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CLASSICAL TAMIL
Tamil and Sanskrit are the oldest literary languages of India that
have a history of more than 2,000 years. The literary language of
classical Tamil is the standardized version of one of the regional
dialects spoken in the-then Pandya kingdom. The spoken language was
called Koduntamil which means `uncultivated language'
and the literary language was called Centamil meaning
`cultivated or refined language'. This stand is supported by
the presence of terms such as valakku `colloquial
language', ceyyul `literary language',
kotuntamilnadu `the country of deviant Tamil' and
centamil natu `the country of standard Tamil'.
Classical Sanskrit was also a modified version of the language spoken
by the people since the Paninian language was different from
the older language that was in actual use.
Since there is a separate scheme for classical Tamil with a financial
assistance from the Government of India, the unsolved issues pertaining
to classical Tamil such as antiquity of Tamil, age of the classical
literature and culture may be exposed to the world as portrayed in
the classical Tamil literature. In this connection, I propose some
suggestions that may be considered while trying to solve the unsolved
issues of classical Tamil.
1. Antiquity of Tamil
Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages had close contact for over 35/25
centuries. Though there are no written records to establish the age
of Dravidian languages, Rigveda (1300 - 1000 B.C.) had Dravidian
names of objects and a few words of ideas which were not known to
the Vedic speakers. It is further stated that during the early Rigvedic
classical Sanskrit period, words were borrowed from Dravidian, Munda,
Iranian, Greek etc. but also some sentence types. Though Panini's
grammar does not say anything about Tamil language, Katyayana (400
B.C.) is said to be familiar with Tamils and their culture.
Many literary and grammatical works existed before Tolkappiyam
as there are 150 references available in Tolkappiyam. For the
development of a vast amount of literary and grammatical works, it
would have taken a minimum of 300 to 500 years, as written literatures
were composed only after the existence of oral literatures for many
centuries. Any language has to pass many stages before reaching the
literary stage such as pre-stage, proto-stage, pre-literary stage
and literary stage as stated by Kamil Zvelebil.
That is, pre-Tamil evolved into proto-Tamil and pre-literary
Tamil. The earliest bardic poetry which was transmitted orally during
the pre-literary stage made as court poetry after standardization.
It is appropriate to compare the period of development
of classical Sanskrit from pre-literary Vedic language with the development
of classical Tamil as both Sanskrit and Tamil had linguistic and cultural
contacts for more than 25 centuries. Panini who wrote his grammar
for classical Sanskrit belongs to the sixth century B.C. This shows
that it had taken about 700 years to reach the classical stage from
Vedic language stage.
According to T.P. Meenakshisundaram, inscriptions of
Tamil written in Brahmi script are assigned to the third century B.C.
However, the recent excavations at Adichenallur near Tirunelveli town
found an iron-age habitational site which contains many burial urns
and one of the broken pieces contains Tamil writing in very rudimentary
Tamil Brahmi script which has been read tentatively as [ka ri a ra
va [na] ta] which is assigned to 1000 B.C. as reported in The
Hindu dated 3rd April 2005. If the writing is assigned to the tenth
century B.C., the proto- Tamil period may go even to fifteenth century
or more. The chronological order of the development of literary Tamil
from pre-Tamil may be shown tentatively as follows:
Pre-Tamil
Proto-Tamil 1000 B.C. - 1500 B.C.
Pre-literary Tamil 700 B.C. - 1000 B.C.
(used to compose bardic poetry)
Standardized / Refined
Literary Tamil
Pre-Cankam literature 500 B.C. - 700 B.C.
Tolkappiyam 300 B.C. - 500 B.C.
Post-Cankam literature A.D. 200 - 200 B.C.
The pre-literary Tamil language stage may be compared
with the language of Rigveda which is a poetic and priestly
modification of the spoken language. Though the stand taken here may
not be a scientific one, more internal and external evidences may
be brought in to support this stand.
2. Literatures and Grammars written prior to Tolkappiyam
It is a well-known fact that many literatures and grammars were written
before Tolkappiyam. Even if Tolkappiyam belongs to the
third century B.C., the age of those literatures which were composed
earlier to Tolkappiyam may go still back. The classical literatures
may be called as pre-classical literatures and those literatures written
after Tolkappiyam may be called as post-classical literature.
3. Tolkappiyam
The age of Tolkappiyam has been variously dated from 800 B.C.
to A.D. 600. This shows the nature of our approach in fixing dates
of our ancient literatures and grammars. It is absolutely necessary
to bring in both internal and external evidences in support of a particular
stand while deciding the age of a particular literary work. According
to M. Varadarajan, Tolkappiyam was written around the third
century B.C. According to T.P. Meenakshisundaram, it belongs to pre-Sangam
period, as the language of cave inscriptions which belong to the third
century B.C. and the language it describes are the same. Yet in another
place he has stated that the age cannot be fixed beyond the fourth
century B.C. since there was no reference in Panini's work about Tamil
language but Katyayana who belongs to the 4th century B.C. who refers
to Chola-Pandya and Tolkappiyam also contemplates intimate
contact with northerners. All these statements claim that Tolkappiyam
belongs from the first century to the fourth century B.C. Therefore,
it is necessary to bring in more internal and external evidences to
fix the age of Tolkappiyam. In this connection, it is suggested that
the languages of the classical literature, inscriptions and then regional
dialects may be compared with the language of Tolkappiyam.
4. History of Tamil Language
Many scholars have attempted to write the history of Tamil literature
but not many tried to write the history of Tamil language. A History
of Tamil Language by T.P. Meenakshisundaram as stated by him is
only a preliminary study. Therefore, it is necessary to write an elaborate
history of Tamil language.
Both the grammatical categories and literary concepts found in classical
Tamil literatures may be compared with the grammatical categories
and literary concepts found in classical Sanskrit. The totality of
both classical Tamil and classical Sanskrit will give a complete picture
on the language and culture of ancient Indians, thousand five hundred
years ago.
5. Outstanding classical works
Though all the works which belong to the classical Tamil period
are important, the three works, viz. Tolkappiyam, Cilappatikaram
and Thirukkural are the most outstanding works. Tolkappiyam
which describes classical Tamil in its entirety is a unique grammatical
work. Though there are some borrowings, it does not violate the genius
of the Tamil language. Thirukkural is a highly revered ethical
literature. In other words, Tolkappiyam tells about the language
of Tamils. Cilappatikaram tells about the culture of Tamils
and Thirukkural tells about the ways of Tamils. Therefore,
it is important to tell to the world that these three works are important
to the Tamils, Tamil culture and Tamils two thousand years ago.
6. Tamil Society during Classical Tamil period
The following areas such as landscapes, people, social life, religious
life, musical instruments, flora and fauna, poets and their patron
kings, dialect areas and their significance, voyage and trade may
be explained elaborately as portrayed in classical Tamil literature.
Preservation: Original uniform texts of classical
Tamil literature may be made available at cheaper rates.
Translation: All the literary grammatical works
of the classical period may be translated into as many languages as
possible.
Appreciation: Some portions of classical Tamil literature
have international standard from literary point of view which may
be identified and made available along with translation to international
scholars for appreciation.
References
Kiparsky, Paul. 1979. Panini as a variationist.
Cambridge: MIT Press.
Meenakshisundaram, T.P. 1965. A History of Tamil Language.
Poona: Deccan College.
Ramaswami, N. 1997. Diglossia: Formal and Informal
Tamil. Mysore: C.I.I.L.
The Hindu dated 3 April 2005, 16 July 2005, 28
January 2007, 25 May 2007, 4 June 2007.
Thiruvalluvar. 1970. Thirukkural with Translations
in English by G.U. Pope, W.H. Drew, John Lazarus & F.W. Ellis. Madras-1,
Madurai-1, Tirunelveli-6: South India Saiva Siddhanta Works Publishing
Society Tinnevely Limited.
Varadarajan, M.U. 1988. A History of Tamil Literature.
Translated from Tamil by E. Sa. Viswanathan. Sahitya Akademi, A-26
Panchsheel Garden, Naveen Shahdara, Delhi - 110 032.
Zvelebil, Kamil Veith. 1974. Tamil Literature.
Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.
N. Ramaswami
Mysore
ICON 2008
The sixth international conference on natural language
processing will be held at C-DAC, Pune from 20th to 22nd December
2008. The conference is being jointly organized by NLP Association
- India, C.I.I.L. - Mysore, C-DAC - Pune and I.I.I.T., Hyderabad.
Papers are invited on substantial, original and unpublished
research on all aspects of NLP with particular focus on languages,
issues and applications relevant to India.
Theoretical papers in Linguistics which have implications
for computational linguistics are also invited.
An NLP Tools' Contest and Student Paper Competition
in Language Technologies will also be held.
The last date for registration of papers is 15.7.08.
For further details, please contact
ICON-2008 Secretariat,
Language Technologies Research Centre,
International Institute of Information Technology,
Gachibowli, Hyderabad - 500 032, India
Tel.: 91-40-2300-1412
E-mail: icon2008@iiit.ac.in
Web: www.iiit.ac.in/icon2008
SHORT BOOK REVIEW
Deshpande, Madhav M. 2007. The Meaning of Nouns;
Semantic Theory in Classical & Medieval India, Namarthanirnaya of Kaundabhatta. New Delhi: DK Printworld.
x + 296 pages.
Nouns have always posed problems, of grammatical form
as well as of meaning. They have therefore fascinated both linguists
as well as philosophers ever since they were "invented". In India,
these discourses merged, and the philosophy of grammar was part of grammatical
exposition. Even before Panini, Pratisakhya and Yaska's
Nirukta analysed these categories. The former distinguished
among noun or nominal stem, verb, prepositional items prefixed to
verbs, and particles. The latter was concerned with the semantics of the words,
explaining namam
as a nominal stem signifying an existent (sattva). Significantly,
some of their followers asserted that most, if not every, nominal
stem could be derived from a verb root.
Panini distinguished between underived and derived
noun forms, viz. a primitive stem with a meaningful linguistic content,
and those that are derived from verb roots. He also identified a third
form, affixes. Krt affixes to verbal roots give rise to verbal
nouns of various sorts. Taddhita affixes are added to nominal
stems to derive secondary nouns. Combination of these elements yields
compound forms. Patanjali supplied a semantic explanation, by positing
dravya (substance) instead of sattva as the significance
of such word forms. Kaundabhatta, the author of the work, a part
of which is the subject matter of the book under review, was concerned
with the ways in which meaning (artha) attaches to nouns (nama).
The first section of the book under review is a discourse
on the historical and philosophical dimensions of nouns. Deshpande
contrasts the views of western philosophers like Wittgenstein and
Quine with those of the Indian philosophers. Actually, much of the
confusion arises from the identification of the Sanskrit word artha
with the English word `meaning'. The ontological premises on which
these words are respectively interpreted are different. Deshpande
has hinted at this though he does not explicitly take up such a position.
Kaundabhatta had addressed ontological problems as integral to the
grammatical theories, and therefore, he is said to be the founder
of Navya Vyakarana (`new grammar').
The author learnedly contrasts the similarities and
differences of these views from those of (modern) Western logicians.
The difference between the noun word as an object and the object that
the word denotes has been a subject matter of much exposition (e.g.
"`Boston' is a word with six letters" vs. "Boston is a city"). Deshpande
wisely refuses to take up any firm positions himself, fairly exposes
the imperfections of his author's exposition and emphasizes the inconclusiveness
of the debate.
In the next part, he presents the text with translation
and very detailed notes and annotations. The presentation is lucid,
and the style, readable, given the abstruse nature of the subject.
His erudition is vast, as he draws upon the criticism of the text
by later Indian (Sanskrit) scholars and refers to the earlier disputations
on the same subjects. Though he includes "medieval" texts, his selection
seems largely limited to the earlier phases of that period. I felt
that a conspicuous lack of mention marks the contributions of
southern scholars and grammarians, e.g. Prakriyasarvasvam of Meppathur Narayana Bhattathiri.
But he has drawn copiously from Kunjunni Raja (1963): Indian Theories
of Meaning, Adyar Library Series 91, Madras.
I liked the concluding statement of the book so much
that I cannot refrain from quoting it:
"For this reason, Kaundabhatta finally says that grammarians
do not insist on any particular view. They should choose the view
that suits an interpretation of a given rule, or derivation of a given
linguistic formation. The science of grammar is finally concerned
with describing and justifying usage as it is established by the people.
What is given for grammar is the usage, and all the theories about
that usage are subservient to the description of that usage, and are
negotiable." (emphasis supplied).
T. Madhava Menon
AWARDS FOR
BEST RESEARCH WORKS IN DRAVIDIAN
The Dravidian University has presented six awards for
the best research works in/on Dravidian languages at a function held
at Hyderabad on 25th April 2008.
The recipients of the awards are Bh. Krishnamurti for
his work on Dravidian - The Dravidian Languages, M.V.R. Sastry
for Telugu - Edicharitra, for Tamil
Iravatham Mahadevan - Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest
Times to the Sixth Century A.D., for Kannada D.N. Shankara Bhat
- Kannada Barahavannu Saripadisona, for Malayalam K.M. Prabhakara
Varier - Malayalam Mattavum Valarchayum and for Tulu Venkataraja
Puninchataya - Tulu Mahabharatho.
The awards were presented by the Hon. Chief Minister
of Andhra Pradesh.
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