathasaritsagara, Adi Sankara’s works, and many other works in Sanskrit.

I say this not because I wish to show my erudition, but rather to establish my fitness for judging whether a literature is classical. Let me state unequivocally that, by any criteria one may choose, Tamil is one of the great classical literatures and traditions of the world.

The reasons for this are many; let me consider them one by one.

First, Tamil is of considerable antiquity. It predates the literatures of other modern Indian languages by more than a thousand years. Its oldest work, the Tolkappiyam,, contains parts that, judging from the earliest Tamil inscriptions, date back to about 200 BCE. The greatest works of ancient Tamil, the Sangam anthologies and the Pattuppattu, date to the first two centuries of the current era. They are the first great secular body of poetry written in India, predating Kalidasa's works by two hundred years.

Second, Tamil constitutes the only literary tradition indigenous to India that is not derived from Sanskrit. Indeed, its literature arose before the influence of Sanskrit in the South became strong and so is qualitatively different from anything we have in Sanskrit or other Indian languages. It has its own poetic theory, its own grammatical tradition, its own esthetics, and, above all, a large body of literature that is quite unique. It shows a sort of Indian sensibility that is quite different from anything in Sanskrit or other Indian languages, and it contains its own extremely rich and vast intellectual tradition.

Third, the quality of classical Tamil literature is such that it is fit to stand beside the great literatures of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Chinese, Persian and Arabic. The subtlety and profundity of its works, their varied scope (Tamil is the only premodern Indian literature to treat the subaltern extensively), and their universality qualify Tamil to stand as one of the great classical traditions and literatures of the world. Everyone knows the Tirukkural, one of the world's greatest works on ethics; but this is merely one of a myriad of major and extremely varied works that comprise the Tamil classical tradition. There is not a facet of human existence that is not explored and illuminated by this great literature.

Finally, Tamil is one of the primary independent sources of modern Indian culture and tradition. I have written extensively on the influence of a Southern tradition on the Sanskrit poetic tradition. But equally important, the great sacred works of Tamil Hinduism, beginning with the Sangam Anthologies, have undergirded the development of modern Hinduism. Their ideas were taken into the Bhagavata Purana and other texts (in Telugu and Kannada as well as Sanskrit), whence they spread all over India. Tamil has its own works that are considered to be as sacred as the Vedas and that are recited alongside Vedic mantras in the great Vaisnava temples of South India (such as Tirupati). And just as Sanskrit is the source of the modern Indo-Aryan languages, classical Tamil is the source language of modern Tamil and Malayalam. As Sanskrit is the most conservative and least changed of the Indo-Aryan languages, Tamil is the most conservative of the Dravidian languages, the touchstone that linguists must consult to understand the nature and development of Dravidian.

In trying to discern why Tamil has not been recognized as a classical language, I can see only a political reason: there is a fear that if Tamil is selected as a classical language, other Indian languages may claim similar status. This is an unnecessary worry. I am well aware of the richness of the modern Indian languages -- I know that they are among the most fecund and productive languages on earth, each having begotten a modern (and often medieval) literature that can stand with any of the major literatures of the world. Yet none of them is a classical language. Like English and the other modern languages of Europe (with the exception of Greek), they rose on preexisting traditions rather late and developed in the second millennium. The fact that Greek is universally recognized as a classical language in Europe does not lead the French or the English to claim classical status for their languages.

To qualify as a classical tradition, a language must fit several criteria: it should be ancient, it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own not as an offshoot of another tradition, and it must have a large and extremely rich body of ancient literature. Unlike the other modern languages of India, Tamil meets each of these requirements. It is extremely old (as old as Latin and older than Arabic); it arose as an entirely independent tradition, with almost no influence from Sanskrit or other languages; and its ancient literature is indescribably vast and rich.

It seems strange to me that I should have to write an essay such as this claiming that Tamil is a classical literature -- it is akin to claiming that India is a great country or Hinduism is one of the world's great religions. The status of Tamil as one of the great classical languages of the world is something that is patently obvious to anyone who knows the subject. To deny that Tamil is a classical language is to deny a vital and central part of the greatness and richness of Indian culture.


(Signed:)
George L. Hart
Professor of Tamil
Chair in Tamil Studies