Early Tamil Epigraphy

1
Early Tamil Epigraphy From the Earliest Times to
the 6th Century AD By Iravatham Mahadevan --- An
Overview by S. Swaminathan
2
Early Tamil Epigraphy From the Earliest Times to
the 6th Century AD By Iravatham
Mahadevan --- Published by Cre-A,
India Harvard University, USA 2003
3
The book deals with development of two scripts
of Tamil Tamil-Brahmi and Early
VaTTezhuttu covering a period from the 3rd
century BC till the 6th century AD.
4
First, let me provide some background
information regarding the scripts discussed in
the book in order to follow My Overview
5
We would come across with five scripts in the
book
Brahmi, Tamil Brahmi, VaTTezhuttu, Tamil
and Grantha
Short description of these scripts follows.
6
Brahmi
Brahmi is an ancient script of India. The
earliest writing in Brahmi is found in the
edicts of Asoka dated to the 3rd century BC.
Brahmi is a general term and there existed a
number of regional variations, like Southern
Brahmi, Sinhala-Brahmi etc.
7
Brahmi Mother script of Indian Languages
Brahmi is the script from which all other native
Indian scripts, except the Harappan, are derived.
8
Development of the letter N (?) in all Indian
languages starting from Brahmi, It may be
noted how the characters change drastically over
the centuries!
9
Development of latter k (?) in Devanagari, Tamil
and other south Indian Scripts
BC-AD
10
Development of vowels of Tamil from Early
Tamil-Brahmi
11
Development of consonants of Tamil from Early
Tamil-Brahmi
12
Brahmi Mother script of many Asian Languages
Pallava Grantha, a derivative of Brahmi, a
script developed to write Sanskrit in the Tamil
country was the inspiration to most of the
Asian scripts. This happened through the
political and the cultural conquest by the
Indian rulers starting from the Pallava-s
13
Development of letter k (?) for the languages
of Java, Sumatra Borneo, Thai, Laos, Khmer, Combo
dia, Vietnam, etc from the Grantha script
14
Tamil-Brahmi
Tamil-Brahmi is the name of the script in which
the earliest inscriptions in Tamil are found.
Let us see how Tamil-Brahmi looks like
15
Tamil-Brahmi inscription Kudumiyanmalai, 3rd
century AD
?? ? û ??? ü ? ó ? ö ? ?? ö
The hermitage (is the gift) of koRRantai of
nAzhaL
16
VaTTezhuttu
VaTTezhuttu, a cursive style, was derived from
Tamil-Brahmi, and was current all over the Tamil
country from the 5th century AD.
17
VaTTezhuttu
Tamil script that came into use from the 7th
century displaced VaTTezhuttu. With the
ascendancy of the Chozhas, and the displacement
was total by 13th century. However the script
lingered on till the 19th century in Kerala for
writing Malayalam.
18
VaTTezhuttu
The Pulankurichchi inscriptions (5th century)
are the earliest. A number of hero-stones in
the Dharmapuri district have been found
inscribed in Early VaTTezhuttu.
Let us see a specimen of VaTTEzhttu
19
Vattezhuttu inscription Thirunatharkunru, 6th
century AD
? ?? ? ?? ?? ? ? ai m pa t tE zha na ? ? ?? ???
?? ? ca na n nO R Ra ? ?? ?? ? ? ?? ?? ? ca
na ti ra na n ti A ?? ?? ? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ci ri
ka ru ni cI ti kai
?????????? ??????? ????? ýÒ ?????? ???????????
???????? ???? ????? ???? The seat of penance of
chantiramanti Acirikaru, who observed the fast
(unto death) for fifty-seven days
20
Tamil Script
The Pallava rulers created the Tamil script out
of the Grantha script by the 7th century, adding
necessary additional letters from VaTTezhuttu.
This is the view of Mahadevan, and is not shared
by some.
21
Tamil Script
There are (according to Mahadevan) no
inscriptions in the Tamil script before
Mahendra Pallavan I (7th century AD).
22
Tamil Script
There was a steep increase in inscriptions in
Tamil from the 9th century onwards. The
classical phase of Tamil script starts with the
ascendancy of the Chozha-s from the middle of
the 9th century. From the 11th century onwards
this became the main script for
Tamil throughout the Tamil country.
Here is an example of Tamil script in the early
stages
23
Tamil inscription Parantaka Chozha, 10th century
AD
Š?Š?? ???ô??????? ?? svatiShrI
kOpparakEsari parma Ì ??ñÎ 34 ???ñÎ ??? Rku
yANdu 34 ivANDu kAna ??ðÎ Ó???ó??ì
Ì?òÐ nATTu muniyantaik kuLattu ìÌ ?ó????
?î?ý ãò?? ?ðÊ Kku manthiri Accan mUrti aTTi ?
??Í 2 ??ñÎ ???? ?Õ ????ø Na kAcu 2 iraNDu kAcA
oru kAcAl
In the 34th year of Parantaka Chozha, Achchan
mUrti, a minister, has given 2 kasu-s for the
renovation of the lake
24
Grantha Script
Grantha, was derived from the Southern Brahmi
script of Prakrit characters by the Pallava-s
(6th century AD) to write Sanskrit in the Tamil
country.
Let us see how Grantha script then looked like.
25
Grantha inscription Mahendra Pallava, 7th century
AD
²¾¾3ɼÁò3ÕÁÁÄ EtadanishTamadrumamalO Á¾4õ
źòúò¾ Hamasudham vicitracittEna ÁÀ¾óÕ
À½ô3ÃÁ nirmApitanRpRNabrahmE ÅÃÅÏÄì¾Â¾õ S
hvaravishNulakshitAyatanam
The (cave) temple dedicated to Brahma, Siva and
Vishnu was excavated by Vichitrachitta (Mahendra
Pallava) without using brick, timber, metal and
mortar.
26
Discovery of inscriptions in the Tamil country
has been eventful
27
Discovery
Till the end of the 19th century only two
scripts were known VaTTezhuttu of the Pandiya-s
belonging to 8th century and Tamil of the
Pallava-s dated the 7th century
It was wondered why there should be two scripts
for one language. But their descent from Brahmi
was inferred.
28
Discovery
The complete absence of written record of a
great literary civilization of 2000 years vintage
was a puzzle.
29
Discovery
This was solved when cave inscriptions,
resembling closely the script of Asokan edicts,
were found in Tamilnadu around the end of
the 19th century.
30
Discovery
The earliest finding of cave inscription is of
Mangulam by Robert Sewell in 1882. This is not
only oldest finding, it is oldest lithic record
in Tamilnadu and it is also of great historical
significance.
And a host of discoveries followed.
31
Discovery
Until middle of the last century cave
inscriptions were the only source of early
Tamil writing. Then it was presumed that
Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions were caused to be
inscribed by Jaina and Buddhist monks who were
not conversant with Tamil, and that these
inscriptions did not represent language of the
day.
32
Discovery
With the finding of inscribed pottery in
Arikkamedu during 1941-44 and later from many
other sites the view has changed.
33
Discovery
The pottery inscriptions made it possible to
date inscriptions more accurately. It looks that
inscribing on pottery was given up after the
3rd century AD.
34
Deciphering, the Tamil-Brahmi script
35
DecipheringDifficulties
Deciphering cave inscriptions posed a number of
problems Most of the inscriptions were in
inaccessible locations Inscriptions were not
bold and clear Language was mistaken for
Prakrit Clues to a correct understanding of the
script were not found.
36
DecipheringMilestones
1906 Venkayya identified the script to be
Brahmi. But he thought that the language was
Pali. He read a line in Mettuppatti as anatai
ariya, attempted to seek Vedic roots for
the words. 1914 Krishna Sastri attempted to
read the bold Sittannavasal inscription.
37
DecipheringMilestones
1919 Krishna Sastri first noted purely
southern charactaristics, like the occurrences
of letter L ? which was identified earlier in
Simhala-Brahmi. He also identified the presence
of three unusual characters, later
identified as zh ?, R ? and n ?. He
was the first to feel that some of the consonants
must be basic (??ö).
38
DecipheringMilestones
1924 KV Subramania Iyer pointed out the
powerful misguiding factor that what was
written in Brahmi must be in Prakrit.
39
DecipheringMilestones
1924 KV Subramania Iyer found - Soft
consonants (? ? ? ? ?) were absent - sa (?, ? )
was occasionally used but Sh (º, ?) and sh
(?, ?) were absent. - All vowels except ai ,
au, Ri (?), Lr (?), M (??) and H (??) were
used - Conjunct consonants (Üð??ØòÐ) were
absent completely
40
DecipheringMilestones
1924 KV Subramania Iyer ruled out
Indo-European language and proved it is
Tamil. He demonstrated convincingly presence of
Tamil grammatical elements like pAkan
(Àý), vaNikan (Žý), etc
41
DecipheringMilestones
1924 KV Subramania Iyer could not still read
correctly because of his incorrect orthography
(spelling), his overestimation of the Prakrit
elements, etc
42
DecipheringMilestones
1938-9 Narayana Rao tried to put the clock
back. He felt that the language was Prakrit,
and actually read the inscriptions fully!
43
DecipheringMilestones
1961 KG Krishnan identified pulli (ÒûÇ?), a
device introduced later to mark the basic
consonants (??ö ØòÐ) and the short e ()
and o () vowels. Later pulli was also
identified in the 2nd century AD silver coin
of Satakarni.
44
DecipheringMilestones
1964 Kamil Zwelebil published the first
formal study of cave inscriptions. 1967 TV
Mahalingam published the first book-length study
of cave inscriptions.
45
DecipheringMahadevans attempts
1961 Mahadevan took up study of
inscriptions 1962-66 First round of visits to
the caves 1966 Corpus of 74 Tamil-Brahmi
inscriptions and 2 Early VaTTezhuttu
inscriptions from 21 sites published 1987
Mahadevan proposed a tentative model 1991-96
Second field expedition
2003 Publication of Early Tamil Epigraphy
46
DecipheringMahadevans attempts
Mahadevan made field visits to the sites
and prepared tracings direct from stones
and made use of computer enhancement of
photos. He made chronological classification.
47
Let us have a look at some important
inscriptions
48
Mangulam inscription
Mangulam inscription was discovered by Robert
Sewell in 1882, and was rediscovered by KV
Subramania Iyer in 1906
49
Mangulam inscription
This Tamil-Brahmi inscription is important,
because this is the earliest inscription to be
found and in this inscription
Nedunchezhiyan, a Sangam king, is mentioned.
50
Mangulam inscription
51
Mangulam inscription
The inscription is in Tamil-Brahmi and is dated
to the 2nd century BC
52
Mangulam inscription
A line from the inscription is given to compare
the Tamil script 2000 years ago with the present
day script.
? ?? ?? ? ?? ? ? ?? ?? ??
? ka Ni y na n ta a
si ri y i
It may be noted that a non-Tamil letter s (?) is
used
53
Mangulam inscription
The text of the inscription is given along with
meaning in present day Tamil
????? ???????????? ????????? ?3????? ??????
???????????? kaNiy nantaasiriyI kuvankE
dammam ittAa neTuncazhiyan ?????
??????? ????????? ????????????? ?????? paNaan
kaDalan vazhuttiy koTuppittaa paLiy
???? ???????? ????????? ?????? ???
??????????????? ??????? ????? ?????
???????????????? ??????? This is the charity to
nanta-siri kuvan, the kaNi the bed was caused to
be carved by kaTalan vazhuti, the servant of
neTunchezhian.
54
Edakkal inscription
Inscription in Edakkal, Kerala was discovered by
Fawcett in 1894. He made careful drawing and
took photos and submitted to Hultzsch. Hultzsch
took estampages and published a brief note to
Fawcett. Fawcett published a paper in 1901.
Hultzsch made an attempt to decipher, but could
not.
For a century no further was action taken
55
Edakkal inscription
Mahadevan made two expeditions in 1995 and 1996.
Unfortunately, these Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions
have been obliterated due to graffiti by
tourists
56
Edakkal inscription
During the 1996 expedition, Mahadevan found two
other Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions dated to the
3rd century AD. In one of them there was a
mention of kaTummiputa chEra, a ChEra
king. This is also another important
inscription for it belongs to the age of a
Sangam king
57
Pugalur inscription
In Pugalur, near Karur, the ancient Chera
capital a number of inscriptions were
discovered. One of them is important for it is a
record of a Chera king of the Irumporai line
which ruled from Karur in the Sangam age.
58
Pugalur inscription
The text of the inscription
Ó?? ??ñ?ý ??üê ??í????ý ???ö mutA amaNNan yARRUr
senkAyapan uRaiy ??? ??ý ??ø??Õõ????? ??ý kO Atan
cellirumpoRai makan ??Õí?Îí???ý
??ý??í perunkaTunkOn makan (i)Lan ?Îí?????í???
?? ?Úò? ?ø kaTunkO(i)LankO Aka aRutta kal
59
Pugalur inscription
The meaning of the inscription
The abode of the senior Jaina monk, senkAyapan of
yARRUr. The rock (shelter) was carved when
(i)LankaTunkO, the son of perunkaTunkOn, the
son of King Atan sel irumpoRai, became the heir
apparent.
60
Jamabai inscription
Inscription in Jambai, in Villuppuram
district, is one among the most outstanding
discoveries. Dated to the 1st century AD the
inscription records the grant of a cave shelter
by atiyan neTumAn anchi, identified as the
famous chieftain of Takatur (modern Dharmapuri),
celebrated in Purananuru.
61
Jamabai inscription
The text of the inscription is given along with
its meaning
????Ò??? ????ó ??Î??ó ?ï?? ?ò? ?Ç? satiyaputO
atiyan neTumAn anci Itta paLi
The hermitage was given by atiyamaAn neTumAn
añchi, the satiyaputta
62
Jamabai inscription
Atiyan neTumAn anchi, has the title of
satiyapitO a title found in the Second Rock
edict of Asoka along with Cheras, Chozhas and
Pandyas, thus establishing conclusively Asokas
connection with the Tamil country.
63
Jamabai inscription
The identification of Satiyaputo with with
Atiyaman was on the linguistic grounds by
Sesha Iyer and improved upon by Burrow.
64
Jamabai inscription
According to Burrow the developments are
satiya ???? to atiya ???? (with the loss
of the initial consonant), and putO Ò???
meaning son makan, ??ý then makan ??ý
to mAn ??ý like chEramAn ?ºÃÁ?ý correspond
ing to kEraLaputO ??ÃÇÒ???.
65
Now let us go through the contents of the book
66
Mahadevans Book
Mahadevans book deals with Early Tamil-Brahmi
(2nd century BC to 1st century AD) Late
Tamil Brahmi (2nd to 4th centuries
AD) Early Vattezhuththu (5th 6th
centuries AD) and does not include Later
Vattezhuththu and Tamil (both from 7th
century AD)
67
Mahadevans BookContents
Part One Early Tamil Inscriptions Part Two
Studies in Early Tamil Epigraphy Part
Three Corpus of Early Tamil Inscriptions
68
Part One Early Tamil Inscriptions
69
Chapter 1 Discovery
Discovering cave inscriptions have been uneven
and the book discusses important
discoveries. The contemporary inscriptions on
potteries, coins, seals and rings are
included in the appendix to this chapter.
70
Chapter 2 Decipherment
The exciting story of deciphering is a very
important chapter. The early attempts like the
path-breaking paper by KV Subramania Iyer in
1924, and the discovery of pulli, and
important researches from 1970, including
Mahadevans work, and finally, a chronology of
Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions that includes
pottery and other inscriptions.
71
Chapter 3Language
This chapter discusses the unsolved problem of
the language of the cave inscriptions how
much and what kind of Tamil, explains the
Dravidian and Indo-Aryan elements
72
Chapter 4Polity
The chapter shows how cave inscriptions portray
life in early Tamil society state and
administration religion, particularly
Jainism society agriculture, trade,
professions, social organisations, personal
names, place names, flora fauna and culture
73
Chapter 5 Palaeography (Study of ancient
writing)
Review of earlier theories, listing evidences to
support his theory of origin of Tamil-Brahmi
from Brahmi supported by 8 palaeographic
Charts Brief discussion on other Brahmi variants.
74
Chapter 5Palaeography (Study of ancient writing)
Detailed discussion on palaeography of
Tamil-Brahmi and early VaTTezhuttu vowels,
consonants, the pulli, numerals punctuation,
symbols used in caves Short discussion on
evolution of VaTTezhuttu Notes on emergence of
Tamil script
75
Chapter 6Orthography (Study of spelling)
The most important chapter. Different
orthographic models studied, especially for
denoting medial vowels, which among other
things, provides insight into the
relationship of Tamil-Brahmi and other Brahmi
variants and their relative chronology
76
Chapter 6Orthography (Study of spelling)
Orthographic peculiarities of inscriptions Evoluti
on of alternate models Tamil-Brahmi I, II and
III Medial vowel notations in cave and pottery
inscriptions Assimilation of loan-words Voicing
of consonants
77
Chapter 7Grammar
Phonology (study of sounds) with detailed
inventory of vowels, consonants and
consonant-vowels and sound variations, Morphophon
emics, study of changes that occur, during
Sandhi etc, Morphology (study of forms of changes
of words) in early Tamil and Syntax (arrangement
of words in a sentence)
78
Part TwoCorpus of Early Tamil Inscriptions
79
Corpus of Early Tamil InscriptionsContents
Inscriptions Early and late Tamil-Brahmi Early
vattazhuttu Tracings and estampages Commentary
80
Corpus of Early Tamil InscriptionsInscriptions
110 inscriptions from 52 sites arranged
chronologically, with text containing Literal
transcript as engraved on stone, Text organised
into words, Translation into English,
Essential data specific to individual
inscriptions, Date, Publication and most
importantly, Notes
This is an authoritative Corpus for researchers.
81
Part ThreeCorpus of Early Tamil Inscriptions
Commentary on Inscriptions
82
Commentary on Inscriptions
A detailed word-by-word study of
inscriptions, with a view to situate them in
the main stream of Indian epigraphy deals
with Meaning, literal and interpretation Grammat
ical notes Citations from literary and
inscriptional parallels Loan words Contents,
relating to the development of Tamil language
and society
83
Let us follow some important discussions
84
Different Requirements of Prakrit and Tamil
Many Asokan edicts are in Prakrit and the
script is Brahmi. This Brahmi script cannot be
used directly for Tamil, because there are no
symbols to represent basic consonants and short
e and o
85
Attempts to adapt Brahmi for Tamil
At least three different methods Tamil-Brahmi
I, II and III were tried for medial vowel
notation, that is, to represent basic
consonants like (ì), consonants with medial
a, like () and A, like (?).
86
Pulli in Tamil-Brahmi
Pulli came to be used in Tamil-Brahmi later as a
negative vowel marker to provide what the parent
Brahmi script lacked. to represent basic
consonants (ì), and to represent short e () and
o ().
87
Pulli in Tamil-Brahmi
Pulli occurs only from the 2nd century AD
onwards But it is seldom found in the pottery
inscriptions. Even later, it was avoided in palm
leaf writing
88
A short summary of Mahadevans findings
89
Mahadevans findingsStages of Development
According to Mahadevan there were three stages
of development of medial vowel
notation Tamil-Brahmi I - 2nd century BC to 1st
century BC Tamil-Brahmi II - 1st century BC to
5th century AD Tamil-Brahmi III - 2nd century
AD to 6th century AD
90
Mahadevans findingsStages of Development
The figure that follows attempts to
show, through an example, the basic consonants
and medial vowel notations as depicted in
these stages. Possible ambiguity is indicated by
pointing out alternate readings.
91
Mahadevans findingsStages of Development
º??? cannot write ???ó
???ó Alternate readings ??ò? ??òó ????
???ó Alternate readings ??ó ???ó ???ó ????ó
???ó No alternate reading
92
Mahadevans findingsStages of Development
In the light of finding TB-II style of
writing in the Arikamedu potteries dated to 2nd
century BC, Mahadevan is expresses his inability
to explain how two parallel, mutually
exclusive, competing systems appear at the
same time, and within a small, homogenous
linguistic community.
93
Mahadevans findingsStages of Development
Since most of the Early Brahmi inscriptions are
found near Madurai, Tamil-Brahmi script must
have been created in the Pandya kingdom
around the end of 3rd century BC, and then
spread to other parts of the Tamil country
94
Mahadevans findingsLanguage
The language is Old Tamil, not materially
different from the language of later Tamil
inscriptions or even literary texts, in its
basic phonological, morphological and
syntactical features.
95
Mahadevans findingsLanguage
All loan-words are nouns. Most of the loan-words
are adapted to the Tamil phonetic
pattern gaNaka to kaNaka gOpa to kOpan rAjA
to irAsar dAnam to tAnam adhiTThAna to
atiTTAnam
96
Mahadevans findingsComparison with Situation in
Upper South India
The earliest Tamil inscriptions are from 3rd
century BC, whereas of Kannada-Telugu appear 8
centuries later. Sangam literature is dated to
the beginning of Christian era while literature
of Kannada and Telugu appear a millennium
later.
97
Mahadevans findingsComparison with Situation in
Upper South India
The earliest inscriptions in the Tamil country
are almost exclusively in Tamil. In contrast,
for the same period, inscriptions in stone,
seals, pottery etc, in the Upper South India
are exclusively in Prakrit.
98
Mahadevans findingsWidespread literacy in
Tamilnadu
Literacy in the Tamil country when compared with
the situation in contemporary Upper South
India, commenced much earlier. Tamil, the local
language, was used for all purposes from the
beginning democratic character in society
existed.
99
Mahadevans findingsWidespread literacy in
Tamilnadu
Literacy in the Tamil Country seems to have been
widespread in all the regions in the Tamil
country, both in urban and rural areas, in
all strata of Tamil society. Primary evidence
for this comes from inscribed pottery.
100
Mahadevans findingsWidespread literacy in
Tamilnadu
A number of reasons are contributed to this In
Upper South India the spoken languages were
Kannada and Telugu, but Prakrit was the
language of the rulers. But the Tamil country
was politically independent and the rulers
were Tamils.
101
Mahadevans findingsWidespread literacy in
Tamilnadu
It had the presence of a strong bardic
tradition Priestly hierarchy that could have
vested interest in maintaining oral tradition
or discouraging writing after its advent was
not present
102
Mahadevans findingsWidespread literacy in
Tamilnadu
A strong tradition of local autonomy, through
self-governing villages councils and merchant
guilds. The spread of Jainism and Buddhism
and extensive foreign trade.
103
Mahadevans findingsOrigin of Tamil-Brahmi
Tamil-Brahmi was derived from Brahmi All but 4
of the 26 letters in Tamil-Brahmi are identical
or nearly so with the corresponding Brahmi
letter and have the same phonetic value.
104
Vowels
Brahmi
Tamil-Brahmi
105
Consonants
Brahmi
Tamil-Brahmi
106
Medial vowel signs
Medial vowel signs are identical along with
phonetic values.
Brahmi
Tamil-Brahmi
107
Development of additional letters
The additional letters, zh, ? L, ? R ?
and n ? were adapted from letters with
the nearest phonetic value in Brahmi.
108
Development of additional letters
? ? ? ?
? ? ? ?
109
Mahadevans findingsEvolution and Chronology of
South Indian Scripts
3rd century BC 2nd century BC 1st century BC 5th
century AD 6th century AD 7th century AD 14th
century AD
110
Mahadevans findingsOrigin of Tamil-Brahmi
Tolkappiyam places the four letters zh ?, L
?,R ? and n ? at the end of the series of
stops, nasals and liquids. This arrangement
deviates from the order based on articulatory
phonetics. This small, but significant detail,
indicates that the four special letters were
originally regarded as additions to the
alphabet taken from Brahmi.
111
Possible issues for discussion in the future
112
IssuesWhich came first Brahmi or Tamil-Brahmi?
Mu Va (1972) says that the Tamils used a script
of their own, and Tamil-Brahmi has developed
under the influence of VaTTezhuttu. TN
Subramanian (1957), KG Krishnan (1981) and a
few others argue that Brahmi was a Tamil
creation, and came to be adapted all over
India with regional modifications. Mahadevan
says Tamil-Brahmi is a derivative of Brahmi.
113
Issues Was there a script for Tamil before?
Mayilai Seeni Venkatasamy (1981) says that there
was one in which classical works were written
and was supplanted by Tamil-Brahmi. Mahadevan
says that Tamil was not written before.
114
Issues What kind of Tamil?
Mayilai Seeni Venkatasamy (1981) says the
inscriptions are full of errors engraved by
people with inadequate knowledge of Tamil.
Mahadevan says it is Old Tamil, not very
different from contemporary literary Tamil.
115
Issues Dating Tolkappiyam
Mahadevan says that Tolkappiyam must have been
composed not earlier than 2nd century AD for
it describes the use of puLLi to denote basic
consonants, and to denote short vowels e and o
116
Issues Voicing in Tamil
Today we write murukan and read it as murugan k
is called unvoiced and g as voiced. The present
use follows Caldwell law of convertibility It
is K in the beginning (KaN) and when doubled
(makkaL), and it is G when it occurs in the
middle (murugan) or follows the nasal
consonant (mangai) There has been controversy
whether in the past also it was so in the past
too.
117
Issues Voicing in Tamil
One view is Voicing existed from the
beginning from the pre-Tamil stage. It is
present in all Dravidian languages. Hence must
have existed in early Tamil also but not
provided for in the spelling. Originators were
aware of the principle of phoneme, and did
not feel necessary to borrow voiced
consonants from Brahmi.
118
Issues Voicing in Tamil
Mahadevan says There was no voicing in Tamil, in
early Tamil. If voicing was present the adaptors
of the script for Tamil from Brahmi would
have borrowed the corresponding letter.
119
Issues Voicing in Tamil
Mahadevan continues Even in the loanwords from
Prakrit voicing has been systematically
replaced by the corresponding unvoiced
consonants like, kaNi (PKT gani), utayana
(PKT udayana), nanta (PKT nanda),
kiTumpikan (PKT kuTumbika) etc.
120
Issues Voicing in Tamil
Mahadevan continues There is negative evidence
in Tolkappiyam, which devotes a whole chapter
to articulatory phonetics (Øò???????õ -
???ô???ø) would have dealt with voicing if
the feature was present in the language.
121
Mahadevan does not discuss
The origin of Brahmi. His research on the Indus
script and the possibility of Brahmi originating
from it. Effect of writing medium and tools on
the development of scripts. Reason for the
disappearance of VaTTezhuttu.
122
Now the stage is set for a serious study of the
development of Tamil scripts.
123
Thank you
S. Swaminathan