May 22, 2007
The lost continent of Kumari KandamHistory
I’m sure the science-fiction geeks amongst y’all know about the lost continents of Atlantis, Lemuria and Mu. These are the “missing continents” that were submerged in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans respectively.
[The story of Atlantis has its origin in the Platonic dialogues, while Lemuria was hypothesized in the late 1800s as an explanation for why there were Lemurs in both Madagascar and India but not in Africa or the Middle East. Both are now beloved of mystics and kooks. Nobody really cares about Mu, although it is sometimes confused with Lemuria.]
However, I’ll bet you’ve never heard of the Tamil analogue, the lost continent of Kumari Kandam! Proponents say Kumari Kandam is Lemuria, different names for the same continent that once covered most of the Indian ocean:
Sri Lanka together with India, Indonesia and Malaysia were a part of this continent. Many islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans are remnants of this continent that in ancient time covered the whole area of today’s ocean. [Link]
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The lost continent of Kumari Kandam |
It turns out that everything does not actually come from India, it comes from Kumari Kandam. And by everything, I do mean everything.
“Homo Dravida” first evolved in Kumari Kandam; it is the cradle of civilization; the birthplace of all languages in general and of the Tamil language in particular. This is where the first and second great ages (Sangams?) of the Tamils happened, not in India, but in the true Dravidian homeland, further south.
R. Mathivanan, then Chief Editor of the Tamil Etymological Dictionary Project of the Government of Tamilnadu, in 1991 … [produced] the following timeline …:
ca. 200,000 to 50,000 BC: evolution of “the Tamilian or Homo Dravida”,
ca. 200,000 to 100,000 BC: beginnings of the Tamil language
50,000 BC: Kumari Kandam civilisation
20,000 BC: A lost Tamil culture of the Easter Island which had an advanced civilisation
16,000 BC: Lemuria submerged
6087 BC: Second Tamil Sangam established by a Pandya king
3031 BC: A Chera prince in his wanderings in the Solomon Island saw wild sugarcane and started cultivation in Tamilnadu.
1780 BC: The Third Tamil Sangam established by a Pandya king
7th century BC: Tolkappiyam (the earliest extant Tamil grammar)… [Link]
The continent was destroyed by three large floods which wiped out most of the golden civilization with it:
It is believed by some Tamil scholars that the first academy existed at southern Maturai and was terminated by sea devouring the city. The Pandya king established a second academy at Kapadapuram. Again, the sea devoured the city. The Pandya king established the third academy in present Maturai (far away from sea coast). [Link]
What was left was later wiped out by the Aryan invasion that corrupted the remnants of the once great Tamil civilizations:
“After imbibing the mania of the Aryan culture of destroying the enemy and their habitats, the Dravidians developed a new avenging and destructive war approach. This induced them to ruin the forts and cities of their own brethren out of enmity”. [Link]
I’m looking forward to seeing a version of the comic book Lemuria entirely settled by Tamils. When Aquaman or Namor come to visit, they can serve them Dosa/Idli 
.
ennis on May 22, 2007 12:22 PM in History, Humor, Science, Travel · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
This brings to mind the effects of the last tsunami in that area. If you remember, a strong majority of the land was covered with water. I wonder if it's a feasible argument. Interesting post, Ennis.
Nevermind, no tectonic plates for earthquakes to happen.
Regardless of many of these exagerrated claims, there is an element of truth to them. Gondwanaland is accepted as true based on plate techtonics and extrapolated to 200 million years ago. Whether there were remnants of human civilisation during the last ice age about 11,000 years ago who knows. More study is needed.
ca. 200,000 to 50,000 BC: evolution of “the Tamilian or Homo Dravida”
It seems like Dravidian homeys have been around a long time :-) Tolkapiyaar, the famous Tamil grammar, is dated to the 1st century BC (I think), so while Tamil culture is indeed ancient, its nowhere near as hoary as these ridiculous timelines suggest. Tamil chavinism is the stepchild of the Aryan Invasion Theory, and the chauvinism of various North Indians and South Indian Brahmins claiming they are of Aryan, Scythian or even European descent. The Maharashtrian Brahmin Lokmanya Tilak, known now as a populist freedom fighter, posited that the Aryans (and thus the Indian upper castes) came from the North Pole.
The 16,000 BC date is close enough to the beginning of the end of the previous ice age , so melting ice causing low lying areas like Kumari Kandam could have been inundated causing it to sink and leading upto the present day land features that we see now, and could explain the historical memory of the mutamil sangams.
Are they claiming that Dravidians aren't Homo Sapiens? The Tamilians are Homo Dravida seems like crock to me, because genetic research should be able to figure that out pretty easily.
Or are they claiming that Homo Sapiens absorbed culture from a lost civilization developed by proto-humans? That seems more likely but still far-fetched. Wouldn't such an advanced civilization leave some evidence of itself? How did Homo Dravida become tottally extinct
The Tamilians are Homo Dravida seems like crock to me, because genetic research should be able to figure that out pretty easily.
tamilians are an outgroup to h. sapiens. they live so far south that gene flow between sapiens and dravida as been low, resulting in pre and postzygotic mating barriers.
And all this time I thought being a tamilian was quite normal :(
Again, do you have any evidence of that?
Homo Dravida:
Ennis-- please to elucidate. If humans evolved in Kumari Kandam, did ALL humans come from there--and if so, where did the Aryans come from? -- personally I'm not an AI Theory fan, but still, enquiring minds want to know.
Again, do you have any evidence of that?
tamil mtDNA tends to coalesce recently, supporting the out-of-africa theory for humans. but, tamil Y chromosomes exhibit deep time divergence from other homonoid groups. this suggests that
a) either the tamil males preferred human females, or, human female lineages introgressed
b) tamils were andro-parthenogenetic prior to the introduction of human females
so i apologize, the tamils are a hybrid speciation event. not an outgroup on all gene lineages....
Ha! This just proves what I always knew...sarvamum thamizh mayam! ;)
Sangams actually refer to academies, not ages. Here's the wikipedia entry (standard caveats apply). The era b/w 200 BC and 200 AD is known as the Sangam era, and witnessed a remarkable flourisihng of Tamil poetry -mostly secular, some even erotic- which stands in marked contrast to the religious compositions that arose later, in the period of the alwars and nayanmars. The title of Vikram Chandra's novel, Red Earth and Pouring Rain. was based on a Tamil Sangam poem. Here's AK Ramanujam's translation:
What could my mother be
to yours? What kin is my father
to yours anyway? And how
Did you and I meet ever?
But in love
our hearts have mingled
as red earth and pouring rain
mingled
beyond parting.
Really? I didn't know that. THat's interesting
Dude! Lesbian proto-Tamilians. That's a movie, right there!! Just joking
MoorNam's theory of Antiquity: The extent of antiquity claimed by culture/populace is inversely proportional to the extent of happiness and satisfaction with the present and the hope for the future.
M. Nam
For an outstanding presentation of "alternate geology", check out Neal Adams' Expanding Earth animation. He's a kook, but Kook + Animation = Compelling Viewing. I should know.
Great discussion, I knew very little about most of this and this is very interesting.
Moornam in #16, you just might have a point there.
I have no clue - this is all I could find on the Kumari Kandam myth, I don't know how its advocates see things at all. The part about Tamils being a separate species is just bizarre to me and demonstrates that they're smoking something.
Just found this webpage about Lemurians.
It's bizarre, but not without precedent. The Chinese government had invested money in trying to prove that the Han developed separately from the rest of humanity via a branch of homo erectus. Complete state sanctioned bunk
My grandfather used to tell me this story. As cool as it would be to know that my ancestory did all this stuff, I'm far from sold.
The timelines are clearly skewed, but let's just all just acknowledge the superiority of Tamil culture and move on, shall we? ;)
According to science there are only 3 main races caucasian,mongloid and negroid. To claim such a comment that tamil people are not homo sapiens but homo dravidian is outright ignorance. Do some research on wikpedia if u want to learn anything about india including the south, yes south india is still india...and research on homo sapiens. And the whole theory about dravidians and aryan races is a huge crock... the people who invented these terminologies are probably "upper class" brahmin north indians. no offense, to anyone here this happened long time ago in the vedas somewhere which has no scientific basis just religious.
it was Ilemuria in the original Tamil.
Our ancestors did all that and more. Even the humble idli's shape has a significance. It is meant to remind us of the flying saucer/vimaana that brought us here from the star system MGR-1968 and marooned us among all these damn scythians for the crime of winning too many intergalactic spelling bees
India, Indonesia, Madagascar, Australia?? According to current plate tectonic understanding, that is impossible. But see this:
I say we ask the people of Mt Shasta!
@23 hema:
you are still not getting any cauvery water from karnataka, ok? :)
According to science there are only 3 main races caucasian,mongloid and negroid. To claim such a comment that tamil people are not homo sapiens but homo dravidian is outright ignorance
there are three human races, yes. dravidians are another branch of the hominid family, as modeled by the multi-regional hypothesis.
right...a hypothesis
Guys, I think Razib the Homo Bengalis is joshing wit u.
It is meant to remind us of the flying saucer/vimaana that brought us here from the star system MGR-1968 and marooned us among all these damn scythians for the crime of winning too many intergalactic spelling bees
LOL. Down with the scythians!
does anyone know if Kannadhasan's "netru varai nee yaaro naan yaaro" was based on the poem which risible quoted above? A lot of Tamil film music, especially during the more explicitly political period of Tamil film, took its inspiration from Sangam poems, and I know that "netru varai..." is one such, but I can't remember which one.
I think Razib the Homo Bengalis is joshing wit
risible, the enormous penises typical of bengali men are not a prezygotic isolating mechanism, FYI. therefore one can not make the claim of speciationl.
i mentioned this article to my mom and she got very excited with her dravidian pride. unfortunately, i had to remind her that as telugus who were transplanted to tamil nadu, this does not apply so much to us.
but i do wonder - physically [and perhaps genetically] many south indians, not just dravidians, seem to have many charecteristics in common - so does dravidian technically apply only to tamilians, or to people from all 4 states? perhaps present-day south indians all started off dravidian and the 3 other languages came about as a result of intermixing with aryans? i say this only because the other 3 languages have relatively more in common with sanskrit. on the other hand, as much as tamilians - and their political parties - try to deny it, there exists much sanskrit both in modern-day and ancient/literary tamil.
Uh, whoa. Are people taking this seriously? This goes right up there with the Tejo Mahalaya...
And now I'm going into hiding, because although Attack Pandi is safely behind bars, I'm sure Destroy Durai or Siege Selvam will come knocking any minute now...
there exists much sanskrit both in modern-day and ancient/literary tamil.
I thought Sanskrit had been effective scrubbed out of modern day "literary" Tamil, although everyday Tamil has plenty of Sanskrit-origin words and usage. I can tell you havoc the de-Sanskritization of the language has wreaked on the Tamil spelling of my own name, for example.
On the other hand, the religious works of the Alwaars and Nayanmaars don't feature significant usage of Sanskrit words. Off the top of my head, I can only think of the word "nayaka" which appears in a few stanzas of Thiruppavai, as being absolutely a word of Sanskrit origin. Of Sangam literature, I know almost nothing, although I'm fairly certain that Silappadhikaram does not feature much by way of Sanskritized Tamil either.
Kema, Gema and Yema are my options under the "new" spelling. I'll take Bema under advisement, but "Kena" is just a little too kenai-thanam for me.
hema, you are right - the millennia-old literature probably have minimum sanskrit influence, though even tolkappiyam is said to owe a great deal to the shastras. however, what is modern-day tamil, including modern-day literary language, does, in fact, have a heavy sanskit influence. as much as tamilians might deny it, if you ever listen to "unchi'/proper hindi, it becomes very clear. colloquial hindi seems to have very little in common with tamil. however, when you hear hindi's literary form, there are so many words that are used in modern-day tamil, in both its spoken and written versions. which is why it irks me that tamilians are so high on their dravidian-pride horse, when they refuse to acknowledge that they have accepted a substantial amount of non-dravidian culture as their own. benedict anderson's imagined community is an interesting read on this type of a practice.
btw - re your name - i understand. in my tamil class, there was a girl named kanthi, whom the professor insisted on calling gandhi. [in tamil, there is only one letter for 'k' and 'g', as well as for 'th' and 'dh']
it irks me that tamilians are so high on their dravidian-pride horse, when they refuse to acknowledge that they have accepted a substantial amount of non-dravidian culture as their own
I agree, and I happen to think it's a bit silly. I'm not sure why the "language powers" in TN feel the need to distance themselves from Sanskrit, other than that they believe it tarnishes past Tamil glories.
Although I understand that this post was intended in all good humor, please note that the link takes you to Tamilnet, a pro-LTTE website. Whatever the scholarship might be, and however harmless an occasional burst of Dravidian pride might seem to us brown people living in a white world, Tamilnet has a very specific agenda in promoting it.
I agree that modern (even "chaste") Tamil has a lot of Northern influence.
How did Yema get in there? It'd be just Kema/Hema/Gema. Regarding Gandhi above, Gandhimadhi is common pronunciation of Kanthimathi.
The limited number of sounds in the Tamil alphabet leads to some interesting changes in pronunciation of foreign words once things have been written down.
Martin Crowe's name was written as 'Kuro', for instance. Both 'plate' and 'blade' (you can see these in ads) are written the same way and if one didn't already know the word, one would probably read it as 'pilaedu'
How did Yema get in there?
Because some people just leave the first letter off, and write it as ஏமா.
I suppose that's technically "Ema" and not "Yema", but you get the picture.
Wogay, Gaadit.
Just a thought I've had - the smaller number of letters in Tamil and their very simple shapes (basically the primitiveness, no offence to anyone) suggest to me the language is very old. Nothing scientific, just a feeling. I find the script very beautiful...
No plate starts with "ip"(i dont have tamil fonts, the pa with the dot on top of it) and blade starts with "pa" with the curve on top of it.
But yeah I get the point. Some words are difficult to represent properly, thats why Japanese system have different set of characters to represent foreign words. Which actually tamil uses from sanskrit(like the ha in hema). But I think this is limited only to the tamil purists. Rest of the folks dont even care, even chennai tamil has 50% of its words in english.
btw, how is this 'kandam' pronounced? Just like the kaandam in Aranya Kaandam, Kishkinda kaandam etc of the Ramayana?
btw, somebody in my high school class came up with the bright idea of declaring that condoms ("Kaandam") were there in the Ramayana (six of them, right?) besides the airplane (pushpak vimaan). Awesome. We even thought that was funny. The mind is strange at the age of fourteen.
பிலெட் as oppposed to இப்லெட், according to Quillpad
'kandam' is pronounced 'kandam' which means continent or a land mass.
'kaandam' is pronounced 'condom' which means chapters or volume in a book.
கண்டம் (kaNDam) = continent
If they had found Koalas instead of Lemurs in India, they would have called it Qawwalian.
C'mon, it's not that large
Hey, it's a 10-volume set not some flypaper chapter!
None of the Indian scripts, Devanagari or Tamil included, are indigenous in origin. They are adaptations of Near Eastern Semitic scripts. The current form of Tamil script was brought to S. India by Jain/Buddhist monks around 400 B.C. There are some legitimate scholars that interpret older graffiti marks on poetry to be writing, possibly descended from IVC script but that too is a bit of a reach. Prof. Kenoyer is of the belief that IVC "script" may not be writing at all.
More sangam era poetry, remarkable in their imagery, even in translation:
What the Concubine Said
You know he comes from
where the fresh-water sharks in the pools
catch with their mouths
the mangoes as they fall, ripe
from the trees on the edge of the field.
At our place
he talked big.
Now back in his own,
when others raise their hands
and feet,
he will raise his too:
like a doll
in a mirror
he will shadow every last wish
of his son's dear mother.
What Her Girl-Friend Said
In the seaside grove
where he drove back in his chariot
the neytal flowers are on the ground,
some of their thick petals plowed in
and their stalks broken
by the knife-edge of his wheels' golden rims
furrowing the earth.
Vatteluttu is the precursor to the present Tamil, Malayalam scripts and most South-East Asian scripts. It is also known as the Pallava script. The Pallava script descended from the Tamil Brhami script. Here is a page on the Brahmi descended scripts. Another elaboration on the Brahmi derived scripts. The theory that the Brahmi script derives from Semitic scripts is not proven. It is the remnant of old theories that evrything derive the origin to Adam and Eve in the middle-east and the tower of babel for all languages. Script and language origins need not be related. Look here for an example on roman script for Indian languages.
More on Brahmi here, here and here. Goyal claims that there is no relationship between Indus valley scripts and the Ashokan Brahmi. Question is what happened in the interrgnum between the Indus valley script and through to say the Buddha's times and until the Mauryas? Not much is known except for speculation.
#48 sounds right. But quillpad tries to be phonetic but doesn't necessarily follow usage. btw, isn't quillpad great? they seem to have a large database of words and so map a lot of words correctly even when there isn't a precise way to represent it in the Roman font.
Sam, #46, that device (of using the dot on top) is done by placing the 'ip' at the end of the previous word. Or by preceding with a vowel such as in Hema's writing (but unfortunately, adding a sound that was never there). Iramachandran, Aranganathan....
Dravidian lesbian cave girls in fur bikinis... and dinosaurs! Got to have those dinosaurs!
So who fills the Racquel Welch role in the Tamil remake of One Million Years B.C.? Is Kiran available?
More here on a recent excavation with Tamil Brahmi writing.
Samaskritam means polished and is a more recent language codified by Panini's grammar. The older languages are the Prakrits in Northern India, including Pali, Ardha Magadhi and their predecessors. Tamil and the Dravidian family of languages have been interacting with the Prakrits long before Samaskritam was codified and sureley there was a two way exchange of vocabulary. The Vedic langauge was called Chandasa and differs from classic Samaskritam, which had borrowed words from many extant languages in addition to Chandasa. So to say that some words are of Samaskritam origin in Tamil, one would have to show that they crept into Tamil after the Gupta times when Samaskritam was at it's apogee. It would be pretty hard to disentangle word origins neatly into Prakrit or Tamil, since their interactions go back further, way further than the Buddhas's times in the 6th century BC. Anyone who makes claims on these one way or the other is typically driven by some political or cultural agendas mostly.
Kurma, #57:
But quillpad tries to be phonetic but doesn't necessarily follow usage
I cheated, by the way. I fudged the spellings of "blade" and "plate" to get the Tamil words to look the way I wanted.
"Blade" actually comes out as பிலதே and "plate" as பிலாதே
Well that makes sense. Hindutva is about as emo as it gets. Takes one to know one, I guess...
Er, #60 should read: "Blade" actually comes out as பிலதே and "plate" as பிலாதே
ak,
"Tolkappiyam" is a treatise on Tamil grammar. I don't know what shastra you are talking about. can you explain?.
>>Well that makes sense. Hindutva is about as emo as it gets.
Sorry - that's a different case. People who try to date Mahabharata/Ramayana correctly are not trying to prove/claim cultural superiority over others by claiming antiquity. They are merely setting the record straight on issues that were twisted by Colonialists on purpose. It's a question of truth - nothing more.
M. Nam
Remember, kids... Bad Habit Bear says, "Paint chips are for eating, not for smoking!"
risible, keep 'em coming!
Yea mon! That was good.
I think this point needs to be stressed a bit more on. The whole issue of the Aryan migration and their subjugation of the Dravids, and the glorification of Dravid culture as a separate identity, is being used as propaganda mostly by Tamil nationalists and Christian missionaries. I have come across n+1 forums (too lazy, and really not that important, to post here) where you have India-haters pulling out the Aryan-Dravid card. Also, Christian evangelicals like to play the caste card as their propaganda for conversion - the main idea being to show the Southies they are "proud" Dravidians discriminated against by the Vedic Hindu fold.
Is their any solid evidence of this continent? If there really exited this land mass, doesn't it challenge the established plate tectonics theory of India being attached to Africa? And I think Australis too was attached to India at some point. If this is true, which I am sure it is, this whole theory doesn't make sense, does it? Whereas Tamil culture may not strictly be a offshoot of Vedic culture, it is nevertheless culturally a part of the greater Indian culture.
I just felt this point wasn't brought up in its entirety throughout this discussion.
Sourav, how do you think cricket reached Australia?
Ohh. Is that why that lemur king in Madagascar had Indian accent!!
Actually, they were invented in the 19th century by German and British Indologists. Upon reading the Vedas, they interpreted them according to an Indo-European race idea they were already throwing around. But yes, it is a huge crock.
Love how this thread has been going so far. :)
The first westerner (and maybe person, I dunno) to use the term Dravidian was linguist Robert Caldwell, and he used it as a LINGUISTIC term. This was in 1856. It was his contention that the four Dravidian languages - Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, and Tamil - were all derived from the same long-dead language. This language had stood on its own, distinct from the Indo-Aryan language group.
This set the stage for the Tamil Revivalist movement (glorification of Saiva Siddanta as more egalitarian than the vedas, revival of Sangam literature, etc.), which then led - because of the alienation which many privileged Tamil non-Brahmins felt from the [North Indian Brahmin-dominated] Indian National Congress after 1885 - to the full-blown Dravidian Nationalist movement, whose pathetic death throes we're witnessing in Tamil politics today.
I don't know much about Robert Caldwell, but some Tamil chauvinist outfits (see this entry at tamilnation.org, for example), refer to Caldwell as "the father of the Dravidian movement." I think this is probably inaccurate, and I would imagine that the infusion of race into the term "Dravidian" to spark the Dravidian political movement was done entirely by the early Tamil Revivalists.
OMG, I for one am sick and tired of this Tamil bullcrap (excuse my French) trotted out to justify Tamil chauvinism and racism. If it's not hating on the "Hindians" and North Indians in general, it's bashing Brahmins, attacking Karnataka, or hating the Sinhalese and Sri Lanka. Seriously, these Tamil fanatics need to take a break with their fantasies.
#63 - I meant the Shastras, such as Natya Shastra, Artha Shastra, and Manava Dharma Shastra. There seems to be substantial evidence that the language and concepts of these texts influenced Tolkappiyam and other earlier Tamil texts.
Vivek, you are right - this went from a linguistic distinction to a political distinction mostly in the early twentieth century. Ideologists like EVR, who started the Dravidar Kazhagam [predecessor to today's AIADMK, DMK etc].
How bout we move beyond the sangam era to the periyapuranam? A scholar I know very well translated these lines from that book:
nITRu alarpEr oLinerungGum
appadiyin niRai karumbin
cATRu alaivan kulai vayalil
tagaTTUvarAl ezappakaTTU Er
ATRualavan kozukkizitta
cAlvaziyOi acaindu ERic
cETRu avalan karu uyirkka
muruku uyirkkum cezum kamalam
In the shimmering light of the ashen waters,
In that region of sugar-canes, full,
Within the banks of the juice-filled field
Constrained by ramps is the plowing bull.
To bear its tiny progeny
A crab from the mud moves and climbs
Over a furrow by plowshares torn.
A lovely lotus exudes honey
For the little ones that are born.
Tolkappiyam and the perceived lack of distinction between 'tha'/'dha', 'ka'/'ga' ... by non-tamil and some tamil speakers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkappiyam#Ezhuththathikaaram
describes the rules of engagement i.e. when a "ka" is pronounced as "ga" etc (given the lack of distinct characters). Also, one theory/opinion I heard on Doordarshan froma tamil scholar on the lack of asperated sounds like "ha", "gha" is that tamil was designed to be a flat language with conservation of breath which is very evident when you hear the modern "Madras Bashai" (wiki has a questionably good article on this)
As for all the devanagiri based languages, whats with writing the english "tha" (as in pa"th"etic) as "ta" and reserving the "tha" for the asperated (not known to non-devanagiri speakers) phoneme in transliterations, how oes this standard practise expect english speakers to pronounce a name/word right?
Sarat #74:
>>>> OMG, I for one am sick and tired of this Tamil bullcrap (excuse my French) trotted out to justify Tamil chauvinism and racism. If it's not hating on the "Hindians" and North Indians in general, it's bashing Brahmins, attacking Karnataka, or hating the Sinhalese and Sri Lanka. Seriously, these Tamil fanatics need to take a break with their fantasies.
Stop generalizing and take a chill pill dude. Relax your moola bandha. Everybody is sensitive about their language. The perceived Tamil chauvinism is a direct offshoot of the imposition of Hindi as the "only" official language of government communication after independence. The flawed idea behind the imposition was that of national unity. While the other South Indian states did not put up that much of a fight against the imposition Hindi, my linguisitic cousins, Tamils were mad as hell and could not take it anymore. (My mother tongue is Telugu, but I grew up in Madras. So I speak and write Tamil better than Telugu). While the conventional argument is that by not learning Hindi, the Tamilians are disadvantaged in communicating and conducting business within India, sixty years have shown that it is simply not true. The economy of Tamil nadu is the second largest, after that of Maharashtra, and has been so for decades. While it is probably true that some Tamils are extreme and chauvinistic about their language, I do not blame them. They have a fantastic and beautiful language with an extraordinary history to be proud of.
About the "purity" of Tamil: It is true that Tamil has a significant amount of its vocabulary filled with sanskritized roots. Any living language has to adapt and evolve to survive. If Tamil had not borrowed from sanskrit and other languages, it would be dead now, just like Sanskrit. But it is interesting that for every word in Tamil that is etymologycally derived from sanskrit, there is always another equivalent word which is etymologically purer, with Tamil roots.
However, the rigidity of the Tamil alphabet can be vexing at times. It primarily has to do with the lack of consonants (only 18). However, there are some additional consonants, called vada mozhi (sha, sa, ha, etc..) which are used, but not considered a strict part of the alphabet. Hema is a good example, which would be kema otherwise.
Also, I have noticed that Tamils are the only people who use "Tamil" in their names. Tamilarasan, Tamilmozhi, etc. Brilliant. Is there any other linguistic group which does the same (No, Johnny English does not count, to preempt you jokers out there)
I had a Tamil teacher in middle school who was a proponent of the Lemuria kandam theory, but I think that it is sheer non-sense. While it is entirely possible that such a continent existed millions of years ago, the pandiyas and cholas were not fighting over it. A simple lack of appreciation of Geological (millions), human migratory (tens of thousands) and linguistic development (hundreds - thousands) time scales is the reason for such ignorance.
And why is it written Tamil and not Thamizh ?
And why is it written Tamil and not Thamizh ?
I assume that's because people who can't say 'zh' (ழ) usually say 'l' (ல) instead. In fact, except for people who speak Tamil or Malayalam, the 'zh' sound is pretty unusual and unfamiliar. Most of my friends who are native Hindi speakers pronounce it as "Thamil".
mana vadu manchi maatalu cheppaedu I agree with every word of #78. Thanks Sourav [taking a bow :)]
This whole concept of language in South Asia is something I just have a hard time comprehending. If there is no common tongue, it is difficult to communicate. I think people seem to make it an "or" condition - either this language OR that language. Why not have a common tongue to communicate for commerce, official business, etc, and then keep your local tongue for informal usage, etc. Personally I could care less what the official language is - pick one, for better or worse and go from there. This morphing of something beneficial to form a regional rallying point seems to have caused nothing but grief.
Because the choice of that official language is not neutral. Which language it is advantages some people and disadvantages others when it comes to official jobs, or even access to official services that require paperwork.
Italy and Germany were both states that were formed out of linguistic nationalism, it's a powerful force.
Why not have a common tongue to communicate for commerce, official business, etc, and then keep your local tongue for informal usage, etc
There already was one...English.
I should add that most South Indians don't seem to have trouble communicating with each other, in spite of not necessarily being fluent in Hindi.
hema (#83):
Innate Dravidianness.
How is that possible, at least for people who don't know English? In the North, Hindi has become a fairly widespread lingua franca, with decent penetrance. If you take a Punjabi villager, Gujarati villager, Maharashtrian villager, and Bengali villager (correct me if I'm wrong here, Bengalis) and put them together, they will be able to communicate to some extent in Hindi (horrible Hindi, but Hindi). How would a Tamil villager, Kannada villager, and Telugu villager communicate? What's the lingua franca?
The lingua franca is a super secret common dravidian language.
On a serious note, I do not think they will be able to communicate efficiently. But the hypothetical scenario you propose is not a common one.
How did Hindi penetrate so efficiently in other parts of India (Punjab, Bengal, Maharashtra etc.) where Hindi was not the lingua franca? I am curious. Taught at school? Doordarshan and bollywood?
Although Hindi is not taught in Tamil Nadu in public schools, several private schools do teach them as the third language. Also, the Dakshin Bharath Hindi Prachar Sabha does a decent job of promoting Hindi in the south.
How would a Tamil villager, Kannada villager, and Telugu villager communicate? What's the lingua franca?
Sign language? :)
Seriously, though...it's rare that villagers from TN, Karnataka and Andhra would be meeting, isn't it? And if they were, it would probably be in some border area, where there tend to be a lot of bilingual individuals, or where the languages share enough commonality that people are able to understand each other. My parents, for example, are from a part of TN that borders Andhra and they speak Telugu fluently, even though they're native Tamil speakers.
Also, I tend to think that people from the different southern language groups can understand each other to some extent...at least enough to communicate in a rudimentary way. For example, I don't speak a lick of Malayalam myself, but I can sort of follow the general gist of a conversation in Malayalam, while not picking up on any of the nuance.
Bilingualism is fairly common in India and many people in urban India are multilingual. Language policy in Karnataka and BRINGING ORDER TO LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY: LANGUAGE PLANNING IN THE BRITISH RAJ talk about some of the issues in a multilingual country like India. That site has a wealth of information for those who want to explore.
Well Hema, you said "I should add that most South Indians don't seem to have trouble communicating with each other, in spite of not necessarily being fluent in Hindi". So what exactly does that mean? I took it to imply a lingua franca (of which I am well aware there isn't one in the South, except for English to some extent).
Several reasons I think...first of all the other languages are related to Hindi, much like Italian, French, Spanish, and Portugese are related to each other (and as Telugu, Tamil, Kannada are also related to each other for that matter). I think Bollywood and other Hindi-based entertainment has a lot to do with it. And it is taught in schools too, although I can't vouch for the quality of that. It's just sort of become the lingua franca. I think the spread of Hindustani in the North during the Mughal era may have laid the groundwork. But I don't want to overstate the case...people from more remote or poorer villages will still not know Hindi even today, and people from older generations will still not know Hindi. For that matter, people in "Hindi-speaking states" who live in remote villages or are from the older generation, will not know standard urban Hindi either, and will often speak only their local Hindi dialect (like Bhojpuri for example)...which is not always mutually intelligible with standard Hindi.
So what exactly does that mean?
I think what I meant was that people in the South often have at least a rudimentary understanding of the other southern languages, particularly in those parts of the south where they're more likely to come into contact with a person who doesn't speak the local "native language." Many South Indians speak more than one southern language, particularly in border areas. I've also seen statistics suggesting that native Tamil speakers outnumber native Kannada speakers in places like Bangalore, although both language groups in Bangalore tend to be somewhat bilingual. Similarly, it's very common to find people bilingual in Telugu and Tamil in Madras (er, Chennai)...or for that matter, people who speak Malayalam and Tamil in a place like Coimbatore.
The ability to understand each other, at least on a very basic level, eliminates (IMO) the need for a common language, as Hindi has become in the North, I guess.
Hey Razib, are you making a claim for Tamilians as a speciation event? I had to read your comments like 4 times to make sure you weren't joking.
Pre- and post-zygotic mating barriers aside, there is no such thing as Homo dravida (and also, you don't capitalize the "dravida" part of it, anyway). Homo sapiens is a species in the family Hominidae. But those "mating barriers" are geographic in nature, not because of any kind of inability to interbreed. Tamilians aren't on their way out of the species just yet.
Easter Island's culture had pretty much nothing to do with Tamil culture. I mean...really...nothing.
The whole "lost continent" of Lemuria thing is a total pile of steaming B.S. Yeah, Gondwanaland existed, but it was a supercontinent, it was HUGE, and it was a roughly contiguous set of landmasses around 200 million years ago. There just was no Lemuria. Sorry, folks. Sure, it'd be fun, but uh...yeah. We have a hard enough time getting people to agree the world is round around here, without bringing lost continents, linguae franca, and ethnic pride into it, let alone dinosaurs and continents that abruptly sink for no good reason (tsunamis don't wash away continents...just an FYI for those of you who were reading this and wondering).
It looks like my N. Indian friends are getting all testy about this. First off, if you want to think of India as being like Germany instead of the E.U., you will always be getting your chuddis in a bunch. Secondly, Tamils don't need your approval to maintain their culture. We don't have pride in our local culture just to spite N. Indians. It's always been there, even amongst those of us who are well outside of the evangelical's & "Dalitstani's" target demographic. It does not get in the way of us being able to claim a pan-Indian identity and appreciate the beauty of Sanskrit. If you want to imagine it as a degenerate branch of Sanskrit go right ahead, you cam claim a seat right next to the Dravidian nationalists. I understand your concern for our economic well being, but I have relatives who are thriving with nothing else besides English & Tamil. This might raised your hackles, but nothing is going to change. TN's economy is going to outpace the BIMARU states (not a source of pride for people like me who want to see all of India thrive)without the Central Government or Hindi being of much relevance. This argument reminds me of the hubub over Martin Bernal's "Black Athena", granted it was much more credible than the Kumari Kandam "scholarship", so many of the attacks were ad hominem because at some level academics had a visceral reaction against the idea that Black African ideas may have found their way into Europe via Egypt. No one seems to complain when N. Indians claim, against all evidence to the contrary, that modern Hinduism and its heterodoxies sprang fully formed from Vedic tradition as opposed to being the result of syncretism between multiple Indic cultures & traditions. I believe at some level, the prejudice against Tamils causes this over-reaction to any pride shown in our local traditions and high culture
louiecypher (92):
Oh man. At what point did this turn into a North Indian / South Indian thing? I mean...these days it seems like at some point or another, commenters on this site are being called anti-Muslim, anti-Tamilian, anti-Pakistani, anti-Christian, anti-pasta, anti-matter...for the love of brown, man. No one's saying anything negative about Tamils. Just that this guy's theory is kind of, well...insane. It'd be just as dumb if some Punjabi "scientist" claimed the Himalayas were the remnants of a continent that had suddenly shot up into the sky about 20,000 years ago and became the moon, and coincidentally, the inhabitants of that lost (well, kind of lost...we know where the moon is, I guess) realm were the originators of written language, the Frisbee, laddoos, Fair & Lovely, oxygen, and aspirin.
Which, as far as I know, is true.
Hey Abhi, which Apollo mission brought back samples of moon that were spectrographically determined to contain baisan?
If people will say anything to knock down someone else's pride in their ethnicity, well...people will also say anything to bolster their pride in their ethnicity.
c'mon fellow tamils. we can always take pride in the courage of co-ethnics who immolated themselves in protest at the proposed imposition of Hindi as a required language in TN schools.
They were baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad, man! (stupid, self-destructive, melodramatic and bad examples also).
Rajaji had the last laugh though. He granted an award to my uncle who bravely kicked a dacoit off the train who had been eyeing his daughter's jugular. Just a lusty kick for some, but a mighty boot for us SL tamils.
How different is SL Tamil from Indian Tamil (given that Indian Tamil itself varies from region to region and apparently caste to caste)? Is it like the difference between American and British English, or something more than that?
Also, as I understand it, there are two types of Tamils in SL...those that have been there for a VERY long time, and those who have been there only for a few centuries. Is there any intermarriage between these groups? Are the dialects different? Does the former group have castes within it?
Also, question for Tamils from India...when you read about SL Tamils in Canada, do you identify with them as co-ethnics, or do they seem like a separate people who maybe share some linguistic and cultural traits with you (for example the way some (not all) Indian Bengali Hindus view Bangladeshi Bengali Muslims or the way some Indian Punjabis view Pakistani Punjabis?) I'd be particularly interested in knowing Indian Tamil Brahmins' feelings on that.
Thanks in advance to anyone who answers.
In my experience, SL Tamil is a bit more polite. Instead of telling some to go or come as if they are a child, the same level of respect is used with any command.
As to caste, it does exist. Not as complex as it seems to be in TN, but there are definite social strata and very real barriers between different sections of society.
The two different groups of Tamils you refer to are generally separated into one group that has allegedly lived there for what may be a thousand or so years and another group that includes most of the Indian tamils brought over to work the tea estates.
Indian Tamil Brahmins are famously against Eelam, which is why they're despised in the LTTE sympathetic press (though there is not much support for it at all in India anymore). Historically however, Tamil Brahmins were not the dominant caste in Sri Lanka, that honor goes to upper caste Vellalas. Sri Lanka is generally cleaner than India, even with the Civil War, so SL Tamils naturally have some disdain for their Indian counterparts.
#63 - I meant the Shastras, such as Natya Shastra, Artha Shastra, and Manava Dharma Shastra. There seems to be substantial evidence that the language and concepts of these texts influenced Tolkappiyam and other earlier Tamil texts.
Again, "Tolkaapiyam" is a book that talks about "grammar rules" and that too for the specific language "Tamil". If you are computer literate, it is similar to Kernighan and Ritchie's "C programming language".
I could think of "natya shastra" defining rules for dance and "artha shastra" defining rules for politics. I think the commonality ends with all these books talking about "rules" for "something". But saying that "Tolkaapiyam" owes a great deal to such "shastras" makes no sense.
How different is SL Tamil from Indian Tamil
Pretty different, at least as far as I can tell. I think that because many of the Tamil speakers settled in SL (esp. Jaffna) a very long time ago, their Tamil retains certain usages and vocabulary that is not prevalent in Indian Tamil anymore. For example, I've noticed that SL Tamil seems very polite, where even small children are addressed with the formal "you" (equivalent to "aap" in Hindi) whereas in TN, it's uncommon to use the formal "you" except with certain elders, and with strangers.
Also, question for Tamils from India...when you read about SL Tamils in Canada, do you identify with them as co-ethnics
I can't speak for everyone else, but as a native Tamil speaker from TN, I don't personally identify with Tamil speakers from Sri Lanka. We may share some common linguistic (and dietary...heh) traditions, but that's the extent of commonality. Tamil speakers from TN are Indian, after all, and IMO, this comes with a totally different sense of history and belonging than being a Tamil speaker from Sri Lanka.
Finally, I understand that SL Tamils (particularly from Jaffna) tend to look down on Hill Country Tamils, who came to SL as indentured laborers working for the British. I can't speak to whether there is significant intermarriage among these two groups now.
I'd be particularly interested in knowing Indian Tamil Brahmins' feelings on that.
And as for this question, I fail to understand its relevance to the SL vs. TN question.
I for one definitely do. I had a SL tamil friend in India who told stories about how they came to India illegally, in one of those boats at night. Its crazy. I definitely like their tamil accent. It sounds kind of pure. For reference see Kamal's "Thenali" character.
"Also, question for Tamils from India...when you read about SL Tamils in Canada, do you identify with them as co-ethnics"
Not a Tamilian, but one half of my family has roots in TN which stretch back centuries. When I used to live in London, when it came time to visit a temple on a puja day-nine times out of ten, it usually ended up being one of the SL Tamil Hindu temples over any of the Gujju or HP temples.
Sure, I do..
all this comments on being sLtamil,indian tamil,tamil brahmin,these are the things that's really screwing up our people.only when we identify ourselves as just Tamils that we can make a diff .
Oh yeah, Parochials of the world, unite!
Enter the Homo Mallus Erectus Hilarious. I have an aunt who has lived in TN for ages and her idea of Tamil is to speak Malayalam very slowly and loudly to the listener, all the while waving her arms wildly for extra emphasis. "ORRRRUUU KIIILLLOOO AAAAPPPLEEE EDDUKKOOOO". Good times:)
Sri-Lankan Tamils certainly regard SL Tamils originating from India as inferior but I believe and hope it is something that will gradually fade. Most of it derives from a sense of pride as those who weren't lowly enough to work for the foreign powers. There is all kind of talk (from academic to racist insults) about who actually first inhabited Sri-Lanka and a general glorification of race respectively by the Sinhalese and SL Tamils that are politically motivated.
As a mixed Tamil/Sinhalese girl, my feeling is that in the past intermarriage must've been more prevalent than in recent times when racial and cultural consciousness have taken a seriously ugly turn in Sri-Lanka. The Sinhalese play up the Indo-Aryan connection and the Tamils are on a 'pure blood' tip since Dravidians seem to have an endless history. Yet Sri-Lanka also has a number of Austroloid/Aborigine people (whose numbers are diminishing) who people don't want to acknowledge. There is, however, plenty of genetic evidence that intermarriage between these ancient people and the Tamil and Sinhalese population has taken place.
IMO the question of race has never been as strong in Sri-Lanka as in recent times. After all, it hasn't been that long since Sri-Lanka actually became an independent country and a state of its own with national boundaries. Ffwd to 1948 and Sri-Lanka has been hurled into the modern world while these ancient historical questions which everyone wants to know are causing the country to self-destruct.
Guys everyone is mixed somewhere in anchestry. So, stop being proud of a race or language and do some good to mankind.
this is avery idiotic reason i have seen for this gondwanaland but for many years the scientist are searching for this but the only remains ans from the artificial satellite we come to know that the earth was only one main land and that was now what we called Pangea.
Why are the North Indians getting upset when these issues comes out? We are not putting you down or anything. Also North Indians (So called Aryans) are not superior to the South Indians (Dravidians) and you will never be. It’s the North Indian religious view that created Pakistan, and if North Indians keep on acting like this we will create the Federation of Dravidian States (Andra Pradhesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Eelam, Pondichery and Tamil Nadu).
If you want a language to be used as common, I suggest you go with English while the mother tongue remains as state language. If the North Indian doesn’t want English you can just go screw your self because the South prefers equal treatment. Look at Singapore, they have Chinese, Tamil, Malay and they choose English and now they are on top of everyone. Look at Sri Lanka, they went on to force the Sinhalese Only Act and they are in a Civil War. Is Sri Lanka what you want India to be? Well the south doesn’t but looks like the North does.
#110
Very true...it shows how important a part mother tongue plays in ur life...whenever it is geting dissed u cant help but 2 stand up for it....anyways lets get bak 2 the kumari kandam.....i kind of agree that there is a landmass submerged underwater which was ruled by the pandyans. However it must not have been as big as it is mentioned...it must have been where present day adams bridge and palk straight is....I once read a book which says that ravana was an ancient pandyan king!!!!So obviously (if the book is true) Lanka too must have been a part of this kandam too...that gi
#111
Yes, there is a huge possibility that Kumari Kandam is small and it could have covered the Adam’s bridge if it did exist in the past. There is also a huge possibility that some lands could be covered by the ocean due to erosion of land or because of rising sea level. In my view there is no way, someone built the bridge to that depth to cross an army to invade, it could have been a shallow sea during at that time (giving the possibility that Ku