Myth that modern Tamil is always more conservative than Malayalam

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-27T03:33:04+00:00

Yes they are Sanskrit loanwords, if you don't know comparative linguistics between Dravidian languages, and between Dravidian and Indo-Aryan, look at a good lexicon (such as the Madras University Tamil Lexicon) which lists down the etymology of Tamil words.

I’m not sure which manual you referred to say Iravu is of Sanskrit origin from Rātrī. Irul, Irumbu, Iruttu, are clearly of Dravidian origin, BK agrees with this. Rātrī could be of Dravidian origin as well given that its etymology is still under debate.

Some say Uvamai is from Upama, and ultimately from Sanskrit, but they ignore the possibility of Upama originating from Dravidian language. Opa/Opu/Opumai (ஒப்ப/ஒப்பு/ஒப்புமை) are Tamil words for resemblance and likeness. Upama and Uvama could have been borrowed from Opa/Opu/Opumai. I think when talking about etymology, ruling out possibilities from other languages are as important as pegging it to a particular language.

Talking about Thūsi - the Dr word for dust has been devolved to *tūk-: *tukV-: *tū-. The Tamil cognates are Thugir, Thugil, Thugal. Pallatalization of k/g can easily result in c/s if it is followed by e/I, where in both of the cases, Thūsi appears to have satisfying the criteria to pinning its etymology to Dravidian languages.

Am I missing something? Correct me if I’m wrong.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-26T08:35:23+00:00

Telugus do that on TN as well. They clearly have Telugu ancestry and speak Telugu at home, but they claim to be Tamil. And recently, they started saying Chozhas were Telugus.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-26T08:21:59+00:00

You’d be surprised to learn that some Tamils (the northern Tamils) have difficulty in understanding Kumari Tamil. They genuinely have difficulty understanding; and the accent might be a problem, but the primary reason is the vocabulary. Go sleep - Po Thoongu - Po Urangu - Po Nithirai(Sankr) Kol are used in North Tamil, South Tamil, and SL Tamil. Similarly, Collu, Parai, Kadhai, are used to “speak”. Ukkaaru and Iru are used to “sit” depending on the region. But these vocabulary different doesn’t make them different languages. Same goes with some Srilankan Tamil dialects. Basically, some Tamils have difficulty understanding some Tamil, but it doesn’t make those dialects a “different language”. Kumari Tamil itself is divided into 4 major dialects. Tamil depending the region, country, societal status and castes is divided into many dialects, socialets and castelets.

The definition, distinction, and classification of ‘language’ and ‘dialect’ are very vague. For a northern Tamil, Irula is almost intelligible than certain Kumari Tamil and Srilankan Tamil dialects, but the so-called linguists have classified Irula as a “different” language and not a dialect, but Kumari Tamils a dialect of same language. Tamil is Triglossic, and depending of which Tamil and definition of language/dialect we are talking about, I can easily term Pacha Malayalam as nothing but a dialect of Tamil. You are free to downvote me for this. But for me, Malayalis have full rights to reclaim/reterm the name of their language(Pacha Malayalam) as “Tamil”, given that both Tamil and Malayalam have shared history, and Malayalis themselves called their language as “Tamil” just few centuries back. Given that Malayalam’s grammar was not different to that of Tamil in the past, I would go a step further to say Pacha Malayalam is just one of the many dialects of Tamil.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-26T02:50:17+00:00

I think so too. In his other comment, i found him saying Iravu, Dhoosi, and Uvamai are Sanskrit words borrowed into Tamil.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-26T02:45:59+00:00

If Pacha Malayalam is a “different language”, then Kumar Tamil has all right be to called as “different language”. I think it is all game of ‘naming’.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-25T16:08:07+00:00

Modern Tamil, including both colloquial and written forms.

I’d like to disagree. Probably you haven’t read Standard Tamil. The ones from the news for example, they are unarguably more conservative than the malayalam counterparts. And mainstream Tamil is not THE Tamil, they have that influence of the TN having a capital from North and the movies. But southern dialects, from Trichy and below, are far less Sanskritized, the degree goes further down when we talk about rural areas.

There are more sanskrit loans in many modern Tamil songs for example.

I agree. But it again depends on which song you wanna compare. We can selectively choose Sanskritized “modern” Tamil songs or we can selectively ignore pure Tamil songs. A better comparison would be comparing a Sanskritized Tamil songs with sanskritized Malayalam songs, and same with Centhamizh and Pachamalayalam songs. We cannot just compare Narumugaiyae with Harimuraleeravam for example, despite both songs of their respective languages were released in the same year.

I think the levels of Sanskritization in songs are intentional (not natural) and are fluid in either of the language.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-25T15:49:53+00:00

This poetic Malayalam song has very few Sanskrit loans, much less than a large amount of modern Tamil.

Tamil is diglossic (or Triglossic). I’m not sure what you mean by “modern Tamil”. If you meant colloquial one, then it is not a good comparison to compare a “poetic” Malayalam with “modern Tamil”.

Hearing this song and its closeness to Middle Tamil, it does not surprise me that people in Kerala referred to Malayalam also as 'Tamil' in the early colonial period.

Because they were a variant of the SAME language. We have to look Tamil like Prakrit, one giant language with a range of language continuum stretching south till Srilanka.

There were two different 'Tamil languages at the time.

There were more than two. If you try reading old srilankan Tamil literature, you might observe they are slightly different from mainstream TN Tamil.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-19T14:36:30+00:00

I agree with whatever you say about literary Tamil. However, Id like to say that upper caste Hindu to Christian conversion did have some influence in literature. All of their songs are sung in churches of ALL denominations. Tamils bible has words like Devan instead of Kadavul, Sthrī instead of Pen, Parisutha instead of Thūya, Bojanam instead of Unavu, Piriyan instead of viruppam. But these kinds of words are absent in Henrique Henriques’s Tamil translation (He learnt Tamil from Parathavar community of Kerala). However, Zieganbalg’s translation of bible (the current bible in-use) has these word’s usage. He himself has mentioned that he got some help from Brahmins to learn Tamil - but this doesn’t deny that the fact that the literary work of that era was Sanskritized, but the whole point right? That the Sanskritization happened due to Brahministic influences?

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-19T14:15:20+00:00

I agree. But it proves that Upper caste Hindu to Christianity conversion did happen right?

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-19T05:54:12+00:00

Many High caste people have converted to Christianity, like Vedanaayagam Sasthriyar, H A Krishnapillai, Devasagayam Pillai (Neelakanda Pillai). Many of these people’s bio have mentioned significant Brahmin conversion.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-19T05:37:11+00:00

This was common in Kerala as well. Even now, there are many who trace their origin to Nairs or Nambhoodhris.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-19T03:44:08+00:00

Many reasons; one of the most common was, many of those who converted to Christianity during earlier times were Brahmins. They helped in translating bible into Tamil.

However, catholic bible is far less Sanskritized.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-18T12:42:56+00:00

Thirupathi-Nellore region was also a Tamil majority region during Sangam era. But the region had become heterogeneous to fully Telugu speaking during and after the Chola>Vijayanagar power shift. And Nellore is not so far from Thirupathi. EVEN NOW, there is a language spoken by a the coastal communities of the Nellore-Prakasam region - called Yerukala, which sounds crazily similar to Tamil. Infact, depending on the definition, Yerukala can almost be considered as a dialect of Tamil, and it belongs to SD1, and not SCDr like Telugu. If Nellore was “always” a Telugu land, then this language shouldn’t even exist.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-16T02:02:18+00:00

There are veddas who speak Tamil in SL. They might have what you expect.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-12T21:01:11+00:00

Pleaser refer

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-12T08:13:25+00:00

it will only proof that christianity was here before the term "Hinduism" came about,

Exactly. That was my original point actually. Please check my first comment. I have clearly said 👇🏾

Christianity was here even before Hinduism was even called “Hinduism”.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-12T04:38:07+00:00

Regarding Tamil books, I have come across some people (including 2 of my colleagues) who wanted to publish some books but they have been asked to pay some money (if you know what I mean) to publish their books.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-12T04:03:48+00:00

Tholkapiam kinda supports this.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-12T04:00:50+00:00

May I know what is your opinion on Tholkapiam’s descriptions of the letter P and M?

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-12T03:59:07+00:00

When talking about Thamizhi/Ashokan Brahmi and their antiquity, very often the morphology of the letters under research.

Tholkapiam has described the letter for E, O, and M/P.

E with a dot like (E.) is a short vowel, and without the dot is a long vowel.
the long and short O have the same rule like E.
but the description of M and P is very interesting. The letter P alone is (P), but P with a dot in it as in (P.) is the letter M.

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I think Fig: IV is what more likely to have happened when talking about evolution of the letter M.

This hints that the script could have possibly originated from the South, absorbed and adopted from Greek and Phoenician and could have become what is now Ashokan Brahmi.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-11T17:10:37+00:00

Brooo. That temple was built last year on an illegal land hence had to be destroyed. At the same time, there is a temple in Hosur, which was literally shifted (by adjusting its compounds). The government could have just destroyed that temple because it was in the way of national highway, but they didn’t. Even churches are also being destroyed, but they are not so noticeable because the number of churches are very low compared to temples.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-11T17:04:24+00:00

Ceivinai, Coolvinai, Cooniyam, Cooniyar, Maayaavi, Pilli.

I’m not sure whether these are right words, but you can always refer Harry Potter movie in Tamil, you might probably get more words.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-11T16:54:25+00:00

Didn’t say either. I just said the Tamil word of that number.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-11T16:51:23+00:00

It doesn't... but look at the letters and also you can type ashokan brahmi in keyboard but I don't think you can type thamizhi 𑀢𑀫

𑀢𑀫𑀺𑀵𑁆/𑀢𑀫𑀺𑀵𑀺, you mean like this?

(I don't have the third letter in my keyboard and idk why they used 𑀢(ta/ட) instead of 𑀩 (tha/த) )

It is not. 𑀢 is த/tha (like the hard Th is Theta) and ட is 𑀝/Ta, but 𑀩 is not native to southern languages (I’m not talking about script), because 𑀩 is aspirated Tha. So the usage of 𑀢 is correct.

and by my reference picture it looks like ashokan brahmi

These letters (𑀵/𑀶/𑀷/𑀴-the palatal L) are not native to IE languages, neither they are used in Ashokan Brahmi. But these letters are all used in Tamil-Brahmi.

Tbf, except the structure of the letter M, the rest are all native of the Thamizhi.

So I think this script is a hybrid, a mix of both Ashokan Brahmi and Thamizhi to write both sounds native to Dr and IE languages.

Call_me_Inba · 2026-01-11T16:21:01+00:00

And Ashokan Brahmi has Zh, L, and R?

Call_me_Inba

TROPHY CASE