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360
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[SUPPLEMENT, 1876.
NOTES ON THE DRAVIDIAN OR SOUTH INDIAN FAMILY OF LANGUAGES. BY THE Rxv. G.U. POPE, D.D., M.R.A.S., Member of the Leipzig Oriental Society, Fellow of the Madras University
(Continued from p. 299.) No. III.
nounced very faintly. This brings the former I. Words which are undoubtedly identical nearer to the Sanskrit: thus aravan is now in origin with Sanskrit words are often so aravu. changed in the Dravidian languages, by the 5. By syncope and crasis aravu becomes operation of well-ascertained phonetic laws, that ará, and final d is often changed into di or a. they would assuredly fail to be recognized by Thus arai is the Dravidian form of sarppa. any one not well acquainted with the tendencies II. It may be of interest, in this place, to of the Dravidian phonetic system.
give a summary of the rules laid down by the Thus in Sanskrit we have the stem SRIP, great classical grammarian of the Tamil lanwhich is from SRI; and these are from SARP, guage, Pavananthi, in the Nannil, for the and ultimately from SAR. (See Fick.) spelling of Sanskrit words in Tamil:
The verbal roots chari, char, charruare found (1) "To an Aryan word beginning with, in all the Dravidian dialects, in both ancient prefix a, i, or u; to one beginning with l prefix and modern forms, with the same original i ori; to one beginning with y prefix 1." No notion of 'gliding' and 'slipping.
TAMIL WORD BEGINS WITH I, I, OR Y. But the equivalents of the Sansksit noun (2) "In each of the five classes of gutturals, SARPA (Lat. serpens, Gr. épperóv) in Tamil are palatals, linguals, dentals, and labials, the first curious. These are charppam, charubam, ara- of the class (k, ch, 1, t, p) is to be written for the. vam, aravu, ara, ara, and ari.
second, third, and fourth of the class :The following principles are here illus
K for K, KH, G, and GH; trated :
CH for CH, CHH, J, and JH; 1. Tamil cannot tolerate, as a general rule,
Ț for T, TH, D, and DH ; the sound of mute and liquid together. It re
T for T, TH, D, and DH; jects consonantal diphthongs: rp = must be
P for P, PH, B, and BH." come rup or rap.
(The Tamil has no separate characters for 2. When k, t, or p (any tenuis) begins any aspirates and flat mutes.) syllable of a word except the first, it becomes,
(3) " J is sometimes = Y." in order, y, th (as in this'), or b (is changed
(4) “Of the sibilants S is expressed in the into its corresponding media): thus charupam beginning of the word by the palatal CH, and in becomes charubam.
the middle of a word by Y; SH is to be trans3. The Tamil has neither sibilant nur aspir. literated by CH or T;S is to be replaced by CH ate: thus charupan becomes arubani; and or T; H is to be written A or G; KSH is to be through the influence of w we have v for 6 (80 written KK." Sanskrit Sabha is in Tamil avai).
(5) "Final A is to be written AI, and final (In Kanarese for 'serpent' we have háva;
I becomes short.”+ this is in Telugu pámu, in Tamil pámbu, and in
It will thus be seen that multitudes of DraTuda páb.)
vidian words are by the native grammarians 4. Final m is constantly dropped in Tamil, supposed to be derived from the Sanskrit, acand the remaining vowel is written 1, but is pro- cording to recognized laws of euphonic change.
• The letter here transliterated by ch is very soft palatal, confounded by many with 8. Tamil has no sibi. lants or aspirates.
+ This table illustrates the comparison between the Sanskrit and Tamil alphabets :
U T, , all=k; T = y sometimes; , , , , allch; T, =ch or y; T, , 3, T, all = 1; T, =ch or t;
4, 5, all = t; =ch ort; , , , all = p; 8, = a ork;
=kk;
=m; 3, = ng;
=y: 5, =jn; 1 =n;
Jy = 1; = ; 7,=n; N.B.---Tamil has a strong palatal (really and a lingual r not in Sanskrit.
doubler)
