Tamil Words

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

>	Neither Jananm is equivalent to piRavi, piRappu, thORRam,
>	Akkam;
>
>	Nor ejmAnan is equivalent to ayyer, thalaivar, muthalvar,
>	vaziNatatti, vazikAtti.
>
>	I believe it!  So every body from tamilnadu believe it!
>	And to transliterate these two unique words we need
>	the grantha script "Ja".
>
>	I am going to recommned this to nobel committe!

Anu, I'm sorry to say that we're simply not talking on the same wavelength.
If you think jananam is equivalent to piRavi etc., then your conception of
language is radically different from mine.  The fact is, jananam has a
plethora of connotations that the other words do not.  Similarly with
ejamanan (which, by the way, has a very beautiful etymology: from
yajamaana, the person who sponsors the Sacrifice, usually a non-Brahmin, by
the way).  We may or may not like it, but Sanskrit has been in close
contact with Tamil for thousands of years.  It is hardly strange that Tamil
has borrowed Sanskrit words and used them productively (just as Sanskrit
has borrowed thousands of Dravidian words).  What is more important,
excising such words from all Tamil is not only ill-advised, it is
impossible.  No matter what you or I may say, 99% of the Tamils are not
suddenly going to replace "ciikiram" with "viraivu" or "pustakam" with
"nuul."  What is heartening is that the formal Tamil in which borrowed
words are kept to a minimum is still very much alive and is still
cultivated.  But to expect ordinary people (and ordinary magazines like
Ananda Vikatan) to suddenly appear in 3rd century Tamil is a bit daft.  I
guess my basic question is: why would anyone want to so weaken the
language?  Tamil is rich because it has a plethora of styles and choices,
not because everyone is forced to write in an idiom that is quite alien to
how they speak.

Anyway, there's no use going on.  I will only say that I don't believe
either you or I have the right or the ability to dictate how a great
language like Tamil will evolve (or, in your case, fail to evolve).  I am
not going to discuss these matters with you anymore -- it's pointless.
Sincerely, George Hart