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INDIAN BRANCH
387 As to the origin of the Vatteluttu, Burnell traced it, possibly through the Pahlavi (see the preceding chapter), to a Semitic source, considering both the southern Asoka character and the Vatteluttu as "independent adaptations of some foreign character, the first to a Sanskritic, the last to a Dravidian language." This opinion has been accepted by various scholars, including Reinhold Host in his article on the Tamils in the "ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA," but is now out of date.
There is much ingenuity in this theory, and Burnell was certainly the greatest authority on South Indian palæography, but there is little evidence to corroborate it. The number of the inscriptions extant is very small, and the dates appear to be relatively late. The earliest Vatteluttu documents extant are two grants in favour of the Jews (Fig. 178) and of the Syrians in Travancore. Burnell attributed them to the eighth century A.1)., while Buehler thought they may belong to the tenth or eleventh century.
Unless new evidence becomes available, Buehler's opinion seems preferable, that the Vatteluttu should be considered as an ancient cursive variety of the Tamil character. Buchler suggested it may have been in use by the seventh century A.D., but was modified in course of time by the further development of the Tamil and the Grantha characters,
Portuguese became of a region, whilimply as Sinhala
Sinhalese Character ISLAND OF CEYLON
The island of Ceylon, also known as Lanka, is the Taprobane of the Greeks and Romans, and Tambapanni of Pali literature, After the Sinhalese settlement (see below) it was styled in Sanskrit Sinhala-dvipa, and in Pali Sihala-dipa, a term which ultimately passed into Arabic as Serendib or was lown simply as Sinhala or Sihats. The form Sinhale survives as the name of a region, while Sihala through the medium of Arabic and Portuguese became Ceylon. The term Sinhalese is used particularly to indicate the Indo-Aryan population of the island, and their speech. About a third of the population speak Tamil The Tamil term for the island is Ilam.
Although there are still some who maintain thar Sinhalese is essentially a Dravidian language, it is generally admitted by serious scholars that it is an Indo. Aryan vernacular, but during its development it was strongly influenced by Dravidian, and its vocabulary contains a great number of Tamil loan words. (See C, E, Godakumbura, The Dravidian Element in Sinhalese, "BULL OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES, 1946, pp. 837-841).
"The history of Ceylon begins with the first Aryan immigration which probably took place in the fifth century B.C. As to the original home of these first immigrants, and, consequently, of the origin of Sinhalese, opinion is divided. Dr. L. D. Barnett is most likely right in assuming that the tradition of two different streams of imtnigration, one from eastern India, Orissa and southern Bengal, and the other from the western, Gujarat, were interwoven in the local story of Vijaya, the leader of the first immigration. However, from the earliest times an intense mixture of blood and forms of speech took place between the Aryan immigrants on one side, and the later Aryan immigrants with the aborigines and the inhabitants of southern
