Talk:Tamil language/Archive 6

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Substantive evidence that Proto Dravidian is Tamil

- The foundation of all these discussions below is based on the assumed erroneous concept that there was a language called Proto Dravidian from which all the present Dravidian languages - including Tamil got derived. - Proof that this is a blunder: - If such a powerful language called "Proto Dravidian" was present, it should have had a name by all means and that name should be a popular one. There is not a single language, in any corner of the world, which has no name although it may not have its own script like Kannada and Hindi Therefore, an especially strong language like "Proto Dravidian" should have had a name. It is extremely hard to believe that it has no name and rely on a name given by a much later language like English! - The reason that it has no name.. is very simple... it is because that name is nothing but TAMIL! - As Wikepedia itself puts it, "Dravidian" itself is a corruption of Thamizhan. None can deny this. - - As Proto Dravidian is Tamil, then it alone deserves the classical tag. - Additional proof, is that only Tamil has its own native words for "classical" and "language". - and has unique features not present in any of the other 600 languages in the world like - the letter "zha" and having thousands of poems in which the starting words rhyme. - Karka kasadara karpavai katrapin - Nirka atharku thaka. - (Karka and Nirka, being the starting words, rhyme... a totally unique feature.) - They say that "The proof of the pudding is in the eating" The very fact that only Tamil has been given the classical tag is sufficient to show that she alone can claim to be "classical", - corroborating poet Bharathidasans words "You (Tamil) are still a virgin (meaning pure) although you have given birth to the other Dravidian languages!". - - --125.22.172.37 12:34, 13 September 2007 (UTC)Dramizhan


The derogatory words KNA and POV

It had already been shown that the outdated description (quite derogatory as well -the word patois) of K.A. Nilakantasastri is not applicable to Tamil. Sarvagna and KNM are re-inserting this derogatory expression. No one denies the influence of Sanskrit on Tamil but on the same token Sanskrit was influenced by Tamil as well (see Hart's book and Burrow's work etc.). The para introduced by Sarvagna, states in every sentence the influence of Sanskrit on Tamil. This is not NPOV. --Aadal

Please do not remove recent findings with earlier disproved, unscientific works. Next time I will be using pop-ups to revert. Thanks Praveen 22:14, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Hart is not the be all and end all of Tamil research. I have provided multiple references to Sanskrit's influence on Tamil right from the days of the Tolkappiyam and Sangam literature. And, patois is not a derogatory term. It has been used aptly by KAN to describe the state of affairs. Hart for all we know, has an investment in all this. His letter that is cited here is unabashed fancruft. He himself admits that he knows only Tamil and Sanskrit, but doesnt blink an eyelid before he writes off other languages with a wave of his hand.
  • And if I remember correctly of what I've read in his books, he dates Tolk., to 2nd AD and not 2nd BC. His letter that is cited in the lead is hardly a RS. As for Sanskrit influence itself, I've cited Burnell, Trautmann(who agrees with Burnell), Caldwell(the father of Dravidian linguistics), Vaiyapuri Pillai et al. Infact, I am positive that even Hart and Zvelebil talk about Sanskrit's influence in their books. I havent added their names in the citations because I want to double check(which I will do soon).
  • As for Tamil's influence on Skt., stop equating "Dravdian influence(and that too minor) on Sanskrit" to "Tamil's influence on Sanskrit". They are not the same. The influence of Proto-Dravidian itself on Sanskrit is debatable and in all probability minor. The influence of Tamil(that too major) on Sanskrit is just fantasy. In any case, I havent seen any refs for your "Tamil's influence claim". Stop revert warring. Sarvagnya 23:02, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Merriam-Webster gives the following meanings, relevant here: 1 a : a dialect other than the standard or literary dialect b : uneducated or provincial speech
  • Wordnet.princeton.edu gives "regional dialect of a language (especially French); usually considered substandard". And wiki gives "Patois, although without a formal definition in linguistics, can be used to describe a language considered as nonstandard. Depending upon the instance, it can refer to jargon or slang, as well as to pidgins, creoles, dialects, and/or other forms of native or local speech. In many cases, class distinctions are drawn between those who speak patois and those who speak the standard or dominant language. " See patois
  • Is the Tamil language a substandard, creole, slang, a dialect?! Even hatred should have some limits Sarvagnya! Don't worry, these silly pleasures in put downs or your group-reverts to pull down the FA status of this article won't change any facts.
  • I don't think your comments about a well-known and respected professor Prof. Hart are justified and it is out of place! Your quotes from all others (except Troutman) are way out of date - in the 19th century. Wake up, we are living in the 21st century! If they are facts and continue to have validity, I've no objection to use data from any century, but they have to be validated. In the centuries prior to ~500 CE, the literary dravidian language was Tamil and in fact the the word Dravida itself is a sanskritised form of Tamil (unless you show that it is derived from Kannada or Telugu). Dravidian influence on Sanskrit is almost always a Tamil influence on Sanskritin and if we were to find exceptions it would be a very minor one. Thomas Burrow, another old scholar, says in his Dravidian Studies no less than 750 words in Skt are derived from 'dravidian'. Hart had elaborately shown the influence of Tamil on Sanskrit literature in his book. Go and check the alphabet system of all the indo-european languages and Sanskrit and you can see that the alphabet arrangement and the principles that go with it are from Tamil. But this would be OR and I'm not advocating to add anything of this sort in the article, but findings of Hart on the Tamil influence on Sanskrit poetry (including certain meters and devices) and others on the so called substratum effect, lexical features ought to be mentioned - perhaps briefly and in a balanced way. Sarvagnya's additions (all sentences uniformly declaring the effect of Skt on Tamil with no mention on the other direction) is a highly slanted POV. The description of patois is derogatory and disparaging and I object to it. KNA's words or description does not reflect any scientific fact and it is not supported by evidence. The quotation I've given elsewhere citing the findings of I. Mahadevan and J.V. Chelliah, quoted by Hart in his book on p.11, clearly prove that KNA's premise is factually wrong (about borrowings) and his sweeping statement, belittling Tamil,is not a professional or scientific statement. Sarvagnya and KNM and few others basically are pushing Sanskrit supremacist views -thats all.--Aadal 00:08, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Do you have any sources stating that there is no Kannada or Telugu influence on Sanskrit or is that an assumption? GizzaChat © 01:31, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Gizza, prior to ~500 CE Kannada and Telugu do not have any significant attested literature, except a few short inscriptions, and hence the nature of the language etc. can not be reliably determined to talk about significant influences. Secondly, the differences in the spoken languages of Tamil, Kannada, Telugu are harder to determine prior to ~500 CE. --Aadal 04:03, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Saying Hart has an investment on this is totally unacceptable. On what basis are you arguing this line of pure hate? Hart is a graduate in Sanskrit from Harvard [1] [2]. He does not only know Sanskrit & Tamil. see [this Infact kan's argument is without any scientific data and full of 'fan cruft'. He has also proved the work "Kavya in South India" as misleading and incomplete. See this. Praveen 02:32, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Hart wrote that pompous review even before he had read Tieken's book. Says something about his academic ethics to me. And in any case, Hart writing a damning review of another's book means nothing. Hart is not some headmaster with a cane in hand. Nor is Tieken his understudy. Sarvagnya 02:46, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Herman Tieken's thesis is certainly a bold one. His methodology (somewhat similar in some respects to Takahashi) is so flawed, I don't know what to say. How would the 'pure sanskritist' Dr. Herman Tieken going to account for all the inscriptional evidence (25,000 plus), Tirukkural, Cilappathikaaram, Manimekalail, civakacintamai, tevaram, tirumurai (toal including tevaram 18,000+) naalaayira divya prabandam (4000), tirumandiram and others. There are ample dated inscriptional evidences for many of these things and it is absolutely amazing that Dr. Tieken could make such claims with such a flawed approach. Hart is not just writing a damning report, he shows why it is flawed. It is not just a matter of opinion. He shows how it is flawed. --Aadal 03:51, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
He used scientific methods to show the flaws in Tieken's 'thesis'. Hart didn't use unqualified fan-cruft sentences like sanskit is the 'magic wand bringing dead languages to life' or 'rubber band tying all dravidian languages' Praveen 04:06, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
We neither give a damn about your opinion nor your OR. Please cite some respectable person saying so. Praveen 03:34, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
...saying so... - Saying what? That Hart wrote the review even before he had read Tieken's book? Hart says that himself! Read the review. dammit. And of course, I can only hope that Hart is respectable enough for your standards. Sarvagnya 05:17, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
My comment was about your crap comment about his academic ethics.... We need a respectable person to make that judgment. Not you. It is laughable that you consider him as having an investment in all this but you don't Praveen 13:33, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Sarvagnya, can you please quote the relevant sentences in the citations (in the interest of those who don't have the books)? They'll help rephrase the paragraph.
About the word patois, I feel that it's inaccurate and demeaning to describe the Dravidian languages. Its use in this context gives an impression of unscientific reporting (perhaps, that was never his intent).
I think we should add a subsequent line, quoting relevant references, that refutes these assertions. Something like, "However, the extent of influence has been contested based on more recent/later findings ...". Aadal, please add Hart's and Chellia's quotes to the article with such a sentence. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 09:57, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

My reply

  • First of all "patois", even if it is less than flattering, is not derogatory. I've even used the exact same ref on Kannada and nobody has had a problem. "Patois" here only means that the language, at that point in time, neither had much by way of royal patronage nor did it have a literary tradition that could compare with Sanskrit's. It may well have been a highly evolved language, but without the patronage of the ruling elite, it was still patois.
Anything may not be derogatory for some group. And whether Kannads have problem or not is immaterial... Given the animosity that exist between Tamils & Kannads, kannads would rather establish that Kannada belong to Sanskrit than Tamil-kannada. Praveen 14:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
(1)The 'magic wand' and 'patois' comment is not a scientific fact. It is a derogatory statement and it should be removed. (2) Tamils lived indepedently and they had Tamil as their court and administrative language. It is clearly reflected in the fact that some 60,000 inscriptions are found in Tamil Nadu, of which less than 5% is in non-Tamil. Remember that this 60,000 is out of a total of 100,000 for the whole of India. The fact is - chronologically Sanskrit inscriptions start after Tamil. Tamil literary culture and tradition is quite independent of Skt and it unique. The fact is Skt modeled even one of its well known meter 'Arya] after Tamil. --Aadal 22:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Whether somebody likes it or not, Sanskrit literature had reached a state of high cultivation several centuries before any other language(in India).
So sanskrit reached high cultivation(what ever that means) before several centuries... Even if we take your unsupported statement at face value, why are bringing that here? Praveen 14:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
True, Skt is believed to have religious literature (vedic) before any known Tamil literature. But about Kavya etc., it is argued that Skt was indeed influenced by Tamil traditions -even the Adikavya and Buddhacarita (See Hart p. 278). The fact is Skt started to flourish only after its contact with Tamil Dravidians. Tamil and Sanskrit were for centuries mutuaally interacting, - with Tamil a live and vibrant tradition and Sanskrit, a somewhat closed, semi-artificial, but still a tradition in vogue among scholars (check out the facts). I believe a vast majority of work in Skt came from the south esp. Tamil country and from the Tamil milieu. --Aadal 22:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  • And it is not like I put the word(patois) into KAN's mouth. He was a historian and a Tamil himself and he knew what he was writing. Of course, it might give an Aadal the chance to paint him as a "Sanskrit-loving Tamil-hating paarppan", but then, such irrational stereotypes can be of little use to Wikipedia.
No you did not put words into Kan's mouth; but you are trying to put words in Aadal's mouth... Praveen 14:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I hold KAN in high regard, but that comment is way out of line and it was shown to be wrong by other scholars. I believe Tamils and scholarly world owe a great deal of debt to KAN for his solid contributions. That doesn't mean everything he had said are valid and should be accepted in toto.--Aadal 22:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  • And if the KAN ref is causing so much grief, I will remove the quote or I will simply even remove the reference itself.
It is wrong and invalid and hence the suggestion to remove. It does not cause any grief, but that description is mean and derogatory. Any knowledgeable Tamil will take offence at that. As I said I respect him, inspite of this unfortunate statement.--Aadal 22:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Even without KAN's ref, it is well sourced. I've cited people from Caldwell to Takahashi to Tieken. Infact, if I remember right, Caldwell has even gone to the extent of saying that, Tamil was the first(among D languages) to get influenced by Sanskrit! And what better source do you want than Vaiyapuri Pillai? For heaven's sakes, Pillai edited the official Tamil lexicon. And just the fact that his most vocal critic was Pavanar should speak volumes of the man.
Please do not use your crystal ball to see what Caldwell would've done etc.... We are not interested. Sundar's suggestion seems to be the best one.
Takahashi's approach is flawed and so is Tieken. Tieken had been severely critized by all the knowledgeable western scholars. No sensible person can claim that Sangam literature, post-sangam literature Silappatikaram, bhakti literature like tevaram etc. -all with widely varying linguistic features, poetic features, certain attrition of grammatical structures etc. etc. are concocted by a few in the 8-9th centuries as Tieken incredibly claims! Tieken's statements and claims are so outrageous, it needs a separate article to highlight it. He will definitely go down as a person who erred grievously - and made such totally baseless claims (basically he lost his credibility!). His 'methodology' had already been shown to be fundamentally flawed. About Vaiyapuri pillai, again he is a great scholar, but he made so many serious errors as well- and Devaneya Pavanar had written a whole book highlighting the flaws in his work. One should read it to understand the flaws and errors. Pavanar's scholarship is no less than Pillai - and in the area of linguistics and etymology, certainly way superior. --Aadal 22:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  • And I dont buy the later/recent findings argument. This is not like a clash between classical and quantum physics or something. There has been no such paradigm change. Especially, given the fact that this is a view held by scholars from every generation since Caldwell and needless to say, by scholars before Caldwell. In other words, as far as the question of Sanskrit's influence goes, view hasnt changed in centuries, if ever. For God's sakes, what was the Tanittamil iyakkam about? Wasnt it about 'cleansing' Tamil of Sanskrit influence?!
The influences of Skt on Tamil and Tamil on Skt are mutual, historically, but the fact is - Skt is a language which ceased to be an active language (in the sense of being a mother tongue or a vibrant language in vogue) a long long time ago (perhaps ~500 BCE), whereas Tamil had been and continues to be a vibrant living language. There are at present 70+ million people speaking it today. There are more than 1,800 newspapers. Scores of magazines have readership of 100s of thousands. Tamil is popular and vibrant in multiple media. Of course, Tamil does absorb from a diversity of languages it is interacting with, like any other living language. You keep harping on Skt influence on Tamil, but you don't seem to understand that Skt lost its vakku- some believe precisely because of such arrogant sanskrit supremacist attitudes. Skt is a great language, but stop arrogating more to it than is a fact. FYI Devaneya Pavanar claims that 40% of skt is from Tamil and Gnyanaprakasa Nadar published two books showing that more than 3000 basic words in Latin and Greek and by extension in Skt are from Tamil. I'm not claiming these to be valid, but they have to be examined by competent scholars before they arrive at some consensus. --Aadal 22:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
50%!! 20%!! and thats counting just vocabulary. We havent even started considering the influence on grammar, literary styles etc.,. And the indirect influences that would have been exerted on the languages by a polity that overtly patronised Sanskrit; the influence of exalted status of Sanskrit among the literati; the influence through religion and several such other backdoors... Any more influence and Caldwell perhaps might have been tempted to classify these languages under the Indo-Aryan group itself! And you want to compare that to the few dozen or few hundred that Sanskrit may have loaned from Tamil(even assuming 'Dravidian' == 'Tamil)?!
See my comment above. Burrow and Emeneau claim that even Rig Veda had words from Dravidian (for which they give Tamil root words). Aitreya Brahmana, believed to be ~800 BCE, speaks of dramila (=Tamil). The so-called substratum effect is basically the influence of Dravidian on skt. Borrowing is a two-way street. The extent of traffic in either direction is harder to decide without a better understanding. --Aadal 22:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
"Though no statistical study has been made..."
So no scientific study has been done... That is really a surprise given that you provided the citation :) Praveen 14:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
I quote Caldwell verbatim from his introduction
"Even in prose compositions on religious subjects in which a larger amount of Sanskrit is employed than in any other department of literature, the proportion of Sanskrit which has found its way into Tamil is not greater than the amount of Latin contained in corresponding compositions in English..."
He clearly says the level of Sanskrit influence here. This is in total contrast with your crystal ball observations. Could you clarify your 'observations'? Praveen 17:17, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Let me quote Sjoberg (1992), "Thus the dravidian grammatical impact on indo-aryan has been far greater than the Indo-Aryan grammatical impact on Dravidian..". George Hart (1975)(p.279) says, talking about Tamil, "The number of southern elements in Kalidasa and classical Sanskrit is, in fact, far higher than is indicated by a few shared themes described above. There is scarcely a verse in which some element can not be found thta can be traced back to the southern tradition."--Aadal 22:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I cant believe that there can be so much opposition to this. Even Hart doesnt contest this. He is always gaurded and only deals with specifics. For example, he says Sanskrit and Prakrit poetic traditions dont have a puram counterpart. That's non sequitur. If Sanskrit doesnt have a tradition of puram poetry(which Tieken anyway claims that is inspired by Sanskrit's Kavya), that doesnt mean anything as far as the question of S's overall influence on Tamil is concerned. Not to mention, puram is not so much a literary 'style' as a poetic theme.
It is not a non sequitur... Hart's comment about Puram is in reply to wishful claims by misguided Sanskrit chauvinists that all sangam poetry is 'lifted' from Sanskrit. How can a non-existing concept can be lifted? Praveen 14:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
  • And in any case, nobody is claiming that Tamil or other D languages are carbon copies of S. The claim is only that even though they originated independent of Sanskrit, they could not escape Sanskrit's influence. Nothing more, nothing less. Sarvagnya 17:28, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
You don't seem to know Tamil or its linguistic and literary history. Read my comments above about skt versus Tamil.--Aadal 22:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, words like raatri, shigro, samacharon, some of the most common words in the Tamil language and conversation are Sanskrit derived. Its the same logic as to why english is a Germanic language rather than a Romance language.Bakaman
Bakaman has just been blocked for meat puppetry. Praveen 18:49, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
No praveen, there is no evidence to substantiate your allegations. Debate on the content, not the contributor. Now do you have any rebuttals?Bakaman 00:02, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Did you forget people can look at your block log and see the reason for your unblock? Anyways, I have not attacked you. I just mentioned your block so that people see your credit history in wikipedia. The community can make a judgment based on people's past(like in real life). Praveen 01:39, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
That I was the victim of a wheel war is evident. Btw, who is editing this page? Sundar and I have got along well, sarvagnya and I have had conflict in the past, and you have attacked me and questioned if I am Tamil or not. You dont even know what trolling, POV pushing, meatpuppetry, or any of these loaded words you throw around mean. Through a short look at this pushing, POV pushers are evident Are you going to answer my arguments? I thought not. Its evident your skills on wikipedia are limited to attacking people.Bakaman 00:09, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Tamil influence on Sanskrit is totally an unwarranted distraction to an article about Tamil. As I find that there is no consensus amongst scholars on that. It can only be a side bar side note to Sanskrit influence on Tamil which has mainstream and common sence consensus. The information cannot be equal in statute. Tamil influence on Malayalam and Sinhala off course has mainstream consensus and that can be a major section in an article about Tamil. There is also considerable amount of mainstream literature on Tamil influence in South east Asian languages. I feel the discussions about Tamil influence on Sanskrit is a total waste of everyone time that is taking valuable space and effort. Reaching a consensus on this issue should be a no brainer. Taprobanus 14:10, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
  If you think sansrkit did not influence tamil,then answer few of my questions.

1) What was the meter used in manimekalai?(If you know what meter is) 2) Origin of that meter?

Even Hart agrees that even tolkappiyam is influenced by a distant sanskrit meter?

Now again find out has any meters of tamil influenced sanskrit?I think after answering these we can proceed our discussion.

Nrupatunga 08:12, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Aadals POV

Gizza, prior to ~500 CE Kannada and Telugu do not have any significant attested literature, except a few short inscriptions, and hence the nature of the language etc. can not be reliably determined to talk about significant influences. Secondly, the differences in the spoken languages of Tamil, Kannada, Telugu are harder to determine prior to ~500 CE

If the nature of the language is not easily determined, then why did I.Mahadevan write is famous book "Early Tamil Epigraphy..." [3]. If the impact of Kannada were minor, why is it mentioned here so explicitly.

Is Aadal is trying to concoct a Tamil origin of Kannada and Telugu here prior to 5th century?Dineshkannambadi 14:19, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

When the differences between the spoken forms of Tamil, Kannada and Telugu can not be reliably determined prior to ca.500CE, then claim of I. Mahadevan leads to doubts. There are many endings used for words in spoken forms in Tamil. The so-called 'impact' of Kannada you are referring to is indeed quite isolated and minor one. And this kind of evidence is harder to show as an influence on Skt. Don't get carried away! I think I should leave your misguided insinuation left unanswered.--Aadal 05:59, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

What inscriptions are there in tamil before 7th century AD. Attested literature is non existent in tamil(you cannot find any tamil literature reference in other languages). So talking about influences there is nothing to talk about in tamil also. It seems strange that if the literary tradition is so huge , why do they just scibble unknown graffiti in pots and rocks, they can go far full fledged inscriptions. So when there is no clear evidence of tamil literature before 7th century AD , why talk abou other languages.meghamitra 10:17, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


Three changes about dates and references

I've reversed some edits of Sarvagnya on the dates and references. (1) The reasonable uncertainity in the dates of Tolkappiyam is between 200 BCE and 500 CE and hence I've changed the text to this effect (the 200 BCE is from Hart and 500 CE for some parts is from Zvelebil and others). There are extremists who claim with no hard evidences that it is 8000 BCE and the other extremists claiming that it is 10th century CE.).

(2) Tamil literary tradition is not 1000 years as Sarvagnya had inserted in the recent edit, but about 2300. Several songs in the Sangam are dated to earlier than 300 BCE which talk about rivers pahRuLi and Kumari which are now lost and on the basis of linguistic features. The Bhakti poets who came late themselves are reliably 600-800 CE, including inscriptional evidences. So claiming 1000 years of literary tradition by Sarvagnya is without any consensus.

(3) The author Herman Tieken had NOT demonstrated that the entire sangam corpus follows the Kavya form of Sanskrit as claimed in the quote "The author demonstrates that the entire Sangam poetic corpus follows the "Kavya" form of Sanskrit poetry"- It is a proposal and to fit his proposal the author had assumed that the entire Sangam literature is a fiction created by one or a few poets (all the 50,000 lines of poems of Sangam literature, the entire cilappatikaram, all the 9,000 plus songs of Tevaram, ~4000 songs of Azhvar pasurams etc.). Although the styles and linguistic features are so different in these works. I've read the book (Tieken's) and read the reviews, which I've listed in this talk page, and I can clearly see that it is fundamentally flawed in so many fronts, it is not possible or appropriate to discuss them here. The best that can be said is that Tieken had proposed these and that it is controversial and claimed to be flawed by some reviewers. It is certainly not the accepted or validated view. Hence I've added some qualification to this reference. --Aadal 21:13, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

  • I will be reverting the recent reversion of my edits by Aadal. For starters, not just Tieken but other scholars like Vaiyapuri Pillay, Burnell(one of the greatest paleographers of South Indian history), Caldwell and BGL Swamy have also have dated Tolk., to the 5th CE, 8th CE, 8th-12th CE and 10th CE respectively. Mahadevan while refusing to assign a date has(in his latest work) said that it cannot be before 2nd CE. V S Rajam plays it safe by saying 'pre-5th CE'. Also Hart is not the high priest of Indology or even Tamil studies.
Apart from extremists every one else dates it from 1BCE to 5 CE. See my reply below Praveen 22:25, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
  • His criticism of Tieken means zilch. His bias against Tieken's views are apparent given the fact that he even published a critique(albeit on his own website) before even reading Tieken's book! Just because Hart criticised Tieken doesnt mean Tieken is a fool. And even Zvelebil, postulates his own Ur-Tolkappiyam(a precursor to Tolkappiyam) which is what he dates to the 2nd BC. Not Tolkappiyam. Even among scholars who give the earliest dates for the Tolk., they are unanimous that the major bulk was composed between the 3rd and 7th CE.
Anybody with basic knowledge of English who reads Hart's whole review would notice that he commented both before reading (He commented on the contents of the Tieken's book cover) and after reading the Tieken's book. Hart is not the only one who severely criticized Tieken's flawed thesis. G. Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi (Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 60, No. 2. (2001), pp. 373-374) & Anne E. Monius (University of Viginia) literally tore apart his flawed thesis in their reviews. I can send you links if you wish to read anything else apart from ramblings of Kamat. If Tieken's work has to be taken seriously then we have to take works of people like Pavanar & Kamat seriously. Praveen 22:25, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Praveen, Pavanar had not claimed 8000 BCE as Sarvagnya has been trying to allude. He had not answered my specific questions regarding this. Pavanar claims that it is pre-Paninian work and gives an estimate of 700 BCE. A number of tamil scholars like Dr. Ilakkuvanar also estimate that it is prior to Panini's time and give a date 500-700 BCE. It is the range provided by these scholars who believe that it is Pre-Paninian. Even A.C. Burnell who 'discovered' Tolkappiyam says it is Pre-Paninian school - but does not give earlier date. A.C. Burnell's statements quoted in Trautman are also under the old-school assumption that when something is found in both Skt and Tamil, it is the Tamil which borrowed, which is not the case in many situations. For Tolkappiyam, the most conservative estimates are 200 BCE to 500 CE. The 500 CE is actually questionable because some of the premises for assigning such a late date are now shown to be incorrect (like the puLLi rule and the finding in Anaimalai inscription). But this range of 200 or 100 BCE to 500 CE is the reasonable estimate based on current scholarship. --Aadal 15:23, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I am sorry Aadal. I didn't cross check his claim. I will be more careful next time. Thanks Praveen 16:05, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Oh.. only 700 BCE? Uh.. I thought the 'ultimate divine classical mother of all languages' that was 'more divine'(sic) than Sanskrit needed to be atleast 10000 years old. Oh boy. Am I disappointed :( Sarvagnya 16:13, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  • What does Hart mean by 'earliest parts of the Tolk.,'? 2 lines were written in 2nd BC? And even that, I strongly suspect that he is being misquoted. I havent yet had access to Hart's books recently, but the last time I had taken a look at it, if I remember correctly, he postulates a 2nd CE date. Not a 2nd BCE date. And in any case, Hart is not the last word on anything. Just because he is the Tamil Nadu government's patron saint doesnt mean he is the only scholar around. And on wikipedia, you cant just choose whichever view is most convenient to you and claim that it is 2300 years old. From the evident disagreement in the views of eminent scholars, it is clear that Tamil literature is, at best, older than 1000 years. If you want to believe that it is 10000 years old, I cant stop you. And if someone else wants to believe that it is only 100 years old, I cant stop them either. But neither of you should be allowed to impose their view on others. and oh.. btw, when you talk of 'extremists' dating it to 8000 BCE, are you talking about Mr. Pavanar, by any chance? and for your information, people who dated it to later than Hart are all scholars who have contributed seminally and in reputed publications and journals. Not driveling quacks like Pavanar or EVR. Sarvagnya 21:48, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Tamil nadu government's patron saint?? Where did you get that from? Do you have any base for this allegation? Did he get state government awards and money like Kamat? Praveen 22:25, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Dr Burnell was a late nineteenth century author. Dr. B.G.L. Swamy was not a Tamil sholar, he was a botonist. I think Prof Hart and Kamil Zvelebil have higher reputation than Tieken no matter what Sarvagna may think. Wikipedia is about verifiability. We don't care about 'suspicions' Parthi talk/contribs 22:30, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Sarvagnya, you're welcome to believe what you want, but understand that Tieken's proposal is not a proven thing. Hart had not just criticised, but had shown that Tieken's approach is fundamentally incorrect (this is not some opinion, but statistical method used by Tieken is shown to be wrong). Please read his book yourself and see whether he makes any sense at all. Tieken has simply assumed things and hadn't proved anything. Not only that he had made extremely abusive comments about 'villagers' and authors of the those works, and it is indeed very troubling to know that such things are written in the name of scholarly publications. Tieken is welcome to show that the entire Sangam literature is a fiction of the 16th or even 18th century, but he ought to show and arrive at this and not just simply assume the result. As I said this is not the place to criticize him or critique his work, but it is not a consensus view and hence please don't push for it. I had not deleted his reference, only qaulified as found in the literature. Why did you revert my edits?--Aadal 23:17, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Are you seeing things? I havent reverted your edits. Not yet. Sarvagnya 23:21, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Sorry. I saw a few more places where the 10th century date for Tolkappiyam and the 1000 year literary history for Tamil were given and I mistakenly thought you had revereted. Now these have been changed as well (later date of 5th century CE and 2000 year literary history). If you want to change something, please discuss it here and let there be some consensus. Can you show that Pavanar had proposed a date of 8000 BCE for Tolkappiyam? Just curious. --Aadal 23:37, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
How about you guys reverting the drive-by ambush editing that you guys did by removing lot of cited info and de-NPOVing the article? Revert yourself and then we'll talk about consensus. Sarvagnya 10:23, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
It is not clear to me what you mean. Would you mind spelling out what those 'drive-by ambush editing' 'removing lot of cited info and de-NPOVing the article' are? I for one would like to retain any valid statements which contributes to the article. I don't believe I removed any cited info. Even where I had disagreed with authors whose quoted work had been proven to be invalid (like KAN and Tieken), I've retained them only because some of you seem to think they should be retained. --Aadal 12:18, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Verification failed. which one was that

Praveen, Aadal - Which one was that citation that one of you removed post haste claiming that it failed verification? Sarvagnya 18:05, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

At least do you understand your babble? Praveen 18:15, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
You seem to have a very short memory. Just yesterday, one of you(I think its you) removed a citation that I had added saying that it "failed verification". You didnt even think it fit to ask on the talk page before you removed it in one swipe. I am asking you which one it was, so I can take a look at it and fix it. Sarvagnya 18:21, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Are you seeing things again? No citation was removed. See history. It is you who removed the "verification failed" tag without explanation(even in edit summary). Also, see "verification failed" tag documentation for how that tag works. Then probably you will know which citation you are inquiring about.
BTW: Now you are removing lot of cited info. Lets see how far it goes? Praveen 18:30, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I have not removed any cited content that wasnt disputed. I removed your "Tamil also influenced Sanskrit" weaseling because you had removed what I had added in the first place. And in spite of my pointing out that "Dravidian" or "Proto-Dravidian" was not the same as "Tamil" you paid no heed and didnt bother to discuss it before you re-added it after I reverted it. Sarvagnya 18:42, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

And I've also observed the deliberate weaseling and de-NPOVing that you guys have done on the other articles like Gajabahu synchronism and Tolkappiyam. Sarvagnya 18:45, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

No body removed your cited content. Instead of using unsupported claims, could you provide diffs? You removed cited content about Tamil's influence on Sanskrit here. You removed cited content about early inscriptions in Tamilnadu here Praveen 18:56, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I'll check it and add it back if necessary. Sarvagnya 19:22, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
For the time being, I assume good faith and ignore your baseless allegation that I did deliberate weaseling in other articles. Praveen 19:31, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

If there is any particular sentence that you want added back, list it here and we can discuss. You guys made so many changes in so many places and added weasel and POV into sentences part of which were cited etc.,. For one, you have changed Sanskrit's influence on Tolk., to read as if it is mere speculation! While the fact is that, S influence on Tolkappiyam is described by almost every author including Hart. You'd changed it to read as if, S influence on Tolk., is only about the Aindra angle. I cant sit and distill your weasel and POV from your cited content. btw, I'll be adding more refs to the article. Sarvagnya 19:34, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Why are reinforcing the fact that you are the only one who is not in consensus with other editors by calling all other editors "you guys"? We are different people. Please raise your concerns to me about only my edits. Thanks.
BTW: Now that I mentioned, I think I should be ready for sudden interest from drive-by-editors. Praveen 19:45, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
The citation which failed verification was removed since there was no action taken on your part to explain. Thanks Praveen 14:56, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Opposition from 'expert' body

To Sarvagnya: Make clear whether the opposition (to according the classical language tag) was only to Tamil or all languages. Right now the sentence reads like the opposition was only to Tamil. Is it 'deliberate' attempt to belittle Tamil or difficulty to comprehend a complex prose? O.k. Alright. I will once again assume good faith. Praveen 20:00, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

The other languages were never in the picture. It all started only when Tamils led by the likes of Karunanidhi started demanding it for Tamil. No other languages had deemed it necessary to rake up the silly issue. The expert committee right from the beginning disapproved of the classical tag for Tamil. But due to political pressure from Karunanidhi and co, the government decided to go ahead and award the tag to Tamil(even before Sanskrit!) disregarding the expert committee's opinion. This is why the expert committee expressed fears that more languages would now queue up for the tag(after all, if Tamil can get it, many other languages ought to qualify too) and the article notes that, that is exactly what followed when Kannada and Telugu queued up. Just read the article.
Also, this has nothing to do with belittling Tamil. The facts have to be stated. How convenient of you to have left out the political canvassing that went into it and only to have highlighted the minor 'academic campaign' and support from 'Tamil sangams' abroad(Hart's campaign and sundry Tamil sangams' 'campaigns' would have counted for squat minus Karunanidhi's arm twisting of the Congress govt.,.). You cant have the cake and eat it too. If you want the hundreds of crores that will now be pumped into 'Classical Tamil' research, you also need to be more forthright about how you got the tag. Sarvagnya 20:41, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
also, I am not wedded to the exact wording I've added there. But the fact that politics had a major role to play in Tamil getting the tag cannot be hidden. You cant go on and on and on in the article about how rich Tamil is, how ancient Tamil is, how original Tamil is etc.,(it may well be all that, I'm not arguing about that), and expect people to believe that there was not the least political meddling into the affair.
Anyway, I'll still think of how to change the wording. Sarvagnya 20:45, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
in one sentence, you ask me if it is a deliberate attempt to belittle tamil and in the next you say you'll AGF. okay. I'll also AGF on that. Sarvagnya 21:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Sarvagnya, how many times should I tell you. Here no one is interested in your suspicions, OR, etc. Please first publish all your thoughts in a reputed medium and then we can think about incorporating all your conspiracy theories in Wikipedia. Your use of words like squat etc shows your immense knowledge in the field. If Hart's campaign is equivalent to 'squat', I wonder what will be the value of your opinion. Praveen 22:06, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Okay.. you are just not amenable to calm talk. Fine. I have my ref there from a reputed source and it details in no uncertain terms the political arm twisting that went into getting the tag for Tamil. If you still want to believe that Hart had a greater role to play than Karunanidhi, I cant stop you. Dream on. Sarvagnya 22:08, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Its laughable that, the person who compared respectable person like Hart's work to squat, feels that I am not amenable to calm talk. I am calmly telling you the policies of Wikipedia (WP:OR) Praveen 22:55, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Recent edits by Sarvagnya

The recent edits by Sarvagnya had majorly degraded the content and flow and hence had been reverted.

  • Provided a reference for two thousand plus years of history with the well-known author Dr. M. Varadarajan.
  • I’ve removed a phrase and its cited reference about an opposition from one group in declaring the classical language status accorded to Tamil language, because it is not a place to discuss all those who supported and opposed the move by Govt. India. If it is needed it may have to be discussed elsewhere.
  • The fact tag for the classification of literature in many periods is removed, because none is required. Periods are shown and discussed, what is the problem? Different authors divide the period in slightly different ways and what is done in the present article captures the essence. You can take a look at M.Varadarajan’s book.
  • All the other reverts were done as Sargagnya had unilaterally modified without any discussion. He had removed references that point to influences on Skt etc. While I am supposed assume good faith, I feel his actions has majorly degraded the quality and I'm afraid it might even result in losing the FA status. Please tag what you must and someone will provide the supporting documentation.--Aadal 23:13, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I dont care whether you think that I degraded the article or not. imo, your edits have majorly degraded the article and infested it with obnoxious POV and weasel. It is you who made major undiscussed changes to the article yesterday and I only reverted them today. I urge you to immediately undo your reverts while keeping your additions of the ref for women poets, the table etc.,. Sarvagnya 23:17, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
If we keep Sarvagnya's 1000 year claim of Tamil literature, then it means that we give importance only to Herman's work which is severely criticized. This will be grossly unfair to other scholars' work. Thanks Praveen 23:19, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I've replied to this convenient misinterpretation of my edits by you on your talk page. Stop talking the same thing on multiple talk pages. Keep it to one page. This page. Sarvagnya 23:24, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I did not remove any cited content unilaterally yesterday. It is you who should have had the courtesy to reach a consensus first in the talk page before removing cited content here & here. Thanks. Praveen 23:32, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Scores of authors point to more than 2000 years of literary history. The consensus among the authors is more than 2000 years of lierary history, but I can't go on correcting and reverting Sarvagnya's edits. As say below, there is no hope other than seeking some admin's help. As I said, I won't be able to participate for several days (more than 10 days and I think FARC decision may be over by then.). All the best! Sarvagnya, I wish you well too, even if we lose the FA. --Aadal 23:38, 1 May 2007 (UTC) One more thing, even if the entire Tamil literature is only 300 years old, it is a great literature for those who are art-lovers. The greatness is not in antiquity, but in the beauty. The antiquity is unquestionable too but that is a bonus. --Aadal 23:47, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Why is that difficult to say that most researchers agree that Tamil has over 2000 years of what ever history but so and so says it is just over 1000 years Taprobanus 14:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Unless some admin steps in nothing can be done

I don't think I will revert or edit this any more. Sarvagnya seems to be quite bent on destroying the FA status and bring down the quality of content. I'm well aware I'm supposed to assume good faith, but having seem so much, I would be lying if I say I have good faith. Not withstanding this, I'm still willing to wrk with Sarvagnya and other such editors. Alternatively, the only thing I can do is to appeal to some admin. Unfortunately I can not participate in the editing for the next several days and I leave it to other editors. Please stay cool and may be ask for more time in FARC and work with Sarvagnya or other editors to arrive at some consensus. Good luck! It is a great article with excellent information, though some are now compromised and diluted with the unfair modifications made by Sarvagnya.--Aadal 23:30, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

It will be a particularly sad day for me if this article was to lose its FA. It, after all, apart from my own efforts has seen exceptional efforts from Arvind, for one. If only you guys would have spent less time trolling on Halmidi and Rashtrakuta FAC and Kannada and Bharatanatya and Carnatic music, we could have had more time to thrash out several issues on this page. Even now, it is not too late, but unfortunately, I see no signs of 'will' from your side. It is sad. It really is. Sarvagnya 23:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Sarvagnya, what you are doing is personal attack. Praveen 23:55, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Sarvagnya, I don't intend to justify anyone. But, it's extremely hard for me to assume good faith on you. You don't need to answer me, but I'd request you to answer the following questions to yourself.

  • Didn't you play the game of willfully citing sources that seek to undermine the history of Tamil literature even when those sources have been heavily criticised by later-day scholars?
  • Haven't you erred on the side of fairness when you want to regard Vedic and Pre-Vedic Sanskrits as just Sanskrit, Halegannada as just Kannada, but classical Tamil as Proto*? Similarly Tamil's influence on Carnatic music is insignificant whereas Sanskrit's influence on Tamil is substantial to the point that History of Tamil language and literature should be all about that, right?
  • If you were to apply the same set of rules that you insist here to Kannada or Halmidi, will your own POV stand?
  • Do you think calling Devaneya Pavanar's works as "bullshit" just for some of his incorrect nationalistic views is consistent with calling B. G. L. Swamy (with due respect for his expertise in Botany and contribution to Kannada literature) as a "historian in his own right" and adding KAN's assertion that the Dravidian languages were "patois" even in the modern context? Haven't you noticed Kamil's pointed refutation to this comment where he claims that even if we were to make a statement like that, Tamil would be an exception?
  • How about considering Hart to have an "investment" while disregarding BGL's inclinations?
  • Didn't you use Wikipolicies in favour of your POV by selective interpretations? Doing tertiary research by interpreting citations selectively is fine in some places but not so in other places?

That I'm raising these questions to you rather than quietly go into semi-retirement like Arvind did is only because you're someone who thinks you're genuinely NPOVing the article. I've asked similar questions to myself in the past and have willfully changed my POVs. It's not a shame that we've been "educated" with a certain world view. For example, I was under the wrong impression that Modern Tamil is the mother of all the southern Dravidian languages. But, when I read about their antiquity, I could change my POV. With a glimmer of hope that you'll relent from playing wikirules cleverly and help editing to preserve the original coherent prose flow and maintain the proportion of treatment to different concepts so that it can still be worthy of featured status, I sign off. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 06:37, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

  • The short answer is NO. It is alright to believe what Hart says, but all these days the entire article has been written only from Hart's POV. Which indeed can be glaring for someone who knows that dating of Tamil literature is not such an open and shut case as was being made out in the article. Honestly, even if you read Zvelebil's(forget BGLS or Tieken) book, you'll see how much he strains to arrive at the dates he arrives at. And even he(Zvelebil) concedes as much.
  • Vedic Sanskrit could probably be considered "Old Sanskrit"(similar to haLegannada or sangam/classical tamil) but hardly as Proto Indo Aryan. Panini, Patanjali, Manavadharmashastra, Arthashastra, Natyashastra etc., are all "Sanskrit" and all these have influenced Tamil literature. Says who? Says Hart. Says Zvelebil. And where have I ever claimed that "Classical Tamil" is some Proto *? It was Aadal, infact, who was trolling on the Halmidi page that Halegannada was some northern dialect of Tamil!(Halmidi is purvada halegannada btw) "Classical Tamil", let me restate, is without a doubt Tamil(though Malayalis might be justified if they were to claim to be equal inheritors of the legacy). But I still have to point out that "Dravidian" or "Proto-Dravidian" is NOT Tamil. Linguists are very clear about that. So to present "Dravidian" or "Proto Dravidian"'s influence on Sanskrit or any other language as being Tamil's influence would most certainly be flawed. It is this that I was crying hoarse about but Aadal kept inserting unilaterally into the article. And when I removed it, they started reverting by claiming that I was removing cited content.
  • My "POV" stands even if it is Kannada. I have no qualms in admitting that Kannada has been "greatly" influenced by Sanskrit. And at the same time Kannada, like Tamil will remain as rich and as sweet to my ears as say, a relatively less 'corrupt' form of Kannada.
  • While calling Pavanar "BS" may partly have to do with Aadal's spirited defence of him and 'heat of the moment', you still have to concede that Pavanar's theories do not measure up to scientific rigor. As for BGLS, as I've already pointed out on another page, he has published his works in peer reviewed publications and his works(not talking about botany here) have been referred to by other authors. And if you were to go by qualifications and deride BGLS because he was a Botanist, where will that leave Vaiyapuri Pillai or a Iravatham Mahadevan, then? One of them was a lawyer(if I'm right) and the other was an IAS officer. Or even U Ve Swaminathaier? Or scores of other indologists.
  • My throwaway comment about Hart's "investment" was alluding to his proactive campaign for getting Tamil the classical tag. And BGLS, I am sure has never gotten into anything remotely as political. And yet, I havent resisted anybody trying to use Hart in citations.
I honestly dont enjoy all this and am really pained myself that you or Arvind or anybody for that matter might have been hurt, but honestly, the way I see it, it boils down to few things. Most tamils, not all, that I've met, genuinely believe(like you say you once did) about a certain supremacy(for want of a better word) of Tamil vis a vis other Indian languages. This view, like I've been trying to impress here, is not based upon scientific fact. For example, most Tamils almost by default believe that Tamil is the oldest language; while infact, the very metric or concept of oldest language is not scientific. Most believe that Tamil has been totally devoid of Sanskrit's influence while infact, it is only true that Tamil(like other Dravidian languages) only "originated" independent of Sanskrit. Like my citations(not from BGLS or Tieken but from Hart and Zvelebil) on Tolkappiyam show, even the Tolkappiyam has not escaped Sanskrit influence.
The problem arises when one perhaps sees Sanskrit's influence as something shameful or as a contaminant. Instead, if we were to see it as nothing more than a natural process that happened only because Sanskrit was better placed at one point in history to influence other languages, it might be a lot easier. English today has perhaps replaced Sanskrit and we are seeing English's influence all around us. In language, in music, in cinema, in dance. I have more thoughts that I cant yet put in words. This much for now. I think I've answered most if not all of your questions. I will answer any that I've left out at another time. For now, I only want to let you know that I am still at the table. Waiting. Sarvagnya 07:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

meghamitra 07:54, 2 May 2007 (UTC) SO a language that has rules to admit other language words into the language use is a pure language. Remember thisai chol, vadachol

Admins like me are not necessarily in charge of deciding content more than anyone else. Perhaps all of you could try third opinion or (probably more appropriate) mediation? Grandmasterka 07:59, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
The featured article review has just closed as a keep. Meanwhile, we have a factual accuracy tag on the article and it's been protected from editing. Wonderful. Grandmasterka 08:33, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Just a few clarifications. I didn't seek to deride BGLS for being a botanist, but just that any status coming from there shouldn't apply here. If he's published on linguistics or history of literature (not just literary works), that should do. Forgive my ignorance if he had. Mahadevan's work carry credibility for being published by the "Harvard Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies." Arvind's prose didn't just rest on Hart's works, he'd cited many others. Hart, however, earns a place due to his studies and publications directly relevant to this field and also because of recent advancements in this field. I can fully relate to your angst about claims of Tamil supremacy. It's not just unique to Tamil. In fact, the reason why many Tamils consider Sanskrit influence as something not to be proud of is because of a certain "Sanskrit supremacy" campaign and, even worse, attributing anything that's good in a language to Sanskrit. In fact, in my own discussions with my Kannada friends, I observe that they willingly concede Sanskrit influence strangely to counter Tamil supremacist claims. That's probably why most Kannada people have no qualms about "admission" of Sanskrit influence.
It's surprising to see how you still can think you've not been biased even as your reply above tells "why". (I know and admit my biases and hence consciously and constantly try to avoid them in my edits.)
Well, this sort of a discussion can't take a structured route, so I stop here. Towards clearing the mess with the article's prose, I'd like that you take a honest relook and propose something that is a) reasonable b) balanced and with NPOV (including weighing different sources) and c) proportionate treatment to all parts of the article's subject matter (including Sanskrit influence). I'd specifically want the "patois" comment taken out of this article and be mentioned in a sub article where it should be part of the article's text so that the subsequent criticism and rebuttals can be mentioned clearly. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 09:30, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Very quickly. No. I dont subscribe to any notions of Sanskrit supremacy either. All I want to point out is that, whether for the right reasons or the wrong reasons, Sanskrit influenced other languages(including K and Ta). We can choose to feel proud of it or ashamed of it. But denying that our languages have been influenced by Sanskrit is not 'academic'. How much it influenced our languages? Well, that is left for the experts to tell. And for this I've cited from Hart and Zvelebil mainly(see Tolkappiyam). I'll bring those citations into this article too in addition to the ones we already have. And if patois is really that repulsive, lets remove the quote and just cite the page number or even just the book. But KAN's view is a notable view and we shouldnt be removing it just because Hart takes exception to it(more about Hart's arguments later). About moving forward, I'm very tired today. Gimme a couple of days... and I'll come back. But at the moment, I think preparing drafts of the disputed sections might not be a bad idea, after all. Sarvagnya 10:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Just to clarify Sarvagna's 'citations' from Hart and Zvelebil, on the Sanskrit influencing Tolkappiyam, we are still waiting for some information. See this. If the details are not forthcoming soon, the passage will be removed from Tolkappiyam. In my opinion this illustrates Sarvagna's style of editing. First write your POV and then try to look for citations to support your POV. Great! 'Pompous' Parthi talk/contribs 10:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Ignoring the banter, let me say this. No. I dont write my POV and then look for citations. I have my citations ready. I spent 5 hours in the library yesterday just gathering them. It is just that I was/am too tired today to <ref>...</ref> the whole article with title, publisher, author, quotation, page number, isbn etc.,. I will be putting them up within the next two or three days(may be as early as tomorrow). So I just hope that you stop breathing down my neck. Sarvagnya 10:48, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
  • There are references to the claim that Tamil has 2000 year literature history (Eg. author Dr. M. Varadarajan as per Aadal). I don't see any reference to the weasel sounding "more than 1000 year old" claim. This wording can be used for describing anything older than 1000 years. (for example the great pyramids)
  • Regarding the mutual influence of Sanskrit & Tamil we should be using more balanced view. Maybe something like "According to some scholars, Sanskrit influenced Tamil and so on.... Some other scholars state Tamil influenced Sanskrit and so on....." (Sundar's previous suggestion).
  • While citing, please quote relevant portion. Praveen 13:48, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Lot of instances of sanskrit in Tamil. Until devaneya pavanar and co missionaries came with spliting agenda. [Their antibrahminical tirade is the reason so many iyers and iyengars have to migrate to other parts of the country. There were free and frank exchange between all languages including tamil and sanskrit. Any language cannot grow without give and take with other languages. So does tamil and sanskrit.

Tholkappiam talks about how to bring other language words to tamil. Tholkappiyam talks about taittryam. taittryam is a yajurvedic samhita so there is a influence.

Nannool was written by a kannadiga jain monk ,kavundiyan ,even agasthiya is said to be one. Sangam was not just the amalgamation of tamil poets, but poets from all over. Many of the words today are of sanskrit orgin. Infact if you read the old literary works , it is more closer to malayalam and srilankan tamil than to tamil spoken in tamil nadu. Many of the words mentioned in old literary works are found in telugu and kannada , which may not be even recognized by tamils today. People who argue tamil is pure from sanskrit are ignorant of tamil language history. meghamitra 12:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Tamil Writing Take out all the hallabullah. You will find tamil writing starts from 7th century AD only that is at vallam by pallavas. Before that all we get is girafittis on pots, stones and rocks. So if you give the same yardstick than writing started almost at the same time in all place of south. Before that it is Brahmi only with words from local vernaculars. Otherwise we have to go through assumptions of tamil words. which only the discoverer can verify and nobody else.

Tamil Brahmi is highly suspicious and the adichanallur inscription is the most suspicious of them all. because the pots were discovered 100 years ago. that time carbon dating said 3800years old. now unreliable thermoluminacense dating says 2500years and why suddelnly just before the classical language status being sought does this discovery come out. Brahmi has also undergone changes and later brahmi is different more charteristics than earlier ones. Later brahmi has phonetics. This cannot be reason to say it is a different brahmi. Pulli is also there in the brahmi and only the position of the pulli is different in tamil brahmi , and we cannot find this in any inscription or girrafati before vallam inscription.

One more brahmi was existing in the near vicinity that is srilankan brahmi.srilankan brahmi is almost similar to tamil brahmi. But evolution of srilankan brahmi has been more scientific. That is addition of ancient megalithic symbols over the brahmi script. But tamil will not accept scientific explanations , so we are fighting here in wiki, orkut , yahoo and so on. meghamitra 12:47, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Way forward

  • List out the points of differences
  • Discuss them to reach consensus
  • If consensus is not reachable then ask for comment
  • If that does not work, go for straw poll
  • If that does not work, go for mediation

It is not that difficult to reach Nirvana in an article like Tamil. Let some one start pointing out all the differences. Taprobanus 13:52, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I will keep the points neutral similar to RfC.
  • There is disagreement about the age of Tamil literature.
  • Issues regarding influence of Tamil on Sanskrit & vice versa
Praveen 13:59, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Then we should archive everything we discussed before and start from scratch. I am asking you to do it as an editor who has been around this article. Archive everything and just list out the problems (amke sure everyone agrees that it is the only 2 problems). List out Pros and cons, list out the reputable citations on both camps to facilitate this problem resolution. Endless discussion leads no where. Thanks Taprobanus 14:15, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree to archiving. But, I will archive only after a consensus on this (I archived inactive discussions just yesterday. Most of the discussions that I didn't archive seemed too new to archive). Thanks. Praveen 14:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
So let's wait for others to chime in to see whether there are ONLY 2 major points of differences or more, we can also copy paste from current discussions that are relevent under the problem topics once we agree what are the problems Taprobanus 14:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Tamil FA status retained

Congrats Arvind, Sundar & Aadal. You guys did it. And thanks for all your efforts in improving the article. :)) Praveen 14:06, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

And thanks to other editors too (esp SandyGeorgia) Praveen 15:23, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

request to edit out /s/ and /h/ in consonant section

Hi, I made a change to the consonant section yesterday, and there is a mistake I forgot to correct

The sounds /f/, /s/ /ʂ/ and /h/ are peripheral to the phonology of Tamil, being found only in loanwords and frequently replaced by native sounds.

has to have the /s/ and the /h/ removed. /s/ nad /h/ is not peripheral to the phonology of Tamil. It has to become

The sounds /f/ and /ʂ/ are peripheral to the phonology of Tamil, being found only in loanwords and frequently replaced by native sounds.

I leave the question open whether s and h are phonemes or allophones

Could a privileged person incorporate this change, the article being protected?Jasy jatere 16:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your work, Jasy. I've made the change suggested by you. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 05:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Relevance of Cladwell

Strange cladwell A comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family of languages has been taken as evidence , but when the same cladwell said tamil literature starts at 10th century , he is totally ignored.meghamitra 06:54, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
[4]

Provided a link to the book itself by cladwell meghamitra 11:05, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Mahadevan in his book Early tamil epigraphy from the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century AD talks about borrowings from prakrit and old kannada(hale kannada)
Because what we look for here is what majority or mainstream researchers on the subject matter say and on top of it we look for chronology. That is latest research takes precedent over old research. This is how one would write a thesis. Wikipedia project might allow any tom, dick and harry who has just one eye to read and one finger type edit this encyclopedia project but at the end there are rules and regulations we follow and a good or featured article will always be written in an academic manner, just like you write your thesis. Rules to remember are mainstream consensus and chronology and it will apply to every fact you state in an article, obviously with citations from reputable sources. If the mainstream consensus is 2000 year old literature and dissenters like Tieken say that it is 1000 years old then we state the obvious fact of 2000 year literature and add the 1000 year claim if it has enough following and does not have credible refutation. If that point is credibly refuted then that refutation itself becomes a fact we document. It is not that difficult to find the right compromise as long as we know that we play by the same rulesTaprobanus 12:59, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
For each and everything Hart statement is considered to be a final word by Aadal and co.How strange is this,Hart himself believed that the core of the Sangam corpus is c. 1st to 4th centuries AD in his book written in 1975.But out of no where he writes a letter to Government saying that parts of Tolkappiyam might be of 2nd century BC.Now how can we believe Hart's statements?Where's the credibility?
Secondly,Article mentions that tamil brahmi inscriptions are found from 3rd century BC to 3rd century AD.This tamil brahmi script is supposed to be deciphered by Iravathan mahadevan.Based on the findings Mahadevan states that tolkoppiyam cannot be dated before 2nd century.Here people want to agree on one argument about tamil Brahmi inscription but not the second part of the argument i.e on the date of tolkoppiyam.This is what i consider as selective agreeing of the views for which i think wikipedia is not a suitable place.
And comming to Taprobanus comments about the mainstream views why do you think hermal taiken,Burnell,Romila Thapa or even BGL swamy are not mainstream Indolgist.There are lot more who state tolkoppiyam even after 10th century? why do you think that those views can't be considered as mainstream views?
What i see in this article is the favourable views are only being taken as correct one which i think is wrong.nrupatunga 16:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
You raise good points, that's why it is important to raise by section each point of difference, when I asked that question I only received two major differences looks like we have more. You really have to get organized to handle a huge article like this. If I were you, I will start a project page and section by section point out the differences or conflicts and try to reach consensus on these issues. You will only end up making this article truly a neutral one. Drive by editing for this or that results in entrenched editors eventually getting their POV through and all those who come by, just shoot arrows left and right, tagging it maliciously and eventually leaving. Personally I believe in grass roots work. Once all the smaller sub articles are properly done then you can come to a major one like this. Tamil Brahmi would be a great place to start. Thanks Taprobanus 17:08, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Official Status

I have removed Malaysia from 'Official language' list. Praveen 17:44, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


classification of Betta Kurumba, Sholaga

just click on the links and it shows them as speaking dilects of Kannada, Here they have been included to tamil speakers. Both these groups has to be removed. Any objections meghamitra 09:47, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Updates to timelines

1. The following statement in the Introduction is incomplete: "Tamil has a literary tradition of more than a thousand years"

I presume the thousand years has been arrived at by taking into account the preposterous 1000 CE date for Tolkappiyam. In any case, if we agree that the Tirukkural was written by Tiruvalluvar, who is said to have lived no later than around 30 BCE, it puts the date on Tirukkural to be at least as early as 30 BCE. Which would mean that the above statement should read "Tamil has a literary tradition of more than two thousand years"

2. How can Tolkappiyam be dated as late as 1000 CE ? Just to name the works that common man would know: we have Tirukkural dating to 30 BCE, Appar's Tiruvasagam dating to 600 CE and so on. If Tolkappiyam is the earliest literary work, shouldn't it pre-date all of the said works ? That should put the latest possible date on Tolkappiyam to around 30 BCE, no ?

In any case, the earliest date for Tolkappiyam mentioned as 200 BCE is also not accurate. According to Prof. Varadarasan, it's around 300 BCE. Link here: http://tamilelibrary.org/teli/tamil7.html

Please let me know if there are objections to making these edits. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 143.182.124.1 (talk) 06:04, 15 May 2007 (UTC). How Come tholkappiam became 1000 CE , refer the date of tholkappiam link[5]meghamitra 06:30, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

The 1000CE date is mentioned by someone in the write up. I'm not sure how they come up with such dates. It seems like some people's pride is being hurt by accepting the facts, so they twist them to make themselves feel good.
This is the part I'm referring to:

External chronological records and internal linguistic evidence, however, indicate that the oldest extant works were probably compiled sometime between the 2nd century BCE and the 10th century

Precisely what I was adding. But some vandals keep removing the two thousand year history which is cited. Praveen 14:42, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Preposterous 1000 CE claim?? - read up on scholarly works before being so sure of yourself. Sarvagnya 22:46, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Rather than making unsubstantiated claims and spoiling the article, it would be better if you contributed something positive. Do you even know what Sangam literature is ? When someone says Sangam period is X to Y, it does not mean they are unsure whether it is X or Y or in between. It means the literature has works that were written as early as X and as late as Y. I have pointed to sources (CIIL, Prof. Varadarajan) that date the Sangam literature starting from 300 B.C. (For the arithmetically challenged, that would put Tamil literature at 2300 yrs old). You give me one reliable source that can definitely say Tamil literature is less than 2000 yrs, then we can talk. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.177.4.123 (talk) 13:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC).

History of Tamil, from CIIL

CIIL makes this statement: Tamil is one of the ancient languages of the world. It has a history of more than 3000 years. From the main web-page of CIIL (http://www.ciil.org), click on the "Tamil online" link to the right side of the page. It opens a link http://www.tamil-online.info/Introduction/introduction.htm and then click on the Introduction to read this line. I would like to add this 3000 year history part somewhere in the introduction. Please comment if you have any objection.

History of Tamil is 3000 years. literature history of Tamil is at least 2000 years. Be sure to make the corrections to highlight these distinctions. And please create an account. Thanks Praveen 15:42, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Point noted. thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lotlil (talk • contribs) 15:54, 15 May 2007 (UTC).
"History of Tamil is 3000 years.." - says who? How did they arrive at the 3000 year figure? Do you mean that Tamil branched off from its Proto-parent 3000 years ago? Do you have any scholarly citation for that other than the benighted trash by some faceless author on that site? Unless you can get a scholarly citation(even if only by Mr.Hart), I will be removing that claim because simply saying that a language is x years old is nonsense. Sarvagnya 22:54, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
That site is RS. If you insist on removing the 3000 year claim, you have to also think about removing the trash you have added from the same site which states that the Sanskrit content in Tamil reduced from 50% to 20% (that too without any scientific study). Also note that the site does not claim the literature of Tamil existed for 3000 years Praveen 23:18, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
That site is RS. No doubt. But there is a difference between your citation and mine. My citation is authored by Mr. E. Annamalai, a qualified linguist, who in turn, quotes Mr.A Chidambaranathan, another qualified linguist(not to mention, Tamils both) and is part of the ebooks(collation of scholarly articles) published by CIIL from a scholarly perspective. Your link on the other hand, is some throwaway "Introduction" page authored probably by some drivelling HTML intern with no idea of what he's talking about. Only someone editing in bad faith would pounce on the link that you've cited. Sarvagnya 23:46, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Nobody is saying 'x' language is precisely 'y' year old. They say it is at least 'y' years. Its not that uncommon and definitely not nonsense as you'd rather believe. Praveen 23:38, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Where did I say that you were claiming that it was exactly 3000 years old. I am asking you to first clarify what you mean by "Tamil is (atleast) 3000 years old" and then I'm asking for a scholarly citation for the claim. Given the near impossibility of dating a language(even roughly), I am surprised that your citation does it rather nonchalantly. Even scholars, I am sure wouldnt be so sure of themselves when they try to date a language as opposed to a piece of literature. Sarvagnya 23:53, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Your link on the other hand, is some throwaway "Introduction" page authored probably by some drivelling HTML intern with no idea of what he's talking about.
That is just your opinion. I do not think that a reputed institute which publishes scholarly articles would be so careless. Anyways, I have contacted them. Let's hope that they clear/agree-to your suspicion. BTW: It is you who is assuming bad faith on the validity of a RS. :) Praveen 23:58, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Do you notice that your citation has no author? And that mine does? Sarvagnya 00:02, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

The author is CIIL. Praveen 00:08, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Blatant weaseling

I have pointed out this before and in the face of unabashed POV pushing and weaseling by Praveen, I am having to repeat it. The following text with the given ref is being continually added to the article in a bid to counter the overwhelming and apparently depressing(to some) evidence of Sanskrit's (not Proto-Indo-Aryan/European) influence on Tamil(not Proto-Dravidian).


Praveen Pillay, in particular is revert warring to keep this weasel laden piece in the article. While the citation provided pertains to the impact of Dravidian on Indo-Aryan, it is being passed off to support original research and POV that Tamil influenced Sanskrit and that too, 'greatly'! And to add to the weasel-fest, a "...on the other hand, several scholars believe that...", "...far greater influence" and such other nonsense is being slipped into the article. This is compromising the article's quality and I fear that somebody may move the article back into FAR on account of this. --Sarvagnya 19:51, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I will reply to your POV pushing soon. Praveen 19:54, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Praveen

First of all let me say unequivocally that I am not ‘distressed’ by the presence of Sanskrit influence on Tamil portion in this article. It is a fact that any given living language which constantly comes in contact with others tend to absorb influential features. If you have noticed carefully you would have seen that neither I nor Aadal nor Sundar removed the ‘Sanskrit influence’ content in totality with iota of malicious intent. If you are really only concerned about ‘weasel’ words, you would have either proposed an alternative or asked others to do it. Intimidating other users of FAR is not the right way (IMHO). I do not know about others but I definitely do not believe that removing FA status to this article would lead to all the books, journals, and life time works of scholars on Tamil & in Tamil in the world to self-destruct. :) Anyways, let me prove to you with references about the influence of Tamil on Sanskrit. I think I am open minded enough to appreciate your consequent feedback and modify the ‘weasel’ terms (if necessary).

  • Robert Caldwell, in his well known book called “A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages”, devotes approximately 40 pages under the sub-heading “Indebtedness of Sanskrit to the Dravidian languages” for the sole purpose of explaining the influence of Dravidian languages on Sanskrit. Before you jump the gun and accuse me of ‘misrepresenting the fact’ (I.e. Dravidian is not Tamil… It is proto-Dravidian etc), let me point out that he (and number of other scholars in his book) argues the case for each Dravidian language, like Tamil, Telugu & Canara(Kannada), on Sanskrit with Tamil being the most influential. Even the sub-heading should give you the whole picture (Indebtedness!). Conversely the reference that you added from the same book for Sanskrit’s influence on Tamil (and other Dravidian languages) spans less than 3 pages. In fact, Caldwell downplays Sanskrit’s influence on Tamil in particular. Let me once again quote him verbatim (as I did earlier in the Talk page *sigh*): "Even in prose compositions on religious subjects in which a larger amount of Sanskrit is employed than in any other department of literature, the proportion of Sanskrit which has found its way into Tamil is not greater than the amount of Latin contained in corresponding compositions in English..." The book is in public domain and you can acquire a copy from books.google.com. BTW: If somebody wants to add the influence of other Dravidian languages on Sanskrit in their respective articles, nobody is stopping him/her. But please do not equate Dravidian languages with proto-Dravidian anymore.[3]
  • Burrow, who is quoted extensively for Sanskrit influence on Tamil, defines certain rules for identifying the Sanskrit words borrowed from Dravidian languages. (Transactions of Philosophical Society, 1946) he proceeds to show many words that have been borrowed. He also included a separate section for loan words borrowed from Dravidian languages in his book “The Sanskrit language”. BTW: Regarding Sanskrit influence on Tamil, his stand is "Tamil was the earliest language used for literary purposes, and it was to begin with comparatively free from Aryan influence. In the later period the influence of Sanskrit increases, but never on the scale found in its two northern neighbors"[4]
  • Murray B. Emeneau, in his work called “Linguistic pre-history of India”, argues the case for influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit. (Please do not jump the gun again. Dravidian means Dravidian languages here. Emeneau uses proto-Dravdian exclusively to ascribe any influence of proto-Dravidian on Sanskrit.)[5]

Unfortunately Aadal is not available at the moment to give you citations from his collection of books (written by third party scholars) due to exigencies in his real life as he mentioned earlier in the Talk page. Given that so many authors proved the case for Tamil’s influence, I don’t see any of the added term as ‘weasel’. If you still think so, present your version and let us work towards a fair solution (Here I mean by ‘fair’, fairness to the available evidence.) Praveen 16:30, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Sarvagnya

Ok. Since you claim that you're open minded(though not demonstrated it), let me exert myself to explain a little more. First of all, I am not 'threatening' anyone about moving it to FA. If that was my intention, I could very easily have voted against retaining the FA status on FAR or I could have moved it back myself by now. Neither I nor what Parthi might call the 'Kannada/anti-Tamil cabal' have done anything like that.

Now coming back to the topic. By comparing S's influence on T to Latin's influence on English, you are actually dealing a severe blow to your line of argument. You wouldnt even be talking on those lines if you knew anything about Latin's influence on English. Let me tell you. Literally half of English's vocabulary is rooted in Latin. English has loaned thousands upon thousands upon thousands of words from Latin. And these words have changed the very style and grammar of English over the ages. Practically all our techinical, medicinal and judicial terminology is Latin. Latin writers and literature have greatly influenced English literature from the earliest times.[6][7][8][9] I dont know what Caldwell could have meant by saying "...Sanskrit's influence on T is no more than L's influence on English.." It was perhaps a wry sense of irony at play.

As for Dravidian(K,T,T,M etc) and Proto-Dravidian influence on Sanskrit, let me say this. All Dravidian dialects have no doubt loaned words to Sanskrit. But these are so few and far apart that they are merely of academic interest. It is like scraps which only linguists are enthused about and their works are not meant to be taken as if "...there was mutual influence..both ways...."... "...much greater influence..." etc.,. Loaning a few dozen or a couple of hundred words to another language doesnt automatically count for ".. great influence.." on the other language.

Also, it is one thing to loan words and another thing to influence the very core of any literature - grammar. Sanskrit has not only loaned thousands upon thousands of words to Tamil(in return for probably the few dozen or few hundred), but has also influenced its very grammar and literature. What is Tamil's influence on Sanskrit grammar? What is Tamil's influence on Sanskrit literature? Zilch! Neither Tamil nor any of the other Dravidian languages were even fully cultivated when Panini was composing his path breaking work!

And we have not even started talking about Vedic Sanskrit(which also was "Sanskrit", mind you). And Tamil's influence on Vedic Sanskrit(as opposed to on Classical sanskrit) even in terms of vocabulary is next to nothing(It is infact, questionable whether there even was Tamil during the times of Vedic Sanskrit). Whether you ascribe Sanskrit's influence on other languages to what you might see as an irrational belief in Sanskrit's divinity of the people of those ages; or you ascribe such a belief itself to the genius of the likes of Panini, Sanskrit's influence on other languages is unquestionable and overwhelming.

If we were comparing the influences of Tamil empires on Tamil Nadu with those of the Roman empire, you cant bring in handful of Roman coins and scraps of pottery from Arikamedu as evidence to counter the Brihadeeshwara temple! You have to realise that this is a summary article and also keep WP:UNDUE in mind. If all that Sanskrit's influence on Tamil itself is going to get is one or two lines, then the converse should get even less or nothing at all. If you want, create an article called "Tamil's influence on Sanskrit" and dump burrow and emeneau into that article. Hope you see my point. As an aside, even your name is from Sanskrit! As is mine. Sarvagnya 19:04, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Praveen

"Ok. Since you claim that you're open minded(though not demonstrated it)"

Open-minded is not just accepting whatever you say. It is to accept things which have evidence. As you can see from my edit history, unlike you I have never unilaterally removed cited content with condescending edit summaries.

Part I: Since you are not reading the given reference but instead indulge in finding references for Latin's influence on English (as I expected), I would quote Caldwell from my earlier citation in totality. To give the context, Caldwell was referring to the Tamil used by Upper-caste people (according to him) who are known to intermix Sanskrit liberally with Tamil. This is what Caldwell says

Even in prose compositions on religious subjects in which a larger amount of Sanskrit is employed than in any other department of literature, the proportion of Sanskrit which has found its way into Tamil is not greater than the amount of Latin contained in corresponding compositions in English. Let us for example compare the amount of Sanskrit contained in the Tamil translation of the Ten Commandments with the amount of Latin which is contained in the English version … Of forty three nouns and adjectives in the English version twenty-nine are Anglo-Saxon, fourteen Latin: of fifty-three nouns and adjectives in Tamil, thirty-two are Dravidian, twenty-one Sanskrit. Of twenty verbs in English, thirteen are Anglo-Saxon, seven Latin: of thirty-four verbs in Tamil, twenty seven are Dravidian, and only seven Sanskrit. Putting all these numbers together for the purpose of ascertaining the percentage, I find that in the department of nouns, numerals, and verbs, the amount of the foreign element is in both instances the same…[3]

Then he proceeds to say that

“Though the proportion of Sanskrit which find to be contained in the Tamil version of the Ten Commandments happens to correspond so exactly to the proportion of Latin contained in the English version, it would be an error to conclude that the Tamil language is as deeply indebted to Sanskrit as English to Latin. Tamil can readily dispense with the greater part or the whole of its Sanskrit and by dispensing with it rises to a purer and more refined style; whereas English cannot abandon its Latin without abandoning perspicuity… Tamil, on the other hand, is peculiarly rich with synonyms; and generally it is not through any real necessity, but from choice and the fashion of the age, that it makes use of Sanskrit. If Ten Commandments were expressed in the speech of the lower classes of the Tamil people, the proportion of Sanskrit would be very greatly diminished; and if we wished to raise the style of the translation to a refined and classical pitch, Sanskrit would almost disappear."[3]

That clearly should answer your Latin-English research.

Part II: I repeat your question here for clarity

"What is Tamil's influence on Sanskrit grammar? What is Tamil's influence on Sanskrit literature? Zilch!"

I will quote Hart verbatim,

"For example, the Aryameter of the Sattasai, its alliterative scheme, and almost all its conventions, such as separation during the monsoon and the abhisiirika, prove to be almost identical with those of the early Tamil poems, but quite unlike their earlier counterparts in Indo-Aryan languages. Subsequently, the great Sanskrit classical authors borrowed many of their poetic conventions from Maharastri, and hence ultimately from the Dravidian oral tradition (but it should be emphasized that classical Sanskrit did not borrow directly from the Tamil poems, which were unknown in North India" [10]

Unfortunately I don't have access to his book which discusses the influence in detail. I think Aadal has provided relevant excerpts previously. But I found these comments by him from internet.

  • 1. Neither Sanskrit nor Tamil are particularly old in the world scheme of things. Sanskrit is documented earlier than Tamil.
  • 2. Sanskrit has borrowed quite as much from Dravidian as Dravidian has from Sanskrit. Tamil has borrowed more words from Sanskrit than Sanskrit has from Dravidian. It is a trivial thing for a language to borrow vocabulary. But when it uses another language's syntax to form the way it expresses things, and uses another language's phonology for its sounds, that is really profound influence. The fact is, Sanskrit HAS been influenced in this way by Dravidian. Of course, some Dravidian languages have also borrowed Sanskrit sounds (bh, etc.) But none of the four Dravidian languages I have read has borrowed anything from Sanskrit syntax that I can identify. Much of the syntax of Sanskrit is Dravidian, and it has a large Dravidian vocabulary. Its system of phonetics is profoundly influenced by. Dravidian -- Indo-Aryan is the only IE family with retroflexes.
  • 3. Sanskrit also lacks some sounds that are available in Tamil. Tamil has short e and o, zh, R, n, and many permutations of stops -- e.g. k in akam -- which are not found in Skt. Actually both languages have about the same number of phonemes.
  • 4. The word Dravidian clearly comes from the word Tamil. This has been demonstrated time and time again -- the earliest occurrences of the word in IA are dramiDa ==> draviDa.
  • 5. I can attest that the grammar of Sanskrit is no more elegant or perfect than any other IE language. It very much resembles Russian, Latin, and Greek (which I have also read) -- to which it is closely akin. To my mind, Tamil and the other Dravidian languages have much more elegant and logical structures. Consider this: in Dravidian, you can take any sentence and turn it into an adverb, adjective, or noun by simply changing the ending on the verb. Then you can embed that sentence in any other sentence. The Dravidian relativizing system is extremely straight-forward and logical; the IE one -- shared by Sanskrit (and English) -- is quite messy and verbose. One could go on and on. I love Sanskrit, but I would never claim its zillions of nit-picking rules make it somehow an epitome of order and perfect structure. Sorry, but it's just not.
  • 6. I do agree with Sridhar Srinivasan about the symbiotic nature of Sanskrit and Tamil (and also other Indian languages). The fact is, Sanskrit and Tamil, while originally independent traditions, have from the earliest times formed one cultural stream, much as the Latin and the languages of Western Europe have.
  • 7. Sanskrit, like Tamil, is a very rich language and tradition. It has an enormous variety of writings, some of which are of great quality (which is true of most rich languages). It has been a carrier of cultural tradition, and it is endlessly interesting. But why is it that it is mindlessly glorified for all the WRONG reasons?
  • 8. Both languages are carriers of wonderful and rich intellectual and literary traditions. The only way to appreciate either language is to read these literatures and spend a lot of time pondering them.[11]

Part III:

"If we were comparing the influences of Tamil empires on Tamil Nadu with those of the Roman empire, you cant bring in handful of Roman coins and scraps of pottery from Arikamedu as evidence to counter the Brihadeeshwara temple! You have to realise that this is a summary article and also keep WP:UNDUE in mind. If all that Sanskrit's influence on Tamil itself is going to get is one or two lines, then the converse should get even less or nothing at all. If you want, create an article called "Tamil's influence on Sanskrit" and dump burrow and emeneau into that article."

You are comparing apples and oranges. There are far too many scholars, journal papers, and books describe Tamil's influence on Sanskrit. All my citations are journal papers (not some third rate history book written by biased local authors). May be we can work on the words. Praveen 21:17, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

My name is in Sanskrit since I was born in north-India and in any case how does that matter? Praveen 21:17, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

meghamitra

Robert cladwell will downplay sanskrit influence because he is the one , who brought the theory of Dravidian languages. He got the dravidian the language tag. He is not supposed to downplay his discovery isn't it. One more thing When did Robert cladwell lived, somany things have been found contrary to his arguments till now , why that are not considered? Same goes for Kan's Work or Neelakanta sastry work in 1955. So many things have been found contradicting his theories. Wiki seems to be mislead by outdated theories of these two.meghamitra 06:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Dravida <=> Dramila <=> Dramida is debatable. Because one case we find it exclusively referring to Tamil. In another Case it refers to all Dravidian languages. So we cannot just say it denotes tamil or Dravidian languages according to our whims and fancies. Some places we have seen Dravida referring to All of south indian languages e.g Pancha dravida Basha, But it sometimes we see referring just to one group. For example in mahabharatha. Karnata, Kuntala, Andhra , Dravida. So we have to take the time and context into the picture in each case before concluding whether dravida refers to Proto Dravidian or one of the dravidian languages.meghamitra 10:50, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Comparing tamil and sanskrit is not a valid. Since sanskrit has clearly documented development record. And tamil has a very questionable , boasting record. Scholars cannot arrive at a date for most of the tamil Works. And Many of the claims of the tamil is also not verified. Just getting some quotes from each language work and painting a picture is wrong and is not acceptablemeghamitra 10:58, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Evidence/citations please. Nobody is interested in what you feel about the Tamil's record. It is harder to swallow by some regionalistic tools; but the fact is Tamil has longer recorded history than other Dravidian languages. Some restore to supporting Sanskrit blindly just because they have no case for their own language against Tamil :). Anyways as I said earlier, citations please. Thanks Praveen 13:45, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Sarvagnya

  • “Though the proportion of Sanskrit which find to be contained in the Tamil version of the Ten Commandments happens to correspond so exactly to the proportion of Latin contained in the English version, it would be an error to conclude that the Tamil language is as deeply indebted to Sanskrit as English to Latin. Tamil can readily dispense with the greater part or the whole of its Sanskrit and by dispensing with it rises to a purer and more refined style; whereas English cannot abandon its Latin without abandoning perspicuity… Tamil, on the other hand, is peculiarly rich with synonyms; and generally it is not through any real necessity, but from choice and the fashion of the age, that it makes use of Sanskrit. If Ten Commandments were expressed in the speech of the lower classes of the Tamil people, the proportion of Sanskrit would be very greatly diminished; and if we wished to raise the style of the translation to a refined and classical pitch, Sanskrit would almost disappear.

Between the ifs and buts lie many a slip between the cup and lip. also, latin's influence on English is besides the point. Just because latin influenced English more than Sanskrit influenced Tamil, doesnt mean Sanskrit's influence on Tamil can be written off. And the very fact that Caldwell even chose to draw parallels with the Latin-English relationship shows how greatly Sanskrit has influenced Tamil. It may not be of equal magnitude, but it is certainly in the same league.

  • That clearly should answer your Latin-English research.

I didnt bring up the Latin-English thing. You did.

  • "For example, the Aryameter of the Sattasai, its alliterative scheme, and almost all its conventions, such as separation during the monsoon and the abhisiirika, prove to be almost identical with those of the early Tamil poems, but quite unlike their earlier counterparts in Indo-Aryan languages."

Sattasai was written in Maharashtri Prakrit(not Sanskrit) in the 4th or 5th AD. Then he claims that this bit of influence found its way into 'classical sanskrit'. Convoluted as his logic is (and I am certain not without disagreement), even if we were to take it at face value, how does one conclude that Tamil influenced Sanskrit in the same ways and same measure that Sanskrit influenced Tamil?

  • "...Subsequently, the great Sanskrit classical authors borrowed many of their poetic conventions from Maharastri, and hence ultimately from the Dravidian oral tradition..."

and he weasels away back into misrepresenting Dravidian influence(without bothering to tell us what "many of their poetic conventions" are) as Tamil's influence. Or is it you misrepresenting Hart? ...

  • "...(but it should be emphasized that classical Sanskrit did not borrow directly from the Tamil poems, which were unknown in North India"

...and expectedly ends by stating the obvious.

Replies to Hart's 8 commandments

  • 1. Neither Sanskrit nor Tamil are particularly old in the world scheme of things. Sanskrit is documented earlier than Tamil. - So? What does this have to do with your argument that Tamil influenced Sanskrit in equal measure?
  • 2. Once again, stop passing off 'Dravidian' for 'Tamil'. Hart makes the distinction, but you dont seem to. Also what the blazes does Hart mean by saying "...But none of the four Dravidian languages I have read has borrowed anything from Sanskrit syntax that I can identify..."?! Is he the same guy who claims in his book that "There can be little question that the grammatical system expounded by the Tolkappiyam owes much to Sanskrit grammar"?!![12]
  • 3. How does this prove that Tamil influenced Sanskrit? why are you even quoting this?
  • 4. The word Dravidian clearly comes from the word Tamil. This has been demonstrated time and time again -- the earliest occurrences of the word in IA are dramiDa ==> draviDa. - wtf is this supposed to mean?! everyone knows that dravida was the sanskrit term for tamil. who's even questioning that? but again, what on earth does it have to do with your line of argument that tamil influenced sanskrit?
  • 5. ok. so?
  • 6. "...one cultural stream..." - can you/he be more specific? or perhaps, this way.
  • 7. What is he talking about? What are you talking about?
  • 8. ok. i will try my best to read them. thanks for the tip, Mr. Hart.


  • "...There are far too many scholars, journal papers, and books describe Tamil's influence on Sanskrit...."

Yes. Its limited influence. Has any author, even one as rabidly pro-Tamil as Hart, described Tamil as the 'magic wand' that raised Sanskrit from the level of patois to a literary language? Anyone? for people who dont understand the context of this comment, be informed that Nilakanta Shastri has described Sanskrit as the 'magic wand' which raised tamil and other languages from the level of a patois to a literary language.

Praveen

As usual you chose to ignore the Caldwell's important assertion where he says Tamil chose to use Sanskrit words out of sheer fashion rather than necessity. And, I provided the whole reproduction instead of the only relevant part of Hart's reply just to show the context. Hart says Dravidian to represent Dravidian languages. Tamil is one of them (oldest at that). Do you see the point?

Its limited influence. Has any author, even one as rabidly pro-Tamil as Hart, described Tamil as the 'magic wand' that raised Sanskrit from the level of patois to a literary language? Anyone?

This point has been debated so many times before in the Talk page... Hart didn't use such wordings since scholars don't use such outright biased statements without evidence like KAN did.

Anyways, I have provided many citations (journals & books). Even one of them is enough to support the written statement in the article. If you can, why don't you bring citations (of equal caliber that is) where it says Tamil did not influence Sanskrit at all. (Even then, all we can do is add "according to so and so Tamil influenced Sanskrit; but according to so and so it didn't"). Do not try to remove important content with pathetic excuse such as 'summary style' article etc. If influence of Sanskrit on Tamil can find space (whole paragraph with approximately 7 lines), then Tamil's influence on Sanskrit (2 lines) should find space too. Cheers Praveen 14:20, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Refs

  1. ^ Sjoberg, Andrée F. The impact of the Dravidian on Indo-Aryan: an overview. In Edgar C. Polomé and Werner Winter (eds)., Reconstructing Languages and Cultures, pp. 507-529. (Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 58) Berlin and New York:Mouton de Gruyter
  2. ^ Hart (1975), p.206-208, 278-280.
  3. ^ a b c Caldwell, Robert (1875). A comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family of languages. Trubner & Co, London. pp. 452–490.
  4. ^ Burrow, Thomas (2001). The Sanskrit Language. Motilal Banarsidass Publications. p. 337. ISBN 8120817672. …In the case of Tamil the lierary tradition goes back for at least two thousand years… {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  5. ^ M. B. Emeneau (1954). "Linguistic Prehistory of India". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 98 (4): 282–292. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  6. ^ http://www.spellingbee.com/cc07/Week07/rootin.shtml
  7. ^ http://e zinearticles.com/?Latin-and-Its-Influence-on-English-Language&id=312457
  8. ^ http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8299(195122)5%3A2%3C31%3ATIOLOE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-G
  9. ^ http://www.csus.edu/indiv/r/rileymt/course1/WhyStudy.html
  10. ^ George L. Hart, III (1974). "Some Related Literary Conventions in Tamil and Indo-Aryan and Their Significance". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 94 (2): 157–167. Retrieved 2007-05-16. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  11. ^ http://www.ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archives/jan98/0017.html
  12. ^ Hart, George Poems of Ancient Tamil, There can be little question that the grammatical system expounded by the Tolkappiyam owes much to Sanskrit grammar, pp78-79

Misleading edit summaries by Sarvagnya

Do not add misleading edit summaries where you refer to Talk page for your reverts as if there is either consensus or conclusive evidence (in Talk page). Praveen 13:52, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

How to stop vandalism ?

I'm new to Wikipedia, hoping someone would provide a helpful answer. As can be seen from the edit history, a few individuals have been reverting edits that have been cited with source. The version they revert to, is not only unsubstantiated but quite often is a blatant lie. In any case, what's the suggested way to deal with such vandals ? I also want to avoid the situation where the article gets locked from edits with a vandalised version.

BTW, just wanted to congratulate all the contributors to this article who have done an excellent job !! No wonder this is a featured article. And, I also saw there are three articles about Tamil people and culture that are all featured !! Kudos to the folks who have been instrumental in that. I wonder if the vandals realize that their time is probably better utilized being constructive by writing such good articles about their language or culture.

Lotlil 02:49, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

As one of the editors who has worked very hard on this article and helped it live upto its FA status, I accept your wishes with all humility.  :) Thank you. Please spread more wikilove. Happy editing. Sarvagnya 03:22, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, if you have contributed constructively to this article, you ought to feel good about it. I can only express my gratitude to anyone who has helped in spreading the greatness of the Tamil language. Lotlil 14:17, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Oldest language

Sorry, I pressed "Enter" key by mistake before I wrote complete edit summary. Anyways, the term "Oldest language" is very vague and subjective and puts the reader in a more confused form. There is nothing called "One of the Oldest languages" in this world. I have replaced that sentence with something which makes more sense. "One of the earliest written accounts" has a definite citation.Gnanapiti 16:04, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I have changed the sentence to reflect the citation. Thanks Praveen 16:40, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Tamil's antiquity & Tamil's influence on Sanskrit

There is dispute regarding

1. Tamil's Antiquity 2. Tamil's influence on Sanskrit 17:30, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Statements by editors previously involved in dispute
  • By Praveen
1. The literary tradition goes back to at least two thousand years and it has a history of over 3000 years.<ref name = "Tburrow" /><ref name="mbe" /><ref name="ciil">{{cite web |title=Introduction to Tamil |url= http://www.tamil-online.info/Introduction/introduction.htm |author= CIIL |publisher= Central Institute of Indian languages|accessdate= 2007-05-15}}</ref> Easily verifiable links [http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9380194/Tamil-language here] and [http://books.google.com/books?id=cWDhKTj1SBYC&pg=PA377&vq=two+thousand&dq=isbn:8120817672&sig=Y_ZNXEpxgq6en46ZPFaL37eyIVw here(requires google account)].
2. Tamil and other Dravidian languages' influence on Sanskrit has been presented in reputed journals & books.<ref name="caldwell2" /><ref name="saf" /><ref name="hart" /><ref name="hart2" /><ref name="eb">{{cite web |title = Tamil word in Rigveda |url = http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-74596/Indo-Aryan-languages|quote = ...The Rgveda has such words as kunda “pitcher, pot,” which is doubtless of Dravidian origin (Tamil kutam “pot”). <u>Such borrowings become more numerous in later Sanskrit</u>...Whatever the judgment on any individual word, it is clear that Indo-Aryan did borrow from Dravidian... |work = www.britannica.com|accessdate = 2007-05-18}}</ref> Easily verifiable links here, here and here Praveen 17:41, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Comment There is no doubt Tamil is one of the oldest languages. Enough citations are available for the same. Its grammar is one of the oldest. I am not comfortable with sections which state Tamil's influence over other south east asian languages and sanskrit. I will be comfortable to use Tamil's influence only over Malayalam where many words are common. Tamil will have derived dozens of words from Telugu, Kannada, Hindi, English etc. In the same way other languages also would have derived few dozen words from Tamil. It does not mean other languages are influenced by Tamil or vice versa. Britanica reference only says that Sanskrit influences other languages more than Tamil. --Indianstar 16:30, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Reply Did you check the Caldwell's references that I gave? He dedicates ~40 pages for Dravidian languages' influence on Sanskrit. Almost all his examples (spread over 40 pages) cite Tamil words whereas other examples from Dravidian languages are sporadic at best. BTW: The journal references that I added for Tamil's influence on Sanskrit are the same references used by Encyclopedia Britannica (not some third rate pseudo-history book by a third rate 'historian'). Praveen 15:23, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
"oldest language" is not even a meaningful term. You mean "earliest attested". Yes, Tamil is attested from 300 BC or so, which puts it among the top 50 of languages by date of attestation. What is the big deal? This is undisputed, and may simply be stated as a fact without all the hype. Languages change, of course, and there has been mutual influence between Sanskrit and Tamil and lots of other languages. Again, what's the big deal? The 2004 "classical language" thing is a product of politics and lobbying and not notable enough for the intro. Tamil isn't any more or less respectable because some politicians in 2004 said (most of them rolling their eyes, you'd think), yeah, it's classical, happy now? If it wasn't for etymologist-crackpots like Pavanar, nobody would harp on this "classical" meme so much. dab (𒁳) 19:22, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Reply If I understand correctly, you have problem only with the placement of Classical language sentence. Thats not a problem. Praveen 15:23, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I went through list of languages by date of attestation. Which languages older than Tamil exist even today. Greek, Chinese, Sanskrit... comes to my mind. There could be other couple of languages. Is it not a big deal?. I already mentioned that I don't support mentioning about Tamil's influence over other languages. --Indianstar 05:47, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Indianstar, the article about languages by date of attestation, claims that Tamil is attested by 200 BC. Can you please add to that article about where it is attested in 200 BC? which edict, inscription etc.,. Sarvagnya 05:51, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Sarvgyna, I have not written that statement. When DAB told there are 50 odd languages which were attested before 200BC(Before Tamil attestation) based on that article, I asked how many languages out of those 50 odd languages exist today. You can request citation in that article, if you are not convinced by that statement. Whoever has written that article can provide citation. --Indianstar 09:36, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Okay. I'm sorry for asking you. You are right. I shouldnt have asked you. Anyway, I've also added a tag to that article. Let us see. Sarvagnya 09:39, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
And btw, assuming that Tamil is attested only since 200 BC what is the nonsense about "Tamil dates back to 3000 years" about? just wondering aloud. Sarvagnya 09:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry I guess you didnt add that line either. But I'm done asking questions to the pro-tamil cabal(i mean... if I am the anti-tamil cabal(per parthi), guess they're the pro-tamil cabal). And I am asking you questions that ideally should be answered by people who added it. Sorry again. Sarvagnya 10:12, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
I believe attestation is based on findings of inscriptions. If inscriptions is found from 200BC,language should have existed several 100 years before that. So I don't think 3000 years is a wild guess. It should be reasonable estimate. Several citations are given to justify that claim. I don't see anybody as Pro-Tamil or Anti-Tamil cabal. Can you summarise all concerns of you in this talk page. This will help us to focus on points. I have seen several people asking you to do it before. I am sure you will be reasonable if your concerns are addressed. --Indianstar 12:39, 21 May 2007 (UTC)


The 200 B.C. inscriptions have been well documented in Iravatham Mahadevan in the book Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D.. Though the book is the primary citation, if one doesn't have access to it, the following articles that write about the book can be used as reference:
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5231785/Early-Tamil-Epigraphy-From-the.html
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2013/stories/20030704000207100.htm
I'm not going to respond to the whine about 3000 yrs, which has been cited from a reliable source.
I see that, so far, we have not gone beyond the already cited references to address the concerns, if we may even call them that.
Lotlil 13:21, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Current Open Issues

I see following as open issues.
  • Ancient nature of Tamil.

I believe enough clarifications have been given on this point. I don't see any need for further discussions.

  • Clarification of certain statements.
    • Unlike most of the other Indian languages[citation needed], metalanguage of Tamil[unclear], the language used to describe the technical linguistic terms of the language and its structure, is also Tamil.[13]
Can somebody explain this sentence
    • More than 55% of epigraphical inscriptions in India were found in Tamil language[unclear][19]
This statement has been explained. Citation attached is self explanatory. Sarvagyna has a doubt on validity of that citation. If he comes up with more reliable citation to dispute existence of so many epigraphic inscriptions in Tamil then it can be discussed.
  • Tamil's influence over other languages like sanskrit
I feel we need not conclude Tamil influences sanskrit or other languages just because few dozen loan words are used. It primarily hinges on Ramanuja.org website which looks like discussion forum to me. I am not sure whether that author is linguistic expert. Some info mentioned in that site are not correct. He says Tamil has all sounds of sanskrit which is wrong. Common man who knows sanskrit & Tamil or related languages can say, Tamil does not have different sounds for "Ka", "Ga", "Kha", "Gha". Is there anybody who still feels Tamil's influence over sanskrit has to be mentioned in the article.
  • Citations have been added by me for other points raised by Sarvagyna. --Indianstar 15:51, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Indianstar, very nice summary. Let me take a stab at the statement "Unlike most of the...". It wasn't clear to me either, but when I looked up on Google, it brought up this book "The Smile of Murugan" by Kamil Zvelebil. Specifically, "this page" talks about this and the footnote explains it with some examples. Lotlil 17:53, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Lotlil, this was the kind of citation I was looking for. And now, if you may notice on the same page that you've cited, linguists seem to aver that the Proto-South dravidian had been cultivated(from Proto-Dravidian presumably) around 8-9th century BC. The page also goes on to say that the precursor to Old Tamil(or the Tamil of earliest Tamil literature) may have branched off from Proto-Tamil-Kannada around 3rd-4th BC. So doing the math, I have to conclude that the that Tamil even in its most primitive form is only(roughly) about 2300 years old(though people who know linguistics will tell you that such estimates can be imprecise at best). So can we do away with the "3000 years" trash? Especially since we have a 'scholarly' citation to counter a nameless, faceless, authorless piece of driveling nonsense on some website. ? Sarvagnya 18:53, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
SarvagynaWe can say scholarly estimates places Tamil as 2300 years old and some people believe it could be 3000 years old or you can suggest some sentence which makes sense. Lotil, I still don't understand meaning of that sentence. Book says Unlike other Dravidian literary languages, so we can modify statement from "Unlike most other Indian languages" to "Unlike other dravidian literary languages". Whether anybody can explain real meaning of that statement?
I am sorry but important articles like this are written from a scholarly point of view... not from hearsay. When we have a scholarly citation that disagrees with an anonymous piece written for all we know by some amateur, the scholarly citation gets precedence. For pseudoscholarly stuff we have articles like Devaneya Pavanar, E V Ramasamy Naicker etc.,. People who want to take Tamil back to the ice age, can do so on those articles. Sarvagnya 02:35, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
2300 or 3000 years is not a big difference since most of the world languages are born around that time. I am OK with that. If there is no objection from others, I will update document.--Indianstar 05:27, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Sarvagnya,
Let's go one issue at a time:
1. Since you seem to like the citation so much, I'm assuming whatever clarification was needed for the metalanguage statement has been provided. So, let's check that one off from Indianstar's list. Which only leaves the "Tamil influence on other languages" part in dispute. This, in turn, means the article tags can be removed and only the section tag for the influence part is needed.
Article tags are unwarranted. I have made a good faith attempt by asking him to clear the ambiguity of his concerns. According to policy, any body adding the tags should explain in Talk page first before adding the tags so that all other editors know what is/are the concern(s).
2. As for the 3000 yr issue: The page in the new citation does not "counter" this claim in any way. All it says is: "Proto-South Dravidian unity disintegrated around 800-600 BCE". Does he mean the disintegration was complete by 800-600 BCE or did it only start around then ? It's not clear. To take this vague statement alone and say categorically that Tamil did not exist beyond 800 BCE would amount to putting words into the mouth of the author. Had he stated something to the effect of "Tamil came into existance starting X" or "Tamil cannot be dated beyond Y", we could use that to counter or support the 3000-yr claim. As for the original citation, you can check for yourself that there's no ambiguity. That statement has been quoted verbatim from the source. Now coming to the reliability of the source: if you hadn't noticed, it's not an anonymous also-ran organization. CIIL comes under the direct authority of Ministry of HR, a part of GoI. If all the articles from reputed sources need to be signed by a named author, we would be unable to cite many websites such as CNN, BBC, Britannica etc. So, let's not see trash where there's none.
That's correct. Praveen 16:51, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Indianstar, unless we can cite a source that clearly disputes the 3000 yr claim, I think we should let it stay as it is. Lotlil 14:33, 22 May 2007 (UTC)


Indianstar, I forgot to address the issue you raised. This new source clearly says "Unlike other Dravidian languages". But, then, I don't know what's in the original citation. So, if the editor who added the statement could chime in and verify whether the original citation says it's "Unlike other Indian languages" we would be able to make the necessary modification. My personal opinion is to say "Dravidian" since we have seen and verified this source. But, others may disagree. Lotlil 14:38, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I have no problems with the new wording. We can modify the sentence accordingly. Thanks Praveen 15:32, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Indiscriminate tagging

I'm removing the indiscriminate tagging that's been applied to this article. If there are uncited portions of the article, it's better to raise the concerns in the talk page rather than go about spraying tags all over the place. I can understand the neutrality tag being applied until Praveen gets a consensus on the two issues he is trying to resolve. Lotlil 15:29, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Does these issues require neutrality tag?. --Indianstar 16:45, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Tags

I think Sarvagnya forgot to start a discussion regarding the tags that he added. If he can either create a new section with explanation for each tag or point out to the section where the pertinent issues are being discussed (for each tag), it will be useful to other editors and eliminate the ambiguity about his concerns. Thanks Praveen 16:08, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

*sigh*. Brings to mind that pan-Indian sigh of 'Ramayana all-night... and.. Sita who? in the morning...". 'Mr.Newbie' gives 'Mr.Senior' a brainwave and 'Mr.Senior' executes it. Ha ha. Your pretensions to sincerity notwithstanding, I refuse to answer this bad faith trash. The reasons for the tags has been dealt with and is obvious in the preceding discussions(of which you were a part) on this very page. I could have added the tags long, long back but I waited until you drained my abundant resources of 'good faith'. Now when Indianstar, who, unlike you, seems to be acting in good faith starts to get things moving a little, you start your bad faith trolling again. I'd have been content just adding the tags at the top of the article, but you guys requested me to add it to the relevant sections. Go figure. Sarvagnya 17:03, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
If explanation for each tag is not provided, I will be removing the tags according to policy. Thanks Praveen 16:20, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Oh! :O :O I'm shaking in my knees. :D Sarvagnya 17:03, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
So you restore to trolling instead of replying to my questions? thats not unexpected. What else do you know? Anyways, the reasons are not obvious for every tag as you contend. Either make it clear or remove the trolling on this FA. Praveen 18:00, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Sarvagnya, you've tagged the following sentence as being unclear:
Tamil is characterised by a marked diglossia, with two basic styles and a continuum of intermediate styles which combine features from one or more of the basic styles.
I think the "one or more" can be removed. Does it read better without that:
Tamil is characterised by a marked diglossia, with two basic styles and a continuum of intermediate styles which combine features from the basic styles.
I also think it would help if we hyperlink the word diglossia to the Tamil section of the Diglossia article.Lotlil 02:55, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Lotlil, I know very well Diglossia exists in Tamil. But we need to find citations and add it. Even article referred does not have any citations. Sarvagyna, I agree citation is required. But what is not clear to you in that statement.
    • Regarding ancient nature, I agree with Lotlil. CIIL site acknowledges Tamil's age as around 3000 years. Also sentence clearly states with literary works available for 2000 years. I consider that issue as solved.
    • Is there any body who is feeling that Tamil's influence over sanskrit to be mentioned? If nobody replies I will modify the statement.
    • I consider inscriptions case as closed. If sarvagyna feels that as issue. He can either provide citations which contradicts our statement.
    • I suggest we should put our arguments instead of alleging any body as Pro-Tamil, Anti-Tamil, Good faith/Bad Faith. --203.126.136.220 05:38, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
It looks like the only issue that is still unresolved is the "Tamil influencing Sanskrit" part. Since there is no consensus on it yet, I agree with Indianstar - we should remove it from the article. Since nobody has raised objections to his post, I'm going to delete this sentence and its citations:
On the other hand a number of scholars believe that the influence of Tamil and Dravidian had a far greater influence, including grammar, syntax, poetics and meter on Sanskrit and other Indo-Aryan languages.
Since this was the last remaining issue, I will also remove the tags.
If anybody wants to revisit this Tamil influence issue, please do so on the talk page first. Lotlil 20:30, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree for the time being to your proposal. Praveen 20:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Issues resolution

1) I have moved diglossia related sentence from lead. Shortened sentence since few people were not able to understand the exact meaning of the sentence. (Including me). Please rephrase and then expand that statement

2) Clarify tag for Epigraphical inscriptions have been removed since it was clarified earlier. I suggest Sarvagyna to show citations to dispute that statement directly.

3) Let us not indulge in edit war. If anybody is still not satisfied then we can go for WP:THIRD or WP:MEDCAB instead of inserting multiple tags on featured article.--Indianstar 04:00, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Protect this article

I suggest admins to protect this article to avoid edit war.--Indianstar 03:06, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Proof to Tamilnet/Tamilnation's validity

Here is the admin decision on validity of Tamilnet/Tamilnation.org as a source. Do not remove reference/content and vandalize Praveen 19:39, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Edit request

{{editprotected}} The current version of the lead section has a couple gross mistakes, that are in direct contradiction with the citations:

  • The statement "Tamil has a literary tradition of more than a thousand years" should really be Tamil has a literary tradition of more than two thousand years. A couple of citations mentioned elsewhere in the article make this assertion unambiguously (currently numbered 16 and 17 in the Footnotes section), which I quote here for easy reference:
M. B. Emeneau (Jan-Mar 1956). "India as a Lingustic Area" (in English). Language 32 (1): 5. Retrieved on 2007-05-03. Of the four literary Dravidian languages, Tamil has voluminous records dating back at least two millennia
Burrow, Thomas (2001). The Sanskrit Language. Motilal Banarsidass Publications, 337. ISBN 8120817672. …In the case of Tamil the lierary tradition goes back for at least two thousand years…
  • The date of Tolkappiyam in the statement "the Tolkappiyam, oldest known literary work in Tamil, has been dated variously between 1st century BCE and 10th century CE" should be changed to between 300 BCE and 10th century CE. A separate article Date of the Tolkappiyam, which has been used elsewhere in this article makes this claim, with citations.

Lotlil 06:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

The above edits that this obvious sockpuppet is seeking are disputed. The details are in the reams and reams of discussion that has taken place on this very page and I have explained each of my edits in the course of those discussions many times over. If these edits are made, the admin can as well also add the {{totallydisputed}} tag to the article. And maybe move the article back to FAR too. Thanks. Sarvagnya 06:54, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

If you suspect that the user is involved in illegal activities then go for a check user instead of engaging in ad homium attacks. If a claim is supported by reliable sources then it should be allowed rather than using a minority view of a botanist as the clinching argument for discrediting the age of Tolkappiyam. Parthi talk/contribs 07:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Minority view of a 'botanist'? Try telling that to, say, Sheldon Pollock who himself has referred to this author and rather favourably. And in any case, I guess a Botanist of the eminence of BGLS, given his demonstrated familiarity with 'scientific rigor' is any day far more reliable than a tamil professor or a 'self styled Indiana Jones' or an IAS officer. And I dont need a checkuser to establish that a 'newbie'who comes armed with tools from his 3rd edit and also magically exhibits profound knowledge of all disputes of many months is a sockpuppet. Sarvagnya 07:24, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
That was quite flattering. Really. Is it even remotely possible that someone actually bothers to read through the talk pages before participating in an ongoing dispute? And, I dont know what tools you are talking about, but the ones I use shouldn't need more than a few minutes to get used to. Go figure! Lotlil 07:43, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Not unexpectedly, when confronted with citations you respond with personal attacks. Anyway, are you planning on bringing any citations to support your side of the story at all ? Lotlil 07:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I've disabled the editprotected request while discussion continues. Cheers. --MZMcBride 16:06, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Third Opinion Presented - Begin

So...am I correct in understanding that the current issue is whether or not Tamil has existed for 1000 or 2000 years? It should be evident to everyone that the assertion, "has existed for over 1000 years" is not exclusive to a claim that it has indeed existed for 2000 years. This being understood, I can appreciate a user's desire to have a more accurate and heftier statement as to 2000 years of existence, should that be a reality. If the cited sources, such as Emeneau, do in fact demonstrate a 2000 year legacy, why is there a problem? Is this source an unreliable source? If it is not, place it in the article as 2000, with source cited. If this source is unreliable, at least to a significant population, include 2000 within the article with its source (not as a footnote, but in the paragraph - as in, "Bugs Bunny, of the Loony Toons, has concluded from his research that such-and-such..), followed by a sourced contrary view, with it's source cited (...A contrary report, though, formulated by Mickey Mouse of the Disney Organization, asserts that so-and-so...). Hope this helps. DRosenbach (Talk | Contribs) 16:22, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. Your assesment of the situation is mostly right. The dispute is about the age of Tamil's literature, specifically. While we have many reliable sources that say it's over 2000 yrs old, nobody has bothered to produce a single source that counters this claim. Lotlil 18:14, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
I strongly support mentioning 2000 years of existence of Tamil language. There are reams of evidence available to support that point. I request Admins to allow editing these points . Sarvagyna if you are still having reservations in mentioning those points, we can go for Media cabal. Also I request you to mention all your reservations about this page. We can settle it once for all and then try to bring stability to this page. I request all parties to refrain from personal attacks and focus on content. --Indianstar 03:26, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Third Opinion Presented - End

Rules for vowel elision

This article, as well as the one for Tamil phonology mention about some "well-defined rules for vowel elision". However none of these rules can be found. Can anyone add them, or at least make the table clearer (the table is in the phonology article, but I suggest it to be moved back here, as it is a very important point - like the Sanskrit Sandhi, for example)


Tamil script image's diacriticals are erroneuous

Whoever put the image please correct it since it has four symbols with the wrong diacriticals: The changes required are as below (the one on the right of the arrow is the correct one) ṛa -> ṟ ṣa -> sa śa -> ṣa kśa -> kṣa

perichandra1 18:55, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

TAMIL, THE BEST REPRESENTATIVE OF THE DRAVIDIAN FAMILY OF LANGUAGES

"The traditional account of the Three Tamil Academies, the references to the river PahŠu˜i (in Silappadikaram and Puram), the enumeration by Adiyƒrkkunallƒr of the 49 regions forming a great part of the submerged Pandiyanadu, short notices of some Pandiyas of the First Academy found in Tamil literature and the like, are, in the absence of a regular history, valuable materials for reconstructing the ancient history of the Dravidians, at least in very broad outlines, whereas there is nothing of the kind in all the literatures of the other Dravidian languages." Read more in "http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/THE_PRIMARY_CLASSICAL_LANGUAGE_OF_THE_WORLD/Tamil_the_Best_Representative_of_the_Dravidian_Family_of_Languages

Consonants section incorrect on phonemes

The consonants section states "A chart of the Tamil consonant phonemes in the International Phonetic Alphabet follows...". Well the inventory shown is phonetic not phonemic. First of by directly listing the IPA symbols it makes it very difficult to identify it with the typical Indic inventory and also to trace it to the Proto-Dravidian inventory where diacriticals are used.

And more importantly, it is well known that for the stops/plosives or vallinam there are many phones in Dravidian, and Tamil is no exception. So it is better to list the phonemes and then add in a separate table list the multiple phones for the phonemes. It is going to be incomplete for some difficult ones like the intervocalic -k- but that will be the correct thing to do. It is misleading as it is now. perichandra1 19:05, 1 October 2007 (UTC) 

I want to ask .Are there aspirated sounds in Tamil or other Dravidian languages like Hindi e.g Bh'Ph 'Th'etc Rasoolpuri 04:23, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Need romanization at Rice vermicelli

Greetings, can someone add the romanization for சேவை in the box at Rice vermicelli? Badagnani 23:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)


The Range of centuries given as a period is wrong

The following statement is not in accordance with historical facts: "External chronological records and internal linguistic evidence, however, indicate that the oldest extant works were probably compiled sometime between the 2nd century BC and the 10th century AD". The period given is so long. 3rd Century BC to 2 nd century AD is the widely accepted period.

Yes, "3rd Century BC to 2 nd century AD" is the period found in most native reference works. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.47.249.251 (talk) 21:19, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Inscriptions in Karnataka-Andhra

Can someone explain what this has to do with Tamil language. I have removed it because it made no sense keeping it in the article.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 12:29, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

If you read any RS academic books on the evolution of Tamil language as well as any of the languages of India, none fails to mention that Tamil language was written down earlier than any other (does not mean the other languages were not writable or did not develop enough or any of that nature) neighboring languages (which happens to be Telugu and Kannda but not Sinhala) although the cultural experience all South Indians at the time seem to be similar. So it boils down to the language of the elite or the language preferred by the elite. Elite north of central Tamil Nadu preferred Prakrits (not Sanskrit at that early period) where as the elite in the Southern tip of Peninsular India (that includes portions of Tamil Nadu and Kerala) preferred Tamil and the reasons are not very clearly explained as to why because the earliest inscription in Tamil Nadu does show Prakrit or Prakrit influence but it fadaed way unlike in Andhra and Karnataka where the Prakrit domination of the language preferred by the elite continued a little longer but it eventually did fade way (but not in Sri Lanka where a Prakrit became the language of the people due to language replacement) . This is germane to any discussion about Tamil language under its history and it is fascinating for linguist and historians no matter whether a wikipedia article displays a sentence about it or not. If we dont bring it out in a proper context under history, we simply arent telling the whole story about Tamil language.Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 21:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Deleting this section

Tamil is one of the oldest languages in the world like latin, greek etc. Tamil means sweetness. (In ancient literatures they quoted tht Thanmai means chillness. The word 'Tamil'derived from the word 'Thanmai'. Thus Tamil means Chillness(cold), Sweetness...!

- After the long struggles and efforts of tamil scholors and progressive movements of tamilnadu now Tamil is declared as a Classical Language in the Nation. In Tamil classical language is called "semmoli".

This section does not say anything new and looks to be out of place.

non-encyclopedic claim

The last sentence of the first para curreently reads: With more than 77 million speakers, Tamil is one of the widely spoken languages in the world. This claim appears to be completely absurd. The website that the info is drawn from is either incorrect or is being misquoted. To state that a language with only 77 million speakers is one of the most widely spoken makes no sense. If you review the info on the website itself, it also claims that only about 500 million people in the world speak english which is also patently incorrect. I am removing the sentence and I don't think that site should be used as a source since it is obviously unreliable. Doc Tropics 17:17, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Your point is quite valid. I think the author of that statement means something like 'one of the languages spoken in significant numbers in a most widely spread out area'. Tamil is spoken in significant numbers in Canada, Australia, Europe and USA, and of course in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore etc. The meaning is not that 77 million is a large number by itself. The sentence may have to be modified. --Aadal (talk) 03:12, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry if my initial post seemed excessively negative. You raise an interesting point about the original intent, one that I hadn't considered. I've rewritten several portions in what I hope will be a clearer fasion. Thanks for your input  : ) Doc Tropics 03:29, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Question about dates

The last sentence of the second paragraph currently reads: "...Sangam literature, is dated to between the 2nd century CE and 10th century CE." However, if you follow the link to the article about Sangam, the dates given there vary significantly from the dates given here. There are 5 refs total (2 here, 3 at Sangam) but only 1 is an internet source, and it doesn't actually specify Sangam lit, only ancient lit. I don't have access to any of the other refs myself. Can someone help determine which range of dates is more accurate? Doc Tropics 05:44, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The bulk of modern authors date the Sangam poems of the "eight anthologies" to the first few centuries CE, following Kamil Zvelebil's 1973 dating. Older authorities - and those who follow them - prefer dates around the 5th-6th centuries (Vaiyapuri Pillai's 1956 dating) or 8th-12th centuries CE (Robert Caldwell's 1875 dating). Some - such as Marr - simply give a lower limit of 200-400 CE, on the basis that it's a hopeless task to attempt to fix an exact date given how little there is to go by. More recently, Tieken argues that the eight anthologies are a 10th century forgery (every single review has criticised his dating). I can provide quotes if you like, but in my view, the issues with the lead can simply be fixed by removing most of the discussion of dating. It's well beyond excessive to have one-third of the lead focused on dating - a simple sentence on the earliest historical attestation of the language (the inscriptions already referenced in the second sentence of the second paragraph) should be enough for the lead, I think.
Perhaps there would also be some merit in combining the "History" section with the section on "Origin and development", and rewriting them to focus a bit more on the history of the language, and a little less on literature? -- Arvind (talk) 10:31, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Need Tamil

Need Tamil script for the cooking term "thalchi" at the article Chaunk#Name_in_various_languages. Badagnani (talk) 17:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm assuming you meant தாளித்து or தாளித்தல். If not let me know. Cheers Wiki San Roze †αLҝ 17:27, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Oldest Language

no doubt tamil is oldest language in the worldBill (talk) 04:41, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

dialects in tamil

The section on tamil dialects could be modified to include the tamil brahmin dialect. This is still widely used and some words are quite distinct from the commonly accepted tamil dialect. Also the vast distinction between written and spoken tamil could be emphasized.

134.134.136.2 (talk) 21:20, 17 June 2008 (UTC) Nandini, 17/6/2008

i guess she has a valid point..since forward castes contribute to 13% of the 6 crore tamilians, i guess the no. of brahmins must be at least 3 to 5 %..i feel since the iyer (saivites) dialect is different from iyengar (vaishnavites) dialect, those two must be classified seperately..further, palakkad brahmins use different dialect..telugu brahmins a vastly different dialect..EU/ USA english influenced brahmins have a different dialect...so, i guess we spend time to create a seperate encyclopedia on the different dialects spoken by brahmins (which are not "tamil" anyway since it can be described best as "san-il/ tam-rit" -heavily loaned from sanskrit or san-eng-il including british / US english)... and may i suggest that such caste specific "brahmin dialect" inclusions (each spoken by a few thousand speakers) will contribute to pure tamil's growth and such information shall benefit the remaining 85% of other caste tamils..and perhaps a demand from each and every caste (ALARMINGLY) to include their own brand of casteist linguism to ultimately infect the pristine language also with the diseases called "caste" and "adulteration from other languages". Highlighting regional variations of pure tamil words bring beauty to the language. but casteist variations using adulterations from other languages are but a pity/ shame on tamilians! Cityvalyu (talk) 20:31, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

tamil researchers clarify

dear wiki people, i found the photo of script of tamil in different centuries very amusing.. i found that the contributor was "dakshin chitra" (a non tamil organisation). further the organisation name is derived from hindi(or some devanagiri script) . Is it a mere coincidence that the photo's versions of tamil script {(see script of a, ta) in earlier centuries} is very very similar to devanagiri script or is it a wider conspiracy to fool tamilians into believing THAT DEVANAGIRI SCRIPT WAS THE SOURCE OF TAMIL!! I dont trust a hindi organisation's version of hindi script derived images for a native dravidian language. but, my personal opinion must not stand in the way of truth..so i didnt delete that ..so, i am requesting tamil RESEARCHERS to PLEASE CLARIFY..OR CONTRIBUTE NEUTRAL REFERENCES (NON DEVANAGIRI SPONSORED REFERENCE) TO ENLIGHTEN US .. Cityvalyu (talk) 20:10, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Dear Citvyalu, Both Devanagari and Tamil Script are Derived From the Brahmi script. Hence the Similarities in the Intermediate Forms. There is not Conspiracy here. Vinodh.vinodh (talk) 14:04, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Retroflex r versus retroflex l

There needs to be some reference to the fact that in spoken Tamil, the retroflex r is replaced by the retroflex l. The first clue should have been the transliteration 'Tamil', where the last character is an 'l' since that is what it sounds closest to when one says 'Tamil'. The IPA transliteration at the top of the article is accordingly misleading since no one says Tamil ending with a retroflex r. Interestingly, on a recent visit to Kerala, my host was explaining to me how Malayalis sometimes chuckle at the way Tamils say certain words (many words are common to these sister languages) since when changed to the retroflex l, it takes on a new meaning in Malayalam, sometimes a funny one. The interesting thing here is that zh is used in transliterations to refer to the retroflex l as in pronounced in Thamizh/Tamil. Given the above, I am curious if it is supposed to refer to the retroflex l or retroflex in actuality. I guess this could be a problem when comparing Malayalam and Tamil pronunciations.

Anyways, I think this needs to be addressed. As for references, just ask any 'Thamizh' speaker. But I did some googling on this matter after discussing the sound and the wikipedia entries on Tamil Language and the retroflex approximant with my linguist friend, and found the following:

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/plc/tamilweb/book/chapter1/node12.html

There were a couple more references, but this one seems to be good enough and direct to the point.

Stochasticdreams (talk) 11:16, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

compiled sometime between the 2nd century BCE and the 10th century CE

This is nonsense. Such a wide range is not necessary. This contridicts the Tamil scholar and research communities assessment. Refer to "Tamil Sanagams". "The earliest extant works of Tamil literature date back to the period between 300 BCE and 200 CE and deals with love, war, governance, trade and bereavement" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.52.221.36 (talk) 12:39, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

structure changes/citation removals

The structure of the lead is corrupted due to massive detailed information. Removal of the citations are necessary to keep a clean lead. Thirukkural belongs to the Sangam literature. So i used a single citation instead of those hundreds. Also the grammar information in the lead should be in the grammar section of the article. This helps a lot for readability. --Kalarimaster (talk) 16:39, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Please read WP:LEAD. Lead is a concise version of all the more important parts of the article. Also please remember that removal of reference is not encouraged in wikipedia. Watchdogb (talk) 16:53, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Tamil-Malayalam

Iam going to add a new section to the article named Tamil-Malayalam.If anyone disagrees, Pls post your comment here.

ARUNKUMAR P.R (talk · contribs) 13:16, 15 September 2008 (UTC) 

           What has tamil got to do with malayalam ? malayalam has got something to do with tamil maybe but tamil is an independant language  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.75.131.138 (talk) 14:43, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
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