MALAYALAM.-This language is spoken along the Malabar Coast on the Western side of the Ghats, from about Tellicherry to Trevandrum. Dr. Caldwell supposes that the Malayalam people were originally a colony of Tamilians who entered the country by the Palghaut Gap, and thence spread northward and southward. The separation of Malayalam from Tamil evidently took place at a very early period before the Tamil was cultivated and refined. In structure Malayalam differs chiefly from Tamil in disuse of the personal terminations of the verbs. It is the vernacular of about three millions. TULU. This language was once prevalent in the District of Canara, but it is now spoken only about 150,000 souls, in the neighbourhood of Mangalore. It holds a position midway between the Canarese and the Malayalam, but more resembles the former. Probably it will soon disappear. The remaining Dravidian languages are destitute of written characters and entirely uncultivated. The GOND. This is the language of the rude indigenous inhabitants of the northern portion of the Central Provinces. Its chief difference from the other Dravidian dialects consists in its peculiarly elaborate and complete conjugational system. The Ku.-The Khond, or Ku, language prevails in Goomsur, in the south-west of Orissa. The Khonds were notorious for their human sacrifices. Dravidian dialects are also spoken by the Tudavers and Kotars on the Nilgherries. The tribe inhabiting the Rajmahal Hills use a language which is in the main Dravidian. "The Brahui, the language of the mountaineers in the Khanship of Kelat in Beluchistan, contains, not only some Dravidian words, but a considerable infusion of unquestionably Dravidian forms and idioms."* The Dravidian languages, though sprung from a common origin, are not to be considered as mere pro* Dravidian Comparative Grammar, p. 11. The whole account of the Dravidian languages is abridged from the same work. vincial dialects of the same speech, but as distinct though affiliated languages. They are as distinct one from the other as the Spanish from the Portuguese, the Irish from the Welsh, the Hebrew from the Aramaic, the Hindi from the Bengali." Infusion of Sanskrit.-While the Dravidian languages have an independent origin, they have adopted, in different proportions, numerous Sanscrit words. Of the cultivated Dravidian languages, the percentage of Sanskrit words is smallest in Tamil and greatest in Malayalam. The proportion is less in Telugu than in Canarese. In Telugu about half the vocabulary consists of Sanskrit words, either pure or modified. An examination of ten pages in different parts of Winslow's Tamil Dictionary gave 40 per cent. as the proportion of Sanskrit words. Dr. Caldwell remarks: "It is in Tamil prose compositions and in the ordinary speech of the Brahmans and the more learned Tamilians that the largest infusion of Sanscrit is contained; and the words that have been borrowed from the Sanscrit are chiefly those which express abstract ideas of philosophy, science, and religion, together with the technical terms of the more elegant arts." In the other Dravidian tongues composition is regarded as refined in language in proportion to the amount of Sanskrit. In Tamil poetry the reverse holds good. The principal writers in the other languages have been Brahmans. "In Tamil, on the contrary, few Brahmans have written any thing worthy of preservation. The language has been cultivated and developed with immense zeal and success by Tamilian Sudras; and the highest rank in Tamil literature which has been reached by a Brahman is that of a commentator." Dr. Caldwell further observes: "Trench's expressions respecting the character of the contributions which our mother-English has received from Anglo-Saxon and from Latin respectively, are exactly applicable to the relation and proportion which the native Dravidian element bears to the Sanscrit contained in the Tamil. "All its joints, its whole articulation, its sinews and its ligaments, the great body of articles, pronouns, conjunc tions, propositions, numerals, auxiliary verbs, all smaller words which serve to knit together, and bind the larger into sentences, these, not to speak of the grammatical structure of the language are exclusively Anglo-Saxon (Dravidian). The Latin (Sanscrit) may contribute its tale of bricks, yea of goodly and polished hewn stones, to the spiritual building, but the mortar, with all that holds and binds these together, and constitutes them into a house is Anglo-Saxon (Dravidian) throughout."* TAMIL ALPHABET. There are three Dravidian alphabets at present in use, viz., the Tamil, the Malayalam, and the TeluguCanarese. They are all supposed to be derived from the early Deva-nagari, or from the still earlier characters that are contained in the cave inscriptions. There is no tradition extant of the existence of Tamil characters older than those which the first Brahman immigrants introduced. The present Malayalam character is derived from the Grantham (the book) in which Sanskrit was written in the South. The Tamil character has the same origin. "The modern Telugu-Canarese differs considerably from the modern Tamil, and departs more widely than the Tamil from the Deva-nagari type; but there is a marked resemblance between many of the TeluguCanarese characters and the corresponding characters that are found in early Tamil inscriptions."+ The custom in the Dekhan of writing on the leaf of the palmyra palm with an iron stylus, has had a considerable influence in modifying the shape of the characters. Tamil Letters.-The Tamil alphabet contains thirty letters, viz., twelve vowels and eighteen consonants. grammarians designate vowels as uyir or the life of a word; consonants as mey, or the body; and the junction of a vowel and consonant as uyirmey, or an animated body. * Dravidian Comparative Grammar, p. 32. ` † Ibid, p. 93. Differences of opinion exist with regard to the classification of some of the letters. ů, i, ô, ô, ô, ô, are grouped together as semi-vowels or liquids. The sound of seems peculiar. Rhenius says, "it is a mixture of and 7, and imperceptibly coalescing by turning the tongue upward to the roof of the mouth."+ In the north of the Tamil country it has the sound of r; in the south it is pronounced 7. Drs. Caldwell and Pope transliterate it by R; other writers represent it by rl and zh, The Sub-Committee of the Madras Literary Society remark, "General use and analogy are in favor of considering it a cerebral I. " As the word is written Tamil, in the following pages ↳ is transliterated by 1. Tamil grammarians divide consonants into three classes :- Strong Class. க்,ச்,ட்,த்,ப்,ற் None of these can end a word. Soft Class. ங்,ஞ்,ண்,ந்,ம்,ன். Each letter is the corresponding nasal to the strong class. Only, , and , are initial. All except may be final. Middle Class. ì, ì, 6, 2, Là, mir. Of these and only are initial: all are final. Of all the Indian languages, Tamil has the most limited alphabet. It is destitute of the aspirate h, of aspirated consonants, and of the Sanscrit sibilants. On the other hand it abounds in linguals. Some of the Tamil letters are employed to represent the absent characters, though in an imperfect and inconvenient way. The same consonant which is a surd at the be *Sometimes called cerebrals. "The ginning of a word is a sonant in the middle. letter," remarks Dr. Pope, "has no less than five sounds. The palatal t can only be expressed by a double r, and the cerebral' t by doubling the d of the same class. It has but one character for p, ph, b, and bh; as also for k, kh, g, gh; and for s, ch, chh, j, and jh."* Old Tamil writers seem almost to have entertained a jealousy of Sanscrit, and restricted themselves as much as possible to pure Dravidian sounds, forms, and roots. Sanscrit words when introduced were altered to accord with the Tamilian laws of sound. The other Dravidian languages being cultivated chiefly by Brahmans, there was not the same feeling.† The Devanagari alphabet has been adopted and Sanscrit words are correctly represented. The use of several Sanscrit letters, written in the Grantham character as a sh, où s, h, j, &c., is gaining ground among educated Tamilians. Dr. Pope says, "This change is a beneficial one, adding both to the force and precision of the language." A friend, who regards it very differently, writes as follows: “When we take a word from Latin or Greek, Hebrew or French, or from Tamil, we never think of bringing in the Greek or Hebrew or Tamil letters, nor Latin or other endings. The English (or Roman) letters are made to come as near the original word, as the language and letters will admit. This rule is observed in all Dictionaries I have seen. Again, if our Tamil alphabet is defective, the only way is to add the needed letters to the alphabet, and let the child learn all his A, B, C. But this would be a blemish. Do we add Greek and Hebrew letters in English because the exact sound of those letters cannot be enunicated by English letters ? "Tamil lexicographers have evidently followed the old rule, and when a Sanscrit or Telugu or Arabic or Hindustani word has been transferred to Tamil, they have used * One Alphabet for all India, p. 3. Dravidian Comparative Grammar, p. 31. |