Jati

[George Hart <ghart@socrates.berkeley.edu>]

You cannot establish whether a word is Dravidian or Indo-European (or
whatever) without knowing comparative linguistics.  Caati is not in any
other Dravidian languages -- Prof. Emeneau, whom I know quite well and who
is the greatest living Dravidian linguist (indeed, the greatest of all
time) -- would never agree that caati is Dravidian -- there is simply no
scientific evidence for it.

Knowing little or nothing of physics, I may challenge the greatest
physicists of my time.  I may say relativity doesn't exist (it doesn't seem
logical, after all), knowing nothing of the mathematics etc. involved.  All
this shows is that I am consumed by hubris and have no idea of how science
works.

Unfortunately, this is the case with comparative linguistics.  People who
have no background, who are quite ignorant of the methods and
sophistication of the science, make statements based on misinformation and
bad methodology.  Their conclusions are exactly as valuable as mine would
be if I went on a jeremiad to prove relativity doesn't exist.  Science,
whether comparative linguistics or physics, is not ego-tripping.  If
someone wishes to say something about comparative linguistics, let him or
her spend 10 years learning the science.  This means learning many
Indo-European languages, reading about how they are related, learning
several Dravidian languages (if one is concerned with Dravidian), reading
the works of Emeneau, B. H. Krishnamurthy, and others, and developing a
sophisticated knowledge of how the science is done.  George Hart

This is obliquely related to our task of producing a standardized encoding
for Tamil.  We should be guided by good methodology, logic, and science --
not by emotional considerations.