Single transliteration scheme for all CM languages?

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 30 Dec 2006, 20:29

vgvindan wrote:On a second thought, it occurs to me that in regard to श, ச cannot be used because it would have qualifiers for छ झ. That leaves only ஸ.

I dont follow. Why should qualifiers for others affect the choice here? Isnt it better to write Sankara and Sakti with ச (with a qualifier) rather than with ஸ (with a qualifier)?

In regard to default sound having no qualifier, I would only say that by introducing a qualifier, we would be cluttering up because the default sound would be the largest used letters.

Yes the alternative is to use the qualifier ONLY when the sound appears against natural rules. Now agreed that with non-tamizh words the sound will appear in more contexts than for tamizh words (like sakala, markaTa, pankajam etc.), but (perhaps ironically) IMHO that is all the more reason for it to be there

. If the absence of qualifier can cause confusion because of audience's familiary with langugae rules, then IMO qualifier is a must there.

Arun

vgvindan · Post by **vgvindan** » 30 Dec 2006, 21:46

Isnt it better to write Sankara and Sakti with ச (with a qualifier)

Can you please specify the qualifier which would not conflict with छ and झ?
Regarding default sounds, I had made the suggestion based on my experience in transliteration of Thyagaraja Kritis. If you feel otherwise, I would not like to pursue the topic.

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 30 Dec 2006, 22:30

vgvindan wrote:
Isnt it better to write Sankara and Sakti with ச (with a qualifier)
Can you please specify the qualifier which would not conflict with छ and झ?

For example, ச1 => ca, ச2 => cha, ச3 => Sa and you write as ச3க்தி to differentiate from the tamilized சக்தி. I dont quite follow why jha should use ச, but if so, then ச1 => ca, ச2 => cha, ச3 => jha and ச4 => Sa and you would write as ச4க்தி.

This IMO is better than say ஸ2க்தி (assuming ஸ2 is for Sa). But this one isnt that bad really here. I just want to say that qualifier on ச can also work.

Am I missing something?

Regarding default sounds - our experiences obviously differ. Even yesterday I was trying to check my newfound knowledge of devanagiri script on some Syama Sastri krithis from vidya sankar book which has the krithi in tamizh, sanskrit and telugu (no transl. english). The lack of qualifiers (the book i think follows a scheme like what you are suggesting) on certain contexts for tamizh was throwing me off quite a bit (a fact which i was able to confirm after deciphering the devanagiri part).

Arun

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 30 Dec 2006, 23:05

But i dont want to be a pied piper and pave new ground if other people are used to the no qualifier for ka, pa, ca, etc. I think most books follow that and I certainly have no problems bowing to established conventions

As drs had stated, once people learn to see understand this rule and learn to override it on top of natural rules when reading non-tamizh krithis, they will get less and less confused.

The only irreconcilable problem I see is you then cannot use qualifiers for tamizh rendition of tamizh krithis (as it will introduce them too many spurious ones), and this leave things hanging as usual for some words which can benefit from qualifiers. Remember that papasam sivan krithis borrow phrases wholesale from sanskrit and they contain words which are beyond the usual tatsamam/tatbhavam words. Without qualifiers they will get tamilized and mispronounced. Thus qualifiers can be useful for such tamizh krithis with liberal sprinkling of sanskrit.

The other (lesser) problem is that tamizh readers would have apply different reading rules when reading non-tamizh krithis vs. tamizh krithis - but people should be able to surpass this one.

In any case, if others feel that we should use no qualifier for the hard sound (or first sound in first pentat which uses the tamizh letter), i am ok to go with it.

Can people pl. voice in their preference/opinion please?

Arun

jayaram · Post by **jayaram** » 02 Jan 2007, 22:11

Arun - was trying out a few words at your testbed.

Question: when I type in 'sArasAksha' I get सारसाक्ष in Sanskrit, സാരസാക്ഷ in Malayalm - both correct. However, in Tamil it appears as சாரசாக்ஷ. I know we have had discussions on how ச in Tamil is pronounced as 'sa' but when you have the letter ஸ் in Tamil that has precisely this sound why don't you use it, esp for transliteration? Your scheme would use ச and add a tag to it to indicate the 'sa' sound, yes? But why?

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 02 Jan 2007, 22:29

jayaram,

i have not updated the testbed since a while ago and so it does not have things we discussed in the last few days. Old bugs also still remain

.

I will be posting an update later today with support for qualifiers (both schemes so that we can compare and contrast).

Thanks
Arun

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 03 Jan 2007, 02:20

jayaram wrote:I know we have had discussions on how ச in Tamil is pronounced as 'sa' but when you have the letter ஸ் in Tamil that has precisely this sound why don't you use it, esp for transliteration?

I didnt pay proper attention to your post earlier. Doing as you suggesr would make familiar tamizh words would come out "wierd" -> Asai, isai.

It is possible to use it only at the beginning of word, but that also will have the same problem. The "sa" sound is too prevalent in practice in tamizh and people are used to the ச letter for it. The ஸ letter does not have the same status as ஜ ஹ ஷ க்ஷ etc.

Also, I have heard that words at the beginning with the ச letter really should take the ca sound (and also before the mei ச் of course). This does make it with ka, pa etc. All I know is that this is not true in practice. Almost all words that begin with ச are pronounced by many/most with the "sa" sound - e.g. sevi, suvai etc. However they do morph it to ca sound in combined words (accuvai).

For all these reasons, I would prefer not to use ஸ for sa sound - it just would make the tamizh rendition too far away from established norms. But I do think we ஸ் for the "s" mei (as in paspam, asmin). And of course for Sa as in Sankara, vgvindan has suggested a qualifier on ஸ.

Arun

jayaram · Post by **jayaram** » 03 Jan 2007, 03:12

Sri Lankan Tamil (which scholars consider to be the 'purer' version, esp the Jaffna variety) tends to stick to the 'ca' sound for ச . (I have heard some of my SriLankan Tamil friends here talk, and they tend to use the 'ca' sound - sounds a bit strange to my ears, I must admit.) Methinks the 'sa' sound for ச that's found in Indian Tamil is the result of 'lazy' usage.

Using a qualifier with ஸ to denote 'Sa' somehow doesn't feel correct. ச seems to be closer to the 'Sa' sound.

An interesting article: http://www.infitt.org/ti2002/papers/75NATARA.PDF

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 03 Jan 2007, 04:11

i have updated the testbed. This has following
1. (hopefully good

) bug fixes to sanskrit.
2. introduced qualifiers to tamizh, you can choose no qualifiers, or qualifiers like what drs,vgvindan proposed (i.e. ka/ca/pa/ta have no qualifiers, others do), or like what i proposed (used only when sound occurs "against natural tamizh rules". I also introduced qualifier for R. (as in kR.pa) and for Sa (as vgvindan proposed). I have stuck with the same qualifiers in either scheme.
3. Introduced qualifer to L, in kannada and telugu when 'zha' (za) occurs. Note that for a word like pazham, the qualifier is added but the ending "m" is NOT rendered as a anuswara. This is mainly because once you introduce "non-kannada/non-telugu" alphabet in the middle of the word (like our qualifier), the typing engine rules go out of whack. I hope this is ok
4. Added 3 more examples, 1 for telugu, 1 for kannada, and 1 for tamizh. Pl. check them out. Apologies in advance for transliteration errrors.
5. Introduced "n." which can be used like "tan.kAl" to avoid "nk" combination from morphing to "#nk", and also nc/nj from morphing to ~nc/~nj respectively. By default "nk/ng" becomes #nk/#ng, and nc/nj becomes ~nc/~nj. So you can also say Sankara besides Sa#nkara, and panca as opposed to pa~nca. I am guessing that the "n." usage should be pretty rare.

PS: You may not agree with the actual number chosen for the qualifier for a particular sound, but we can hash that out later. The above is for you to test it out, and see how it looks etc.

Thanks
Arun

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 03 Jan 2007, 04:13

you may also notice in the transl. input for alai pAyude, i have tried to avoid specify extra mei in the input (e.g. magizhtavA as opposed to magizhttavA, and in other cases split the word). Pl. let me know if it reads ok in other languages.

But i know this will spoil markaTa (it will be rendered in tamizh in a "less than ideal way"). So I am ambivalent about this

. Perhaps i should do it only if the input is really tamizh.

Arun

Suji Ram · Post by **Suji Ram** » 03 Jan 2007, 05:15

Arun,
Just checked the alaipAyude in telugu. It reads very well.
(Except for RR in kARRil in telugu as well as in all the languages including English). How can we accomodate the actual sound here?

Is it tikkai or dikkai?

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 03 Jan 2007, 07:01

Thanks suji

Suji Ram wrote:(Except for RR in kARRil in telugu as well as in all the languages including English). How can we accomodate the actual sound here?

Would TR be better? I have smarts on the tamizh side to render TR (or Tr?) as RR. So if TR/Tr is better in other languages, we can go with it.

Is it tikkai or dikkai?

I think it is tikku/tikkai. Now that you raised it, i am unsure

. The Cologne online tamil lexicon has this:

tikku: cardinal and intermediate points, eight quarters.

Arun

Suji Ram · Post by **Suji Ram** » 03 Jan 2007, 11:08

TR or Tr would be fine for RR

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 03 Jan 2007, 11:27

Arun,
I think it has to be dikku because I think it is derived from the sanskrit dik -- Siva is referred to as digambar in the Siva pancAkSaram. digambar = dik (directions) + ambar (clothes/garments)....one who wears the directions as his garments.

jayaram · Post by **jayaram** » 03 Jan 2007, 20:33

i have updated the testbed.

You seem to have given Malayalam the short shrift! Several errors abound.

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 03 Jan 2007, 21:12

jayaram wrote:
i have updated the testbed.
You seem to have given Malayalam the short shrift! Several errors abound.

I need some specifics please. I didnt work on malayalam but it uses mostly same logic as other non-tamizh languages. That logic has changed and so i guess has had side effects.

Arun

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 03 Jan 2007, 21:20

rshankar wrote:Arun,
I think it has to be dikku because I think it is derived from the sanskrit dik -- Siva is referred to as digambar in the Siva pancAkSaram. digambar = dik (directions) + ambar (clothes/garments)....one who wears the directions as his garments.

Yesterday after suji raised the question, I was thinking it was probably derived from sanskrit and hence dikku. But it was always possible for the word to have gotten morphed in practice depending on when the import happened (although not sure how common a soft sound turns to hard sound when at beginning of word - i cant think of any others right now). I messed up my search on the sanskrit dictionary and hence didnt find dik

. So I wasnt sure and I checked the online tamizh dictionary which seems to have only tikku. Perhaps in practice either one works?

Arun

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 03 Jan 2007, 21:29

one more page with reference to tikku: http://www.languageinindia.com/may2003/ ... anadj.html
(search for tikku)

Arun

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 03 Jan 2007, 22:12

Arun,
Be that as it may, I think it is dikku...

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 03 Jan 2007, 22:25

i dont want to argue as like I said, either one is in use

.

But all references i could find on the web (another one uchicago tamil dictionary: http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/romadi ... lay=simple) all refer to only tikku when in tamizh. The original word is dik and it is dikku in telugu etc. But that doesnt mean anything as many words have morphed on import into tamizh. Its just the nature of the language.

Do you have any good references (like dictionary?) to dikku - otherwise i am tempted to think that officially it is (the morphed) tikku - right or wrong

. Now i must admit that i probably pronounce it both ways in different contexts

. May be that is why i think either one works

;)!

Arun

ramakriya · Post by **ramakriya** » 03 Jan 2007, 22:34

arunk wrote:I messed up my search on the sanskrit dictionary and hence didnt find dik . So I wasnt sure and I checked the online tamizh dictionary which seems to have only tikku. Perhaps in practice either one works?

Arun

I don't exactly know how the word 'dik', as in dikpAlaka or digambara is derived; but my guess is it is
from dishA. That is probably why you did not find dik- (stand alone) in the dictionary. It **may** only be a samAsa rUpa.

If I remember my samskrita lessons still,

dishAh asya ambaram astIti digambaraH
dishAnAm pAlakaH yasya saH dikpAlakaH

(cmlover, pAnini and other samskrita experts - Please correct me if I am wrong)

In kannaDa also, dikku means direction.

-Ramakriya

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 03 Jan 2007, 22:45

i think it is dikku only (which makes better sense anyway). Those dictionaries may be referring to letters. The chicago dictionary uses *t to refer to "d" i think (how wierd).

Sorry for the confusion.

Arun

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 03 Jan 2007, 22:53

note that in combination with other words, eTTuttikku, it becomes "ta" (sort of like sa becoming ca). Also for me, the tendency in alai pAyuDe seems tikkai, and i wonder if it is because of pairing with earlier line starting with teLinda.

teLinda nilavu paTTappagalpOl eriyudE - un
tikkai nOkki en iru puruvam neriyudE
kaninda un vENugAnam kARRil varugudE
kaNgaL sorugi oru vidamAy varugudE

te vs ti and ka vs ka. Not saying it is right because of this ....

Just trying to understand why i thought it is tikku while i pronounce it as dikku in other places as in dikkutteriyAda kATTil

Arun

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 03 Jan 2007, 23:27

updated testbed
1. tikkai => dikkai
2. also kARRil => kATril. But also RR => TR for non-tamizh, so even entering as kARRil would work but it is less representative phonetically.

Arun

drshrikaanth · Post by **drshrikaanth** » 04 Jan 2007, 01:01

dik is the derived form for "diS" in compounds. diSA is also derived from diS.

arun
tikku sounds so contrived. dikku is how it is generally pronounced when it is a standalone word in tamizh.

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 04 Jan 2007, 01:19

drshrikaanth wrote:arun
tikku sounds so contrived. .

mea culpa! I didnt even think twice as I typed it in, and as soon as suji raised the question, i was quite confused - particularly when i did remember dikkutteriyAda kATTil. Those dictionaries compounded my confusion making me go down deeper and deeper into the quicksand - i guess i was seeing what I wanted to see than what was really there!

BTW, can you think of other examples where word which employs a soft sound at the beginning morphs to take hard sound in combination? (besides the sa => ca of course). I am sure there are many but i cant come with any!

Arun

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 04 Jan 2007, 01:20

jayaram - when you get a chance pl. provide me feedback on the malayalam side.

others - pl. provide feedback (good or bad) on other languages.

Suji Ram · Post by **Suji Ram** » 04 Jan 2007, 01:33

I was listening to 3 versions of alaipAyude.

Soumya and Yesudas clearly say dikkai, Santanam for my ears is tikkai

Now it is clear which is correct. Ok lets move on.

jayaram · Post by **jayaram** » 04 Jan 2007, 03:46

jayaram - when you get a chance pl. provide me feedback on the malayalam side.

Will do. Most of it is stuff we have been thru already. I may need to wade thru past postings and collate them for you.

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 04 Jan 2007, 06:09

Suji Ram wrote:Soumya and Yesudas clearly say dikkai, Santanam for my ears is tikkai

None of them would be my standard for proper pronunciation/enunciation...Maybe Sowmya..but definitely not the other 2! Their music is something I appreciate, but the liberties they take/took with sAhityam should be declared illegal!

Suji Ram · Post by **Suji Ram** » 04 Jan 2007, 06:17

Ravi,
Yes, The latter two often have sung this song and I could only find these.

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 04 Jan 2007, 06:48

rshankar wrote:None of them would be my standard for proper pronunciation/enunciation

oh come on! we are talking about a tamizh krithi here. Now KJY has an accent but you have to atleast allow the other two.

If one were to split hairs and go by very strict tamizh scholarly interpretation i would assume that most cm artistes would be disqualified just by the "Sa" for "sa"

;).

Arun

jayaram · Post by **jayaram** » 04 Jan 2007, 07:26

Arun - I have a general comment to make about your transliteration scheme. Going thru the testbed with various examples, I get the feeling that your scheme is a bit 'Tamil-centric'. For instance, in Example 3 you use 'mrugarUpa' which maps to 'ம்ருகரூப' which I think is the correct representation in Tamil, but it's incorrect in Sanskrit and Malayalam. (I suspect same for Telugu/Kannada.)

Considering majority of CM kritis are in Telugu/Sanskrit - and also because of the central role of Sanskrit in Indic languages - may I suggest that we keep Telugu and Sanskrit as the 'gold standard' (Kannada is close cousin of Telugu I think, so it's covered) - next Tamil, then Malayalam. By that I mean the English text we enter should map correctly into Telugu and Sanskrit, and if they are 'a bit incorrect' in Tamil/Malayalam, so be it. Otherwise we could forever be chasing our tail with 'tikku-dikku' type of hair-splitting.

Feel free to tweak my suggestion as you see fit.

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 04 Jan 2007, 08:24

that is a typo in transliteration - should have been mR.garUpa (like naramR.ga on line #15 on the same example). If you had turned on qualifiers for tamizh, you would have noticed it mrugarUpa is wrong in tamizh too as it should come out with a qualifier on the ru

So there is no tamil centricity in the support (although there is always a subliminal tamizh influence in my transliteration input leading to pilot errors:)). The scheme in intention is supposed to be phonetically unambiguous. Exceptions have been made only to make input easier (like nk as opposed to #nk etc.).

I also dont see any reason to short-change any language in favor of other unless there are technical limitations to support language specific features easily.

Arun

jayaram · Post by **jayaram** » 04 Jan 2007, 15:33

Ok. Although both mR.garUpa and mrugarUpa map to ம்ருகரூப currently. (how to turn on qualifiers?)
And often when I go into your site, I can see just Example 1.

Another quick feedback:
pUrNa gets mapped to पूर्ण in Sanskrit and பூர்ண in Tamil, while
pURNa gets mapped to पूऱ्ण in Sanskrit and பூற்ண in Tamil.

Shouldn't these be the other way around, i.e. pURNa > पूर्ण etc? Again, an example of Tamil-centrism, perhaps?

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 04 Jan 2007, 20:34

jayaram wrote:Ok. Although both mR.garUpa and mrugarUpa map to ம்ருகரூப currently. (how to turn on qualifiers?)

I believe there is a subtle pronounciation difference between mR. and mru. Although in tamizh people may not pronounce it differentlt, when translating from our scheme, the difference is indicated via qualifiers. ru => ரு, and R. => ரு2.

You turn on qualifier by playing with that "combo box" (the one which has No Qualifiers set by default)

jayaram wrote:And often when I go into your site, I can see just Example 1.

You mean when even when you click on the control, you dont get a choice for other examples?

jayaram wrote:Another quick feedback:
pUrNa gets mapped to पूर्ण in Sanskrit and பூர்ண in Tamil, while
pURNa gets mapped to पूऱ्ण in Sanskrit and பூற்ண in Tamil.
Shouldn't these be the other way around, i.e. pURNa > पूर्ण etc? Again, an example of Tamil-centrism, perhaps?

Again i dont know where you are getting the idea about tamil centrism

. I may have made incorrect assumptions about other languages based on my lack of knowledge and tamil influence, but that is different from tamil centrism. But even that doesnt apply here.

I had r mapped to unicode RA (0x0930 in devanagiri unicode) and R to unicode RRA (0x931). I had assumed RRA was the "harder" form of ra, since N (NNA) is the double-consonant form n (Na). Note that the modifier of Na (i.e ण to र्ण) is done by the system and it does so only for the combination r (0x930) followed by virama (0x902), followed by Na (0x923). So if the word is to be written as पूर्ण, then it is rendered that way by the system only for pUrNa.

Arun

Music · Post by **Music** » 04 Jan 2007, 22:55

Can anybody shed light on the pronunciation for the following in Sanskrit?
1. krpa (meaning mercy): Should it sound like kripa or krupa?
2. rshi (meaning sage): Should it sound like rishi or rushi?

How about other languages?
1. Telugu: My mother tongue is Telugu and I know both the above are pronounced as 'krupa' and 'rushi' in Telugu.
2. Hindi: Hindi was first language in school and I know we read it as 'kripa' and 'rishi'.
3. Tamizh: With my working knowledge of Tamizh I believe we would pronounce them as 'kripa' and 'rishi'. Or even pronouncing the vowel here with a weak 'u' sound is also accepted. Is that correct?
4. Kannada & Malayalam: I have no idea about Kannada/Malayalam. How would we pronounce the same in these 2 languages?

vgvindan · Post by **vgvindan** » 04 Jan 2007, 23:20

The Tamilised word for 'kRpa' is 'kirubai'; similarly the Tamilised word 'Rshi' - 'iruDi'.
In Tamil 'ra', 'ri', 'ru' etc. cannot come in the beginning of the word. Such words will be preceded by 'i' - for example 'rAma' as 'irAma'. Similarly no consonant with virAma can come in the beginning of the word - for example 'kr' is not allowed. It has to be written as 'kir'.
However, as tatsamam or tatbhavam, kRpa would be written with a 'ru' sound and 'RSi' will be written as 'rishi'
(Incidentially The actual vowel in Sanskrit R is a sound between 'i' and 'u', but since this cannot be correctly vocalised, 'R' seems to have been added to it which people consider to be a consonant and criticise placing a consonant in the midst of vowels.)
Hindi also has R, but colloquially, as you have brought out, ri is used.

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 05 Jan 2007, 00:35

vgvindan wrote:(Incidentially The actual vowel in Sanskrit R is a sound between 'i' and 'u', but since this cannot be correctly vocalised, 'R' seems to have been added to it

i am not sure i follow what you mean :/. I get the part about the sound between 'i' and 'u', but are you saying that the vowel didnt have the "R" sound (like originally)?

Arun

vgvindan · Post by **vgvindan** » 05 Jan 2007, 09:47

Like any other vowel, please try to vocalise a sound between 'i' and 'u'; also the dIrgha of the intermediate. It is pretty difficult; even if one vocalises, the listener will not be able perceive the sound properly. It is my hunch that by adding a consonant R, this intermediate sound has been made vocalisable and perceivable. This is not relevant to the original topic; that is why I have stated 'incidentally'.

Music · Post by **Music** » 05 Jan 2007, 20:57

Vgvindan, thanks for the clarification. I was always unsure about the right pronunciation for the word 'mRdupaNi' in the geetam 'Varaveena'. Since the geetam is in Sanskrit, we cannot taint it with an accent from any other language. Based on your post, it sounds like we don't pronounce it as 'mridupani' or even 'mrudupani'.....the right pronounciation is somewhere in between the two. Correct?
If anyone could be kind enough to give an example with audio (just for thsi one word since it is in the same lines as mRga or kRpa or Rshi), that would be great.

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 05 Jan 2007, 21:18

Music,
I think that trying to get somewhere between the 'i' and the 'u' maybe splitting hairs...as long as it is not mRdubANi, I think it will suffice....

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 05 Jan 2007, 21:33

Let me try an explanation. Not sure if it will be clear

.

For the "u" sound of say "ru" in marubAri or mR.dupANi your lips are shaped as the letter o (small o).
For the "a" sound as in marubAri you lips are "wider" - clearly not an o shape as for the u.
For the "R." sound as your lips are almost like that for "a" but "not as wide" and also perhaps "not as open"

Since in languages like tamizh, the sound of "u" is shortened in many contexts, i think the difference between "u" and "R." becomes more subtle?

Arun

ramakriya · Post by **ramakriya** » 06 Jan 2007, 05:34

I know this is not the right thread - But a quick question

What does the 'nyAyiRRu' in nyAyiRRukkizhamai mean? ( My transliteration may be wrong)

I want to know if it is a synonym for the Sun, or it means something entirely different.

-Ramakriya

( I will delete the post once I get an answer

Suji Ram · Post by **Suji Ram** » 06 Jan 2007, 05:39

for sunday

ramakriya · Post by **ramakriya** » 06 Jan 2007, 05:47

I know that it stands for Sunday, but does nyAyiRRU actually mean Sun?

Suji Ram · Post by **Suji Ram** » 06 Jan 2007, 05:50

ramakriya wrote:I know that it stands for Sunday, but does nyAyiRRU actually mean Sun?

Yes

I have a LKG tamizh book and it has N for nAyiRRU with a picture of sun

drshrikaanth · Post by **drshrikaanth** » 06 Jan 2007, 07:00

nyAyiRu (actually ~nAyiRu) means the sun. It is the cognate of the kannaDa word nEsaR/nEsaru.

vgvindan · Post by **vgvindan** » 06 Jan 2007, 10:36

ஞாயிறு is a pure Tamil word - it is not as cognate. In my opinion, all languages other than Tamil use ங் and ஞ் only with virAma. Using these together with other vowels அ ஆ etc is peculiar to Tamil. For example ஙனம், எங்ஙனம், ஞமலி, ஞமன், ஞாண், ஞானம், ஞாயிறு, ஞிமிறு are peculiar to Tamil.

drshrikaanth · Post by **drshrikaanth** » 06 Jan 2007, 14:55

vgvindan wrote:ஞாயிறு is a pure Tamil word - it is not as cognate.

Just what do you understand by the term cognate? If you thought it meant "derivative", it does not.