[WMASTERS] Grantha, Om

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

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Selva, quoting various arguments against grantha, writes:

>The introduction of grantha letters ( voiced stops like J)
>  will inject needless confusions and give room for driving the
>  wedge. How ? It is hihgly likely that some 'very intelligent'
>  individual will "innocently" ask why can't we write 'panju' as
>  (†§Ûî) and argue that this way there will be 'less confusion' to
>  our young learners.

I would point out that Malayalam is, in some styles, the most Sanskritized
language in India.  I once read a historical novel in Malayalam that used
over 95% Sanskrit words.  (On the other hand, Chemmeen has fewer Sanskrit
words than its Tamil translation.)  BUT Malayalis never write native words
in the Sanskrit way -- "cotton" is written as in Tamil.  So why would
anyone think Tamils would suddenly start writing Tamil words as if they
were Sanskrit?  This is silly.

On another note, the original meaning of Skt. "Om" is "yes."  There has
been much speculation that "om" was originally a Dravidian word (Tamil
"aam"; "om" is used for "yes" in Sri Lankan Tamil).  GH




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