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Thread: How did the Tamil written characters evolve?

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    How did the Tamil written characters evolve?

    Topic started by Sombu (@ adsl-81-44-25.asm.bellsouth.net) on Tue Aug 6 19:26:56 .


    Tamil written scripts seem to be distinct from other south indian languages? How did it evolve?




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    Venki (@ prox*) on: Tue Aug 6 19:45:02




    Here is a paper 'On The Origin Of The Early Indian Scripts: [1] A Review Article
    by Richard Salomon of University of Washington, if you have not seen before.

    "The development and early history of writing in India of the historical period (i.e. after the time of the Indus Valley Civilization) has long been a controversial problem. Basically, arguments turn around three main issues:

    The sources and origins of the Indian scripts of the historical period, i.e. Kharo.s.thî and especially Brâhmî.
    The date at which these scripts, or their prototypes, first came into use.
    The relationship, if any, of the historical scripts to the writing of the proto-historic Indus Valley Civilization and the explanation of the long gap between them during which writing appears to have fallen out of use in India.
    The principal reasons that these issues, particularly the second, are so problematic are:

    There are no securely datable specimens of writing from the historical period earlier than the rock inscriptions of Ashoka from the mid-3rd century BC. Other early inscriptions which have been proposed by various authors as examples of pre-Ashokan writing are of uncertain date at best.
    The external testimony from literary and other sources on the use of writing in pre-Ashokan India is vague and inconclusive. Alleged evidence of pre-Mauryan writing has in the past been found by various scholars in such sources as later Vedic literature, the Pali canon, the early Sanskrit grammatical treatises of Pâ.nini's and his successors, and the works of European classical historians. But all of these references are subject in varying degrees to chronological or interpretive problems."

    For more: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/position/salomon.html

    Th earliest Tamil-Brahmi writing are supposed to be The two rock-inscriptions of Netunceliyan at Mangulam. 3rd -1st Cent. B.C. Asoka's Brahmi introduced around ca. 250 B.C. into the Tamil country. Adapted between 250-220 to Tamil. From: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5180/kamil.html

    Here is one possible tree on the evolution of Indian scripts: http://www.angelfire.com/co/malaiya/images/brah11.gif

    Further, the present Tamil script was revived and reformed by Veeramaamunivar (Robert Beshchi) in the 17th century. It went through a few iterations, including the Periyar corrections. For instance we used to write 'lai', 'nai' and such words with a kombu in front, before the reforms to use the same prefix character that we use for say 'kai'. This helped in standardization, but increased the length of words. Shortening the length of words was a concern in the days when writing was on olai and hence the need to shorten characters with the use of 'kombu' and such superscripts and subscripts. This is no longer the case. This feature is very common in the Devanagari script used for Hindi.

    Malayalam, evolved from the old Tamizh vatta ezhutthu, that was used even for the Grantham script that had extra characters to write both tamil and Samaskitam.







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    Venki (@ prox*) on: Tue Aug 6 19:49:52




    Here is a link on the comparison between various Indic scripts that have supposed to have been evolved from Brahmi.

    http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acad...94/brahmi.html





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    Venki (@ prox*) on: Tue Aug 6 19:53:17




    And this site has a comprehensive listing of Indian Languages and scripts. Happy reading.

    http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/scripts.html





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    Venki (@ prox*) on: Tue Aug 6 20:01:20




    Check this thread also for discussion on aspects of Tamizh script.

    http://www.forumhub.com/tnhistory/22693.21.33.27.html
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    Senior Member Regular Hubber aravindhan's Avatar
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    Here's some fascinating information on the evolution of the vatteluthu, including a chart showing the progress from the Brahmi script to the modern script:

    http://www.tamil-heritage.org/tamievol.html

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    Senior Member Veteran Hubber Querida's Avatar
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    wow really interesting link..thank you so much for sharing that it's odd how much letters have changed...or have not changed... i have a question i never know the reason for the use of (ahenam) (three dots in the form of a triangle) (the mathematical symbol for therefore)....i don't know how to make it more clear...i have quite a rudimentary sense of written tamil.so im afraid im pronouncing the letter name wrong...i know we learn it as a letter but i seldom see it used

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    Senior Member Regular Hubber aravindhan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Querida
    i have a question i never know the reason for the use of (ahenam) (three dots in the form of a triangle) (the mathematical symbol for therefore)....
    You mean "aaytham", yes? It's a very rare character in modern Tamil. The only common word I know of with it is aHRinai «·È¢¨½, the name for one of the two classes of nouns in Tamil grammar. It was much more common in Sangam Tamil though - you often see «·Ð and þ·Ð for "adhu" and "idhu".

    If I remember my Tamil grammar correctly, the aaytham was mostly used in "thiridhal" - essentially, in certain consonant combinations, the adjacent consonants would change to become a ·. For example, «¸ø ¾¢¨½ became «·È¢¨½. We don't follow the same rules of sound change anymore - for example, ¸¼ø ¾¢¨Ã becomes ¸¼üÈ¢¨Ã not ¸¼·È¢¨Ã so the letter basically isn't used much, except in technical words which have survived unchanged since sangam Tamil.

    My grandfather used to insist that on a proper reading of the Tolkappiyam, the letter should be pronounced almost like the German 'ch', but in Tamilakam, at least, I've mostly heard it being pronounced like a 'k'. I'm not sure how it's pronounced in Yalppana tamil, but I expect it's the same.

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    "aravindhan"

    .... "aaytham"....·....

    // .... on a proper reading of the Tolkappiyam, the letter should be pronounced almost like the German 'ch', but in Tamilakam, at least, I've mostly heard it being pronounced like a 'k'...//

    Dear Aravindhan,

    .... I am unable to catch your point . Will you please Clarify?
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    Senior Member Regular Hubber aravindhan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sudhaama
    // .... on a proper reading of the Tolkappiyam, the letter should be pronounced almost like the German 'ch', but in Tamilakam, at least, I've mostly heard it being pronounced like a 'k'...//

    Dear Aravindhan,

    .... I am unable to catch your point . Will you please Clarify?
    I've heard most people pronouncing the · exactly like ì. My teachers, for example, used to pronounce «·È¢¨½ like «ìüÈ¢¨½. My grandfather told me this was wrong, and the Tolkappiyam said that · should be pronounced KH, a rather special and hard sound which I don't quite know how to transcribe, but which reminds me a little of the German hard 'CH'.

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