Indian Antiquary Vol 62

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 57

MARCH, 1933 ]
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
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Putting all these together, we learn the following from these sûtras:
(a) The sound aydam occurs after initial short vowels (or syllables) and before surds, as in oo ahtu (that), oo ehku- (steel), etc., etc.
(b) In combinative groups of the alvali type, final - or - of initial short syllabled words, when combining with the initial t- of the succeeding words, might alternatively give rise to the aydam, as in kal (stone)+tidu (bad)>kaḥd'idu (stone is bad), mul (thorn) -tidu (bad)>mukḍidu (thorn is bad).
(c) Nannûl recognises the place of production of the sound as the head' (ie., the upper palate) and the mode of articulation as the opening of the mouth.' [B] THE OPINIONS OF DRAVIDIAN SCHOLARS.
Caldwell is of the view that the "Tamil letter called dydam, half vowel, half consonant, corresponding in some respects to the Sanskrit risarga, is pronounced like a guttural h, but is only found in the poets and is generally considered a pedantical invention of the gramma. rians." (Comparative Grammar, 2nd edition, page 130.)
Julien Vinson (page 10 of his Manuel de la langue Tamoule) says that "the symbol of which Tamilians term off (taninilai) as it is never accompanied by vowels, and which is appropriately called dydam (minuteness, subtlety) is artificial and conventional." He proceeds to observe that "it was invented by the grammarians for the prosodic lengthening of certain syllables; it is found only after a short vowel and before 8, &, L, 5, u, p, accompanied by a vowel, and is pronounced in a soft manner, like a g aspirated very lightly: (this) having become is pronounced igdu (as a troches or spondes instead of pyrrhic or iambus). Ia the manuscripts it is often replaced by (gu) or even (gu). I have found passages in old poems, where it should count for one syllable and should therefore be pronounced gu; o L (Kural, xcv, 3); or (Naisada, xii, 43), etc. But generally it serves only to lengthen a syllable: eri (Kural, viii, 10) and is then pronounced without a vowel." Prof. Vinson also adds two footnotes. Adverting to the term is, he says that it "may mean weapon' or 'trident', if we take the Tamil word gusi aydam for ayudham (Skt. sg); the three dots would represent the mark of a trident. The form of this letter is probably derived from that of the Sanskrit visarga." In another footnote Vinson adds that according to native grammarians, the sound proceeds from the head and is pronounced with the mouth open; this evidently means that it is a guttural aspiration."
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Mr. S. A. Pillay, in his excellent monograph on 'The Sanskritic element in the vocabula. ries of the Dravidian languages' (Dravidic Studies, No. III, published by the Madras University, page 49) makes some very suggestive observations on the value of the Tamil aydam :
"The spirant h is a sound not altogether foreign to Tamil. For, Tamil has the aydam h (%) which is almost an equivalent of it. But the aydam differs from h in some ways. The aydam is found in a very few words in Tamil and is peculiar to Tamil......It is only medial and its use is much restricted......Dr. Caldwell's statement regarding this sound is, I am afraid, not based on a knowledge of facts. The aydam is not considered by anyone, so far as I know, a pedantical invention of the grammarians. What could have been the purpose in inventing such a letter?..........The words are Tam. aḥtu and iḥtu. These ought to be pronounced with the aspiration, but the popular pronunciations are with a spirantic gu for h...The tendency of modern speech, however, it must be admitted, is to discard the aydam altogether. The words aḥtu, iḥtu are about the only ones commonly met with in books and in periantic speech. They are also acknowledged to be variants of adu and idu and considered to be necessary when these words are in sandhi followed by words beginning with a vowel or y, e.g., ahtaḍuppu, that is the oven,' iḥtúr, this is the village.' But to argue from that circumstance that the dydam is only an invention of the grammarians is like arguing that the letter r is only an invention of the Telugu or Kannada grammarians because modern speech makes no distinction between rand, or rather knows only r."