We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
An initial y- is found in Tamil only before long ā in such Words as yā1E49;ai elephant, yāṭu goat, yāṟu river, yāmai tortoise, etc. Side by side with these forms We also have forms without the initial y-, āṉai, āṭu, etc., and an examination of literary usage shows that the forms with initial y- has been dropped. In the early anthologies the forms with initial yā- greatly preponderate; in Middle Tamil, literature yā- and ā- forms are indifferently used; while in Modern Tamil, Particularly in the spoken language, ā- forms alone are current. The following is a list of such words together with their cognates in the other Dravidian languages:—
Ta. yā, ā to bind, tie; to dam up, stop, confine, yākkai binding, bond; body, ākkai body; strips of fibre used for thatching, yāppu binding, bond; metre, prosody, āppu bandage, tie; body; wedge, Ma. āppu wedge, plug, what stops a crevice, Ka. āpu a restraint, a stoppage, what stops, Malt. eye to tie, bind, 3rd p.t. ēcha, ēpu the fibres of a wild plant of which cord is made, Kur. ēp string, cord, rope, (with prothetic h-) hē' enā to tie, bind, 3rd p.t. hēcas.
page 595 note 1 Subbayya, K. V., The pronouns and Pronominal Terminations of the First Person in Dravidian (Dravidie Studies II), p. 17 (Madras, 1923).Google Scholar
page 596 note 1 Cil. xii.Uraip-pāṭṭu-matai I. āunm āramum. The commentators interpret this as āccā (sāl tree, Shorea robusta) which the Tmil Lexicon incorrectly renders “ebony” (Ta. ār, ātti, Bauhinia recemosa and tormentosa). There is, however, a variant reading yāum, and in view of the frequent fluctuation of ā- and yā- forms it would be natural to regard ā here as a variant of yā. The yā tree is frequently mentioned in the early poetry as a tree found in desert tracks, but its exact nature does not seem to be known. The word is presumably long obsolete.
page 596 note 2 iv, 293–4.
page 597 note 1 Op. cit., pp. 3–.
page 597 note 2 LSI., iv, 293.
page 597 note 3 E.g. yām used inclusively: Cilapp. vi, 27. amaral-talaivaṉai vaṇAṅkutum uām eṉa “We Will worship the lord of the gods” (a vidyādhara is speaking to his wife).
page 597 note 4 In telugu, Kui, and Gondi the oblique cases of these pronouns begin with m- as a result of aphaeresis of the initial vowel: thus corresponding to the Ta. dative emakku “to us ” we have Te. mākun (<*emakun), kui māngi, and Go.mākmu form these forms m is extended to the nominative: thus modern Telugu mēmu for older ēmu, Kuvi māmbu beside Kui āmu, Go. mammal beside ammaṭ. Telugu goes further and prefixes it to the inclusive mām/nam as well, thus producing the disyllabic form manamu
page 598 note 1 Op. cit., pp. 47 ff.
page 598 note 2 Op. cit., pp. 12–18.
page 598 note 3 Aiyar, L. V. RamaswamyDravidic Glides, published in A Miscellany of papers (Vyāsasańgrahamu) presented to G. V. Ramamurti, Guntur, 1933, pp. 60 ff.Google Scholar
page 599 note 1 In cases like ueṇ kōṭṭ-ĭuānai the i is shorter than the usual i and is called kuṟ iyal ikaram by the tamil grammarians. It corresponds to the kuṭṭ iyal ukaram: thus köṭṭü+yāṇai = kŌṭṭῐyāṉai. Naturally it makes no difference whether we writekōṭṭ ĭyāṇai. For the Tamil, who did not separate wrds, the question did not arise.
page 599 note 2 Another loanword āttirai procession (<yātrā) already appears without the intitial y- in one of the earliest texts (Kut. 2963). In more modern Ta. the y- is restored from Sanskrit.
page 599 note 3 Understandably in the case of Tamil, for instance, where, in addition to ār who ?, there are at least six other homonymous words ā: (l) ār to become full, (2) ār to shout, (3) ār to combine with, join; resemble, (4) ār=aru rare, difficult (before vowels), (5) ār mountain ehony, (6) ār of a wheel.
page 600 note 1 See Sir Denys Bray, The Brāhūī Language, pt. iii, s.v.
page 600 note 2 On the other hand n- is sometimes preserved: in the pronouns nan we, num you,nī thon, and n the words nughnshing to swallow (compare Ta, nuńku, ma. nońńu, Kanuńgu, Tu. ninguni, Kur. nunukhnā, Malt. nunge). and unsing to crush, grind, grind (compara Ta Ma. nūṟu, nuṟukku to crush, grind, Ka, unṟi, Tu. nuripuni, Go. nōrānā, Kuvi (Fitzg.) nuigali). The reason for this duality of treatment is not at present clear.
page 600 note 3 Op. cit., p. 17.
page 601 note 1 BSOS., x (1940), pp. 289 ff.Google Scholar
page 611 note 1 In view of the vowel-variations in the Uralian forms it would it would seem possible to connect Skt. nārā f. water, with these words. Skt. nārā is not in general use, but is quoted by Manu (L.10) in supplying supplying an etymology for the name Nārāyana-:
page 612 note 1 The second part of the cpd. is also use independently in the same sense: Ta. āy to search, examine, investigate; to separate, sift; sift; to consider; to select. choose; to pluck, gather, Ma. āyka to select, cull; gather, array, Ka. āy to select, gather, collect, cull, Tu. āyuni to select, gather, āyāvuni to winnow.
page 613 note 1 Appendix to Marshall, W. E.'s A Phrenologist among the Todas, p. 242.Google Scholar
page 614 note 1 These are clearly loanwords from Gk. āykū anchor, whith an intrusive n- which is not infrequent in South Dravidian (Cald., p. 158). Similar words are found un Indo-aryan, Mar. nāṃgar anchor, Hi., etc., lańgar id., and in modern Persian lańgar. The vocalism of Ta. nańkūram is closer to that of the Greek word than that of any of the other forms, and consequently it cannot have reached the Tamils through Indo-aryan or Iranian, On the other hand, if the word first became currebt in South India it could essily have spread from there and produced the forms which now exist in Indo-aryan. J. Bloch (Langue Mar., p.357) confuses the words for “plough” and “anchor”, but it is clear enough forom Dravidian that they should be kept apart.
page 615 note 1 Attention should be drawn to the similarity of these words to Te.nūne, nūniya oil, Klm. nūnē id. There is one difficulty in the way of regarding the IA. whords as being derive form Dr., and that is that Te. nūne meant originally “gingily oil” (nuvvu sesamum + ney oil), whence it develops the meaning of “oil” in general, but not that of “butter”.
