South Asia Research and Information Institute P. O. Box 70-0371

Dallas, TX 75370-0371 Phone: (214) 739-8528

Email: info@sarii.org www.sarii.org

Board of Directors

V. S. Gopinath (703) 691-5428

S. Palaniappan (214) 739-8528

Paul Pandian (972) 991-2900

Vijayan Pillai (817) 272-5353 President S. Palaniappan (214) 739-8528 Vice President Paul Pandian (972) 991-2900 Secretary Vijayan Pillai (817) 272-5353 Treasurer Paul Pandian (972) 991-2900

August 4, 2011

Dr. Lisa Moore Chair Unicode Technical Committee Unicode Consortium U.S.A Dear Dr. Moore,

Subject: Comments on UTC document L2/11-186 In the UTC document L2/11-186, Dr. Naga Ganesan says the following:

"Here is the important Linguistics problem if Dravidian letters are not disunified between Tamil and Grantha blocks in Unicode. The Vedic gods like AgnimiZhe in Rgveda and iZhaa in Saamaveda are not Tamil and nothing to do with Tamil Nadu either. Vedas are a

product of the Aryans in Punjab region in today's India and Pakistan right after the bronze age. Vedas predate any known Tamil text or inscriptions by some 1500+ years, and so it will NOT be proper to call them Tamil, but it is correct to designate them as Dravidian in North West India."

Key statements in the above quote are wrong. For instance, there is no Vedic god called 'AgnimiZhe'. From the sentence 'Vedas predate any known Tamil text or inscriptions by

some 1500+ years, and so it will not be proper to call them Tamil, but it is correct to designate them as Dravidian in North West India," one is forced to infer that Dr. Ganesan designates 'Vedas' as 'Dravidian in North West India'. Designating Vedas as Dravidian is preposterous, to say the least. If one presumes that he wants to establish that the consonant 'Zh' (LLL in Unicode)

occurred in the Ṛg Veda and Sāma Veda, he is wrong as well. According to Dr. Michael Witzel, Wales Professor of Sanskrit and Director of Indian Studies at Harvard University, "there was only 'DD' but no 'LLL' phoneme in Ṛg Vedic period. In post-Ṛg Vedic period, intervocalic -DD- became -LL- in some schools as in 'īḷe' in 'agnim īḷe' due to linguistic developments within Vedic. But many other schools maintained -DD-. However, -LL- was restricted to intervocalic position. So while we have

'īḷe, but only īḍya- from the same verb. LL is written in 2nd millennium manuscripts in various ways, best known from Marathi as Marathi ळ but differently in other regions. "In Classical Sanskrit, well into the first millennium intervocalic -LL- (from older -DD-) was written by a special character, but later substituted by simple -L-, thus vyāḍa > vyāḷa > vyāla.

2

South Asia Research and Information Institute P. O. Box 70-0371

Dallas, TX 75370-0371 Phone: (214) 739-8528

Email: info@sarii.org www.sarii.org

"The Malayali Sāma Veda case of LLL remains isolated. The use of -LLL- in Malayali

Sāma Veda seems to be a substitution of Tamil-Malayalam -LLL- for Sanskrit -LL- due to hypercorrection and represented in writing by Tamil-Malayalam LLL (ultimately

derived from the Tamil Va e uttu script)."

This hypercorrection can be seen in Ta. ciṅkaḷar > ciṅkaḻar

1, Ta. veḷḷāḷaṉ

2 > veḷḷāḻaṉ

3,

Ta. Āḷvār>Āḻvār4 and Ma.*cuḷarcca> cuḻarcca

5.

References 1, 2, 3, and 5 are attached herewith. Reference 4 is available online. Please

note that in Reference 5, LLL is represented by r with two dots below. Thus, intervocalically Tamil-Malayalam LLL, a sound not native to Sanskrit, has

been substituted for LL and represented by the Tamil letter ழ் in some Grantha

manuscripts and publications. Similarly, as recommended in Annexure I of the Government of India proposal, L2/11-284, LLL from the Unicode Tamil block can be used for rendering documents in Unicode Grantha.

Consequently, there is no need to make any changes to the Government of India proposal L2/11-284. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Thank you. Sincerely,

Dr. S. Palaniappan, Ph.D. President South Asia Research and Information Institute Dallas, TX 75370-0371

Attachments

1 Zvelebil (1970: 141)

2 Kōyamputtūr Māvaṭṭak Kalveṭṭukaḷ Tokuti 2, 2007, p. 62

3 Kōyamputtūr Māvaṭṭak Kalveṭṭukaḷ Tokuti 1, 2006, p. 342

4 Palaniappan (2004:79) available at http://tinyurl.com/3zhl82g, visited 8/4/2011

5 A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary, 2nd Edition, 1984, entry 2738

3

South Asia Research and Information Institute P. O. Box 70-0371

Dallas, TX 75370-0371 Phone: (214) 739-8528

Email: info@sarii.org www.sarii.org

References

1. Zvelebil, Kamil. Comparative Dravidian Phonology. The Hague: Mouton, 1970.

2. Kōyamputtūr Māvaṭṭak Kalveṭṭukaḷ Tokuti 2, State Dept. of Archaeology, Chennai,

2007

3. Kōyamputtūr Māvaṭṭak Kalveṭṭukaḷ Tokuti 1, State Dept. of Archaeology, Chennai,

2006

4. Palaniappan, S. “Āḻvar or Nāyaṉār: The Role of Sound Variation, Hypercorrection

and Folk Etymology in Interpreting the Nature of Vaiṣnava Saint-Poets.” South

Indian Horizons: Felicitation Volume for François Gros on the Occasion of his 70th

Birthday. Edited by Jean-Luc Chevillard, Eva Wilden & A. Murugaiyan, 63-84.

Pondicherry: Institut Français De Pondichéry and École Française D’Extrême-Orient,

2004. Available at http://tinyurl.com/3zhl82g, visited 8/4/2011

5. Burrow, T. and Emeneau, M. B. Dravidian Etymological Dictionary. Second Edition.

Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1984.

(Oll.) kalin'id;,kalam,kayan,

'field', khali

i Kod. ftli'blackMalL t7le,Br'

'to be whitebrightness',

velarl 'hgbrt', Pa.wErci'id., dawn',be white, bright',

To. and Kod.,it; as may be seenthe CDrandNDr

developments:has / and lh. The

have the usual /

Cf. Ta. d!:Te.konu (<*kol-n-2)

d- samvaccarambu!

(voiceless retroflex*pa!- (Ta. pallam

To - pa!: pa!.in cases where

To- mt! - rril 'shoot

seems that, generallY,*-!#>Go. -lf ,e.9

isyorr,

f */ develoPed intofurther into a sYstemi'etc.' > *Ia-i-,*le-i- >l- | r- alternation seernWestern (r-) dialec$;

coNsoNANrs l4Linside'; rosk-llosk- 'to bale out' (( *lo- < *o!- < *no!-), cf. Ta. no! ,to bale out aswater', Pa' ole-, Malt. lole, roh-lloh-'to send', rop-llop-'to swallow, gulp down, etc.'.

In Kui, the process resulted in Q-, cf. *al-a- > *ldsa > Kui Sasa 'to measure' (Ta.a!a). In Kuvi, it resulted in 1-, cf. fW-'to be white'.

1'31.1.6. Insomedialectsofra., !>d,e.g.Erodena:{e,na:QuislirndlE,ndl'day'.Sometimes, final I 2 tt, as in Madr. Ta. mekka:nd:llu for LT mayuna!'next day'(prob. to be reconstructed as I *nd!-tu).

In a few cases, LT / occurs as / in some dialects (cf. Ta. tE!: Ka. t€! 'scorpion),cf. Erode valatte for LT va{arttu'having grown (tr.)'. with some dialects, this maybe one of the diagnostic features: thus e.g. Br. Iyengar Ta. has almost regularly ke:lvifor LT kElvi'question'.

In medieval Ta. inscriptions, there is a ll! alternation considered sometimes as acase ofhypercorrectness: thus kelvifor kElvi 'question' occurs in Chola, 1067, cirtkalarfor cihkalar'the Sinhalese' in chola, 1098 and paramasvdmikalin chola, 1096; here,-/ occurs in the pl. morpheme -ka!.

The beginnings of this alternation of / with / may be found as early as the zthcent., cf. ndtdlcci for ndllu & al & ci 'administration of a province' (pallava).

I.31.1.7. Very frequent in almost all dialects of substandard Ta. (with the notableexception of Tirunelv€li) is the de-retroflexion of / > l, i.e. the merger of I and l,cf. (random examples from my data) Tuticoin iyuvalon for LT ivarkalum 'and these-they', Ramnad ma:ppile for LT mappillai 'bridegroom', Dindigul valattu for LTvalarttu'having grown' (tr.). Nearly complete merger of / with / is typical for theErode dialect of Ta. The /oss of final -/ is attested from medieval inscriptions (cf.makka 'people', sil,Y.225.21,14th cent., for LT makkal) and is common in cr.

1.31.1.8. In some dialects of ra., a typical intrusive / occurs in a very limitedthough comparatively frequented number of items. Very characteristic is the formembladu for LT eapatu 'eighty'in the Tanjore-Tiruchchi dialects of Eastern Ta., andte:lvay for LT tdvai'necessity' in the Jaff dialect of Ceylon Ta.

1.31.2. *!l:Ta. Ma. Ka. Kod. Tu. l!, To. !, l, Ko. !, Go. ll, /, Hill Maria Go. l!,Kui 4 /, Konda Man{. Malt. /, elsewhere //.

Correspondences:

194. Ta. u!!i 'onion, garlic', Ma. ulli 'id.', Ko. uly ,onion', To. uly ,id.', Ka, u!!i ,abulbn an onion', Tu. u!!i, ulli'a geneic name for garlic'n Te. ulti 'onion, garlic', Kol.ulli 'onion' , Nk. (Ch.) ullig 'id.' , Pa. ulli 'garlic' , Ga. (S, p .) ulli .onion', Go. ulli, ulli'onion', Kon{a uli, Pe. fiyi, Man|. uli, Kuvi ulli, ulli, Kut. uli ,id.,.

195. Ta. palli 'hamlet, hermitage, temple, palace', Ma. palli.hut etc.,, To. poly'sacred dairy, etc.', Ka. palli'settlement, hamlet', KoQ. palli'hut of low castes', Tu.palli 'mosque', Te. palli 'village, hut', Pa. palti ,village' (in place names), Kur. palli(DED,S 3309).lopafropo, roPii'm,

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