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188
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[JULY, 1911.
In Tamil, Malayalam, Canarese, and Tulu the word al has changed its meaning. It means . a slave,' a servant,' i..., one who is governed or ruled. This is evidently due to a confusion of this word with the verb a! Pr. Dray, al meaning to rule', which is found as élu in Telugu.
But al, 'a woman,' is preserved in Tamil, Malayalam, Canarese and Tulu as a feminine suffir; while it is almost lost in Telugu, Kui and other North Dravidian languages.
Primitive Dravidian al when used as a feminine suffix becomes d! or a! which with a preceding a may become ol. In Telugu al as a suffix becomes alu and is preserved only in a few words :Manamarálu, grand-daughter', kodalu, daughter-in-law,' maradalu, niece. But the usual suffix in Telugu is di, a development of the primitive Dravidian atti meaning a woman'. (See infra).
Thus, while the South and the Central Dravidian languages use al as the feminine suffix the North Dravidian languages use atti or ali.
6 Atta (fem. sing. sufix of N. Dra vidian). Primitive Dravidian atta attai, atti (Tamil).
satsesi (Malayalam). satte (To.). s atta (Te.).
*adi (Te.).
atsisi or atti (Tam., Can, and Mal.). As an independent word it means 'an elderly woman', '& sister' or a father's sister,' etc. In Tamil, attai means 'an aunt', and atti, aunt' or sister ;'atte in Tula means aunt' or mother-in-law'. Atlige in Tula is brother's wife,' In Telugu atta is mother-in-law' or 'aunt' and atsisi in Malayalam means a Nair-woman.
As a feminine suffix it is used most largely by the North Dravidian languages. In Telugu the suffix atti becomes adi. Compare Tamil ammai, a woman, and Telagu ammi, a woman. In Gôndi and Kolâmi it is ad with the loss of the final vowel. In Naiki and Kurukh it is dd, with a lengthened, after the analogy of an, etc., also through accent change. 'In Malto it is ata where t is aspirated. (See note on ah, he' of Malto, above).
In Malayalam and Tamil the feminine suffix atti is found in a large number of words denoting certain professional castes, e. g., Tamil, Malayalam, raditi, a queen'; tatratti, a woman of goldsmith caste'; kanndili, a tinker woman'; vannditi, a wasberwoman'; kollotti, a blacksmith woman,' etc. Atli also becomes atstsi, e.g., idaits si, 'a shepherdess'; ralatsei: 'fisherwoman ; ' etc.
In Malayalam atti is cerebrated to atti in certain words, e.g., tamburatti, "a noble lady"; pel!dtri,' a servant woman,' etc,
In Canarese the same suffix is iti or ti, e. g., arasiti, a queen'; okkalati, farmer's wife,' In these cases and the rest Telugu uses adi.
The development of primitive Dravidian atti into adi in Teluga, and ad in the other North Dravidian languages has created confusion in the minds of great Oriental scholars like Dr. Caldwell. In the North Dravidian languages the neuter suffix adu of Tamil, Malayalam and Canarese has also become adi in Telugu and ad in Kolami and Gôndi and ad in Naiki and Kurukh and ati in Malto. That is to say, atti, the feminine suffix, and adu, the neater Baffix of the singular, have the same development in the North Dravidian languages. Hence Dr. Caldwell was led to remark that amongst the Telugus the women were treated as chattels or as lifeless things. He says :-"Ordinarily every woman is spoken of in Telugu as a chattel or a thing, as we are accustomed to say of very young children (e.g., it did so and so) apparently on the supposition either that women are destitute of reason, or that their reason, like that of infants, lies dormant.” He also
