Absence of /kha/, /ga/, /gha/, /cha/, /tha/, etc, signs in T

[aravindhan]

What is wrong about making changes that expand the sounds we can pronounce:

I want to write George Bush in a way that, even if my reader doesn't know the name he will read iot right. Not as Saarchchu Bus.

Ironicaly 'Bus' is better written in Tamil than English, we need to figure a way around that too

From the 12th century up to around the 19th century, Tamils used to have a rather interesting way of writing when the subject matter required them to use a lot of Sanskrit words. They used to in effect write using both the Grantham script (which was basically a different script, with some letters similar to Tamil and others different, which Tamils used to write Sanskrit) and the normal Tamil vattezhuthu. If, therefore, they had to write the phrase "tirumaalin kamalanayangal", they would write 'tirumaalin' in the vattezhuthu, "kamalanayana" in the Grantha script, and "ngal" in the vattezhuthu. I have an old copy of a commentary on a portion of the amarakosha in Tamil, and they use this system. It works very well.

So an interesting solution to the problem, which may be a middle way, will be to readopt this system. We take the old Grantham script, and add a few letters to it to represent sounds which we need today, but which Sanskrit doesn't have (like "f", the flat "ö", the rounded "å", the flat "ä" or "æ", and so on). We then use it together with the Tamil vattezhuthu, just as was done when using Sanskrit words with Tamil.

[F.S.Gandhi vandayar]

When English,chinese,Japanese, Arab and even hindi people never want the sounds of their language distorted why you all want to change the tamil sounds. I don't know.

Hindi cannot include the sound 'Lzha' used in tamil and malayalam. Do you want the sound letter to be included in Hindi?

There is one Jackieshan film. He goes to America. A receiver black American got irritation over jackies' english. Jackie continued his own chinean phonetical style: But done his job worthfully. The black american impressed and got sad while they are parting at the end of the movie stroryline.

Hence result is essential than the unnecessary changes.

There is one word in Japan 'KAIJEN' which means 'Change for good'. Hence change for good, men! not for unneedy one. okay!

[aravindhan]

When English,chinese,Japanese, Arab and even hindi people never want the sounds of their language distorted why you all want to change the tamil sounds. I don't know.

The point is not to change the Tamil sounds. The point is to devise a way of writing foreign sounds in Tamil without changing the foreign sound. For example, transcribing the international system of Linnaean taxonomy into Tamil accurately and unambiguously is very difficult at the moment. Why not find a way to do it?

And I am not suggesting anything which is alien to Tamil tradition - we used to do exactly this when dealing with foreign languages. We even invented a completely different script for the purpose. All I am suggesting is that we revive this tradition and script.

You said elsewhere: "Tamil is perishing and after 50 years its existance in India is ruled out." I disagree, and that is why I would like to see Tamil capitalise on its own strengths.

[F.S.Gandhi vandayar]

Bringing foreign sound into tamil and changing the sound is the same.

When you have employment oppurtunity, science development, inventions,discoveries in tamil ,tamil will live. otherwise it will die.

If inventions & discoveries are more in tamil then tamil sound will be used by others.

The receivability of tamil from the latest development is one of the best in India. But the usage,business transaction is very less in tamil. The geographical and political set up of tamil in India is like this. Hence, Tamil will die slowly.

[aravindhan]

Bringing foreign sound into tamil and changing the sound is the same.

But no-one's talking about bringing the sounds into Tamil, or borrowing those words into Tamil as loanwords. Just a better system to write foreign names and such things in Tamil. There are a number of diacritics one can use with the English script to indicate Tamil sounds like: "āṅkilattil eḻutamuṭiym". This is not weakening the language, nor is it changing the way English is written or spoken. It just makes it easier to transcribe foreign languages into English. Why will things be different with Tamil?

[F.S.Gandhi vandayar]

Dear Aravindan,

This kind of trying/bringing sound was done earlier in 19th century.
This is not new to tamil.

By that A new style of prose was created in tamil called 'manipiravala nadai'. If you observe the prose writing before 50 years there was so much sanskrit words mixed tamil words called manipravalam.

Fortunately u.ve.saminatha iyer found out old sangam literature from temples which resembles colloquial tamil and with the movement of 'tanithamil' -separate tamil- maraimalai adigal,a pure tamil prose writing was initiated. this was followed by dravidian ideology propogaters.

This is evil trying created by non tamils to distort tamil. then they will twist that tamil is not having originality. It was formulated from sanskrity or otherwise from english after some time. All forgotten words can not be retrieved.

In "Pohi', before pongal day all old palm leaves of Brahmi script were put into fire when uneducated old people lived near tamil temples made that pohi practice. Agathiyam and other 6000 years old tamil literature perished in that way. Now a part of kundalakesi,valayapathi is only available.

Beware of tamil history distorters. They may come in this kind.

[aravindhan]

In "Pohi', before pongal day all old palm leaves of Brahmi script were put into fire when uneducated old people lived near tamil temples made that pohi practice. Agathiyam and other 6000 years old tamil literature perished in that way. Now a part of kundalakesi,valayapathi is only available.

I read about this in U Ve Swaminathan's autobiography. I found it really hard to fathom how the people could have thought they were doing the right and sensible thing.

[mahadevan]

Instead of adding new letters, we can use the existing letters to get those pronounciation for instance we could use Aytha elutu 'ak'in conjunction with others
ak + ka = Gha
ak + ka = Nha
ak + pa = Bha
ak + pu = Bu/bhu
is + ak = ish
etc
this way we maintain our basic structure and can still pronounce all other languages.

[senthilkumaras]

one thing is clear ! everybody agreed that THAMIZHL didnot have gh/f/j/x/z/ss/sh/... and other such consonants .
THAT MEANS THAMIZHL IS ETIMOLOGICALLY MORE PRIMITIVE TO OTHER INDIAN AND WORLD LANGUAGES AND
THAT MEANS THAMIZH PREDATES ANY SPOKEN LANGUAGE, i.e., THAMIZH IS ONE OF THE OLDEST LANUAGE SPOKEN EVER ON THIS EARTH!!!! older than all languages which has the above mentioned difficult to pronounce unnatural consonants and syllables-like SANSKRIT, LATIN, ARABIC, AND GREEK,...
THANKYOU FOR THE ENLIGHTENMENT;
THE TRUTH WAS GLARING AT ME!!!!

[sundararaj]

There is no need for any additional signs for our Thamizh. Someone suggested adopting few Malayalam letters as substitute.The fact is that Malayalam didn't have script of their own, they have adopted Tulu script,which inturn has long back adopted basic Thamizh letters. This may look strange but anyone who doubts it may read the history of Dravidian languages more fully.